Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Stake Meetinghouse, Ephraim, Sanpete County, November 16th, 1884.

I will read a portion of the 7th chapter of Deuteronomy:

“Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

“For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

“But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

“For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

“The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:

“But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

“Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;

“And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.

“Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.

“Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers:

“And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.

“Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male nor female barren among you, or among your cattle.

“And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.”

These words that I have read in your hearing are found in the 7th chapter of Deuteronomy. In many respects these are most applicable to us as a people; for the same covenant which the Lord made with the children of Israel, and which are contained in part in this chapter, have been renewed unto us. We are their descendants; God has revealed this, and it is manifest that we are the descendants of the house of Israel, by the operations of the Gospel among us. No doubt many of you have been led to wonder in your experience how it was that you should receive the Gospel, and that others who had equal opportunities with you, probably belonging to the same household, and numbered among your friends and acquaintances; that when you received the Gospel, they could see nothing desirable or attractive about it, while your hearts were kindled into a glow, and felt like fire within you when you heard the testimony of the servants of God concerning the Gospel that He had revealed. Nothing that I know of more plainly demonstrates the fact that this is the blood of Israel, that has been gathered out: that we are of the chosen seed, though we have been mixed, or our fathers have been mixed, among the Gentiles. God has saved to himself a seed among all nations; and when the Gospel came to the lands where this seed dwelt, there was, on their part, a natural affinity, a natural attraction to the principles of righteousness, and they received them gladly, and were gathered out by the wonderful power of God to this land, and are numbered now among His Saints. The covenants that our Father made with his ancient chosen people have been renewed in our day and unto us, and there is no promise that was made in ancient days unto the house of Israel, that has not been renewed unto the Latter-day Israel. Every blessing that God promised and that I have read in your hearing, besides many others that are contained in the Scriptures—all these have been fully renewed unto the Latter-day Saints, and they are accompanied by blessings as we see them around us today, and as has been related by Brother Woodruff, in regard to our settlement of these valleys. God intended—and I wish that we all could realize it as it really is—God intended when He preached unto the people the Gospel, and gathered them out from the various lands where they lived, to make of them a peculiar and a distinct people upon the face of the earth. Nothing is plainer than this to those who will open their eyes to see, and their hearts to understand the providences of our God. As soon as the Latter-day Saints join the Church, they become a distinct people. All of you, those of you, at least, who embraced this Gospel before you gathered, know this. You know that no sooner were you baptized into the Church, than you were distinguished from all those who surrounded you. If you had brothers, if you had sisters, if you had parents, if you had friends, who did not receive the Gospel, did not enter into the Church, you became distinct from them, they felt that you were different from them, and you felt that they were different from you. The love that your kindred had for you, previous to your espousal of the Gospel, in many instances turned to hatred. The friendships that had existed between you before you embraced the Gospel, turned into enmity, and they with whom you were most closely associated and towards whom you felt the strongest ties of friendship, became your open and avowed enemies. There are instances even where your own parents, your own brothers and your own sisters rejected the claims of kindred, and turned their backs upon you, and treated you as though you were aliens to them, and had no claim upon their affection, and that they had no desire to mingle with you, or to be any longer connected with you. This has been the case in almost every instance where people have joined this Church and their kindred have not joined it. And that distinction has not been confined to the homes where the Saints embraced the Gospel; but it has continued here and until the present day. A Latter-day Saint may be descended from the oldest families that have peopled this continent, his ancestors may have fought the battles that freed this land from oppression; he may be entitled to all the rights and privileges that belong to a native of this country, and yet if he be a Mormon not a single claim of that character is recognized. He is looked upon as a stranger and an alien. He is looked upon as a man not having the rights of full citizenship that others who are not of his faith are entitled to and enjoy. When we travel among the people as Latter-day Saints, we are conscious ourselves that there is a distinction between us and them; they are also conscious that there is this distinction, and that we are a different people. You can no more cause these Latter-day Saints, while they remain such, to mingle with the world and be one with them, than you can cause oil and water to mingle. There is no affinity between the two. You may shake oil and water together in a battle, and while you are shaking it, you imagine that the water and the oil have mingled; but the moment you let the bottle stand, the water sinks to the bottom and the oil rises to the top. The two elements do not comingle, they are entirely distinct, and you may shake them, and boil them, or do anything of that character, and you cannot cause them to become one fluid. So it is with this people called the Latter-day Saints and the world. There is a difference. God has created the difference. God has called us out from the world for the express purpose of making us His people, and placing upon us His name, that we may be known as His peculiar people in the midst of the nations of the earth.

Now, when I say this I do not say that, because of this, we are the enemies of mankind; I do not say this because I think there is no opportunity for them and us to unite, that there is no platform upon which we can stand and become united; I do not say this; because there is a platform upon which we can all stand and be a united people; but until we do stand upon that platform, this division and this distinction of which I speak will exist. We belong, because of our obedience, to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, to what is known as the Church of Christ, while those who have not embraced this Gospel and entered into covenant with God, belong to the other church—that is the church which is called in the revelations of God, the whore of all the earth, or the mother of abominations. That is the distinction which exists between the Latter-day Saints and the rest of mankind.

My brethren and sisters, there are some principles which it seems to me we should comprehend clearly in connection with our position as Latter-day Saints; and one is that which is alluded to in this chapter that I have read in your hearing, namely:

“Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

“For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.”

This was a command that was given unto Israel with great force and emphasis. They were commanded from the beginning that they were not to marry with those who did not belong to their family, or did not belong to the Israel of God, or were not the covenant people of God. And it was not a new law; it was not a law that was given to Moses, and through him to the children of Israel for the first time. If you will read back to the days of Abraham, you will find that the same sentiment filled the heart of Abraham, the patriarch, concerning his posterity. When he wanted a wife for his son Isaac, he took his eldest servant of his house and made him swear by the God of Heaven that he would not take a wife unto his son of the daughters of the Canaanites, a race with which he did not want his son to intermarry. And he sent his servant back to Mesopotamia, to his old country and his kindred, it being where his brother Nahor had lived, to find there for his son Isaac a wife that should be suitable to him. The servant took this oath, and he went feeling that God had given unto him a mission and that he would be prospered in obtaining a wife for the son of his master. He prayed unto the God of his master to give him success, and give him a sign by which he might know the girl that the Lord designed for his master’s son. And according to his faith so it was done. Rebekah came to the well, and as he had prayed so she did, and she proved to be the very girl that God had designed for Isaac, and the very girl that Abraham in his heart desired that his son should have. She was Abraham’s grand niece, and his wife Sarah’s grand niece, a double cousin of Isaac’s, her grandmother, Milcah, being Isaac’s mother’s sister, and her grandfather, Nahor, being Abraham’s father’s brother. You know it is said in the Bible, that Abraham married his sister. But though called his sister, she was not his sister, in our sense of the relationship. She was the daughter of his brother Haran; but at Haran’s death, Terah—Haran and Abraham’s father—brought up Haran’s children as his own. Two of these children were girls. One of them married Nahor, a brother of Abraham’s, and the other married Abraham, both of them sisters of Lot. They were, therefore, nearly related.

So you see that in those early days the same sentiment pervaded the minds of the servants of God, respecting the families with whom they should intermarry. You will remember also that this same Rebekah afterwards, when fear was begotten in her heart respecting her son Jacob, and the enmity of his brother Esau, said to Isaac in substance: “I do not want Jacob to marry the daughters of this land, I want him to marry the right blood, to marry into the right families.” Isaac sent Jacob back to his mother’s people, and commanded him not to take a wife of the daughters of Caanan; but to marry into his mother’s family. He did so; he married his two cousins, Leah and Rachel, the daughters of Laban, his mother’s brother. And from these families and from that blood sprang the promised seed. It was the lineage through which the Priesthood ran; it was the lineage that was entitled to the blessings of the father, and on this account they were very particular as to whom they should marry. Isaac was the promised seed, and his father and mother were exceedingly desirous that he should marry in the right direction, and if you will notice that this is the same sentiment that God inspired His servant Moses to speak unto the children of Israel. They were commanded to marry among themselves, and not to marry among the outside nations that had not the faith that the children of Israel had. Because, as it is said here:

“Thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

“For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods.”

And this was the case with Esau. He was not a man of faith, he was not a man unto whose seed the promises were given as they were to Jacob; because he married the daughters of the land in which they lived, that is the daughters of the Hittites, one of the Canaanite nations, a race not entitled to the blessings and promises which God had given unto those of the family of Abraham, and the families connected with him.

And in every instance that is on record in the Bible where the children of Israel disobeyed this command of God, judgment and calamity always followed. It was so in the case of Samson. You remember Samson, a mighty man in some respects, a man whom God raised up to redeem His people, but he married strange women. He married a woman of the Philistines, and the result was that it brought about his destruction. And we need only refer to the great king who sat upon the throne during the golden days of Israel, a man who was considered the wisest man that ever lived—King Solomon. His heart, we are told in the Scriptures, was turned aside from the Lord our God, because he took to himself strange wives, women of the nations with whom God had commanded Israel not to marry, and because of this he was led as he grew in years into idolatry. He built in the groves where the strange nations performed their idolatrous rites, places of worship, and to gratify these wives he went and worshipped with them; and God in His anger, because of this, said that the nation should be rent asunder; and in fulfillment of this word the greater portion of the kingdom was taken from the house of David, and given to another. Ten tribes rebelled, and there was left to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, only the tribe of Judah for his inheritance, this kindness to the dynasty in leaving to it the tribe of Judah as an inheritance, was not because of favors to Solomon, but because his father had served God all his days with a perfect heart, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite. God raised up enemies to Solomon, and at his death as I have said, rent the ten tribes from his son Rehoboam, and gave them to Jeroboam. This was in consequence of the violation of this command of God respecting the intermarriage of His people with strange women. In every instance on record in the Bible, it will be found that the violation of this law resulted in destruction, not only to those who made these marriages, but to their posterity after them. The history of the kings of Israel and Judah illustrates this. The kings who married strange women, women of those nations that God had forbidden Israel to marry, were never prospered; misfortune to themselves and the nation always followed these alliances. One of the most wicked kings that ever sat upon the throne of Israel married a woman of this description. Her name was Jezebel. She was a king’s daughter too, a woman of noble birth, but one of the most wicked women that ever lived. To gratify her desire she incited her husband to murder, and to almost every other crime that could be committed. She was an idolatrous woman and she brought numberless miseries and condemnation from the Lord upon not only her husband’s house, but upon the whole house of Israel because of her wickedness.

In looking around and traveling among our people, I have been deeply impressed with the consequences that follow these improper marriages among us. My attention has been called many, many times to circumstances of this character that have taken place among us. Not infrequently there is some case that comes up to us for counsel where women have made alliances of this character; and women among us have been more apt to do it than men. There have been a few instances of men marrying strange women, losing the faith and becoming alienated from the Church of God, but it has not been of such frequent occurrence among us with men as it has been with women. The alliances which our daughters, our sisters or our female relatives have formed of this character have been attended with the worst results, and it is a matter that should receive attention from us as a people; our minds should be directed to this. It should be the aim of every father in Israel to have his daughters married to those who are of the right lineage, who have a claim upon the blessings of God, through their descent, added to their own faithfulness in keeping the commandments of God. I deem it of great importance to us as a people, that we should look to this. When I hear of girls in our Church marrying those who are not of us, who have not our faith, I have said to myself—and my experience in watching these matches has warranted me in the thought—that such a proceeding was sure to be attended with trouble to those who entered upon it. The offspring of such marriages do not bring satisfaction or happiness to the hearts of their relatives who are faithful to the truth, and in many instances they bring trouble and sorrow to their hearts. The mother’s head is bowed with sorrow, if she retains her faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, because of the acts of her children. There are some men who have so much Gentile blood in them, that their offspring partake of it, and of the unbelief of the father, and in such cases it is impossible for a mother who has such a husband and children, with all her faith, with all her zeal, with all the pains that she takes, to instill into the minds of her children faith in the God of Israel, and faith in the covenant that He has restored. They seem to belong to another flock. It seems as though they have no susceptibility for the truth. There is no good soil in their hearts to receive the seeds of truth, the Gospel of the Son of God. It is just like this: my family, who live on the banks of the Jordan River, have occasionally secured some wild duck eggs, and put them under some tame ducks, and hatched them. But the wild duck as soon as he grew large enough to fly, generally took his flight and left the home nest. It was not natural to be tame. And so it is frequently with marriages. A girl of our faith may marry a Gentile, and he may be a pretty good man as far as his conduct is concerned, he may be a good citizen, a truthful man, but there will be a lack of susceptibility to the truth about his offspring. There will be a lack of faith there. Some of the children may have a little faith in the truth, but many of them, probably, will have no faith whatever, and will give the mother uneasiness and trouble and sorrow, and she will have no satisfaction whatever in her children. I have in my mind today, an instance where a man joined the Church, in the very early days of the Church, one of the oldest families in the Church, but he had not much faith. He married one of the most faithful women I have ever known in my experience in the Church. She has raised a large family, and by dint of faith and perseverance, finally succeeded in bringing the family to the valley. But the husband was always in the background. It required all her faith, and all her exertions to keep him from breaking out against the Church, and from losing even a nominal membership in it. She has had a large family of children. One of her sons, whom she has brought up with all the care possible, teaching him constantly the principles of the Gospel, and endeavoring to foster faith in his heart, is today an avowed enemy of the work of God, of the Church of which the mother is a faithful member. Several of the children seem to partake of that unbelief, that inclination to apostatize, which they seem to have inherited from their father. But it illustrates that which I have endeavored to impress upon your minds, that when women make alliances of this kind, they are not sure, in the least degree, as to the character of their posterity. They may have faithful children, but as likely as not, like the wild ducks I spoke of, they will go back to their old element, and to their old associations, and it seems impossible to prevent them from doing so.

I have no doubt all of you have had some experience of a similar character here in your midst. Have you ever seen a marriage on the part of a faithful member of this Church, either man or woman, with one that is not faithful, that has resulted happily for all concerned? Can you not call to mind instance after instance where it has been attended with the worst results? Where the woman after awhile, tired of living in that condition, has been compelled, if she did not wish to lose all hope of salvation here and hereafter, to break the tie and to sever herself from the man with whom she had lived in early life, into whose hands she had committed herself as a maiden, and by whom she had raised children—compelled to sever herself from him, if she expected to obtain eternal life in the Kingdom of God. I know many, many such instances as these, and I think that as a people we should be exceedingly careful about these matters. I would rather my daughters—speaking about them—I would rather they would be the fiftieth wife to a good, faithful man, who had kept the commandments of God, and unto whom promises had been made—I would rather they would occupy that relationship, and raise children by him, than that they should be allied to a man unto whom the promises of God had not been made. But, says one, good men’s sons are not always good. I know that, we all know it. Adam, our Father, had Cain; he was a wicked man; but that does not alter the principle, it does not affect that which I am speaking of. Adam’s posterity had blessings sealed upon them that cannot be taken from them. There was no reason why Cain should not have inherited all the blessings that Abel did, and that afterwards Seth possessed, if he had been disposed to avail himself of them; and it may be that where men have the Priesthood, the power and authority of it, and the blessings that pertain to it, sealed upon their heads—it may be that like it was in the cases of Terah and Abraham, if they belong to the rightful lineage there will some one of that seed arise and be a faithful man, and attain unto all the blessings that God has promised unto such faithful persons. You remember very well how it was with Terah, the father of Abraham. He was of the chosen seed, but he was an idolater. Yet he was heir to the promises, and because of that Abraham, through that heirship, and through descent, or the blessing that came through that descent, was able to go unto God and to plead for and receive the blessings that God had promised through the fathers unto him and unto all who belonged to that chosen seed. And so it may be with us. There may be faithful men who will have unfaithful sons, who may not be as faithful as they might be; but faithful posterity will come, just as I believe it will be the case with the Prophet Joseph’s seed. Today he has not a soul descended from him personally, in this Church. There is not a man bearing the Holy Priesthood, to stand before our God in the Church that Joseph was the means in the hands of God, of founding—not a man today of his own blood—that is, by descent—to stand before the Lord, and represent him among these Latter-day Saints. But will this always be the case? No. Just as sure as God lives, just as sure as God has made promises, so sure will someone of Joseph Smith’s posterity rise up and be numbered with this Church and bear the everlasting Priesthood that Joseph himself held. It may be delayed in the wise providence of our God. There are many things that we cannot understand, cannot see the reason why they should be so; but these promises are unalterable; God made them to Joseph during his lifetime; and they will be fulfilled just as sure as God made them. He (Joseph) will have among this people, someone descended from his own loins, who will bear the everlasting Priesthood, and who will honor and magnify that Priesthood among the Latter-day Saints. Therefore it is a blessing from God, for a woman to bear children to such a man, or to any man who bears or holds the everlasting Priesthood of the Son of God, and who magnifies his calling, and through magnifying it, receives promises from God to himself, and his posterity after him. Hence it is, my brothers and sisters, that remarks are made from time to time about plural marriage, patriarchal marriage. It is designed of God, that it should be so. There are but comparatively few men among the family of mankind, who are capable of leading the daughters of Zion into the Celestial Kingdom of our God—comparatively few—for the Lord says: “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Out of all the sons of God, there are comparatively few, I say, who are capable through their faith and faithfulness, and through their keeping the commandments of God, of leading the daughters of Zion in the path of exaltation, and leading them into the Celestial Kingdom of our God; and therefore it is of the utmost importance that in these matters we should be exceedingly careful. We should seek by revelation, if we can obtain it—and it is the privilege of all to obtain revelation, that is, all who live as they should do—we should seek by revelation to obtain a knowledge for ourselves, respecting these matters. Our daughters should be taught to control their feelings and affections, and not let them go out without any regard to these circumstances to which I have alluded. A woman should be exceedingly careful, a girl should be exceedingly careful, and parents should be exceedingly careful in instilling into her mind the principles that must be observed by her and by her husband to obtain exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom of God. How often is it the case among us, that women desirous of salvation are compelled to leave their husbands that become drunken, that become apostates, that become careless and indifferent, that do something or other that forfeits their standing in the Church of Christ? And then what is to become of such women? According to our faith no woman should be connected with a man who cannot save her in the Celestial Kingdom of God. What I mean by this is: if a man apostatizes and breaks covenants and loses his standing in the Church of Christ, he is not in a fit condition to save himself, much less to lead his wife aright. He cannot lead her in the path of exaltation, because he has turned aside from that path; he has gone into another path. If she follow him, she will follow him to destruction; she will take the downward road. She will never find, while following him, and he in that condition, the path of salvation. Therefore, how careful men should be, that in marrying they should marry into good families, and not marry into apostate families. Did you ever see any good result from a man taking the daughter of an apostate, that has been brought up an apostate? I never have. That woman and her companions, if there is not great exertions made, will lead that man’s heart away after other gods, away from the God of Israel, away from the covenant, away from everything that is holy and true. She will constantly fight him unless she is an exception to the general rule. There are instances where girls come out of such families, and are good, faithful women; but speaking of this as a rule it is not a safe proceeding. How can fathers and mothers of the Saints who marry into families that are not in the Church, or that are apostates—how can they mingle together upon terms of equality? The grandchildren, having in them the blood of the apostate, and the blood of the faithful man, can they come together on the same platform and be united with each other, part of them being out of the Church and part of them in the Church? No, they cannot. There is a distinction there, and there must be a letting down of the bars on the part of those in the Church to associate with others out of the Church, on terms of equality, or else there must be a rising up of those who are not in the Church to the platform of those who are in the Church, in order that they may be on anything like terms of equality. There must be some breaking down in some direction. The apostate must sink his difference and try and feel like the Latter-day Saint, or else the faithful family must yield a little in their feelings in order to mingle upon anything like terms of friendship or equality with those who are not in the Church.

My brethren and sisters: I consider that these are very important principles, and should be seriously considered. There is too much laxity among us in Salt Lake City, and elsewhere, upon this point. There are young men and young women, one or the other frequently belonging to good families, who are married not by the Priesthood, but by some civil authority, in order to accommodate the feelings of the girl, or of the young man, or of the families of one or the other. Can such marriages result in happiness? No, they cannot; they cannot result in happiness on the part of a man who claims to be a Latter-day Saint, or on the part of a girl who claims to be a Latter-day Saint. It cannot be a happy marriage. The fruits of such unions cannot be satisfactory, that is, to the faithful Saint, at least, and it is contrary to the mind and will of God. Our people are commanded to marry in their own Church. We are commanded to marry those of our own faith, and not to go outside of our Church for partners. Instead of being married by Justices of the Peace, or by other civil authorities, God has placed in His Church a Priesthood and one of the offices and functions of that Priesthood is to marry the sons and daughters of God—to marry them one to another in the new and everlasting covenant, and to seal upon them and their posterity the blessings that pertain to that new and everlasting covenant; and any man who desires to be a happy husband and to have a happy home, and any woman who desires to be a happy wife and a happy mother, and to have joy in their associations, will never permit themselves to be drawn aside to be married by any authority except that which God has instituted, namely, the authority of the Holy Priesthood. Our daughters should seek, by all the faith that they can exercise before God, to obtain good husbands—husbands who will build them up instead of holding them down; who will strengthen their hands in the work of God, who will make them mothers of a righteous seed and posterity, with whom they can rejoice in the eternal mansions of our Father and our God; and no woman who has the faith of the Gospel within her, will want to bear a child to a man of whom she will be ashamed, and who cannot lead her into the presence of the Lamb. She will rather exercise faith before the Lord that God will give unto her a husband in whom she can trust, in whom she can have confidence, whose word will be as the word of God to her. And in the midst of the troubles, afflictions and trials that belong to this mortal existence, she will feel comforted by the knowledge that her husband is indeed a man of God, a man who will be true and faithful to her under all circumstances. This is a constant cause of strength and comfort to every woman, to know that she has wedded a man whom she can trust, upon whom she can rely, who will never fail her, that is, as far as human nature will permit a man to be free from infallibility. This is the course we should all take.

But, says one, what shall be done with those who are not of this class.

I do not have a word to say against them. I do not want to say one word against this class. Let them marry. Let the Gentile marry with the Gentile. That is right. I have no objection to this. I do not want to say one word against their men or against their women. Let them marry among themselves. But I say to the Latter-day Saints, marry in your own Church. Let the Latter-day Saints marry faithful men, let them marry faithful women, and let them raise up a posterity which God will bless, and upon whom they can ask the blessing of our Father; and when they pass away, they can leave their blessing to be perpetuated upon them and their posterity as long as the earth itself shall last. That is what I say to the Latter-day Saints. At the same time I would not preclude any “non-Mormon,” or Gentile as they are called, from marrying; but let such marry their own class and among their own people. I say we have no right to allow them to marry our daughters, and we should use every influence against it. It is not right to allow apostates to marry our daughters, nor for our sons to marry apostates. This is all wrong, and we should guard against it, and use all the influence in our power to prevent it. And those who are weak in the faith and want to be married by officers of the law, let them choose those who have the same faith and feeling as they have; but let no faithful daughter or faithful son of faithful parents be influenced to marry such persons, and marry in that kind of a way. This is what I say to you this morning, and the counsel I would give to all my brethren and sisters. Let the apostates marry the apostates. Let the Gentiles marry the Gentiles. There are millions of them in the world. There is no need for them to take our daughters, nor to marry our sons. The apostates also can find plenty of their own kind. Let them marry them. I would not throw a straw in their way, I would do nothing to interfere with them; but let the faithful Latter-day Saints marry faithful Latter-day Saints. Let them seek unto God in the name of Jesus, that they may obtain women of virtue, women of probity, women of faith, women of steadfastness, women that will be a glory to the men throughout time and eternity, and who will raise them children in whom they can rejoice; and let the women seek in like manner to obtain men upon whom they can look with respect and love in the midst of every trial, in the midst of every affliction, no matter what the circumstances may be; that their faith may be unmoved in all the trials, difficulties and afflictions that pertain to this mortal life; that they may tread the straight and narrow path as long as mortality lasts, and then enter into the celestial kingdom of our God, when they obtain their resurrected bodies, united as husband and wife, for time and for all eternity.

Now, this is a privilege that God has given unto us His children, and I trust that as His children we will exercise it. Remember, my brethren and sisters, that as wise a king as Solomon, a man unto whom God appeared and unto whom God spake, was led away by strange women and lost his power, became an idolater, and God scourged him and his posterity for his wickedness in this respect. I have in my mind today a man among us who in like manner allowed his affections to go after a strange woman, and took her to wife, and when I think about his circumstances, it reminds me in a small degree of the fate of Solomon; the same result is in his case, and it will be in every case. I do not care how strong the man may be, he may have strength enough to hold the woman, to overpower her influence, but it is a risk that should not be taken; for if a man does he will almost be sure to be overcome, and fall into trouble.

I pray God the Eternal Father, to bless us as a people; to bless you, my brethren and sisters, and to give you strength and wisdom and grace to govern your families and yourselves, so that you will always be found in the path of righteousness, the path that leadeth unto the Lord, which I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by President John Taylor, delivered at Ogden, Sunday, October 19th, 1884.

I am pleased to have the opportunity of meeting with you in Conference here, and to talk with you a little on some of the principles associated with our duties in our connection with the Church and Kingdom of God.

The Latter-day Saints occupy a very peculiar position in the world, but I do not know that we have any thing very particular to say on that question. It is true, we have used our own agency in coming here, but there are certain purposes of the Almighty, associated with our gathering together, over which we had very little control. There is a remarkable saying in the revelation of St. John, in reference to a certain Babylon, which reads as follows:

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

“For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.”

There is something very significant in the text here quoted. It would seem that John, in a previous part of his vision, had seen an angel who would precede this other. He says:

“And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,

“Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.”

As Latter-day Saints we have listened to these things from time to time. We have talked about the opening of the heavens, the manifestations of God our heavenly Father, and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, about the restoration of the Gospel, and the organization of the Church and Kingdom of God. We have talked a good deal about the Holy Priesthood, and the authority of God having been conferred upon man from the heavens, which places us in communication with our heavenly Father; and also of the organization of His Church in a manner that is in accordance with His will and under His inspiration. We have heard quoted from time to time, passages like this:

“Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”

Again:

“And I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

“And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.”

Many other passages of a similar nature are contained in the Bible, which we all of us at least, profess to believe in; and by the manifestations of the power of God, and the light of revelation, we have been instructed in the things of eternity, and the organization of the Church of God has been effected. It commenced upwards of 54 years ago, and the work has been progressing from that time unto the present; and all the organizations that have been effected pertaining to the Priesthood have been made under the immediate direction of the Spirit of the living God, and have been given unto us by direct revelation in order that we might be instructed in the laws of life and be enabled to accomplish the things that God had designed from before the foundation of the world pertaining to these last days; and with these things we are generally familiar.

When Jesus was upon the earth, and His disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray, He said:

“When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”

In this He had direct reference to the events which are now taking place among us as a people. “Thy Kingdom come.” Why? That Thy will may “be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” We are here for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the will of God, with the law of God, with the order of God, with the dominion of God; and we are here to establish the kingdom of God. We are here to be taught in things pertaining to the Church of God, and its purification. We are here to build up a Zion of God, which implies the pure in heart. Then we are here to send forth the Gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue and people. We are here to build Temples to the name of the Lord, and to administer therein. We are here to represent God upon the earth as His Priesthood, and we are gathered in the different Stakes as you are gathered here today, to attend to various duties associated with that Priesthood, and to become acquainted with all the principal features associated with the Church and Kingdom of God upon the earth. It is for us as Stakes, as peoples, and as Saints of God, to learn to comprehend the relationship that we sustain to God our heavenly Father, and to His Church and Kingdom here upon the earth, to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the Priesthood that is behind the veil; and also to become acquainted with things upon the earth connected with the welfare of humanity, whether in the land of Zion or in any other land. And we are gathered together for the express purpose of being taught and instructed in all these principles. We are not here, as Jesus was not here, to condemn the world; as He says:

“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

This was the prominent object of His mission to the earth, “That the world through him might be saved;” and we are here to carry out His purposes. We have certain relationships with the world while we are in it, that cannot be ignored, and we have certain duties to perform associated therewith that should be respected. As it is, we are here as an integral part of the United States, and we have duties to perform as citizens thereof, and it is expected that we shall fulfill every proper requirement, observe every correct law, and govern ourselves with propriety and uprightness, honor, truth, and integrity, and be good citizens thereof; these are things that are expected of all honorable people. And it is proper for us to meet the obligations and duties devolving upon us pertaining to the nation with which we are associated. We have another duty to perform to the nations of the earth. It is to send forth the Gospel thereunto; and for this the Twelve are organized and Seventies, and the Elders are sent forth as the messengers of God, that mankind may embrace the eternal truths of the Gospel, by which life and immortality are brought to light; that they, with us, may have the privilege of partaking of the rich blessings of eternal life; that they, with us, may have the opportunity of being instructed in the laws of life, and that they, with us, may be made partakers of all things associated with the Church and Kingdom of God. These are their privileges, inasmuch as they will be obedient to the laws and ordinances pertaining thereunto, and live according to the requirements of heaven. Until these things are done, other things will not be accomplished which God has designed in relation to the nations of the earth; for the people of the earth are all His offspring, and He feels interested in the welfare of humanity, generally. He expects that we shall do the same. We are building Temples, and we are administering in those Temples. What are we doing that for? There is something very peculiar about this matter. Well, we may be doing it in part for ourselves, in part for our wives and our children, in part for our fathers and our mothers, and uncles and aunts, and many of our friends and progenitors that we have been acquainted with, and in part for many others with whom we are not acquainted; that we may be united together, and stand as saviors upon Mount Zion. You heard Brother Cannon tell you today, that there was a company of about 40 going to Logan this morning, with one Bishop to fulfill some of these duties, and these things are beginning to be generally understood among the Latter-day Saints.

All of these duties and responsibilities devolve upon us. All these things are within our reach. As a people, if we live our religion and prove ourselves worthy, we are privileged to enjoy all the blessings and mercies which God our heavenly Father has conferred upon us through the medium of the Gospel and our obedience thereunto; and we wish to perform our duty to everybody—to perform, as they say in the Church of England, our “duty in that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call us.” It has pleased God to call us to these lands and to make use of us for certain purposes in the interest of humanity and for the welfare of a fallen world. This is the object of our being gathered together, and that we might build up a Zion unto the Lord, and be instructed in all the principles of righteousness, truth, integrity, and everything associated with our present and future happiness, and thus become the blessed of the Lord, and our offspring with us.

These are some of the things devolving upon us. Hence Zion is beginning to lengthen her cords and increase her Stakes, and we are spreading out in the north, in the south, and in various different directions. We are seeking to look after the welfare of the Saints of God, in their various settlements wherever they may be, and to protect them in every way that it is possible for us to extend protection, on the principle of union, harmony and brotherhood, inspired by the Spirit of the living God. Hence it becomes the duty of the First Presidency to look after all these things, and sometimes, under peculiar circumstances, we are obliged to send a few Saints from one Stake to strengthen other Stakes of Zion, that the people may be preserved in their rights and their liberties from the aggressions of unscrupulous people, who are seeking to take advantage of the circumstances with which our people may be surrounded.

We complain sometimes about our trials: we need not do that. These are things that are necessary for our perfection. We think sometimes that we are not rightly treated, and I think we think correctly about some of these things. We think there are plots set on foot to entrap us; and I think we think so very correctly. At the same time we need not be astonished at these things. We need not be amazed at a feeling of hatred and animosity. Why? Because we are living in a peculiar day and age of the world, which is distinctively called the latter days, wherein it is said that God will have a controversy with the nations of the earth. There are some things about these matters that men do not understand. They think that men manipulate the affairs of men. They do in part, and they are used ofttimes as instruments by the Almighty, and sometimes by another power that is called Lucifer, just as circumstances may be. But in regard to the nations of the earth, God sets up one nation and pulls down another, according to the counsels of His own will. And we read of nations that years ago flourished and were great, prosperous and powerful, of which we now know nothing only as we learn it from a few pages of history; they are obliterated and blotted out as nations, and do not exist today. Nations and empires have risen and fallen; they have grown, increased, and prospered, and then decayed, crumbled, and died. The Lord manipulates all these things according to the counsels of His own will. But men generally understand very little of these matters; for there has been very little communication with God for ages, until He was prepared to reveal His will in these last days. Yet men profess to fear God, and a great many of them seek to worship Him. There is something very remarkable said by the Prophet Isaiah, when he had his vision opened in regard to the events that should transpire in the latter days. He says:

“Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.

“And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.

“The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word.

“The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish.

“The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

“Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.”

There are many statements made by the Prophets in relation to these things—that the Lord would pour out His judgments upon the earth. Jesus speaks of the destruction that should come upon the people, that should befall Jerusalem, that should encompass nations, and of scenes that should transpire in the latter days—that the sun should be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord should come. Associated with this is a part of the work in which we are engaged. A voice was to be heard, as I said before, saying:

“Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

“For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.”

In accordance with this declaration, which is a part of the great program that we Latter-day Saints believe in, we have been gathered unto this land, which we denominate the land of Zion. We have come out from the world, and some of us hardly know why; yet we have come, having obeyed the Gospel and having received the gift of the Holy Ghost. There has been a feeling and spirit operating upon us that has enlightened our minds and propelled us forward. Our great aim was, when we were in other lands distant from this, to make every effort we could to come to the land of Zion. Did we understand what it was for? In part we did, in part we did not. We came to it because we thought it was the land of Zion. We came to it, if we comprehend ourselves, that we might not partake of the sins nor receive of the plagues of Babylon; and that we and our wives, and our children and our associations, might be free from the corruptions, abominations and evils that exist and prevail throughout the world; and that we might come to a place where we could learn the laws of life, where our children could be brought up in the fear of God, and where we had hoped to be able to worship God according to the dictates of our own consciences. Sometimes we think we have made a little mistake in this. I guess not; for we shall yet understand one thing, and so will the nations of the earth—that “The Lord reigneth: let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.” Yes, we shall all learn that “the Lord reigneth.”

Associated with these principles are all the common affairs of life—that is, we have bodies like other people; we need food, we need raiment, we need habitations to live in, we need land to cultivate, fields, gardens and orchards; our children are born as others are, and we live and exist pretty much as other human beings. They are the children of our heavenly Father, and so are we. But the Lord has seen fit to gather us together, and has opened our way, and our lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places. Yet every time the Saints have been gathered together there has been manifested on the part of the wicked a spirit of oppression, a spirit of persecution, a bloodthirsty spirit, a spirit which would seek to rob us of our rights, to despoil us of our homes and inheritances. This we have expected among other things. We have never dreamed of anything else than that such a state of things would exist. I remember when I had the Gospel first preached to me before I was baptized, I heard a lecture something like this: “Now, we have nothing particular to promise you, only the favor of God, if you will live righteously and keep His commandments. You may be persecuted, afflicted, imprisoned, or put to death for the testimony you may have to bear for the religion you are called upon to obey; but we can promise to you that inasmuch as this is the case you will have eternal life.” Well, we have had a little of the other mixed up with it. And I have seen mobs gather from time to time, in different parts of these United States, and I have had to meet them time and again. For instance, I was driven from Missouri years ago, together with the whole people. We were robbed and pillaged, and we had to take and throw in what little we had to help each other. Everybody that had a team turned it in to help his brethren away from whom? From their Christian persecutors, that is, so-called Christians. I wish we had another name for them. (Laughter.) We helped one another out until we reached Illinois. I was there, and I know what I am talking about. Did I feel very unhappy? Not at all. I enjoyed myself just as well as I do today. I felt quite easy. I have been accustomed to these things, and there is nothing very particular about them. By and by, we built up the beautiful city of Nauvoo. We also built a temple there and officiated in it, and received many precious blessings from the hands of God, that the world know nothing about, and never will know until they embrace the Gospel of the Son of God. But we were driven again, and we are here today. Did we leave our property? Yes, I did, quite an amount, and so did many others. We had a city there, and we left it. What was done to us before this! We were mobbed, plundered; we were brought before courts; we were persecuted and proscribed; that was done to us when we were there, and in many instances we had to defend ourselves by our own right arms, or suffer from crawling assassins who were seeking our lives. I had to do it time and time again, right in that land. I have had to have guards in my house, so had President Young, for nearly two years, to keep from being assassinated. I was in prison with Joseph and Hyrum, when they were shot down in cold blood. We were there placed under the protection, or professed protection, of the Governor, who told Dr. Bernhisel and myself that we had better not bring any arms with us to defend ourselves, and who pledged his faith and the faith of the State for our protection. I saw that faith violated and trampled in the dust. I saw these men, to whom protection was promised, shot down in cold blood by assassins gathered for the purpose. These are things that I have witnessed in the few years that I have lived upon the earth. When I left Nauvoo, I left a very good house, very well furnished. I left carpets on the floors, stoves in the rooms, crockery ware in the cupboards, and I got into my carriage, with my family, and left it to seek that protection among the Red Indians, that we could not find among the people who lived in this boasted land of the free and home of the brave, this vaunted asylum of the oppressed. We were protected here among the Indians, and I felt perfectly safe among them. I would as soon go among the Red men today who traverse these mountains, as I would anywhere else, and feel myself just as safe.

I speak of these things to show some of the feelings that have been exhibited. Well, says one, didn’t you feel angry? Oh, no, not particularly so. I felt it was all right. It was a part of the program. I needed education and other people needed it, and it was necessary we should be placed in a position that we could have it. We did not feel very unhappy. We felt quite comfortable. What! When you left your homes? Yes. I felt as easy as I ever felt in my life. I felt at least that I should be safe from the hands of bloodthirsty men and mobocrats, and that I should be put in a position that I could protect myself better than I could there, and others felt a good deal the same way. I remember we used to sing a song something like this: “On the way to California, In the spring we’ll take our journey, Far above Arkansas fountains, Pass between the Rocky Mountains.” (Laughter.)

That is the way we used to sing. I remember a little boy of mine—he was then, though he is not a little boy now, for it is about 39 years ago, used to sing this, and all the boys around. He met his grandfather one day, who calling him by name, said: “Joseph, you won’t sing that when you leave your home and go out yonder.” “Oh, yes, grandfather,” said he, “I will sing that then.” Finally, we got outside. By and by his grandfather came along, and he ran out to meet him. We were then camped out in about a foot of snow. He ran towards his grandfather and began to sing:

“On the way to California,” etc.

“There,” said he, “grandfather, I can sing that now.” Well, I speak of these things to show some of the incidents I have passed through. We came out here and we found this country a desert, covered generally with sagebrush, and a few scattered Indians straggling around. We had to commence to build our houses, for there were none here when we came; and since then the wilderness and the solitary places have blossomed as the rose, and the desert has been made glad, as foretold in the Scriptures. We feel that we are kind of half comfortable in these valleys of the mountains, but the devil is not dead yet. (Laughter.) We did not think he would be; we have a work to perform; and we purpose, by the help of the Almighty, to accomplish that work. We don’t expect to be disappointed in it either, and we don’t anticipate that it will be overturned. We believe that God lives in the heavens and manipulates the nations of the earth, and woe to them that fight against Zion! I tell them in the name of God that He will fight against them. (Amen.)

This is my testimony in relation to these matters. People may think they are very smart in persecuting the Saints, but by and by they will find they are on the wrong side of the question, and many of them will find it out when it is too late. They will find it out when the harvest is past and the summer is ended, and they will say, “My soul is not saved.” You Latter-day Saints that begin sometimes to be trembly at the knees, and afraid of certain circumstances, had better trust to the living God than give way to fearful forebodings in these matters; for Zion is onward and upward, and God is on her side, and He will protect His Israel if we will only be true to Him. We are here for that purpose. God will sustain Israel and stand by His people. (Amen.) There is one thing very certain, very certain indeed, and that is, whatever men may think, and however they may plot and contrive, that this Kingdom will never be given into the hands of another people. It will grow and spread and increase, and no man living can stop its progress. Hence I feel quite easy, as I said before, for the Lord reigns, and let the people rejoice.

From time to time we have certain raids made upon us. Something of that sort seems to be afloat today, and I wish—I was going to say I wish I could talk about something better—but these matters are as proper as anything else, as far as I know, for they are things we have to meet face to face. We Latter-day Saints—what are we? Professors of religion. Are we? Yes. There are laws being enacted in order to deprive us of our religious rights, whereas the Constitution of the United States says that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Is that true? Read it for yourselves in the Constitution. This is what we profess as Americans. We have men in our midst who have introduced test oaths, whereas the Constitution says, that “no religious test shall ever be required;” yet they have introduced test-oaths, and people are obliged to swear certain things that the Constitution says shall not be permitted. Are we American citizens here? I think so. Have we any rights? I think we ought to have. Are they being trampled upon? Yes, they are; and these things are being done with impunity. How is it? Why, the Constitution is treated by the politicians of today as the Bible is treated by professors of religion. You talk with “Christians” upon the Bible, and you will find that they believe it when it is shut. They will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to send it to the heathen, but when you come to open it, they themselves don’t believe in it. Ask them about Prophets, Apostles, Evangelists, Pastors, Teachers, and Deacons. Have they them? No, they do not even profess to have them. Ask them about being baptized in the name of Jesus, for the remission of sins by men having authority, and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and you will find that they don’t want to hear anything about these principles. They do not believe them. Why they object even to people being married for eternity! They believe in men and women being married only until death doth them part. That is a very cold affair. We do not believe in being married for time only. We believe in making covenants for eternity, and being associated with our wives and children behind the veil. We have received instructions from the Lord in regard to these things, and we are desirous to carry them out. As I have said, the Constitution provides that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Yet men are asked what their religious faith is; right here in our courts today. These are things that we as American citizens have a right to look into; to look well after our liberties, and to watch well our enemies. For these are not only our enemies but they are the enemies of human liberty, the enemies of the rights of man and the enemies of God. It is for us to look well after these things, and in our elections and in all like matters, to see that we are very particular about the management of these affairs, and that we are not overrun and cheated out of our liberties by unscrupulous men. I speak of these things at this your Conference, for your information and for your warning; and would say, be united, diligent and energetic, and stand for your rights as men.

I remember some little time ago a gentleman named Mr. Pierpont (who was Attorney-General under President Grant) called upon me. I was pleased to see him, and am pleased to see all honorable gentlemen. I invited him to dinner, and we had quite a chat. But here let me introduce another affair. At the time when the Edmunds law was passed I was living in what is known as the Gardo House. I had most of my wives living with me there, and after looking carefully over the Edmunds law I thought to myself, why Congress is growing very wild; this Government is getting very, very foolish; they are trampling upon Constitutional rights. No matter, I said, I will obey this law. I had comfortable places for my family elsewhere, and I requested my wives to go to their own homes, and live there, and they did so in order that I at least might fulfill that part of the law; for foolish or not foolish, my idea was to fulfill as far as practicable the requirements of the law and not place myself and my family or my friends in jeopardy, through any foolishness of mine. It was expected by many of those corrupt men—I do not say in speaking of these that all are corrupt—that when these laws were passed we should turn our wives out and deal with them as they do with their women under such circumstances—make strumpets of them. There is no such feeling as that in my bosom, nor in the bosoms of this people. We have made eternal covenants with our wives, and we will abide by our wives, and God will sustain us in protecting the rights of innocence, and in fulfilling those eternal obligations which we have entered into. But we can once in a while yield a little to the follies and weaknesses of men, when no principle of truth is involved. Under these circumstances I had a sister of mine who was keeping house for me when Mr. Pierpont came there to dine with me. I said: “Mr. Pierpont, permit me to introduce you to my sister. It is not lawful for us to have wives here.” (Laughter.) After talking further with him upon the subject I said, “Now, Mr. Pierpont, you are well acquainted with all these legal affairs. Although I have yielded in this matter in order that I might not be an obstructionist, and do not wish to act as a Fenian, or a Nihilist, or a Communist, or a Kuklux, or a Regulator, or a Plug Ugly, or a Molly Maguire, yet, sir, we shall stand up for our rights and protect ourselves in every proper way, legally and constitutionally, and dispute inch by inch every step that is taken to deprive us of our rights and liberties.” And we will do this in the way that I speak of. We are doing it today; and as you have heard it expressed on other occasions, it looks very much like as though the time was drawing near when this country will tumble to pieces; for if the people of this nation are so blind and in– fatuated as to trample under foot the Constitution and other safeguards provided for the liberties of man, we do not propose to assist them in their suicidal and traitorous enterprises; for we have been told by Joseph Smith that when the people of this nation would trample upon the Constitution, the Elders of this Church would rally round the flag and defend it. And it may come to that; we may be nearer to it than some of us think, for the people are not very zealous in the protection of human rights. And when legislators, governors and judges unite in seeking to tear down the temple of liberty and destroy the bulwarks of human freedom, it will be seen by all lovers of liberty, that they are playing a hazardous game and endangering the perpetuity of human rights. For it will not take long for the unthinking to follow their lead, and they may let loose an element that they never can bind again. We seem to be standing on a precipice and the tumultuous passions of men are agitated by political and party strife; the elements of discord are seething and raging as if portending a coming storm; and no man seems competent to take the helm and guide the ship of State through the fearful breakers that threaten on every hand. These are dangerous things, but it becomes our duty as good citizens to obey the law as far as practicable, and be governed by correct principles.

I had some papers read over at the General Conference, giving my views in relation to some of these matters. They have been published, but I will have one or two extracts read for your information.

President Cannon then read as follows:

The distinction being made be– tween Polygamy and Prostitution:

1st. Congress made a law which would affect both; and cohabitation with more than one woman was made a crime whether in polygamy or out of polygamy.

2nd. The Governor turned legislator, added to this law, and inserted in a test oath to officials, the following words regarding cohabitation, “in the marriage relation;” thus plainly and definitely sanctioning prostitution, without any law of the United States, or any authority.

3rd. The United States Commissioners, also without legislation, adopted the action of the Governor, and still insisted on this interpolation, in the test oath in election matters, and placed all polygamists under this unconstitutional oath, and released prostitutes and their paramours from the obligations placed upon others.

4th. The Prosecuting Attorney has sanctioned these things, and pursued a similar course: and while he has asked all the “Mormon” grand jurors certain questions pertaining to their religious faith in the doctrines of the “Mormon” Church, and challenged them if they answered affirmatively as to their belief in polygamy, he has declined to ask other jurors whether they believed in prostitution, or whether they believed in cohabiting with more than one woman or not.

5th. Chief Justice Zane when appealed to on this question, refused to interfere, or give any other ruling.

Thus a law was first passed by Congress, which has been perverted by the administration, by all its officers, who have officiated in this Territory, and made to subserve the interests of a party who have placed in their political platform an Anti– Mormon plank; and have clearly proven that there is a combination entered into by all the officers of state officiating in this Territory, to back up this political intrigue in the interest of party, and at the sacrifice of law, equity, jurisprudence, and all the safeguards that are provided by the Constitution for the protection of human rights.

Congress cannot be condemned for these proceedings. The law as it stands on the nation’s Statute Books makes no such distinction, so far as the qualification of jurors are concerned, between those who cohabit with more than one woman in the marriage relation, and those who do so outside of that relation. All the rest has been aided by officials here. The law reads: “Section 5: That in any prosecution for bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation, under any Statute of the United States, it shall be sufficient cause of challenge to any person drawn or summoned as a juryman or a talesman, first, that he is or has been living in the practice of bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation with more than one woman, * * or second, that he believes it right for a man to have more than one living and undivorced wife at the same time, or to live in the practice of cohabiting with more than one woman.” It will thus be seen that the same questions can be properly put to both classes; and such was the evident, unmistakable intention of Congress. But the Prosecuting Attorney with red-hot zeal changes all this, in his religio-political crusade against the faith of the Latter-day Saints he insists upon his right to propound the question with the Governor’s interpolation super-added, whilst he entirely ignores the other side of the case; hence those who cohabit outside of the marriage rela– tion can go scot free, without interrogation or questioning, and when attention is drawn to this perversion of the law, he asserts that he has the right to propound what questions he chooses, and decline to ask those he has no mind to; in fact that the whole proceeding was a purely optional matter with him. Thus the whole weight of the law is unjustly and unrighteously thrown on the shoulders of those who believe and act in the marriage relation, and entirely removed from the others, who develop into the jurors, who are to indict, try and condemn the other and far more honorable class.

I will have something further read. It is alleged that we are a very corrupt people, that we are a very lawless people; that we are a very wicked people; that we are a very lascivious people; and therefore it becomes necessary for them to pass and execute certain laws in order that we may be placed under the guardianship of people who are more pure and more virtuous. That is why I want some statistics read in relation to that matter, and I would not have had them read, nor have dwelt upon these matters, only on the principle of self-defense.

President Cannon then read as follows:

“The population of Utah may be estimated at 160,000 in 1883.

“Of these say 130,000 were Mormons and 30,000 Gentiles, a very liberal estimate of the latter.

“In this year there were 46 persons sent to the Penitentiary, convicted of crime. Of these, 33 were non-Mormons and 13 reputed Mormons.

“At the above estimate of population the ratio or percentage would be one prisoner to every 10,000 Mormons, or one-hundredth of one percent, and of the Gentiles one convict in every 909, or about one-ninth of one percent. So that the actual proportion of criminals is more than ten times greater among the Gentiles of Utah, with the above very liberal estimate, than among the Mormons.

“It is urged that those non-Mormon prisoners are not a fair representation of the average of crime throughout the country, but are the result of the flow of the desperate classes westward to the borders of civilization; with greater truth we reply that the Mormon prisoners are not representatives of Mormonism, nor the results of Mormonism, but of the consequences of a departure from Mormon principles: and of the 13 prisoners classed as “Mormons,” the greater portion were only so by family connection or association.

Arrests in Salt Lake City, 1883— Mormons 150 Non-Mormons 1,550 or more than ten times the number of Mormon arrests.

“Again, it is estimated that there are 6,000 non-Mormons and 19,000 Mormons in Salt Lake City, which shows of Mormons one arrest in 126 and 2/3.

“Non-Mormons one arrest in a fraction less than every four, or rather more than twenty-five percent.

President Taylor continued:

Make the best of this we may, it is a bad showing, and ought not to exist among the dwelling places of the Saints. What of our drunken Saints? Our violators of the Sabbath day? Our Sunday bathing trains? Whereon many of our youth mix up with the ungodly, and what of many other evils which exist among us? It is a shame that these things should exist in Zion in the cities of the Saints; but our would-be reformers are ten times lower and more depraved than we are. Yes, but then we have ten times too many crimes; and it is sorrowful to see it, and we can only account for it on this principle, that the wheat and tares must grow together until the harvest. The Gospel net gathers of every kind, good and bad, sheep and goats. Again, it is but just to those who oppose us, to say that they have their ministers, their Sunday schools, their churches, their hospitals, etc., and many, very many good and honorable men and women. But with all these agencies the record shows them to be, as a whole, ten times as corrupt as we are. Before they came, we were comparatively free from their gross immoralities. But what of today? The record shows that theirs are the gambling dens, the houses of assignation, theirs the brothels and drinking saloons, etc., and if, which God forbid, we have feticide and infanticide, it belongs to them—these are their institutions, they do not belong to us. Is it then, any wonder that they have ten times the amount of crime? This is a terrible showing, and yet these are our reformers, our accusers; from these proceed our courts, our juries, etc., they assume to be our regenerators, and are trying to make us as good as they.

President Cannon again read:

“Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell, has declared in a paper read before a late meeting of the American Social Science Association, that “nowhere in the history of the world was the practice of abortion so common as in this country; and he gave expression to the opinion that, in New England alone, many thousands of abortions are procured annually.”

“Dr. Reamy, of the Ohio State Medical Society, says: “From a very large verbal and written corres– pondence in this and other States, together with personal investigation and facts accumulated * * that we have become a nation of murders.”

The Rev. Dr. Eddy writes to the Christian Advocate regarding one little village of 1,000 inhabitants: “Yet here, and elsewhere, where 15 percent of wives have the criminal hardihood to practice this black art, there is a still large and additional percent who endorse and defend it. * * Among married persons, so extensive has this practice become, that people of high repute not only commit this crime, but do not shun to speak boastingly among their intimates of the deed, and the means of accomplishing it.”

Dr. Allen further states: “Examining the number of deaths, we find that there are absolutely more deaths than births among the strictly American children, so that aside from immigration and births of children of foreign parentage, the population of Massachusetts is rapidly decreasing. * * The birth rate in the State of New York, shows the same fact, that American families do not increase at all, and inspection of the registration in other States shows the same remark applies to all.”

Bishop Coxe, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, of New York, in a pastoral letter to his people writes: “I have heretofore warned my flock against the blood-guiltiness of antenatal infanticide. If any doubts existed heretofore as to the propriety of my warnings on this subject, they must now disappear before the fact that the world itself is beginning to be horrified by the practical results of the sacrifices to Moloch, which defile our land. Again I warn you that they who do such things, cannot inherit eternal life. If there be a special damnation for those who shed innocent blood, what must be the portion of those who have no mercy upon their own flesh.”

Dr. Cowan, M. D., writing on what he styles “The Murder of the Unborn,” says: “That this crime is not only widespread on this great continent, but is rapidly on the increase, we have the testimony of physicians, whose investigations have been thorough, and whose social standing and integrity cannot be questioned.”

President Taylor continued:

In pondering over the above sickening details, and carefully examining the irrefutable records of prison statistics, I note deliberately the weight of testimony furnished by a host of their most honorable and reliable men in the East, to whom I give all honor, who calmly and deliberately pronounce them “a nation of murderers,” “the slayers of the innocent,” the consumers of their own flesh, in connection with this terrible record we have in our prominent cities, flaunted before our eyes, their dens of infamy and crime, impudently and unblushingly paraded before us, and stuck under our very noses. In looking at these things I ask myself can human depravity descend any lower, and the humiliating answer comes, yes! yes!! yes!!! The question arises wherein? The most damning nature of this record is that these crimes are sought to be palliated by unjust law, made ostensibly to punish crime, but really to pervert justice and protect falsehood, chicanery and intrigue. We have a local administration which provides test oaths to try to cover up the crimes of their friends, and to protect prostitutes, whoremongers and adulterers, and to make that a crime which is nowhere proclaimed a crime by the Almighty. And then we have these whited walls and painted sepulchres under the guise of the protectors of virtue and the defenders and advocates of purity and moral reform, bring all the weight of their influence and position to bear upon innocence, virtue and integrity. Surely, as it is said, justice is fallen in the street, righteousness standeth afar off, and judgment cannot enter. But what of our people? With all of their weaknesses, follies and imperfections, of which we as a people have very many in the sight of God, they are yet in the balances of unbiased equity before the law, as per record ten times the superiors of our accusers, but with the points of prostitution, harlotry, gambling and other vices, not to mention the terrible crimes of feticide and infanticide, we have nothing to do; these are their institutions only, and do not belong to us.

But it may be argued, are not the executive and judiciary expected to administer the law as they find it? Certainly; and if they would confine themselves to this, all honorable men would sustain them. But governors are nowhere authorized to introduce test oaths, in violation of law, to protect the spoliators of virtue, the brothel and the adulterer; nor is the judiciary required in the execution of its legal function to ignore the precedents of courts, nor to sanction the empanelment of packed juries.

I have had these things read for more reasons than one. First, to show the hypocrisy of those who come here to teach us morality, and who proscribe the acts of a pure and industrious people who dwell in these mountains. And for another purpose, to guard our brethren and sisters against the encroachments of such fiends in human form as those persons here referred to. We cannot have, and won’t have adulterers and adulteresses among us, much less will we have those who, by murder, stain their consciences and damn themselves forever. You sisters, guard yourselves against these infamies, or you will sink yourselves down, down, down to pits of infamy and ruin, that you never dreamed of. I do not wonder that the Prophets have expressed themselves as strongly as they have in relation to the events that shall overtake the world. I remember that some 30 years ago, there was one of our brethren in an eastern city, I heard a report about his wife being engaged in something of that sort. I asked him if it were true. He said it was. I don’t know when I felt such a loathing for a human being in my life as I felt toward her. I would sooner have touched a rattlesnake than touched her hand. And I feel so today. We cannot degrade ourselves with these fiendish practices. All are not guilty; for as I have frequently said there are thousands and millions of honorable men and women throughout the land. But these evils which exist in this and other nations are too terrible almost to be spoken of; yet it is requisite they should be presented before you Latter-day Saints, that you may remember the pit from whence you were dug, and the rock from whence you were hewn; that you may appreciate in some measure the blessings you enjoy, and your freedom from these infamies in this land of Zion. And I would say to you Bishops—if you find adulterers and adulteresses in the Church, cut them off, they cannot be associated with the Latter-day Saints.

Another thing: I was lately called upon as a witness—perhaps you may have seen some account of it in the papers—and I want to make some explanation in relation to the matters that I then presented, because they are not generally understood: I was required to divulge certain things. I did not know them to divulge. Perhaps some of you have had people come to you with their confidences. I have. But I don’t want to be confidant. Why? Because if they made a confidant of me and I was called before a tribunal, I could not, as an honorable man, reveal their confidences, yet it would be said I was a transgressor of law; but no honorable man can reveal confidences that are committed to him. Therefore I tell them to keep their own secrets, and remember what is called the Mormon creed, “Mind your own business,” I don’t want to know the secrets of people, those that I cannot tell. And I could not tell very much to that court; for I have studiously avoided knowing any more than I could possibly help about such matters. I was asked questions about our temple, which of course I could not divulge. I was asked questions about records which I could not tell them, because I did not know. I have studiously avoided entering into a knowledge of these matters. They did not build our temples. We have never had any revelations from God, through them! We may have had from the devil (laughter), but never have had revelations from God through them. And I think there are some things we have a right to guard sacredly in our own bosoms. We are told “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will show them his covenant.” Now, if the Lord shall commit a secret to me I don’t think I should tell it to anyone; I don’t think I would, not unless He told me. Then, I do not want to know your secrets. I was asked if certain ordinances could be performed in different places. I told them, yes, under certain circumstances. “Where,” I was asked—“Anywhere besides in temples?” Yes. Anywhere besides the Endowment House? Yes. “Where, in some other house?” In another house or out of doors, as the circumstances might be. Why did I say that? Is not a temple the proper place? Yes; but it is said in our revelations pertaining to these matters:

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, that when I give a commandment to any of the sons of men to do a work unto my name, and those sons of men go with all their might and with all they have to perform that work, and cease not their diligence, and their enemies come upon them and hinder them from performing that work, behold, it behooveth me to require that work no more at the hands of those sons of men, but to accept of their offerings.”

Thus under such circumstances we perceive that our operations elsewhere will be all correct; it makes no difference. It is the authority of the Priesthood, not the place, that validates and sanctifies the ordinance. I was asked if people could be sealed outside. Yes. I could have told them I was sealed outside, and lots of others.

I want to show you a principle here, you Latter-day Saints. When Jesus was asked if He thought it was proper for His disciples to pluck ears of corn on the Sabbath day, He told them “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.” What else? I will say that man was not made for temples, but temples were made for man, under the direction of the Priesthood, and without the Priesthood temples would amount to nothing.

I speak of these things for your information: but men are not authorized to act foolishly about these matters. The temples are places that are appropriated for a great many ordinances, and among these ordinances that of marriage; but, then, if we are interrupted by men who do not know about our principles, that is all right, it will not impede the work of God, or stop the performance of ordinances. Let them do their work, and we will try and do ours.

While I was in court a few days ago, and gazing upon the assembly of judges, lawyers, marshals, witnesses, spectators, etc., many reflections of a very peculiar character passed through my mind, some of which I will here rehearse.

I could not help thinking as I looked upon the scene, that there was no necessity for all this; these parties need not have placed themselves in this peculiar dilemma. Here was a young man blessed with more than ordinary intelligence, bearing amongst all who know him a most enviable reputation for virtue, honesty, sobriety, and all other desirable characteristics that we are in the habit of supposing go to make a man respected and beloved, the civilized world over. He had been trained from early childhood in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, had been an attendant at Sabbath schools and Young Men’s Improvement Societies, where his course was of the most pleasing kind; more than this, some years ago, when quite a youth, he had shown his devotion to the faith in which he had been reared, by going forth without purse and scrip, to preach in the midst of the unbelieving the doctrines of a most unpopular faith. And, as I reach this point in my reflections, my mind instinctively wanders to a monument I gazed at in the Salt Lake City cemetery but a few days ago. That monument records in fitting words of respect and admiration the devotion of two young missionaries in a far-off Southern State, one of whom had fallen a victim to mob violence, had sealed with his blood the testimony which he bore, the other had stood by him in this hour of sore need, and rescued his mangled body and brought it safely for thousands of miles to the home of his bereaved parents and sorrowing co-religionists. This heroic young man is the one now arraigned before the courts of his country, for an alleged offense against the morality of the age. Assuming that the reports pertaining to him should prove to be correct, and he really has a plural wife, what then would be the position? He, from his earliest recollection, had been taught to reverence the Bible as the word of God, to revere the lives and examples of the ancient worthies whom Jehovah honored by making them His confidants, and revealing unto them the secrets of His divine purposes; he had read of one who was called “the friend of God, and the father of the faithful,” of another who was said to be “a man after God’s own heart;” of a third who in all things is said to have done the will of Heaven, and so on till they could be numbered by the score; yet all these men, the friends, associates and confidants of the great Creator of heaven and earth, were men with more than one wife, some with many wives, yet they still possessed and rejoiced in the love and honor of the great Judge of all the world, whose judgments are all just, and whose words are all righteousness. This young man is charged with following these worthy examples; it is asserted that he has taken to wife a beautiful and virtuous young lady, belonging, like him, to one of our most respected families, and who also believes in the Bible, and the example set her by those holy women of old, such as Rachel, Ruth, Hannah, and others, who honored God’s law, and became the mothers of Prophets, Priests and Kings. And as my cogitations ran I thought what need had these two to follow such examples of a bygone age; why not walk in the way of the world today; unite with our modern Christian civilization, and if passion guided their actions, why call each other husband and wife, why hallow their associations by any sacred ceremony; was there any need of such? Why not do as tens of thousands of others do, live in the condition of illicit love? And then if any child should be feared from this unsanctified union, why not still follow our Christian exemplars, remove the fetal encumbrance, call in some of the copyists of Madame Restell, the abortionists, male and female, that pollute our land, that would have been sub-rosa, genteel, fashionable, respectable, Christianlike, as Christianity goes in this generation. And if this did not succeed, the young man might have turned his victim into the street to perish, or die of pollution as is done in tens of thousands of instances, in the most sanctified manner by the hypocrites of the day. Then, in either of these cases, the young gentleman could have been received into good society, be petted and applauded; could hold a position under our government, be even a deputy-marshal, registrar or what not, and still further, be able to answer all the necessary questions; and be admitted as a grand juror without being brought in as a guttersnipe on an open venire, but as a respectable citizen on the regular panel. Or again, these two, in the event of a child being born, might consign it to the care of some degraded hag, some baby farmer, where gradually and quietly its innocent life would ebb out, and by and by the grief-stricken parents would receive the anticipated notice that their dear little offspring, notwithstanding every care, was dead and buried. This is a respectable crime, a crime committed principally by those who go to high-toned churches and fashionable meetinghouses in velvets and feathers, in silks and satins, and who with upturned eyes and hypocritical voices, insult the majesty of Heaven by drawling out, “Lord have mercy upon us, miserable sinners.” Yet they are murderers—murderers of the worst kind, shedders of innocent blood, consumers of their own flesh, whom the vengeance of God awaits. Yet this young man and woman could have done all this and no marshals with ready feet would have dogged their steps, no packed grand juries with unanimous alacrity would do the bidding of overzealous prosecuting attorneys; no Federal judge would overturn precedent, ignore law, disregard justice on purpose to convict. No, they might then have been the friends, associates, companions of judge and prosecutor, governor and commissioner: but now, as they would neither associate unrighteously, nor take means to destroy the results of their union, but honestly and virtuously live, as is claimed, as husband and wife, he stands in the felon’s dock charged with an offense against the dignity of the United States, and to convict him, oppressive laws, more oppressively administered, are brought to bear with all the ingenuity that malice can devise and hatred adopt. And there, in this ignominious position, he stands, with every person who might possibly be his friend, excluded from the jury, without the possibility of a fair trial by his peers, not one of the panel being in the least sympathy with himself: and by such people this unfortunate young gentleman has to be tried, judged, prosecuted, proscribed, and condemned, because of his firm and unswerving faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of David, Solomon, and numerous other Godfearing and honorable men, who, like him, have despised the cant and hypocrisy of an ungodly world, and dared to obey the behests of Jehovah. Of these things he had learned from the Bible, in the Sunday school; no wonder then that our would-be reformers are so anxious to exclude the Bible from our district schools, as its teachings and examples so emphatically condemn the theories on which the acts and legislation of Congress are based, as well as the course pursued by those who seek to aid in the regeneration of Utah by adding to or taking from the law as is best suited to shield their own corrupt practices, or, on the other hand, by extra judicial proceedings, under cover of the law, they pervert, to prosecute and persecute the Mormons.

And where was this scene enacted? In the gorgeous palaces of Belshazzar, surrounded by his wives, concubines, and nobles, and where was seen written on the walls, “Mene, mene, tekel upharsin?” No. Was it at the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, when ten righteous persons could not be found to avert the wrath of an offended God, or in Pompeii or Herculaneum, who, in their turn, for their libidinous and unrighteous practices, as Sodom and Gomorrah, suffered the vengeance of eternal fire? No. Was it in the Saturnalia of the Bacchanals of ancient Greece and Rome? No. Those nations have been long overthrown, and are now only known to a few readers of ancient history. Was it during the reign of the first French republic, when they elevated a prostitute as the goddess of reason? No. Was it in the days of the inquisition, when the rack, the gibbet, the faggot and the flames were brought into requisition to force unwilling victims to testify of things which their consciences forbade, and who perished by thousands for daring to think and act, and believe in and worship God according to the dictates of their consciences? No. Was it under the influence of Bacchus, or in the midnight revellings as exhibited in Rome under Nero? No. This scene was enacted in midday, in the 19th century, in the year of our Lord, 1884, in the Federal Court House, in Salt Lake City, at a court presided over by Judge Zane, Chief Justice for the United States in the Territory of Utah, assisted by Prosecuting Attorney Dickson, and the other adjuncts of the law, and in the presence of several hundred American citizens. Towards these gentlemen personally I have no feelings, no complaints to make. I understand them to bear the reputation of being learned and honorable men in all other matters. But they stand in an unfortunate position; they represent a cause so low, that it is impossible to look upon it without loathing and commiseration; they represent a political exigency, a party necessity, capital has to be made by the perse– cution and prosecution of American citizens who have embraced an unpopular faith, and they are the tools with which the unclean, despicable and barbarous work has to be done. I envy not their calling. I have no desire to stand in their shoes. Let my work be to do the will of God, to build up truth, virtue, righteousness, honor and peace upon the earth, and they may, if they so prefer, continue in the unfortunate work that their party has assigned to them.

Before I close I will say that I have not spoken on this subject with any feeling of acrimony in my heart towards the parties engaged in these proceedings. Some of the gentlemen engaged therein, in other respects, bear an excellent reputation. I will further say that we as Latter-day Saints have often heard it reported and reiterated in our ears, that the world was growing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, and that it would grow worse and worse. So we need not be surprised to see the fulfillment of these things. Furthermore, I wish specifically to state that while these abominations exist and these acts of injustice, we leave it with the perpetrators of these acts to pursue their own vain course. But it is for us to guard well against the innovations of the corrupt and the designing; it is for us to guard well our liberties; and then it is for us to treat honorably, rightly, and properly all honorable men and women. Although thousands are engaged in committing these crimes which are too dreadful to reflect upon: yet at the same time there are thousands and millions of honorable men and women throughout the nations, and many of them among us. We don’t class them with the corrupt, the libidinous and the murderers; although for our part we must be very careful of our associations, and know the character of those whom we receive into our houses, or allow our children to associate with.

God bless you and lead you in the paths of life; and while others are trying to exalt crime and murder into a fine art, and extol these libidinous practices; and while we have test oaths framed on purpose to screen the adulterer and adulteress; and while honorable men are prevented or voluntarily abstain from voting, and harlots and whoremongers, and men who betray their wives and associate with other women are considered honorable men and protected by the authorities of this Territory, it is for us to guard ourselves against everything that is improper, and to be pure, especially you who bear the vessels of the Lord. God bless you, and lead you in the paths of life, in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Discourse by President John Taylor, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Monday and Tuesday (Semi-Annual Conference), October 6 and 7, 1884.

If the congregation will endeavor to preserve as much order as possible, and prevent the crying and disturbance of children, I will try and address you for a short time. Last evening I made quite a lengthy address in this hall; but we had very good order. There was no whispering, no talking, nor disturbance of any kind. It requires, in a large congregation like this, quite an exertion to speak so as to make the people hear. I am told that the people could not hear half of what was said by several of the brethren yesterday. It is wrong for us to have disorder in the house of God, a place where we meet for instruction.

Last evening I talked of some matters of considerable importance to the Priesthood, of which there was an immense number present; they nearly filled this hall. I wish to continue some of these remarks; for it is necessary that all of us should be instructed in the great principles which God has revealed for the guidance, salvation and exaltation of the Saints of God, and also for the benefit of the world wherein we live. There were very many promises made to eminent men in generations long since past; but these generally had reference more particularly to the benefit of the world of mankind than to individuals.

There were certain great principles involved in the organization of this earth, and one was that there might be a place provided whereon the children of our Heavenly Father could live and propagate their species, and have bodies formed for the spirits to inhabit who were the children of God; for we are told that He is the God and Father of the spirits of all flesh. It was requisite, therefore, that an earth should be organized; it was requisite that man should be placed upon it; it was requisite that bodies should be prepared for those spirits to inhabit, in order that the purposes of God pertaining to His progeny might be accomplished, and that those spirits might be enabled, through the medium of the everlasting Gospel, to return unto the presence of their Heavenly Father, as Gods among the Gods.

There have been different agencies at work throughout this world’s history. Lucifer has been and is one of these agencies. There was a garden planted, and Adam and Eve were placed in it, and there they had communion with God. There was another being whose name was Lucifer, who is called in some places, “the son of the morning.” Job speaks of a time at the creation of this earth when “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,” (Job xxxviii, 7). As it was necessary that there should be a God, a man, an earth and a heaven, it was also necessary that there should be a devil, that man might be tried, and by trial be instructed. Indeed, in the economy of God, it was not only necessary that man, but the Savior also should be perfected by suffering. It is written: “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” (Hebrews, ii, 10.) It was further necessary that there should be a Redeemer according to the plan which was devised from before the foundation of the world, and also that man might be a free agent to act and operate for himself, to receive the good and reject the evil, or reject the good and be governed by the evil. And there were certain rewards promised to those who would obey the laws of God, and keep his commandments, and certain punishments inflicted upon those who would not. Satan has made very great ravages among the human family in trying to accomplish his purposes; for he has been the enemy of God, and the enemy of man, and in ages past he wrought upon mankind until after a certain period he had contrived to get the great majority of them on his side. Nevertheless, they had the Priesthood among them in those early days as we have among us today. After Adam there were Seth, Enos, Mahalaleel, Methuselah, Lamech, and a great many others until we arrive at Enoch and Noah, who operated especially in behalf of the interest of the human family. They preached the Gospel as we preach it, and taught the same principles that we teach. They gathered the people to a Zion as we gather them, and when they had been gathered together, they had enemies as we have, who arrayed themselves against them. But Enoch was clothed upon with the power of God. He walked with God for 365 years, and we are told, “he was not; for God took him.” That is about all that is said about him in the Bible; but we have other information. Many others walked with God, and there was a city that the people were gathered to—a Zion. They walked with God and they were instructed of the Lord; but it took at any rate, 365 years to accomplish this object.

Furthermore, in the latter days there is to be a Zion built up: but in these days we are told that the Lord will cut His work short in righteousness. Enoch, in his day, had his messengers go forth among the people, and when they gathered, it induced the rage of man, and great armies assembled against the Saints, but Enoch prophesied by the power of God, and the earth shook and the mountains trembled, and the enemies of the Saints in fear fled afar off. By and by when the time came for the accomplishment of the purposes of God, and before the destruction of the wicked, Enoch was caught up to heaven and his Zion with him. And we are told in latter revelation in relation to these matters that a Zion will be built up in our day; that great trouble will overtake the inhabitants of the earth; and that when the time arrives, the Zion that was caught up will descend, and the Zion that will be organized here will ascend, both possessed of the same spirit, their peoples having been preserved by the power of God according to His purposes and as His children, to take part in the events of the latter days. We are told that when the people of these two Zions meet, they will fall on each others’ necks, and embrace and kiss each other.

As they in that day were placed under the guidance of the Almighty, so are we. As they had a work to perform associated with the welfare of the human family, so have we. As they had the Gospel to preach, so have we. As they had a Zion to build up, so have we. As they needed the support of the Great Jehovah, so do we. As they were dependent upon Him in all their movements, whether in relation to earth or heaven, so are we. The work in which we are engaged is one that has been introduced by the Great Eloheim, the God and Father of the human family, in the interests of His children. And wherever and whenever these principles have existed, this same being that was in the garden with our first parents still goes forth and has gone forth as a raging lion, seeking whom he may deceive, seeking whom he may devour, seeking whom he may lead down to death. And in these latter days God has introduced these same principles with the same object in view. He has revealed the same principles of heaven, and as heretofore, in the interest of humanity. Who was Enoch? Was he a man of God? Yes. Who were the Elders with him, were they men of God? Yes; and they received their instructions in that Zion that was then built up, and more or less directly from God; for Enoch walked with God. Whom was Enoch operating for? For God his heavenly Father. He was there, as Jesus was on the earth in his time, as he said, not to do His own will, but the will of his Father who sent him. And whom did those people operate for? They operated for the welfare of the human family who would receive the truth and be governed by it. And whom did Jesus and His Apostles in their day operate for? For the benefit of all the world. Jesus Himself appeared as the Redeemer of the world, and He commissioned His Apostles to preach the Gospel to every creature, saying: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned.” What is this salvation and condemnation? That would take a long time to tell. Suffice it to say that there are bodies celestial, bodies terrestrial, and bodies telestial; one glory of the sun, another of the moon, and another of the stars; but strait was the gate and narrow was the way that led unto the lives, and few there were at that time and few there have always been who have gone in thereat. And what was it that they sought? It was the Celestial Kingdom of our God, that they might come forth in the first resurrection and be one with the Father and one with Jesus, and be– long to the Church of the Firstborn whose names are written in heaven, and become Gods among the Gods, and participate in all the glory of the Celestial Kingdom. But few there were who found the narrow path. It is so today. Were the Apostles of Jesus commanded to preach the Gospel? Yes. Are we commanded as they were? Yes. What was the position of the Apostles? They were simply messengers of life and salvation to a fallen world. What are the First Presidency, the Twelve, the High Priests, the Seventies, and the Elders today? What are they? Bearers of life and salvation to a fallen world, the messengers of God to men, the legates of the skies commissioned by the Great Jehovah to introduce the principles of eternal life, and gather in his elect from the four quarters of the earth, and to prepare them for an exaltation in the celestial kingdom of God. And what becomes of those who choose the other path? They are still God’s children, and He feels interested in them. What will He do with them? They will be judged according to the deeds done in the body, and according to the light and intelligence which God communicates to them. Then there is another glory, a telestial glory. Those who enter into that glory will also be judged according to their deeds and be rewarded according to their acts. We are told of others who will suffer the wrath of God, and in the revelations given to us we learn that eternal punishment is God’s punishment, that everlasting punishment is God’s punishment, for He is eternal, and He is everlasting. We are informed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah suffered the vengeance of eternal fire. We are told, too, that the inhabitants of the antediluvian world, who were destroyed because of their wickedness, were shut up in prison and they remained there for a long, long time. How long? We read that Jesus, who was put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, went and preached to the spirits in prison which were sometime disobedient when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah. How long had these people been there? At a rough guess about 2,400 years. It was quite a painful ordeal to go through. It is one that none of us would like very much. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God—a fearful thing to violate His laws. We have gathered here that we may learn those laws, the laws of God, the laws of life, and prepare ourselves under His guidance for an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom of God. But are all the Latter-day Saints going into that kingdom? No. How is that? It is just as Jesus declared. “It is not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, that will enter into the Kingdom of God; but he that doeth the will of the Father who is in heaven.” Did Jesus come to do the will of His Father in heaven? He did, and He expects all who aim at Celestial glory to do the same, and if they do not they will not get there. He says, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” And He will say unto them, “Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity, I know you not, you have not lived as becometh Saints.” Oh, say some, that don’t mean the Saints. No, it don’t, but it means many who profess to be Saints. Do the world profess to cast out devils, to heal the sick and to do many mighty works? They do not. Do the world prophesy in His name? No. Do the world preach in the name of God? They preach in His name, many of them, without having the authority, as we have heard at this conference; but they do not propose to do many mighty works in His name, but many of our Elders do—Elders who magnify their calling and honor their God. On the other hand there are Elders who are careless, wayward and rebellious against God and His laws—who seek to trample under foot the principles that He has revealed—who seek to set themselves up to guide, direct, and manipulate the affairs of the Church and Kingdom of God, and yet these same persons know nothing but what they know naturally, as do the brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed; and we none of us know anything only as God instructs us. We are indebted to Him for the introduction of this work, and for all the information pertaining thereto. It has been from no man nor set of men, nor organizations of a professed spiritual or temporal nature, that we have received intelligence pertaining to the things of God, the Church of God, or the Kingdom of God. It has come directly from the Lord, through the Gospel of the Son of God, which brings life and immortality to light; and if men think—and we every once in a while meet with such characters—they know better than the Lord how to manipulate affairs they will find out their mistake. The Lord will say to them, “Depart from me, I never knew you: for it is not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, that shall enter into the Kingdom of God; but He that doeth the will of our Father in Heaven.”

Hence there is a great work for us to do. There is something comprehensive in it. It is indeed the dis– pensation of the fullness of times spoken of by all the holy prophets since the world was. It relates to the interests of men that now live: it relates to the interests of men who have lived, and it relates to things that are yet in the future. It is a thing in which the Gods in the eternal worlds are interested, and all the ancient Patriarchs and Prophets that have lived upon the earth are all interested in the work in which we are engaged. There is a Priesthood in the heavens, and we have the same Priesthood on the earth, but there should be a closer communion between the Priesthood on the earth and the Priesthood in the heavens; it is desirable that we should be brought into closer proximity, we want to be advancing as Enoch advanced. After the appearance of Jesus upon the earth, there was to be a certain power who would make war with the Saints and prevail against them; and it is said, “they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time:” (Daniel vii, 25) but in this day we are told that “the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever,” (verse 18). You and I may violate our covenants; you and I may trample upon the principles of the Gospel, and violate the order of the Priesthood and the commands of God; but among the hosts of Israel there will be thousands and tens of thousands who will be true to the principles of truth, and God in the heavens, the holy angels and the ancient Priesthood that now live where God lives are all united together, for the accomplishment of this purpose. The Lord will roll forth His purposes in His own way and is His own time. And having thus organized, as I before stated, it is not for us to act as we may think individually, but as God shall dictate. We have a regular order in the Church. You brethren, who hold the holy Priesthood, understand these things. Has God not given to every man a portion of His Spirit to profit withal? Yes. Has He not done more than this to the saints who are true and faithful? Has He not given to them the gift of the Holy Ghost? He has, and they know it and realize it. They are brought into communion with each other, and into communion with God and the heavenly hosts. But having this Spirit do we need others to guide us? Yes, all the time. Why? Because of the powers of darkness, the influence of Satan and the weakness of human nature. We need watchmen upon the towers of Zion, who are on the alert to look after the interests of Israel, and see that God’s people do not go astray. Hence it becomes the duty of the Teachers to look after the people, to see that there is no hard feeling, no covetousness, no fraud, no adultery, no iniquity of any kind; but that purity, holiness and righteousness prevail among those that they preside over. And how far does this extend? To every place where there is a ward or a portion of a ward—to the utmost extremity. It may be compared unto the body—from the head to the feet, from the toes to the fingers, and to every other part. All the officers necessary for the work of the ministry are to be found in the Church, and everything has been organized according to the order of God. Are any of these men who are called to presiding positions autocrats—men who exercise undue authority over the feelings and associations of their fellow man? No. Have any of them the right to disregard the feelings of their breth– ren, trample them under foot, and act as tyrants? No. Have the Apostles, or High Priests, or Seventies, or Elders, any such right? No. Brother Cannon will read an extract from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, on this question.

President George Q. Cannon then read as follows from Section 121, of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants—

“Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen?

“Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson—

“That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principle of righteousness.

“That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.

“Behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks, to persecute the saints, and to fight against God.

“We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.

“Hence many are called, but few are chosen.

“No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;

“By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—

“Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;

“That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.

“Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.

“The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.”

President Taylor continuing his remarks said: We have many specimens of the characters referred to in this revelation read by Brother Cannon. These things continue to exist more or less. Some people are very desirous sometimes to instruct me about how I ought to manipulate and manage affairs. Well, if they were set as my instructors I should be much pleased to get all the information I could from them, and I would be pleased to get information from the humblest person in existence—if it was information. Among other things I find that a good many begin to think that we are very much persecuted and proscribed in our marital relations, according to the revelations which God has given us, and there is sometimes a little trembling in the knees. I am pleased there is not much of it, but there is a little once in a while. Sometimes I get advice from outsiders, from the newspapers, etc., and sometimes from some of our brethren (but from very few of our brethren), in relation to these matters.

God has given us a revelation in regard to celestial marriage. I did not make it. He has told us certain things pertaining to this matter, and they would like us to tone that principle down and change it and make it applicable to the views of the day. This we cannot do; nor can we interfere with any of the commands of God to meet the persuasions or behests of men. I cannot do it, and will not do it.

I find some men try to twist round the principle in any way and every way they can. They want to sneak out of it in some way. Now God don’t want any kind of sycophancy like that. He expects that we will be true to Him, and to the principles He has developed, and to feel as Job did—“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” Though other folks would slay us, yet we will trust in the living God and be true to our covenants and to our God. These are my feelings in relation to that matter. We have also been told that “it is not mete that men who will not abide my law shall preside over my Priesthood,” and yet some people would like very much to do it. Well, they cannot do it; because if we are here, as I said before, to do the will of our Father who sent us, and He has told us what to do, we will do it, in the name of Israel’s God—and all who sanction it say Amen—[the vast congregation responded with a loud “Amen.“]—and those that don’t may say what they please. [Laughter.] If God has introduced something for our glory and exaltation, we are not going to have that kicked over by any improper influence, either inside or outside of the Church of the living God. We will stand by the principles of eternal truth; living we will proclaim them, and dying we will be true to them, and after death will live again in their enjoyment in the eternal worlds. That is my feeling; so I don’t feel very trembly in the knees, and I do not think you do, generally. I see sometimes a disposition to try to ignore some of the laws which God has introduced, and this is one of them. People want to slip round a corner, or creep out in some way. There is something very creepy about it. There was a man in former times we are told, came to Jesus by night. His name was Nicodemus. He was one of those persons who did not like the daylight. I have known some people who would want to be baptized in the evening, or get into some corner that they might not be seen. Well, there is not much to such folks. Jesus was very unpopular, quite as unpopular as we are, in His day. Nicodemus was a prominent man among the Jews, and he thought it might injure his reputation if he was seen visiting that Nazarene, to get instruction from Him, so he crawled in at night. Jesus talked quite plainly to him, as you can read for yourselves; but we find some folks of a similar kind now creeping around. They have not the manhood to stand true to their colors and to their God. Some folks think that we polygamists are very much indebted to our brethren who are monogamists to help to steady the ark (God save the mark!)—(Laughter.)—to help to save us, and that we need such men in the Legislature, etc., and to fill our various offices. Well, I won’t tell you all I think about some of these things, but I do think we are all of us dependent upon God our Heavenly Father, and if He don’t take care of us we shall not be taken care of; if His arm is not extended in our behalf we shall have a poor showing; but if God is with us, we ask no odds of the world, for He governs the destinies of the human family. He puts down one man and exalts another. He dethrones one king or president as the case may be, and sets up another, and He rules as He pleases among the nations of the earth and all the children of men, although they don’t know it. We live in Him, we move in Him, we have our being from Him. We are not dependent very much upon the monogamists about any of these things. You need not plume yourselves very much in these matters; and I will tell you, if you want to get along smoothly, you had better find among your various neighbors, when you have some matter of difficulty to settle, some of these polygamists and ask a little counsel at their hands. They will be able to advise you about many things, especially if they are men of God, humble men, living their religion and keeping the commandments of God.

There are some few things I have been reflecting about, and have noted them down, and I think I shall read them now.

The distinction being made between Polygamy and Prostitution:

1st. Congress made a law which would affect both; and cohabitation with more than one woman was made a crime whether in polygamy or out of polygamy.

2nd. The Governor turned legislator, added to this law, and inserted in a test oath to officials, the following words regarding cohabitation, “in the marriage relation;” thus plainly and definitely sanctioning prostitution, without any law of the United States, or any authority.

3rd. The United States Commissioners, also, without legislation, adopted the action of the Governor, and still insisted on this interpolation, in the test oath in election matters, and placed all polygamists under this unconstitutional oath, and released prostitutes and their paramours from the obligations placed upon others.

4th. The Prosecuting Attorney has sanctioned these things, and pursued a similar course; and while he has asked all the “Mormon” jurors certain questions pertaining to their religious faith in the doctrines of the “Mormon” Church, and challenged them if they answered affirmatively as to their belief in polygamy, he has declined to ask other jurors whether they believed in prostitution, or whether they believed in cohabiting with more than one woman or not.

5th. Chief Justice Zane when appealed to on this question refused to interfere, or give any other ruling, and thus aided in packing the jury.

Thus a law was first passed by Congress, which has been perverted by the administration, by all its officers who have officiated in this Territory, and made to subserve the interests of a party who have placed in their political platform an Anti-Mormon plank; and have clearly proven that there is a combination in all the officers of State, officiating in this Territory, to back up this political intrigue in the interest of party, and at the sacrifice of law, equity, jurisprudence and all the safeguards that are provided by the Constitution for the protection of human rights.

These (continued President Taylor) are some points that are of considerable importance. Similar things have been exhibited in former times—an animus, a united operation against justice, equity and law, and, in our case, against the Constitution of the United States, and the rights and privileges and immunities of the Latter-day Saints. A law was framed professedly in the interest of purity and virtue. When it got here it was perverted and made to subserve the interest of prostitution and prostitutes; and the lowest class of men, who violate their marital relations, and trample under foot all principles of virtue and integrity, can go on our juries, can vote at the polls, through the intrigues of corrupt men; and they thus try to shackle a free people, bring them into bondage, and make slaves of them, unless they will bow to their infernal behests, and in the name of Israel’s God we will not do it. [The congregation responded with a loud “Amen.“] We are not going to elevate prostitutes and men who violate their marital relations above men and women who are virtuous, honorable and upright. These are my feelings, and I am not afraid to proclaim them to the world. So much for these things.

Do we want a class of men along with us that will submit to these kind of things, and are we to share in this hypocrisy, this infamy and degradation? What mean these dens in our city that are introduced by our Christian friends—dens of infamy, dens of prostitution, gam– bling holes, houses of assignation, dramshops, etc.? They are to cater to the virtuous (?) feelings of these honorable, high-minded, pure reformers that have come among us—(Laughter)—or what are they for? They are sanctioned, I am ashamed to say by the officers of government, and protected in their libidinous and degrading pursuits. How was it some time ago when the Edmunds law was first introduced? A son of Mayor Little was one of the election registrars. His father some years ago had had two wives—I am sorry to say he has not got them now, they are dead—and because some years before any law of this kind was in operation in the United States he had practiced plural marriage, his son was obliged to tell his father that he could not register. Shortly afterwards a notorious courtesan known as Kate Flint, with some of the inmates of her bagnio, drove up and requested to be registered. “Why, of course.” And this same gentleman that could not register his honorable father, who had never violated any law of the United States, had to endure the mortification of taking the names of these others and placing them on the list as respectable voters in our midst! About this time another non-Mormon came along to one of the other registration officers, and on partly reading the oath—this test oath that had been prescribed—said, “I am afraid I can’t take that!” “Why can’t you take it?” Well, he was an honest man among the Gentiles; he did not like to foreswear himself; so he said, “I have a wife, and then I keep a mistress.” “Oh, well,” says the man, “read on a little further.” He read on until he came to the words, “in the marriage relation.” “Oh, well, yes, I can take that,” he said, and registered. These are facts that are stuck before our noses here in the City of Salt Lake by the officials sent among us, and who are instructed particularly to look after our morals.

So much, then, for such affairs. Now, do we want affiliation or association with such practices and principles as these? God forbid. And we want no falterers in our ranks. What shall we do? Live our religion, be true to our covenants, and keep the commandments of God.

What shall the Presidents of Stakes do? Look after our Stakes, and if you find adulterers or adulteresses among you, don’t permit them to go into the temples of God; for we won’t have such people; they cannot be sanctioned by us, nor have our fellowship. We will not have them; the world may take the strumpets; they may wallow in their filth, but we will not have our holy places polluted by people calling themselves Latter-day Saints, who indulge in these abominable practices; we will not have them; and anybody who permits them to go into these holy places will have to be responsible for it. Many Bishops do it, they will be held responsible. Therefore, be careful, you Presidents of Stakes and you Bishops, how you act, and look well after your people, for be it understood that before our Lord Jesus Christ shall come, “Tighteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps.” (Psalms lxxxv, 13.) We are preparing ourselves to build up a Zion of God, and these people, whoremasters and whores, liars and hypocrites, will never get into the city of the living God, they will be found outside the gates.

Now, have I any ill feelings towards these people that persecute and proscribe us? No. I would do them good for evil, give blessings for curses; I would treat them well, treat them honorably. Let us be men of truth, honor and integrity; men that will swear to our own hurt and change not; men whose word will be our everlasting bond. If you see men hungry, feed them, no matter who they are: white, black, or red, Jew, Gentile or Mormon, or anybody else—feed them. If you see men naked, clothe them. If you see men sick, administer to them, and learn to be kind to all men; but partake not of their evil practices. “O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united.” We are trying to raise up a people that shall be men of God, men of truth, men of integrity, men of virtue, men who will be fit to associate with the Gods in the eternal worlds.

We are accused of being corrupt, degraded, low and debauched. Who by? By people, as I will show who are ten times as degraded, ten times as debauched, ten times as low and guilty of ten-fold more crime than we are. These are our professed reformers. I speak of these things therefore in our defense, and were we not accused by men void of honor and principle, I never would broach such a subject; for, I do not delight to dwell on the infamies, the corruptions and abominations of the world. I would rather speak of their good qualities and honorable principles, and I am thankful to say that there are thousands and tens of thousands and millions in these United States and in other nations who look with contempt upon all the chicanery, deception and fraud, whether of a moral, social, political, legislative, or judicial character; thousands and millions of men; I see many of them, very many of them, who pass through here, men of note, of position in society from the United States, and from the different nations who call upon me from time to time, and express their sentiments pertaining to these matters. In order to sustain what I say, I will have Brother Cannon read over some statistics in regard to crime. We are, as I have said, represented as a very bad people, and I want to show a comparison between us and our reformers, or those that profess to be our reformers in relation to these matters.

President Cannon then read the following, being the criminal statistics for the year 1883.

“The population of Utah may be estimated at 160,000 in 1883.

“Of these say 130,000 were Mormons, and 30,000 Gentiles, a very liberal estimate of the latter.

“In this year there were 46 persons sent to the Penitentiary convicted of crime. Of these 33 were non-Mormons, and 13 reputed Mormons.

“At the above estimate of population the ratio or percentage would be one prisoner to every 10,000 Mormons, or one hundredth of one per cent, and of the Gentiles one convict in every 909, or about one ninth of one percent. So that the actual proportion of criminals is more than ten times greater among the Gentiles of Utah, with the above very liberal estimate, than among the Mormons.

“It is urged that these non-Mormon prisoners are not a fair representation of the average of crime throughout the country, but are the result of the flow of the desperate classes westward to the borders of civilization; with greater truth we reply that the Mormon prisoners are not representatives of Mormonism, nor the results of Mormonism, but of the consequences of a departure from Mormon principles; and of the 13 prisoners classed as “Mormons,” the greater portion were only so by family connection or association:

Arrests in Salt Lake City, 1883: Mormons, 150 Non-Mormons, 1,559 or more than ten times the number of Mormon arrests.

“Again, it is estimated that there are 6,000 non-Mormons, and 19,000 Mormons in Salt Lake City, which shows of Mormons one arrest in 126 2/3.

“Non-Mormons one arrest in a fraction less than every four, or rather more than twenty-five percent.”

As I have said before (continued President Taylor), if we were not on the defensive in this case, I would say nothing about these things; but it ill becomes men who have got ten criminals to our one to come here as our reformers, and try to disfranchise men who are ten times as good as they are. These are facts that are not of my getting up.

They come from the public records and can be verified by the prison and other statistics. And the question is, how much of that rule do we want here?

The questionable honor is reserved to these advocates of “advanced high moral ideas” to trample upon all judicial precedents. It was not enough that an insignificant minority should have more than an equal showing with the majority, being equal in numbers in the drawing to make up a venire. It was not enough that every Mormon was questioned as to his religious faith, and that no Gentile was. It was not enough that all “Mormons” were excluded from this so-called “impartial grand jury,” and that their avowed enemies were to be their judges. It is not enough that our people must be tried by men whose average record shows them to be ten times their inferiors as law abiding citizens; but not having enough men to pack this “impartial grand jury” according to the provisions of law, under the guise of virtue, and in the name of morality and justice, edicts are issued to the officers to go into the purlieus of the city and gather up ad libitum from among the guttersnipes creatures to form “a jury of the peers” of the accused with which to persecute and prosecute honorable men and women.

These are things we object to, and I wish our brethren and sisters to be informed in regard to these matters, that they may have a correct estimate of the position that we occupy pertaining thereto. We cannot respect and esteem such operations, and while we are desirous to place ourselves in conformity with all law, all order and all correct principle, yet we despise in our hearts this chicanery, hypocrisy, fraud and deception. But do we expect to see such things? Yes. Are we surprised at it? No. Why? Because we have been told over and over again, and the Elders have preached over and over again, and the Prophets have prophesied of it over and over again, that the world will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. Who is it that embarks in these things? It is the corrupt, the ungodly, the debauchee, the adulterer, the liar, the men who violate every principle of honor, truth and integrity, and who are enemies to this nation, and the same class of people are enemies to any nation. They are laying the axe at the root of the tree of liberty, and trying to overturn the freedom of man, and to place free men in bondage, a thing no honorable man would con– descend to for a moment. And there are many in this city who despise these things as they do the gates of hell, who are not associated with us in a religious capacity, many honorable men who have feelings of this kind, and then there are tens of thousands in the United States who possess the same feelings and the same abhorrence of this corruption, degradation and infamy that is sought to be palmed upon us. But while we can estimate these things at their worth, we can also estimate the actions of honorable men who are not of us at their true worth. Because a man is not a believer in our doctrines, that is no reason why he should not be an honorable man, for there are thousands and millions of them: it would be a pity if they were in the same condition as the others. But we as a people have to defend ourselves against the aggressions of an unscrupulous enemy who is instigated by the power of the adversary to overturn and destroy the truth today as he has done in other ages, in other nations and among other peoples. Therefore it becomes us to look well after our affairs, and protect ourselves as best we may from the calumnies, the reproach, and the infamies that are sought to be foisted upon us by an ungodly, hypocritical and corrupt people.

Now, having got through with this, I want to refer to something else. It has been stated that the reason why we have so many of these criminals is because that the scum of society from the eastern States floats out here, and that therefore a rough, uncouth, lawless class finds its way into this community. Now, I want something read to you about some of these so called virtuous people in the east.

President Cannon again read as follows:

Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell, has declared in a paper read before a late meeting of the American Social Science Association, that “nowhere in the history of the world was the practice of abortion so common as in this country; and he gave expression to the opinion that, in New England alone, many thousands of abortions are procured annually.”

Dr. Reamy, of the Ohio State Medical Society, says: “From a very large verbal and written correspondence in this and other States, together with personal investigation and facts accumulated * * that we have become a nation of murderers.”

The Rev. Dr. Eddy writes to the Christian Advocate regarding one little village of 1,000 inhabitants: “Yet here, and elsewhere, 15 per cent of wives have the criminal hardihood to practice this black art, there is a still large and additional percent who endorse and defend it. * * Among married persons, so extensive has this practice become, that people of high repute not only commit this crime, but do not shun to speak boastingly among their intimates of the deed and the means of accomplishing it.”

Dr. Allen further states: “Examining the number of deaths, we find that there are absolutely more deaths than births among the strictly American children, so that aside from immigration and births of children of foreign parentage, the population of Massachusetts is rapidly decreasing. * * The birth rate in the State of New York, shows the same fact, that American families do not increase at all, and inspection of the registration in other States shows the same remark applies to all.”

Bishop Coxe, of the Protestant Episcopal Church of New York, in a pastoral letter to his people, writes: “I have heretofore warned my flock against the blood guiltiness of antenatal infanticide. If any doubts existed heretofore as to the propriety of my warnings on this subject, they must now disappear before the fact that the world itself is beginning to be horrified by the practical results of the sacrifices to Moloch which defile our land. Again I warn you that they who do such things cannot inherit eternal life. If there be a special damnation for those who shed innocent blood, what must be the portion of those who have no mercy upon their own flesh.”

Dr. Cowan, M. D., writing on what he styles “the Murder of the Unborn,” says: “That this crime is not only widespread on this great continent, but is rapidly on the increase, we have the testimony of physicians, whose investigations have been thorough, and whose social standing and sincerity cannot be questioned.”

President Taylor continuing said: These are the people that are coming here to reform us, and are so disgusted with our corruptions. Yet I am pleased to find that there are, once in a while, men who have the courage to speak against these damning evils. Bishop Coxe, of the Episcopal Church, is one of these men, and I honor such men whenever I hear of them, and should be glad at all times to extend to them all courtesies possible. Dr. Allen and Dr. Reamy are inspired, it seems, by the same detestation of these hellish, these fiendish, these outrageous acts. Yet from these people come our reformers, who are so horrified at the evils they see in Utah. But fortunately, the bed is too short, they cannot stretch themselves on it; and the covering is too narrow and too contracted, it will not cover them, and their evils and abominations crop out on every side, and they become their own accusers.

It is their own statements that I have had read to you this morning. I am sorry to know that these things are as they are; but these are facts, and we do not feel very much honored with the association of such people. We do feel honored always to associate with honorable men and women; but with the seducer, with harlots, with thieves, with murderers of the innocents, no! never! no never! We want no association with them. As it is stated here by one of these reverend gentlemen in the East, speaking of these things, no murderer hath eternal life in him, nor no murderesses have eternal life in them.

I have had these things read to you for two reasons: First, to show the corruption that exists among these so-called virtuous people, honorable people, pure people, who are so shocked at the atrocities that take place in Utah. Another reason is that I want to warn our brethren and sisters against these infamies, and against permitting these filthy wretches to come into their houses. They are too low, too debased, too corrupt; and I speak of it because I know what I am talking about; there are some of these people crawling around us like so many vipers, and insinuating their hellish, murderous practices into the families of some who call themselves Latter-day Saints. Woe! to such Saints. You cannot have a place among us. No woman murderer, no man murderer can have a place among the Latter-day Saints, and I speak of it that the Presidents of Stakes and the Bishops may be apprised of these things. And some of these people would try to pass by the Bishops, and then by the Presidents of Stakes, and then by the President of the Church, and crawl with all their slime and damnable hypocrisy into the Temples of the living God. They may pass by these, but they will have to pass by the angels and the Gods, before they get through, and they will never inherit the Kingdom of God. Hear it you sisters! Hear it you brethren! Hear it you Bishops, and you Presidents of Stakes! Watch well and know well what you are doing, when you sign recommends for doubtful characters to go into these holy places. We do not want them there. It is not their place, and you will have to account for your acts if you permit these things knowingly. It is necessary that you should be particular about these matters, for you will have to answer for your doings as I have for mine. We cannot, because of relationship, because somebody is a cousin, or an uncle, or an aunt, or a brother, or a sister, or a son or a daughter, or a father or a mother—we cannot ad– mit and will not admit them to any of these holy places unless they are worthy. I call upon you if you know of adulterers or adulteresses, or people that practice these unnatural infamies, to sever them from the Church; they shall not have a place in the Church and Kingdom of God. Mr. Murray here, and others, may make laws and test oaths, with provisions in them to screen the adulterer, the whoremonger, and the seducer; but we will tear that away from our people, and all such shall have no place with Israel, and all who are in favor of it, signify it by saying “Aye.” [The congregation responded with a loud “Aye.“] These are our feelings, and it is some of these things which has led me to talk as plainly as I have done in regard to some of these other matters. I wanted to present the contrast so plainly before you that he that runneth might read. Enough of this, however, for the present: Handle it carefully. Deal with it gently, Speak of it tenderly, Poor Justice is blind.

Discourse by Apostle F. D. Richards, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, October 5th, 1884.

I will read a few verses contained in the 68th section of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, a book of revelation and commandment, which the Lord has given unto us in this last dispensation, for our guidance:

“And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.

“For this shall be a law unto the inhabitants of Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized.

“And their children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of hands.

“And they shall also teach their children to pray and to walk uprightly before the Lord.

“And the inhabitants of Zion shall also observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

“And the inhabitants of Zion also shall remember their labors, inasmuch as they are appointed to labor, in all faithfulness; for the idler shall be had in remembrance before the Lord.

“Now, I, the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them; and their children are also growing up in wickedness; they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness.”

I will also read from the 29th section of the same book:

“But behold, I say unto you, that little children are redeemed from the foundation of the world through mine Only Begotten;

“Wherefore, they cannot sin, for power is not given unto Satan to tempt little children, until they begin to be accountable before me;

“For it is given unto them even as I will, according to mine own pleasure, that great things may be required at the hand of their fathers.”

Referring to our little children, who are becoming, numerically, a mighty host among us, I wish to make a few remarks this morning, the subject seeming to impress itself on my mind somewhat. A consideration of the associations of our young men and young women, reminds us that before they become young men and young women, in the common acception of the term, they are younger men and younger women; and while infant children are in a dependent and somewhat helpless condition. As the tall oaks from little acorns grow, and as mighty rivers are made up from small streamlets and springs that come from hidden sources in the mountains, so is the increase of God’s people by reason of their little children that are growing—increasing in number and multiplying continually in the land. In early days our increase used to be made up, in a great measure, by emigrants from foreign nations. The past few years our emigration has attained to some three or four thousand, annually, from the various countries in which missions are established, while it has increased many times that number from the great and glorious presence of God our Father, who sends the spirits to this world to dwell. Hence it becomes the great source of our supply, of our increase, and I am sure you will join with me, many of you, this morning in realizing that we have not, in many instances, given a sufficient and proper consideration for our little children that have been committed unto us, when we realize the importance, the eternal consequences that are made to flow from the beginning of their tuition and education here in this mortal life.

Many of this people, who have lived faithful to their professions, know more today of God and His purposes, than they did fifty years ago. We learn by experience as well as by precept, from the Lord, and as in the light of our experience we have obtained observation and got knowledge, we should not only profit by it ourselves, but as Elders in Israel we should endeavor to benefit and improve each other by our experiences, so that we may increase in understanding before the Lord in all our relations to Him and to each other.

Now, concerning little children, there is too much of an inclination with many—particularly in the world, but this feeling is growing much less among the Saints—to treat their children with indifference, to put them off, and to think that a very little of anything will do them very well. Children are apt to be waited on even at the table after the feasted and friends are all served.

I will not stop to dilate upon this particular feature of my subject, but will turn to a more pleasing one. Our Savior while here in the flesh, perceiving the people thought that children were of less importance than grown persons, was much displeased and said: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.” Who, I ask, among my hearers this morning has been attending the Sunday School and listened to their recitations that has not felt their hearts warmed within them at hearing the early germinations of intelligence made manifest and apparent while they have been reciting the Scriptures, the revelations and maxims from the cards that are now in use in the Sabbath Schools? Who has listened to their songs, so sweet and melodious, without feeling that the very blessing of the Lord was there, that it was delightful and lovely to be in their midst? Who has gone into the little associations of the Primaries, now held so regularly, among us, and heard them answer their questions, from perhaps the youngest that were able to speak distinctly and articulate so as to be heard—heard them answer the questions put by their teachers concerning the kind of knowledge they are expected to obtain and are obtaining—who among us have attended these associations and listened to those little ones, without feeling the fragrance of heaven shed abroad upon their souls and being sensible that there is to be found in them a beauty of innocence, of sweetness and purity that we cannot expect in the hearts of a concourse of grown people? Jesus said of them: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” He might also have said, “their angels, their spirits had always dwelt in the presence of God, or before the face of my Father which is in heaven.” Learn this, mothers, when you sorrowfully lay away your little ones—learn this: their spirits do always dwell before the face of their Father who is in heaven, and let your hearts be comforted, no sin has contaminated their souls, no spot of contamination has tarnished their young and tender consciences. There is purity, the purity of the pure here on earth. What has the Lord said, “That little children are redeemed from the foundation of the world through mine Only Begotten; Wherefore, they cannot sin, for power is not given unto Satan to tempt little children, until they begin to become accountable before me; For it is given unto them even as I will, according to mine own pleasure, that great things may be required at the hand of their fathers.”

When He was here upon this continent, our risen Redeemer taught the Nephites, and blessed their children in multitudes.

So powerfully was the Holy Ghost poured out upon them that they spake with tongues. Infants that had no learning at all, declared forth His praise in such glorious, exalted terms, that the brethren present could not write them. Such was the blessing and favor of heaven, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, shed abroad upon the innocent portion of humanity that was permitted to stand in His presence.

Then, seeing that the heavens are so pleased with them, ought not we to understand and entertain a higher estimate of their value, of their heavenly worth, and of their eternal importance, especially when we consider that from these small children that mothers are nursing upon their laps will by and by have grown up Prophets, Seers and Revelators, Judges in Israel, men of God standing forth upon the earth declaring His counsels, building up His Kingdom in all righteousness, and in the power of God. Remember then, that as the twig is bent the tree will be inclined.

Let me call your attention to a particular feature in the matter of children and their early condition. In the revelation which I have read to you, the Lord says: “Power is not given unto Satan to tempt little children, until they begin to become accountable before me.” Did you notice this when I read it? Let me ask how many of those present have taken this great truth into serious consideration, to consciously sense this great heavenly indemnity of a few years’ growth to each of our infant children in which Satan has no power to tempt their innocent souls; that whatsoever the examples placed before them, whatsoever their early inclinations by reason of erroneous teachings, yet until they are made accountable Satan has no power to tempt them, and they are still innocent before the Lord, until they come to the years of accountability when they should be instructed and prepared to be baptized into the Church, and become members of it.

People of other religious denominations tell us that if we will give them the education of our children for a certain number of years, they will wrest them from us, turn them loose upon the world, cause them to depart from the faith of their fathers and despise their parentage, seeing this is the design of our enemies, and they are conscious of being able and are endeavoring to do this with our children, ought we not to sense more deeply the value of that same consideration—yes, but in a thousandfold greater degree—we ought to see to it that the faith of our children is preserved sound, healthy, and kept growing in their bosoms. How important, then, that we teach and educate our children during the first eight years of their lives, so that when they attain to that age they may be admitted into the Church by baptism, and receive the laying on of the hands of the Elders for the reception of the Holy Ghost, then they will have the aid of that heavenly monitor that will assist the formation of their growing judgments.

Let us consider this matter more carefully than we have done. Let us see that while there is a suspension of the wrath—if we may so say—of Satan, that he has not power to tempt our children who have been born under the covenant—let us see that we attend to them, and let us give an assiduity to the business of teaching and preparing their young and tender minds, that we have never given before.

What is the great object and purpose of this life while we are here upon the earth? What one thing, if possible, is more important than another? It is this: that as our children come to us innocent—for the revelation tells us that all men are innocent when they are born into the world, and have these early years of indemnity from the power of the tempter to tempt them to sin—let us go to and make a better use than we have done of the opportunities we enjoy. Let us instill faith into the tender hearts of our children, faith towards God, obedience to their parents, obedience to the authorities of the Church, that when they come to years of accountability, they may take hold for themselves, with a hearty, strong and loving relish for the principles of the Gospel of divine truth. Let us endeavor to realize the importance of this matter. And what is that other thing we want to preserve to them? It is this: as they come to this life innocent, if men and women can be taken through this life innocent, and sin not before the Lord, and receive of His Spirit and walk in the light of it, so that while passing through this state of probation they shall have maintained a condition of innocence through the blessing of the everlasting Gospel, they will have accomplished a wonderful thing—the great object and purpose of their mortal lives. This is the great thing to be sought for—to preserve that innocence with which our children are born, and in which they are permitted to live a few years, at any rate, free from the power of Satan. It seems to me that if we contemplate this matter in the light of revelation, we ought to see its importance. The Lord has given to us the privilege of being united in the holy marriage covenant for time and eternity. We look forward to inheriting the blessings of the kingdom of God with our children, and that to their increase there shall be no end. This was the Gospel that was preached to Father Abraham—that he and his children and his generation should become as the stars in the heavens for multitude, and like the sands on the seashore that cannot be counted. We look for blessing, dominion, exaltation and glory in the eternal worlds, through similar means.

Now, then, my brethren and sisters, I wish to ask a question at this stage of my discourse. Realizing something of the value which the heavens set upon the children; remembering that the Prophet Joseph Smith himself taught and left on record in his history that little children who depart this life before they come to the years of accountability go back to the presence of God; that many children were of so excellent a spirit that God, in His grace and mercy, took them away from the adverse conditions of this life, that they might not be required to suffer as many others had to; this being their position before the heavens, what are we to think of parents, who, having these principles before them, turn their children over to our avowed enemies to be educated, knowing that their policy is to break down “Mormonism,” especially the authority of the Priesthood to counsel, direct and govern the people. I say, what are we to think of such parents? How can those people do such things and be justified in the sight of God? It seems to me they must be consummately ignorant or consummately wicked to do such a thing. I should think it right that such be refused certain privileges of the Gospel, until they had a better idea in regard to these things. I do not see how they can themselves feel that they have a right to open up to further intelligence, or to have further blessings bestowed upon them. If people are so insensible to and so ungrateful for blessings already conferred, how can they expect more? Oh, that such people would turn round and understand the foolishness and sinfulness of their course, for if they do not repent, their action will bring sorrow and affliction, until their gray hairs will come with sorrow to their graves.

It appears in contemplating this subject—more especially since the great work of the Sunday schools has been going on in our midst, since the vast labor of the mutual improvement associations has been inaugurated among our young men and young women—that there is a stupendous work before us, that our children, while they are on our laps, and while prattling in and about our homes, developing the first germinations of intelligence—that then is the time to instill the first ideas of faith towards God and His work, into their young and tender minds. The wicked world are endeavoring to wean away our children by their arts, their publications, and by the blandishments of falsely so-called “superior civilization.” They would like to draw away the young and rising generation of Israel. They have learned that we, their parents, have the principles of the Gospel established in us, and that we are not easily moved, unless we fall into transgression. They find that their purpose of building up their churches by conversions from amongst our people is futile and hopeless. They find that the Gospel of eternal truth is established in the hearts of this people; that we have received something which satisfies the human mind, a something which they have not got to offer. They find that they cannot furnish the human mind with the satisfying influence and effects which are afforded by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Great and abundant are the blessings that are promised unto those who seek unto the Lord in the days of their youth. They who seek Him early shall find Him, and from such He will not turn away. It was anciently a divine injunction with promise to the youth of Israel, that they were to reverence and obey their fathers and their mothers, that their days might be long in the land which the Lord their God gave to them; and this promise—renewed to our children with the same conditions now—should be esteemed and regarded with equal or greater deference to that anciently bestowed. * * * *

Praying always that the understanding of the Lord may be given unto us that we may know and do His Holy will, in the name of Christ our Lord, Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, October 5th, (Semi-Annual Conference) 1884.

I will read a portion of the 29th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, commencing at the 7th verse:

“And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision.

“It shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion.

“Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

“For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.

“And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:

“And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

“Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:

“Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.”

There is much more in this chapter which I will not read, but which all can read at their leisure. In sitting and looking at the congregation these words have come to my mind:

“Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.”

Truly have these words been fulfilled in our eyes and in our hearing. God our Eternal Father predicted by the mouth of His Prophet Isaiah, concerning the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and the manner in which it should be received; and we today are living witnesses of the fulfillment of these things. God our Eternal Father has done and is doing a marvelous work and a wonder in the midst of the inhabitants of the earth. He is causing the wisdom of the wise to perish—He has caused it—and He is bringing to naught the understanding of the prudent, especially those who fight against Mount Zion, or against the covenant people of God. The manner in which our Father and our God has spoken concerning the great work of the last days with which we are identified, is very remarkable. When we examine the prediction of the holy prophets, it is wonderful how plainly everything connected with this work, so far, has been fulfilled; and as we have been told this morning—and we are told whenever the Spirit of God rests down upon the Elders of this Church to speak concerning the future—we have the strongest assurance that can be given by God to any people that as that which has been predicted in the past has been completely fulfilled up to the present time, so all the predictions which have been made connected with this work, or concerning it, will also be fulfilled to the very letter; not one word will fail, not one iota of the word of God concerning Zion will fall to the ground unfulfilled.

This work commenced, as we know, in obscurity, in weakness, with no particular demonstration in the sight of the world. A few individuals only knew concerning it. There were no remarkable manifestations for the world to gaze upon, for the world to wonder at, connected with its birth. It was born according to the will of God. The Church started out a good deal like we have started out—helpless. What is there more helpless, weak, puny, insignificant, it may be said, in many respects, than a human being when it is born into the world. Yet that being if nurtured properly, if trained as it should be, has before it a career of never-ending glory. That little puling infant may become, in the eternity of our God, a God, to sway power and dominion in the eternal worlds, to be the father of unnumbered millions. Yet at its birth who would anticipate such a future for it. So it was with the Church of our God. Born in weakness, cradled in obscurity, it came forth according to the command of God; not attended, as I have said, by any great demonstration that the world could gaze and wonder at, but attended by the blessing, the power and the promises of our Eternal Father concerning its future. It required faith on the part of those who then received it to believe that such a glorious career as was predicted concerning it, awaited it. No human being unenlightened and uninspired by the Spirit of God, could have anticipated such a future for this great work; and yet in these early days, when it was in this condition which I have attempted to describe, the Prophet Joseph and those who received revelations with him, looked forward to its future, and saw that which we behold today in actual reality; they saw in vision that which we participate in today, and far more than anything that we have yet seen. I have often been struck with the remarkable character of the predictions which Joseph, inspired of God, gave utterance to concerning this work. As I have said, scarcely a step in its advancement was hidden from him; scarcely a step but what was foreshadowed by him through the Spirit of God, which rested down upon him. Men doubt the divinity of this work. Men question the spirit of prophecy, or the divine mission of Joseph Smith. His life is maligned and misrepresented; his character derided and held up to contempt and scorn; yet it is not much to say, it is not much to anticipate, that before many years pass away, he will be recognized by the children of men as one of the mightiest Prophets that ever trod the footstool of God our Eternal Father. It is because his life has not been understood; it is because the work which he was the means in the hands of God of founding, is not comprehended; it is because his life has not been understood; it is because the work which he was the means in the hands of God of founding is not comprehended; it is because everything connected with this Church is beclouded by misrepresentation and falsehood that men assume the attitude they do towards this the great work of our God. In the very beginning of this work Joseph told the Saints, left on record the statement, as to how it would be received by the children of men—the hatred with which it would be met, the violence that would be manifested towards it, the various troubles through which it would have to pass. All these things he told, by his prophetic voice, as though their history had been written, as though they had taken place. Most graphically he has described to the Saints the results that should attend the increase of the work. At the first he said it should excite the animosity and hatred of a township. It did this. God in his mercy did not permit persecution to become so strong in the inception of the work, in the days of its weakness, that it could be overwhelmed. He restrained the power of the wicked, so that the growth and strength of the work would be commensurate with the opposition it had to contend with. As its circle enlarged, as its influence extended, opposition grew proportionately. From townships it extended to cities. As the work grew and outspread these limits, it excited the opposition of counties. As its influence continued to grow, from one county it extended to adjacent counties all the time growing, all the time increasing, all the time meeting with as much opposition as it could well bear up under. Wonderfully has the providence of our God been exhibited in the care exercised over His growing Church and His increasing people! Had it not been for this care, my brethren and sisters, we should not have the happy privilege that we enjoy this day of meeting together in peace in this Tabernacle. Had Satan been permitted to wreak his vengeance upon the Church in the commencement, it could easily have been extinguished in blood. Had the same power that was exercised against the Church in the days of Nauvoo, when the blood of our Prophet and Patriarch, and our present President, drenched the soil of Illinois—had that same spirit been permitted to have wreaked its vengeance upon the Church in the early days, it could, with no more excitement than was then raised, have completely extirpated the Priesthood from the face of the earth. But God, as I have said, in His wonderful providence, restrained the wrath of the wicked in the early days of the Church. Brother Franklin D. Richards has told us this morning, that for eight years after the birth of a child it is free from the power of temptation and Satan. God restrains the power of Satan—forbids him to exercise it over the tender child. And so in like manner did He restrain the power of Satan in the early days of this Church, so that there was a limit to its exercise over the Church in its weak condition. But as power increased, as the gifts of God were manifested, as the keys of the Priesthood were revealed unto the children of men, so did the wrath of the wicked, so did the violence of mobs, so did the combinations that were formed with the object of destroying the work of God increase in their strength and in their numbers. As the work progressed, so did the spirit of opposition progress, one keeping pace, apparently, with the other, and there is a wise purpose in this when we contemplate the great destiny that awaits this people. We can see the wisdom and the purpose of our God in permitting persecution to keep pace with the growth and the advancement of the work. It is just as necessary that we should be developed in our strength; it is just as necessary that we should be developed in our faith, as anything else connected with the work of our God. If it were not for this, we could not become the people that God designs; we could not fulfill the destiny that He has in store for us if it were not for these terrible ordeals to which this Church and this people have been subjected in the past, and to which they are now exposed, and which, doubtless, will continue to increase as the Church increases, until the day comes when the Kingdom of God will triumph over every obstacle and be fully established upon the earth.

But as I have remarked, as the Kingdom has grown and spread, so have the words of our beloved Prophet been literally fulfilled. Men say, “Oh, if you will only get a revelation concerning polygamy, if you will only lay polygamy aside, you will no longer have any opposition to contend with; if you will only conform to modern ideas concerning your domestic institutions, we shall have nothing to say against you. The opposition that finds now such strong support will be deprived of its war-cry and of the sympathy of thousands which sustain it at the present time—they will be deprived of this and you will go along like the rest of the churches, without having to suffer from the opposition and the hatred that are now manifested against you.”

Vain thought!—a thought that is only expressed by those who know nothing of the character of this work, who are not familiar with the history of this dispensation, and who judge of the effects of such movements by their human knowledge and the experience that they have with other systems. This system which God has established, this great work of our God, cannot be measured by human thoughts; the effects of this work and that which it is accomplishing on the earth, that which it will accomplish on the earth, cannot be estimated by anything that is known among men. It is entirely unique, unlike anything else that has ever been upon the earth since our Savior laid the foundation of that dispensation—there has never been anything like it among men, and therefore every calculation concerning it, every prognostication and every suggestion is at fault in regard to this work of our God. For, be it understood, as we well understand it as a people, that before the public revelation of plural marriage the opposition to this work was stronger, according to the strength of the people, than it has been since. Therefore, those who understand this work, know very well that anything of this kind—unless indeed the people should apostatize—would have no such effect as our friends in many instances think it would have.

As I have remarked opposition has continued to grow and increase until today, as we have been told and led to expect, upwards of half a century ago. Not only has it been a township, not only has it been a county, not only has it been a state that has arrayed itself against the work of God, and instituted measures for its overthrow and entire destruction, but today this great fact stares us in the face, it presses itself upon our attention, we cannot shut our eyes to it—this great fact, that today the United States in its governmental capacity, has pitted itself against the work of our God, and has passed measures for its complete overthrow and destruction. Most wonderfully has God thus far fulfilled every word that has been spoken by the mouth of His inspired Prophet! And shall we who witness the remarkable fulfillment of this prophecy—shall we today shrink from the issue that is presented to us? Shall we in view of all that God has said to us concerning the past, and all which he has predicted concerning the future? Shall we falter? Shall we tremble or grow weak in our knees? Shall we become palsied in our efforts and let go of that great work of our God which is entrusted to us? God forbid that there should be any weakening, that there should be any faltering, that there should be any lowering of the flag, or any weakening of the flag, or any weakening of the knees, or any trembling of the heart, in view of all that presents itself before us, however appalling the vision may be to mortal sight. God forbid that there should be anything of this kind in the hearts or in the actions of any man or woman who calls himself or herself a Latter-day Saint. For be it known unto you, my brethren and sisters, be it known unto all the earth everywhere, that God, years and years ago, told us by the mouth of His inspired Prophet, that these things, the fulfillment of which we now behold, would actually take place, and that we should have these things to meet and to contend with and to overcome.

What shall be the future result? Is this to be the termination, is this to be the end? No. As the Church increases, so will the opposition to it increase, until it will extend itself beyond the confines of our own nation to other lands and to other nations, until, in fact, the whole earth that has not received, or will not receive the Gospel of the Son of God, the message of salvation, of which we are the unworthy bearers, until, I say, all the nations of the earth will array themselves against the work of our God, and exert their power to destroy it, as a township did, as a county did, as a state did, or as the United States are now doing, and then the work of our God will rise in its sublimity, in its strength, in its Godlike power and assume its place, its rightful position among the nations of the earth. The puny infant, born on the 6th day of April, 1830, will become a stalwart man, full of power, full of the gifts of God, full of the excellencies that belong to perfect manhood in the sight of God, and will assume its fit and proper place de– signed by God for it among the nations of the earth. This we may look forward to, this we may expect, and if we do not make calculations on these things we fail to comprehend the character of the work which He, our God, has established on the earth. Men wonder at our temerity—men wonder at the hardihood we have. They are surprised that we should dare think as we do. Only a few days ago we saw the statement of a friend in the Deseret News, appealing to us to get a revelation to do away with plural marriage; because if we did not, war and bloodshed would be the result. Have we not been threatened with this from the beginning? Yes, we have. We have had this ordeal to meet; we have had war threatened; we have suffered from bloodshed; but the burden of the Lord has been upon us, the hand of God has been over us. Though our pathway has been beset by all these difficulties, nevertheless the burden of the Lord has been upon us to carry forward this Gospel and to establish this work, let the consequences be what they may to us individually. We have the promise of God, that so far as the work is concerned it will stand, it will increase, until it fills the whole earth. We know not what the consequences may be to us individually. Each man must do his duty, and do his part faithfully, courageously, manfully, in the sight of God, being willing to endure all the consequences, with a full knowledge that God will save, redeem and exalt him if he will only be true to the holy Priesthood which he has revealed.

Then is not this a marvelous work and a wonder? Has not the wisdom of the wise in connection with it, perished? Has not the understand– ing of the prudent been brought to nought? Has it not baffled all the calculations of human wisdom? Has it not overcome all the obstacles that have been put in its pathway by human strength and by all the ingenuity which human beings have been able to devise or employ or command? Certainly it has; and today human wisdom and human prudence are as much at fault as they ever were, and it will continue to be the case until all that God has predicted concerning this work will be literally fulfilled.

My brethren and sisters, when we look at this work by the light of the Holy Spirit, when God enables us to comprehend some of His designs and purposes, we can see how wonderfully He has wrought in our behalf, how wonderfully he has preserved this people. We today are a great people, it may be said. In some respects we are. We are few in numbers, it is true; but God in His wonderful providence has prepared this land, this glorious land, this mountain region, it seems as though He had prepared it beforehand for the ingathering of His people, and as a dwelling place for them. A better habitat cannot be found on the face of the earth, for the Latter-day Saints than this mountain region. A better or more admirably adapted people for these mountains cannot be found. The training we have had in the past admirably fits us for the labor of establishing cities, towns, villages and hamlets, opening farms, and developing all the resources of these mountain valleys. No other people are so well qualified for this labor as we are. No other land is so well adapted for such a people as this land that we now inhabit. The people and the land have been found. The people and the land have come together. The land is here. The people have found the land which is so surprisingly fitted for their habitation. And there is no people that I know anything of, who can compete with us in these mountain valleys. They are ours by right of possession to begin with, by right of settlement, and they are ours by right of our capacity to inhabit and hold them, and they are ours by right of the blessing and the favor of God our Eternal Father, bestowed upon us and upon the land itself. And, as President Taylor suggests, they are ours by purchase as well as by those other rights.

Shall we be uprooted from this land? Shall we be extirpated? This is a question that presents itself very often, doubtless, to our mind. In the providence of our God, will we be permitted to maintain our foothold here, and to continue to increase and to spread? We have the answer to these questions in our own possession. It depends upon ourselves.

“Oh,” says one, “It don’t depend upon you, it depends upon another power. It depends upon this: whether you will abandon your peculiar practices; whether you will lay aside your peculiarities of doctrine and of religion, and conform to the views, to the institutions, and the practices that prevail in the nation of which you form a part.”

These are the comments of those who are not of us respecting this question or questions, which I have asked. They think it depends upon our abandonment of those peculiar features which make us a distinct people from the rest of the nation. On the other hand I state here in the presence of heaven, in the presence of the Great God, our Eternal Father, that it does not depend upon this. It depends—I affirm it, and I am willing to stake my reputation upon it as a servant of God—it depends entirely, without question, without qualification; upon the Latter-day Saints themselves, whether they will continue to live in this land and to occupy it, and to enjoy the valleys and the peace which God has vouchsafed unto all who dwell here. I know that looking at matters naturally, we are in danger of being overwhelmed, extinguished. A people feeble as we are, a people possessing no greater resources than we have; a people of no greater numbers, of no greater wealth, of no greater influence in the earth—why, it would seem a bold and rash thing to say that we can withstand all opposition that may be brought against us. If God were to permit the world to launch its thunderbolts against this work; if God were to permit the world to unite against this work, to combine and to put in operation its forces against this work, I am willing to admit that there would be great danger of our complete overthrow and destruction, in fact it might be said there would be scarcely a question concerning it. But remember, my brethren and sisters, that this is the work of God. This is not the work of man. It has not been the wisdom of man that has guided this work. It has not been the wisdom of man that has sustained it. It has not been the wisdom of man which has defeated the plans of our enemies. It has been the wisdom and power of the Great God, our Eternal Father. He has chosen his instruments. But, then, how weak they are! How feeble they are! How insufficient their efforts and their words would be if He did not supplement them by the bestowal of His power, and by that overruling providence which controls all the affairs of the children of men, controls all the results according to His own good pleasure. But God our Eternal Father, will not forget His people. He will not forget the promises which He has made, and it is upon these that we must rely. It is for these that we must live. We must live—live, brethren and sisters—let it sink deep into your hearts. We must live ourselves so that we shall have the fulfillment of the promises of God granted unto us. If we so live, there is no power on earth that will be permitted to combine itself, or to array itself, or to exert its force against this work to its injury, or to retard its onward progress. Hear it all ye Latter-day Saints! Hear it! If I could speak so that the whole world would hear the utterance I would like to sound it in the ears of all mortal men—that there is no power that will ever be permitted to array itself, or to combine itself against this work of our God, to retard its onward progress from this time forward until the full consummation will be achieved—that is, if the Latter-day Saints themselves are faithful to God, if they will keep the commandments of God, if they will sanctify themselves and cleanse themselves from sin, and live pure and holy lives. If they will do this, then the success and the triumph and the continued growth and advancement of this kingdom and the continued maintenance of these valleys and these mountains are assured unto us as a people. There is no doubt of it. I say in the name of Jesus Christ, that it will be so. I promise it in His name, and in the authority which I have received from Him—that if we will comply with these requirements and conditions, there is no power upon earth nor in hell that can disturb this people, that can uproot us, that can unsettle us in these valleys and in these mountains; for God has given unto us this land, and from this time forward, we will go on increasing and spreading and enlarging until all that God has said shall be literally fulfilled concerning this work that He has established upon the earth. He will do a marvelous work and a wonder. He will cause the wisdom of the wise to perish; He will bring the understanding of the prudent to naught in all their calculations against this work which He is establishing on the earth, and with which we are connected. Glory to God in the highest for the privilege He has granted unto us, poor, weak mortal creatures, to be identified with His great work and have such glorious immutable promises given unto us! Oh! how our hearts should swell with gratitude to our God! How profoundly grateful we should be and how thanksgiving and joy should well up in our hearts unto our God for having given unto us the privilege of being connected with this great work.

Now, will those connected with it not have their trials? Oh yes. Those who would reign with Christ must suffer with Him. Those who would reign with the Prophets; those who would gain the glory that God has in store for the righteous must suffer with the Prophets and Apostles.

I have spoken in my remarks concerning the great work of our God. I have not yet alluded to individual cases connected with it. What will be the fate of individual members of the Church of God? That depends upon ourselves. But whether we remain connected with the work or not, this I know: I know that this work will roll forth in the manner in which I have, in my humble and weak way, attempted to describe to you. I know that. But whether I will be faithful depends upon myself. I beseech Him in the name of Jesus, that I may be faithful; that whatever may come in my pathway I may never, no never flinch, never weaken in my fidelity, in my courage and in my zeal for this glorious work of our God. I would rather die this instant in your presence, than ever falter in regard to this work. I love it. It is God’s work. I dedicated myself in my childhood to the cause of God, and I have endeavored through my life to be faithful to Him. If we will be faithful to our God He will redeem us, no matter what the circumstances may be through which we may be called to pass. We may wade through sorrow. We may have to endure persecution. We may have to meet with death. We may have to endure imprisonment and many other things that our predecessors had to endure. God may test us in this manner. Every human being that is connected with this work will have to be tested before he can enter into the Celestial Kingdom of our God. He will try us to the uttermost. If we have any spot more tender than another, He will feel after it. He will test all in some way or other. But like the promises that have been made in regard to the work as a work, so are the promises made to us as individual members of the Church. We have had certain promises made to us. We have had blessings sealed upon us. God has acknowledged them in the heavens when they have been sealed upon our heads by the authority of the Priesthood which He has restored. And you may notice it that as the work of our God has increased we have also increased in the power of the Priesthood. When Joseph Smith committed the keys of the Priesthood unto his brethren, and rolled the burden upon their shoulders of carrying forward this work—in his urgent haste to build the Temple of Nauvoo, in his urgent haste to commit to his fellow servants all that God had committed to him—from that day the Kingdom of our God has grown in majesty and in strength, and at the same time has called forth opposition such as it never met with before. Every Temple that we build excites additional hatred, increases the volume of opposition, the volume of hostility, and the threatenings of the wicked. Every Temple that we have thus far completed—and every Temple of which we lay the foundation—has been another testimony in favor of God, and has brought strength to the people of God, in enlisting the hosts in the eternal world upon our side; but at the same time there has been stirred up, from the very depths of hell, all the damned, Satan and his legions, to unite with their agents upon the earth in an endeavor to destroy this work, and to do everything in their power to obliterate it from the face of the earth: for hell is engaged at the work we are doing: hell is stirred up at that which we are accomplishing. Satan sees that which he dreads. He sees a people guided by the holy Priesthood. He sees a people gathered together according to the promise of God, filled with the power of God, led by His everlasting Priesthood, and seeing this, he is determined to exert every power, every influence that he can muster for the purpose of preventing the spread and growth of this work. He is determined to do this, and we can see it. But his power and influence are restrained; because, were it not so, the strength of the people of the Church of God is not such as to withstand the power of the evil one without succumbing to it. God, therefore, permits the opposition power to grow in proportion to the strength of the Saints, and if the contest be a sharp one, a keen one, a violent one, the sooner it will be ended. Because there is a termination to all this. There is a time coming when this opposition must cease and when God will stretch forth His arm, as He has already done, to accomplish His great work on the earth. As the nations of the earth reject the Gospel, He will pour out the judgments that are set to follow the preaching of the Gospel. God will fight for Zion. God will remember Zion. Her name is written on the palms of His hands. He never can forget Zion. A woman may forget her nursing child—and that is a very difficult thing to do—but our God will never forget Zion, never forget the promises made to His people. He looks down from His holy habitation, and sees the humble efforts of His people. He sees their devotion to His cause. He sees their willingness to lay down their lives for the truth. Our God is not ignorant of this. His eye is upon this people, and His blessing will be with us. There is no power that can prevent the outpouring of His Spirit upon us; no power whatever.

We are rearing, as I have said, temples. And who shall enter into the temples of our God? Shall the drunkard, the whoremonger, the blasphemer, the Sabbath-breaker? Shall the man who does not train his family as he should do, who is not living a godly life? I tell you, my brethren and sisters, the time has come when a higher standard of purity must be observed by us as a people than has been in the past. We must live worthy of these blessings which God has bestowed upon us. If we do not God will withdraw His Spirit; God would condemn His servant who stands at the head of this Church, were he to permit wickedness to enter into these holy places. Therefore, the servants of God are strictly charged concerning these things. O, you adulterers! O, you whoremongers! O, you drunkards! O you Sabbath-breakers! O you dishonest men, and you hypocrites who have a place and a name among the Latter-day Saints! I say, woe! unto you unless you repent of your sins, unless you forsake everything that is evil and humble yourselves before God, and ask forgiveness from Him; for I tell you the Spirit of God will be withdrawn from you, and you will be left to yourselves and become as withered branches only fit for burning, unless you heartily, sincerely, profoundly, from the bottom of your hearts, repent of all your sins and put them far from you. God will not bear with you any longer. The sinner in Zion will tremble. That day will come. Fear will come upon the hypocrite. Therefore, repent of your sins before it is too late. And if you do you may enter into the holy places which God has provided. But O ye Presidents of Stakes and ye Bishops, you must be on the watchtower about these things, for God will hold you accountable. The sins of the people will be found upon your garments in the day of the Lord Jesus, if you do not cleanse impurity from the midst of your wards. If you recommend men who are unworthy, through tenderness of heart and through sympathy, when they are wicked, I say to you, in the name of Jesus Christ, that the condemnation of God will rest upon you, and He will hold you to a strict accountability. For God has not chosen men to preside without laying upon them responsibility of a very grave and weighty character. He holds us accountable for these things. When a man has a relative and he condones the offense of that relative, through sympathy, he will not be free from responsibility. Now let it be known throughout all Israel, as the word of the Lord to us for the present, through His servant who stands at the head, that a man who commits adultery, a man who has had his endowments, cannot be baptized again into the Church. Let it be known throughout all Israel, as the word of God through His servant, who stands at the head, that a man who has had his endowments and commits whoredom, cannot now be received into the Church again. These must be cut off; because the law that was given in the early days of the Church concerning a man committing adultery once and being received back into the Church does not apply today. There has been a higher law since then, namely, the endowments, and men have taken upon themselves, and women also, sacred obligations in holy places. Therefore, hear it and understand it. Let it be given out in all the congregations of the Saints; let it be known everywhere throughout the land of Zion, so that if a man is tempted to do that deed, or a woman, that they will pause in view of the terrible consequences which await its commission—that they will pause and ask themselves the question—can I do this at the expense of my salvation and my exaltation in the presence of God? God has labored with us for fifty-four years and six months. He has revealed unto us His laws in plainness and power, so that all can understand, and if there be any now that do not understand, it is because they have not availed themselves of their privileges and opportunities. My brethren and sisters, this land must be a land of Zion to us. It will be a land of Zion to all who keep the commandments of God. It will not be a land of Zion to the adulterer, the seducer, the blasphemer, the Sabbath-breaker, the man who does not pay his tithing, to any who do not keep the commandments of God; but to those who do keep the commandments of God, and who keep themselves pure, it will be a land of peace, a land wherein they and their children after them can dwell in peace and righteousness. But let us be warned in this the day of our probation. Let us walk humbly before our God. Let us live so as to have his revelations constantly within us; let us live so that His Spirit shall burn in our hearts and in our bosoms and in our bones like a very fire, that in the end we may be saved and exalted in His Celestial Kingdom, which I ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, August 31, 1884.

The work of God in all ages has been a peculiar work, coming in contact with popular ideas and with men’s preconceived notions, and meeting with opposition frequently of the most deadly character. In every age when truth has been revealed, it has had hostility to contend with. No great principle has ever been established among the children of men without costly sacrifices. The religion of our Lord and Savior was established at the cost of precious and it may be said inestimable blood and lives, and it has been the characteristic of truth in every age to be hated and to be opposed. If, therefore, we as Latter-day Saints are exposed to opposition and hostility—having our names cast out as evil, and men thinking that they are doing God’s service in killing us—it is no more than men have endured in past generations for the truth, for that which is now recognized as the purest and most heavenly truth. It is with our generation as it was with the generation in which the Savior lived, and as it has been with all generations. Truth that has been established has been revered, or men have thought that they revered it, and in looking back to the acts of their ancestors, or of other people, they have said to themselves: “If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we should not have killed the prophets and those that were sent unto us.” They said this at the time of the Son of God, and He reproached them for these expressions, and charged them with being the sons of murderers, and they themselves willing to do the very acts that they reprehended and condemned in their fathers.

It would be an incredible thing if we had not seen it and known it, that men and women are persecuted in our day and in our time and in our nation for religion’s sake. To make such a statement a few years ago—half a century ago or a little over—would have been to have raised incredulity; men could not have conceived of the possibility of a church, however ignorant, however misinformed, however untrue its doctrines might be, being persecuted and its votaries slain because it taught false doctrines. It has not been the case in the history of our race that true religion has sought to destroy false religions, and the advocate of false doctrines, by the shedding of blood. That has never been the practice of true religion, or of those who believed in true religion. How preposterous it would be for us to imagine the Savior and the Apostles killing those who differed with them in their views about religion! The mere thought is abhorrent to all our ideas of the religion of Jesus. It would be inconceivable for the Son of God, or for His Apostles, or for any of His disciples, to go forth with the sword, or with any other weapon of destruction, destroying those who did not believe as they believed. In fact, such has never been the case. It is not the method that true men take.

Ah! but it is said of us—we are such a wicked people, we are so law-defying, we are so bigoted and fanatical, that it is justifiable to kill us. It is a terrible confession to make—that in a land of law, a land of constitutional principles, a land where men can be dealt with who violate the law, that there should be no resource for the checking of false religion except violence and the shedding of blood. It is a terrible confession to make in our time—that this is the only way in which to meet false doctrines, or to quiet or put an end to or overcome those who propagate them.

Now, my brethren and sisters, in espousing the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Latter-day Saints were taught—and those of us who were too young to understand it at the time we entered the Church were taught when we were old enough to comprehend the principle—that its espousal might cost us our lives, that it might cost us everything we held dear upon the earth, and thus far in the progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have not been disappointed. The espousal and propagation of the truth has cost precious blood, and it is not being established in the earth now any more than at any previous time, without great sacrifices on the part of those who are its devotees. God will test us as a people. He will prove us, He will give us the most ample opportunity of showing our faith in Him, and our confidence in the truth that He has revealed. It should be worth everything that we have. We cannot make too great sacrifices for it. If we look at the example which has been given unto us by our Savior, we will see the path that He walked in and that which He endured. When we think of His origin, His glorious origin, the Creator of heaven and earth, a Being that had reigned in glory and power, coming down here and being clothed with mortality, and suffering as He suffered, enduring that which He endured, and dying the ignominious death which he did—when we think of Him and His life, we should be reconciled to pass through and submit patiently to every trial that the Lord our God may see fit to call us to meet. We should be willing to do this if it costs us our homes, as it has done, if it costs us our friends and our good name, and even life itself. It is not more than it has cost others; and if we would enter into the glory which God has attained unto, if we would sit down with Him and His Apostles, and with the faithful of all ages, we should be willing to endure that which they have endured. God calls us to pass through these things, and to endure them for the sake of the truth. There is this consolation, however connected with the work with which we are identified—that God has made promises unto us that it shall never be given into the hands of another people. The Apostles looked forward to the time when there would be a great falling away, and the man of sin be revealed, and they warned the church in their day of that falling away. But God has given unto us the assurance that this Church, this work that He has established, shall never be given into the hands of another people, but that it shall stand forever, and it shall go forward accomplishing His designs, until it shall fill the whole earth. This is a glorious promise given unto us, and to our children, and we can rely upon it. Men may be slain, as they have been; people may be driven, as they have been; efforts of the most herculean character may be made to extirpate this work from the earth, but we have the promise of our God that it shall stand and that it shall not be overthrown. And this is very consolatory in the midst of the afflictions and trials which we will be called upon from time to time to submit to. Looking at affairs naturally, however, it would seem as though it was presumptuous in a people like us to entertain such hopes. How often have we been told that in a very little while the opposition to this work would be of such a character that it would completely overwhelm it, and that it was useless for us to attempt to stem the tide of opposition or outlive the storm of persecution that has been raised against us.

But there is a wonderful power in truth, wonderful power in the principles of life and salvation, and when God is on the side of a people, no matter how feeble they may be, they are bound in the course of time, to be victorious. Already great results have been accomplished by the preaching of the truth. It is not the Latter-day Saints alone who feel the effects of truth; other people feel its effects who may not espouse it openly. The proclamation of the principles of life and salvation by the Latter-day Saints has caused thousands of persons to recognize error, many errors that they formerly believed in, and to take different and higher views, and this will continue to be the case.

But the duty which devolves upon us as a people is to patiently labor in disseminating the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the nations of the earth. It is our duty to carry these principles to every nation, to every kindred, to every tongue, to every people upon the face of the whole earth; not to the United States alone, not to Europe alone, but to Asia, Africa, and the islands of the sea, throughout our own continent, through these Southern nations, and everywhere, in fact, where the children of men reside; and to lift up a warning voice and declare to the inhabitants of the earth that the time is near when the judgments and calamities of which the Prophets and the Apostles have spoken are about to be poured out upon the ungodly. This is our duty; and this Gospel of the Kingdom, as we have been told, must be preached as a witness unto all nations before the end comes. It is a labor devolving upon us as a people: and though it may cost many precious lives to do this, the obligation rests upon us nevertheless, and we cannot be freed from it only by the discharge of the duty.

My mind, while Brother Teasdale has been speaking, has rested upon a revelation which God gave through Joseph Smith, in the early days of this Church, in which He described to the Church the spirit which they should have concerning offenses that should be extended to them, or wrongs that should be perpetrated upon them as a people. We are called to occupy a very different position from that of any other people. We must be lovers of peace. We must be men who shall seek to establish the pure principles of righteousness in the earth, and to continually cultivate and carry out practically the spirit that Jesus endeavored to inculcate. You know how He felt when He was upon the cross. He said; “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” We also must have that same spirit. We have been accused, I know, and very freely accused, of indulging in a different feeling, and having sentiments of revenge and a disposition, if we had the power, to wreak vengeance upon those who are opposed to us. But if we did so we should falsify ourselves and the doctrines that we teach. We should deprive ourselves of the Spirit and blessings of God. We should occupy a position antagonistic to that which He has commanded us to occupy. The Lord says in this revelation:

“And whoso layeth down his life in my cause, for my name’s sake, shall find it again, even life eternal.

“Therefore, be not afraid of your enemies, for I have decreed in my heart, saith the Lord, that I will prove you in all things, whether you will abide in my covenant, even unto death, that you may be found worthy.”

It would seem strange that such language should be used in the United States in the year 1833 concerning this Church. The Lord knew, however, the spirit with which this people and the proclamation of this truth would be met, and He forewarned His people that they should be found worthy, or rather that they should be true even unto death. Says the revelation:

“For if ye will not abide in my covenant ye are not worthy of me.

“Therefore, renounce war and proclaim peace, and seek diligently to turn the hearts of their children to their fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children;

“And again, the hearts of the Jews unto the prophets, and the prophets unto the Jews; lest I come and smite the whole earth with a curse, and all flesh be consumed before me.”

“Now, I speak unto you concerning your families—if men will smite you, or your families, once, and ye bear it patiently and revile not against them, neither seek revenge, ye shall be rewarded;

“But if ye bear it not patiently, it shall be accounted unto you as being meted out a just measure unto you.

“And again, if your enemy shall smite you the second time, and you revile not against your enemy, and bear it patiently, your reward shall be an hundredfold.

“And again, if he shall smite you the third time, and ye bear it patiently, your reward shall be doubled unto you four-fold;

“And these three testimonies shall stand against your enemy if he repent not, and shall not be blotted out.

“And now, verily I say unto you, if that enemy shall escape my vengeance, that he be not brought into judgment before me, then ye shall see to it that ye warn him in my name, that he come no more upon you, neither upon your family, even your children’s children unto the third and fourth generation.

“And then, if he shall come upon you or your children, or your children’s children until the third and fourth generation, I have delivered thine enemy into thine hands;

“And then if thou wilt spare him, thou shalt be rewarded for thy righteousness; and also thy children and thy children’s children unto the third and fourth generation.

“Nevertheless, thine enemy is in thine hands; and if thou rewardest him according to his works thou art justified; if he has sought thy life, and thy life is endangered by him, thine enemy is in thine hands and thou art justified.

“Behold, this is the law I gave unto my servant Nephi, and thy fathers, Joseph, and Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham, and all mine ancient prophets and apostles.

“And again, this is the law that I gave unto mine ancients, that they should not go out unto battle against any nation, kindred, tongue, or people, save I, the Lord, commanded them.

“And if any nation, tongue or people should proclaim war against them, they should first lift a standard of peace unto that people, nation, or tongue;

“And if that people did not accept the offering of peace, neither the second nor the third time, they should bring these testimonies before the Lord;

“Then I, the Lord, would give unto them a commandment, and justify them in going out to battle against that nation, tongue, or people.

“And I, the Lord, would fight their battles, and their children’s battles, and their children’s children’s, until they had avenged themselves on all their enemies, to the third and fourth generation.

“Behold, this is an ensample unto all people, saith the Lord your God, for justification before me.”

This revelation continues in this strain, and it is well worthy of our attention, especially at the present time. It shows unto us most clearly, my brethren and sisters, that there is no room for revenge in the heart of a true Latter-day Saint. God designs that we shall be a peaceful people, a people who shall love and cultivate peace, a people who shall seek by every means in their power to avert war and to avert bloodshed, to proclaim peace, and to entreat people for peace; and God has said to us most emphatically that He would fight our battles, that He would defend us against our enemies. He does not intend that the Latter-day Saints shall be a people shedding blood. God did not permit David, a man after His own heart, to build the temple at Jerusalem, because he was a man of war, but He gave unto his peaceful son Solomon, who was a peaceful ruler and had no occasion to fight—He gave unto him the privilege of building His holy temple. We are a temple-building people. God has given unto us a mission of this kind, to build temples in which we shall perform the ordinances of life and salvation, and it seems to be meet in His providence that we should refrain from everything that would unfit us for the discharge of this high and holy calling. Therefore, I repeat, that of all people now living upon the face of the earth we are most urgently required by our God to be lovers and cultivators of peace, and to seek not for that revenge which gratifies human passion, which is not of God, and which is opposed to the Gospel of Jesus, and to the sentiments that Jesus invariably inculcated and endeavored to enforce upon His disciples. We have shown this repeatedly. How many times would we have been stirred up to indignation, if we had allowed human feelings to pre– vail, at the abominable falsehoods which have been circulated in our midst, fabricated by men whose only object has been to bring down vengeance upon this people, to excite the ruling powers against us; to stir up congressional action against us, to create a public opinion against us, to make it justifiable to slay us, to deprive us of every right? How often has this been the case? How easy it would have been for us if we had followed the influences that seem natural to human beings under such circumstances, to have avenged ourselves upon them. But had we done so we should have forfeited the protecting care of our Father and our God. When we attempt to do this, we put ourselves outside of the pale of His protection. We could not ask of Him (as we could do if we were to observe His commandments) that protection and that deliverance which is necessary at times to extricate us from the imminent perils with which we are threatened. And it is by this principle, following this policy, adopting this peaceful, godlike course, that this people have been preserved and blessed up to the present time. It is a spirit which we should cultivate, cultivate it in all our associations, in our intercourse with one another, in our intercourse with the world, and even with those who are most embittered against us. It is not for us to revile against the reviler; it is not for us to bandy vulgar epithets with those who indulge in this mode of warfare; but it is for us to put our trust in God, to leave our cause with Him. For we cannot defend ourselves by earthly weapons. We are too feeble. We are not strong in numbers. We are not strong in wealth. We are not strong in worldly things. We have not these advantages to aid and sustain us. If we are sustained we must be sustained by the overruling providence and power of God our Eternal Father, and not by any earthly power. Therefore our path of safety is the path which God has pointed out for us; not to be a revengeful people, not to be a recriminating people, not to be an abusive people, but to be a meek people, a forbearing people, bearing patiently, but of course not sitting down idly and supinely, and permitting contumely to be heaped upon us without exerting the powers God has given us to dissipate falsehoods. But this can be done in the spirit of meekness, not in the spirit of revenge, not in the spirit of reviling, not in the spirit of hostility and hatred. This spirit is antagonistic to the spirit that Jesus possesses, and which we all ought to possess to be like Him—to be filled as He was with those desirable attributes which were so acceptable to the Father.

I wished to say this much to you; for I feel that the present time is a fit occasion for us to bear these things in mind. There are many occurrences which are of a character to goad us to do and say things that would be unworthy of us. The whole earth seems to be full of falsehood; and as I have said many people think they are doing God service in killing us. Already a great many public papers—editors speaking through the columns of their papers—have justified assassination and said that those who had committed it were not particularly guilty. This spirit is abroad, and it would, if it had the power, destroy this whole people: it would depopulate these valleys, it would spill our blood just as freely as blood ever was shed under the most cruel and inhuman circumstances. Yes, it would flow in streams throughout these valleys, if some men had their way. Men, woman and children would be visited by indiscriminate slaughter, because in their opinion we believe in a false religion. God in his mercy, however, is exercising power in our behalf. If He does not, what then shall be our fate? Could man befriend us? Could man deliver us? Can we ourselves by any exertion, however great or superhuman—can we deliver ourselves? No, we cannot. Let me repeat: Our only hope is our God; our only strength is in Him and in His providence, and He will deliver us. Let me say to you, that he has never yet failed to deliver us; and His promises are as firm and immovable as His eternal throne. We can rely upon Him with the utmost assurance that we shall not be deceived; but that in the direst extremity, in the darkest hour, in the midst of the deepest trials and afflictions, His arm will be extended in our behalf, and His providence be exerted to save and to deliver us. We can rest assured of this. Therefore, however dark the prospects may be, however gloomy, let us remember that He who sits on high knows our condition, and that He can deliver us. He will interpose at the very moment when it is needed and rescue us from every evil, and He will defeat and bring to naught every plan and device which is concocted against the peace and prosperity of those who put their trust in Him and in the great work which He has established in the earth. This I can bear testimony to. I know whereof I speak. I know just as well as I know that I stand here, and that I am speaking to you, that the Latter-day Saints, this Church, or what we call the Zion of our God, will be delivered, and it will roll forth in mighty power, and it will accomplish all that has been predicted concerning it. For the day will come, and it is not far distant, when in our own nation, there will be civil strife, there will be domestic broils, there will be a withdrawal of peace, and men will yet have to come to the Latter-day Saints for that peace and that freedom from civil strife that cannot be found elsewhere. God revealed this and predicted it, upwards of fifty years ago, and it will, just as sure as He predicted it, be fulfilled to the letter. All we have to do is to take the course that He has pointed out to us, to keep His commandments, leaving the results with Him, and He will control all things for the glory of His name. We have been taught to believe that the time will come when constitutional government will be overthrown upon this land, and that it will be the province of the Latter-day Saints to uphold those principles which God inspired the founders of this government to embody in the Constitution; and it seems to be fast approaching. When assassination can be justified, assassination of men peaceably worshipping their God, offending no one, committing no violation of law or of good order; when they can be shot down cruelly and inhumanly, and their murderers be justified for the deed, it seems as though the time when constitutional principles would fail, is near at hand. But this is not all. When we who have built up this country, and made it that which it is by the sacrifices we have made—living here in peace, men and women industriously pursuing their various avocations, molesting no one, observing every law that promotes good order—when such a people as we, I say, are legislated against and considered unworthy of the rights of citizenship, almost every right being taken from us, that free men value, and for which the fathers of many of this people have suffered and died—when we see these acts justified and the men who do them think they are committing acts which will be applauded by their constituents, what are we to conclude? Shall we not say, Surely the predictions are coming to pass, and the time is drawing near when constitutional government will have to be maintained by some other hands than those who now profess to be its upholders?

I pray God the Eternal Father, my brethren and sisters, to fill you with that peace which cometh from above, to fill you with that courage which every true servant and handmaiden of God should possess. I pray that He will preserve you and keep you so that in the midst of every trial and affliction you may be unswerving in the cause of our God, which I ask in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Remarks by President George Q. Cannon, Apostle M. Thatcher, Elder George F. Gibbs, and President John Taylor, delivered at the Funeral Services over the remains of Elder John H. Gibbs, held in the Bowery attached to the Meetinghouse, Paradise, Sunday Afternoon, August 24, 1884.

President Geo. Q. Cannon was the first speaker. He said:

I will read from the 6th chapter of the Revelation of St. John, commencing at the 9th verse:

“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the testimony which they held:

“And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

“And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”

In the next chapter we find the following:

“And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,

“Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God forever and ever. Amen.

“And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

“And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

“Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

“For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

If I were to consult my feelings on the present occasion, I would much rather sit still and listen, than to attempt to speak or to give utterance to the feelings which I have had since coming into this shade. But we have assembled together today, to pay our last tribute of respect and honor to the martyred dead, and it is meet and proper that we should control our feelings and endeavor to say something that shall be consolatory to the living, and that shall have the effect to make this lesson an impressive one to all of us, and especially to the young men and young women, the rising generation of this people.

It is not a new thing in the history of the work of the last days for the blood of innocence to be shed; but the frequency of these occurrences does not take away from the anguish and the sorrow, and those poignant feelings that are created by such atrocious acts. We cannot become reconciled to these things sufficiently, fortify ourselves as we may, to escape feeling upon occasions of this character that we are all liable at any time to be called to lay down our lives for the truth’s sake. Whenever our brethren are thus called as sacrifices for the truth, it requires the comforting influence and strength which God alone can give to reconcile us, so that we can bear these blows with equanimity and with the resignation which should characterize people of our profession.

When the Gospel was revealed from heaven in these latter times, it was told to those who received it—not only to Joseph the Seer, but to others who received it from him—that the espousal and advocacy of these principles might cost them their lives, and there is a plain intimation in one of the early revelations to Joseph, that his life might be required. During his lifetime he lived under perpetual attacks from his enemies; not that he lived in dread, but there was constant reason to fear, however, all the days of his life, through the revelation of the truth to him, and the bestowal of the holy Priesthood upon him, that at any moment he might fall a victim to the rage of those who hated the truth. He never at any time led those who received the Gospel to anticipate that their fate would be any better than his, for every man and woman was taught that if the principles were what we believed them to be, that which he testified they were, it was worthy of their lives, and of every other sacrifice they might be called to make. Men, therefore, in espousing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in these last days, espouse it, as a general rule, with a full knowledge of the consequences involved therein. They have not been told that their pathway would be strewn with flowers, that they would be surrounded with ease and comfort, and that they would have friends on every hand and be popular; but where faithful Elders have gone out preaching the Gospel, they have gone declaring unto the inhabitants of the earth that the same sacrifice which had been called for in ancient days, when Jesus communicated His Gospel unto men—that the same sacrifices might still, in all probability, be demanded of them, and they have been told not to hold their lives dear unto them, but for the sake of the great riches which God had bestowed, and the great and glorious reward that He had promised, they should be willing, if it were necessary, and God should require such sacrifice at their hands, to lay down their lives for the truth. And it was well that these teachings were given to the people; for the early history of our Church, and every step of its progress, has been marked with suffering, and in many instances with blood; the sacrifice of earthly ties, the sacrifice of homes, of friends, of old associations, of kindred, of native land—these sacrifices have been made by all who have connected themselves and remained connected with the Zion of our God. And besides these, not infrequently has it been the case that bodily torture has been inflicted through the attacks and the malicious spirit of those who have hated the truth, and not infrequently life itself has been given for the cause of God, or as a testimony to the truth of that cause which He has established. Since our arrival, however, in these valleys, it has been hoped that we would escape the fierce intolerance of the wicked. Years elapsed after our reaching here during which we dwelt in peace and free from annoyance and from the attacks of the wicked. Our Elders have traveled through various nations of Europe, and though persecuted and treated with contumely at times, still blood has not been shed. No men have been destroyed among the nations of Europe who have gone forth bearing the message of life and salvation.

The Lord in His mercy of late years has moved upon His servants to send the messengers of life and salvation to our own nation, and they have gone according to God’s command, to warn the people of the impending judgments and calamities that are about to be poured out upon this nation in common with other nations. The Elders have labored with great zeal, and in many instances with great success, and have been the means of carrying the glad tidings of salvation to very many souls, and this success has seemed to arouse the powers of darkness. Embittered by the falsehoods that have been circulated concerning us, men have sought to stop the onward progress of the work by seeking to destroy those who were its messengers and ministers. We have heard frequently of mobs, especially in the Southern States, where the Elders have labored for some years past. Occasionally they have resorted to violence, and in several instances have made attempts at taking life, and before this recent massacre, succeeded, at least, in killing one Elder—Joseph Standing, in the State of Georgia. It seems as though the adversary has been determined that if he could not stop the progress of this work in any other way he would drown it in blood. It is due to the providence of God, and to His wonderful and preserving care that we who live in these valleys have been preserved in peace. The credit of our preservation from blood—that is, from war and consequent bloodshed—is due to our Great Creator; for if the adversary, who is the great antagonist of our God and of His work, could have had his way, our peaceful valleys would have been drenched in the blood of innocence. He who opposes this work does not hesitate at any means to stop its progress. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he has sought by every means in his power, by the circulation of wicked, abominable falsehoods against the Latter-day Saints, to stir up men to bloodshed and to cause them to look upon us as a people whose death would be well merited and against whom acts of violence of the most terrible character could be committed and be entirely justifiable. It is not due to Satan, it is not due to his mercy nor his forbearance, that we have thus escaped, but it is due to the mercy and the overruling providence and the fatherly care of our Great Creator, that we who are here today with the rest of our brethren and sisters who are assembled in the various places of worship at this present time—that we have been and still are preserved. A feeling has gone abroad, in consequence of the lies that the father of lies has propagated, which causes thousands of people to think that if the Latter-Saints, or Mormons, could be blotted out, it would be a most praiseworthy and justifiable act, and it is that spirit, engendered by that being, emanating from that source, which has caused the death of these our beloved brethren for whom we mourn today. That spirit of murderous hate, unmerciful, cruel, brutal, when it takes possession of the heart of man, leaves no room for a gleam of compassion to enter. It was that spirit which caused the crucifixion of the most glorious Being, the holiest, the purest, and the best that ever trod the earth, that gentle Being, the Son of God—it was that spirit which crucified Him in the most ignominious manner; that spirit brought Him to that cruel death, as it had done the prophets that had preceded Him. Pitiless as the grave is that spirit, the spirit of the evil one, when it takes possession of man, transforming those who naturally might be compassionate, who naturally might have hearts open to the appeals of mercy—transforming them into demons of hate, filled with an unquenchable desire for the blood of their fellow men. It is that spirit which has caused murders in every age from the day that the blood of Abel stained the soil of the virgin earth until this brutal massacre through which the soil of the State of Tennessee has been drenched and stained with innocent blood. We need not wonder at these occurrences when we read the history of the past and that which was done to the Son of God Himself; and to the Prophets and Apostles, and in our own day, to the martyred Joseph, the Prophet of God, and his brother Hyrum. We do not depend upon tradition for our ideas respecting Joseph and Hyrum. They were known to us. Their actions are familiar, their efforts and all their labors we know and understand, and we know how innocent they were. We know that every pulsation of their hearts beat with love for humanity, and for the salvation of their race, as did the heart of this our beloved brother, John H. Gibbs, when it was living. Every pulsation was filled with love for God, and a desire for the salvation of God’s children upon the earth. But towards such as these, the spirit of the evil one has no mercy. Nothing less than blood will satisfy, and it has been so from the very beginning.

Whom shall we pity today? This murdered victim and the other murdered victim whose body has gone to his home? For whom shall we shed tears and our hearts swell with pity? Shall it be for these our murdered brethren, these beloved ones, these sainted martyrs, who died in the discharge of duty, serving their God, and seeking earnestly for the salvation of their fellow men? Shall our hearts swell with pity for them and their fate? No. There is no room for pity in my heart for them. I feel thankful to God, not that they were slain, but that they were courageous enough to die for the truth which the Savior died for, for which the blood of Joseph and for which the blood of all the martyrs from the days of righteous Abel until today has been shed. For whom, then, does my pity go out? For the murderers of these holy men. For them my pity is deep, is pro– found, is inexpressible. Is not this strange that I should have feelings of this kind for the murderers?

When I think of their future; of the penalty they have brought upon themselves; when I think how blindly they have been led by the adversary of their souls, who was a murderer from the beginning, who rebelled against our Father in Heaven, and is the great enemy of the human race, and who seeks to destroy the children of our God—when I think of them I am filled with pity for their fate. As for these victims—this our beloved brother Gibbs, and our beloved Brother Berry—we know what is in store for them. They have received, or rather will receive crowns of glory, immortal glory. They will be the companions of the Gods. They will sit down with Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant. By their deaths they will secure an entrance into the society of the Prophets and the Apostles, and the martyrs, the noblest, the holiest, the best, the most exalted of our race. There is no glory that God can give to man, there is no exaltation which God can bestow upon man that these our martyred brethren will not receive. Untrammeled now, having passed the gates of death, their tabernacles having been destroyed, their spirits have gone to the paradise of God. There awaits them continual progress. They have entered upon a career of never ending glory, a career which will never terminate throughout the endless ages of eternity; for they have done all that mortal men could do, they have been willing to lay down their lives for the truth, and greater love no man can exhibit than this. Therefore, so far as they are concerned, aside from the atrocity of the deed which brought them to so untimely a death, aside from the poignant sorrow that must fill the hearts of the widows, the orphan children, the parents and brothers and sisters and friends—aside from these there is no cause for grief today, not for these brethren at least; but as I have said, Woe to the men! woe to the men! who have committed this ghastly crime. I cannot contemplate their future without my blood being chilled, and being appalled at the damnation that awaiteth all such individuals.

My brethren and sisters, I pray God to make this an example for all of us. I say to the young men of Israel—Here before you is an example worthy of your imitation. What is death? Shall it be feared? Death comes to all, the coward as well as the brave man. The coward has to meet his fate, and why should we shrink from it? A few days or a few weeks or months or years, at the most will only elapse until death will overtake all. Let us seek as a people to be prepared to meet death, to flinch not from the path of duty, from the path of honor, from the path that God has marked out for us to walk in; let us tread it unfalteringly, and trust to God to preserve and deliver us, or if it be His wisdom to permit our blood to be mingled with the blood of other martyrs in testimony of the truth, may we be prepared therefor.

God bless you all, my brethren and sisters, and fill you with the Holy Spirit. God bless and comfort the hearts of these mourners, and fill them with the consolation of the everlasting Gospel, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Apostle Moses Thatcher was the next speaker. He said: I hope, my brethren and sisters, to have your faith and prayers to assist me in the few remarks I may make. There are occasions, and this seems to be one of them, when silence would seem even more impressive than words; there are times when it is difficult to express the thoughts we have in our hearts. Yet I know by the words which have been expressed by President Cannon, that when the Spirit of God dictates, much can be said to comfort the living. As for the dead all is well with them—that is, with the brethren who have sealed their testimony with their blood. You have heard what will be their glory, and to that testimony I will add mine. When we clearly understand, by the light of the Spirit of God, what martyrs for the truth will receive, death fails to create fear in our minds. It is at other times, when surrounded with the trials and temptations of life, when yielding to weaknesses and sin, that we become disqualified for that high glory about which President Cannon has been speaking. To my mind there is nothing here to be sorry about, save to mourn with the relatives and friends of the martyred ones. Their calling and election has been made sure, and it will be said unto them—“enter thou into my rest: having been faithful in a few things thou shalt be made ruler over many.” Our brethren were faithful unto the end, faithful unto death, to such, therefore, will be given a crown of life. Having been slain for the testimony of Jesus, they will be able to pass by the angels and the Gods to their inheritance of heights and depths, powers and principalities and endless lives. They have been valiant and true unto the end of their days. Stricken down by the hand of the assassin, yet courageously meeting their fate. What can be a more glorious death? When we come to look at the works of God, and witness the manifestation of His power, we see that every– thing that is excellent, everything that is desirable, comes forth from the midst of much tribulation. Even the jewels of the earth, and the riches thereof—the minerals, the gold and silver for which men thirst, and for which they have been willing to sacrifice life—are brought forth out of what seems to us the agonies of nature. And so in regard to violent deaths such as our brethren have suffered. In passing through such a trial bravely, faithfully, and truly, they have become jewels in the hands of God, and will continue to progress throughout the endless ages of eternity. It was not that they had violated the laws of the land; it was not that they had broken any law of the State in which they were when their lives were taken by the enemies of righteousness, by ungodly, wicked and murderous men: but as President Cannon has truly observed, it was because they were pure, it was because they were righteous, it was because they were the servants of God, that they were despised and killed. There is no hatred so intense as that which springs from and is begotten of envy and malice. The human heart readily forgives and extenuates the crimes of the wicked. Men have compassion for the ungodly; but there was no pity in the hearts of those who took away the life of Jesus, of Joseph the Prophet, and of Hyrum his brother, who planted their feet on the rock of eternal truth, and stood firm while the waves of prejudice, hatred and malice, inspired by the adversary, who was a murderer from the beginning, continued to advance until their blood saturated the soil. The same spirit is in the midst of the earth today. It has caused the taking away of the lives of these brethren. I remember distinctly the impressions that were made upon the minds of some of our people when they first learned of the organization of certain secret societies in the east, organized with the intention, no doubt, of taking life; and it is my strong belief and my firm opinion that the body which lies before us today, lifeless, is the result of the operations of the secret societies which, we have been forewarned, would be organized in the latter times. It may be that others will be called to wear the crowns of martyrs. Certainly that passage of Scripture which was read in our hearing today, would lead us so to think. But what matters it to us? We have received the testimony of Jesus. We have received the light of the everlasting Gospel. We have received that which will give us influence and power and dominion and glory and endless happiness. Why, then, should we care for the lengthening or shortening of our days here in this mortal condition. If we are faithful and true to God, and can die with the harness on as Brother John H. Gibbs did, it will be well with us. If we can meet death as he met it, while in the line of his duty, and in the full love of God, our salvation will be sure. Had he not been successful as a preacher of righteousness, there would have been no disposition to take his life; but the fact that he had brought forty-one souls to baptism, through which they were made citizens of the Kingdom of God, created the malice that could only be satisfied or checked by the shedding of precious blood. It is not for us to mourn over things ordained as a witness that God is with us. The cords of Zion are being lengthened, her stakes are being strengthened, and the Kingdom of God is gaining day by day, and year by year in the midst of the world. Satan will contest the ground inch by inch. We may expect to meet him in every form, at home as well as abroad. We should, therefore, be diligent and faithful, prudent, humble and wise. We should in all things be faithful to God, our heavenly Father. We should consecrate ourselves, our time, and all we have unto Him, holding ourselves ready to fulfill missions in every part of the habitable globe. If the world imagine that the killing of our brethren will have a tendency to stop the progress of the everlasting Gospel, they are much mistaken. They have tried that before. When Cain lifted up his hand and slew his brother, he thought, no doubt, that it would stop the progress of righteousness. And so with those who slew Joseph the Prophet; so with those who crucified the Savior. It has always been the tactics of the adversary of righteousness, he has always sought to destroy life; but instead of this having a tendency to retard the progress of righteousness and truth, as the wicked expect, according to the testimony of those who labor at home and abroad, it has a contrary effect. And I am well satisfied that the blood of these brethren will have in its effect the same result as that produced by the blood of Brother Standing, who was slain in the State of Georgia. Many people will be led to inquire about a religion the advocacy of which costs life, and thus through their death many may be brought to a knowledge of the truth, and obey the Gospel, that otherwise might not. And I feel without lengthening my remarks to say, God bless the wife and children, relatives and friends of the departed. It is well with him. We have here but the casket. The jewel, the spirit, is in the paradise of God, associating with those who, like him, have died martyrs to the cause of truth. May the peace of God rest down upon all the people throughout Zion. I pray that we may be more faithful, more devoted to the cause of truth in the future than we have been in the past. I can say that I am satisfied that in no sense will the taking away of these brethren retard the progress of the work in the world. Our young Elders will not be less willing to go and preach the Gospel in the future than they have been in the past. They will be willing to go to the State of Tennessee if they are called to go there, or to any state in the Union; for they fear not those who can kill the body, but him only who can destroy both body and soul in hell. This is the feeling of every true Latter-day Saint. We have no disposition to rail against those who did this bloody deed, for they are in the hands of God. Where He dwells they never can come, worlds without end. They will be numbered among the murderers, liars, etc., outside the gates of the holy city. Let peace rest upon the people. May the blessing of the Almighty abide with the wives and children of the departed. Let our hearts mourn with them as far as it is consistent with the lives of Latter-day Saints. Let us in the future bestow upon them, in memory of the departed, that attention which is due to them by reason of the departure of their husbands and fathers, and thus show by our works that we are the friends of the widow and orphan.

Elder George F. Gibbs next addressed the congregation. He said: I have desired, my brethren and sisters, to offer a very few remarks to endeavor to express some feelings that have crowded themselves upon my mind since the arrival of the body of my brother. I will here re– mark that from the first news we received that he was among those who were slain, nothing but a peaceful feeling has animated the breasts of his family and immediate friends. So in this respect I am thankful to say, I am in perfect accord with the remarks which President Cannon has offered. There is one thing, however, which has touched me very keenly, and that is the honor which has been shown to my brother in connection with those who fell with him. And here I would say that we are not unmindful of the fact that it is not because it was the body of John H. Gibbs, or “Johnny” Gibbs as he was familiarly called, but because he was among others who represented the cause of God in the earth. All along the line until our arrival here great honor and respect have been done him. Flowers have been put upon the casket by hands unknown to us. Today, a decoration in the shape of a crown, was placed on the casket. I was impressed with a peculiar feeling when that particular decoration was presented, a feeling that led to the inquiry, Is my brother really worthy to receive this token of honor conferred on the Holy Priesthood? To do justice to the feeling that prompts this inquiry, I would say that from intimate conversations I have had with him I am gratified to say that I do firmly believe that in his simple and humble way he does merit the honor thus conferred upon him. And I would also say I am satisfied with my brother’s life, and am honored in his death. We are not unmindful of the fact that it has cost money to bring the remains of my brother here. We are not unmindful of the fact either that it required courage on the part of our brethren, Brother Roberts and others who assisted him, and we gratefully acknowledge the services done us in this respect. We thank President Taylor, as the representative of the Church, for using his influence, and the means of the Church, to have this done. In conclusion, I thank God my Heavenly Father, that my brother is only one among hundreds and thousands of others, who are ready to go forth and represent the truths of heaven amidst danger and at the sacrifice of life. It was soon after the Anti-Mormon league in Cleveland was formed, that my brother wrote and told me that the influence of that league had reached the Southern States. He stated that he had met that influence in conversation with and in the presence of mobocratic men, and I have no doubt whatever as to the correctness of Brother Thatcher’s remarks in this respect. I pray God to bless the faithful; I pray God our Heavenly Father to bless and sustain His Holy Priesthood and direct them, and that we, my brethren and sisters, may know enough to follow and do as we are bid. This is my humble prayer in the name of Jesus, Amen.

President John Taylor was the next speaker. He said: It makes me feel sorrowful to see a gathering similar to that which we now witness, and to know that good men’s lives are not safe from the attacks of religious bigots and men who are governed by wrong influence. I and a number of my brethren have been traveling quite extensively through some of our Northern Stakes. We arrived last night in Logan a good deal fatigued with our labors, for we have visited, I think, if not every settlement, nearly every settlement in the northern Stakes since we left home, and we had planned to have the various settlements in this end of the Stake of Cache visited today. I had proposed myself to take a little rest; but on hearing of this event I felt a strong desire to unite my sympathies with those of the bereaved, for there were several emotions that agitated my mind; first, to express my feelings of grief for the perpetration of such terrible acts, then to condole with the family in their poignant grief; mingled with this was a feeling of joy and satisfaction pertaining to the destiny and to the present position of the deceased. All things are not as they appear to us. God has certain inscrutable designs and purposes to bring to pass in the earth. He has set His hand to accomplish these things, and many of you that are here and now hear my voice, have become the honored instruments in the hands of the Lord, of proclaiming those principles which God has revealed in the interests of our common humanity in the world in which we live. Those principles though fraught with the truths of eternal intelligence, eternal life, and all the blessings associated therewith, are not comprehended by the human family. But that makes no difference to us. We have our labors to perform, and we propose to accomplish that which God has designed in relation thereto, in the interests of our fellow men, who are the children, all of them, of our Heavenly Father, for He is the God and the Father of the spirits of all flesh. Furthermore, He has given to every man of every color, of every nation, and of every creed, and to people of no creed—He has given to them all a portion of His Spirit to profit withal. But many of them give way to other influences and yield obedience to the powers of darkness, as you have heard stated, and when men give themselves up to these influences, and quench that better feeling which God has planted in the bosom of all men, they by and by become prepared for any and every spirit that may present itself to their minds; especially do they follow a spirit of antagonism to God our Heavenly Father, and to those who espouse His cause, and who are really the best and most philanthropic people that dwell upon the face of the earth—a people who go forward with less selfishness, and with a more single eye to the glory of God, and to the benefit of mankind, than any other people who tread the footstool of our Heavenly Father today. It is, as Brother Gibbs has remarked, an honor to be engaged in a work of this kind; and despite the powers of darkness, despite the enmity of man, despite the schemes of oppression that are set on foot by men who ought to know better, despite the various evils that exist in the world, we still possess the same sentiment that was enunciated by Jesus, and would like to proclaim it to all nations, “Peace on earth and good will to men.” But men can only obtain permanent peace by following after righteousness, by being governed by the principles of truth, by associating themselves with God our Heavenly Father, by acknowledging His hand, and by submitting to His law, to His rule, to His dominion, and to His authority. Hence Jesus taught His disciples to pray—“Thy kingdom come.” Why? “That Thy will may be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” And these are the principles which we as a people are trying to promulgate among the nations of the earth under the command of the Great Eloheim, who has told us, as He told His disciples in former years, to proclaim this Gospel unto every creature, and it was in obedience to that command that this our beloved brother met his fate. That is all right—all right so far as he is concerned. As has been said, it is of very little account to many of us whether our lives be long or short on this earth, but it is a very grave consideration whether these lives are spent in the service of God or not. Those who have done like Brother Gibbs and Brother Berry, his fellow martyr, brought many to a knowledge of the truth, shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Therefore, being the friends of God, God is their friend. Paul, in reflecting upon these principles said: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” And who else? “Not to me only, but unto all them also that love” the appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Brothers Gibbs and Berry have gone to those souls that Brother Cannon read about in your hearing—souls that are beneath the altar. They cried out, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” That was uttered years and years ago, when John the Revelator was banished as a slave to the Isle of Patmos for the testimony of Jesus and the word of God, the same testimony that has been delivered by these our brethren, and for which they have suffered. It was said of John, that he was dipped into a caldron of boiling oil, but they did not take his life, for God was with him, and God sustained him, as He did the three Hebrew children when they were cast into the fiery furnace, and the lambent flames that played around them ceased to have power to burn. So John was preserved. But he, under the inspiration of the Almighty, and filled with the light and intelligence of heaven, could gaze upon the position of things in the eternal worlds, and saw the souls of those who had been slain for the testimony of Jesus, and the word of God, etc. They were told that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. God is manipulating things in His own way. His purposes are rolling forth. He is moving in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. His servants who have been called to lay down their lives, will come forth with crowns upon their heads and reign upon the earth. Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” When the wickedness and corruptions of men shall have provoked the anger of the Almighty in these latter days as they did in the days before the flood, the Lord will come out of His hiding place to vex the nations of the earth, and then there will be a time of trouble, a time of sorrow such as has not been from the beginning of the world, and we are told, never shall be again. Men may think they can trample upon human rights and upon correct principles, and do things which are contrary to the law and order of God, and to the principles of truth, integrity, equity, justice, and righteousness; but they cannot do this with impunity, for the Lord has said that He will smite the wicked, and with the breath of His nostrils He will slay them. The earth shall be emptied of the wicked, and a place prepared, in the due time of the Lord, for those who fear Him, as He has designed from before the foundation of the world.

And in regard to these matters, I feel sorry for this sister, the wife of the deceased. I feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for her little family and for the family of his fellow sufferer. What shall we do? We will help take care of them, will we not? I think we will. And we will talk more about some of these matters at another time. We sometimes pray for the Lord to bless the widow and the fatherless. Now there is an idea which I have always entertained, and that is, I never would ask God to do a thing that I would not do myself; and we shall have to contrive in some way for the accomplishment of this object. About Brother Gibbs who lies there—that is all right: I might have lain in the same position a good many years ago, if it had been the will of God, but it seems it was not. I was shot at, and hit oftener than Brother Gibbs; but my life was preserved; God protected me. I was with Joseph and Hyrum when they were murdered in Carthage jail, and I never was sorry that I was there. I would not have been absent from a scene of that kind. I would not want to forsake my Brother or Brethren in difficulty; never. Well, what of it? Suppose I had been killed as Joseph and Hyrum were, why, I was in very good company. Joseph and Hyrum were servants of the living God, and I was trying to serve Him in my humble way. And if we had all been killed it would not have made much difference: would it? I suppose it was necessary for me to stay a little while longer; all right; and I am willing to stay as long as the Lord wants me, and to go whenever He wants me. But I, in common with Joseph and Hyrum and Brother Gibbs and others, have within me the principles of eternal life. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand in the latter days on the earth, and these eyes shall behold Him. I know that God rules and reigns in this nation and among the nations of the earth, and that He will direct all things, according to the counsels of His will. I know that the work which God has commenced in these last days will continue to go forth despite the powers of darkness and all the fiends of hell. Though they are arrayed against it, God and the hosts of Heaven are on the side of Israel, and Israel will prevail. This work will continue to spread and increase until the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our God and His Christ, and He will reign forever. It is for us as Latter-day Saints, to live our religion, to observe the laws of God, to be humble, faithful and diligent; to be men of honor, truth and integrity; to seek to glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits, which are His, and to perform any labor that He may require at our hands, that when we shall get through with the scenes of time and sense, we may inherit a crown which is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in the heavens for us. So we will not mourn like those who have no hope, but we will put our trust in the living God. And I say unto the widow of the deceased, God bless you, and God bless your children, and God bless all the honest in heart who are trying to fear God and work righteousness; and instead of feeling enmity in our hearts towards our persecutors and those who seek our lives, we will try to entertain the feeling that burned in the bosom of Jesus, who, when expiring upon the cross, cried out, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” But God will not forgive all these men who permit and perpetrate these wicked and atrocious acts. They will have to pay the debt which they have contracted. It is for us to go on, and perform the various labors and duties that devolve upon us. God has blessed us with many blessings. He has blessed us with the rich blessings of eternal life. He has brought us into covenant with Himself. He has taught us how to save ourselves, our wives, our children, our posterity and our progenitors, and He will teach us many more great and precious principles associated with the Gospel of the Son of God.

After what has been so well said by others, time will not permit me to protract my remarks.

I am happy that it has fallen to my lot to join with you in these funeral services, and I am much pleased to see so large a gathering to pay respect to the memory of the honored dead. I am also very much pleased at the action which has been taken by Brother Joseph F. Smith and his brethren who have recommended that memorial services be held today in all the different Stakes of Zion; so that while we are meeting here, the tens of thousands of Israel are meeting all through the land, and thus we are showing, as Brother Gibbs has remarked, respect for the memory of the dead.

I also most heartily sympathize with the Condor family who have suffered such a heavy bereavement in Tennessee. And I should have been pleased to have made some further remarks upon this subject, had time permitted; suffice it now to say that they have mingled their blood with those honorable men who have died for the testimony of Jesus and the word of God.

Brother Gibbs has referred to the means furnished to bring the bodies home. That is all right. I was out of reach at the time—that is out of the road of the telegraphic lines—but I was very much pleased when I learned of the arrangement that had been made; with which I heartily coincide. That is a matter of duty always to look after the living and after the dead, to look after the widow and fatherless, and to fulfill all the duties and responsibilities devolving upon us. God bless you and lead you in the paths of life; and I pray God the Eternal Father that when we shall all of us have passed away from this earth, and when the resurrection trump shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed, that we may so have lived, that like our Brother, we will come forth, in the first resurrection, and participate in the reward of the just in the Celestial Kingdom of our God, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

President George Q. Cannon again arose and said: Before closing our memorial services, I think it but proper, and indeed I intended, if my mind had not been led off in another direction—that is if I spoke at all—to have alluded to the young men Martin Condor and J. Reilly Hudson, who were killed at the same time that our brethren were killed, and also to Sister Condor, who was wounded. These young men, so far as I can learn, have behaved heroically, throughout all the persecutions to which the Elders have been exposed in that region. I am told they have accompanied the Elders upon a number of occasions ready to defend them to the best of their ability, and have been willing, apparently, to risk their lives in defense of the Elders, who have brought them the truth. They have also fallen victims of the hellish hate of the adversaries of truth, both of them being shot and killed, and I feel that their names should be had in honorable remembrance in Zion, as well as the name of their mother and of their family, for their kindness and their bravery, in the cause of truth, and their names should not perish nor be forgotten; and in days to come, when opportunity offers, services should be rendered for them, that they cannot render for themselves; those ordinances which God has provided for the salvation of His children, they should be attended to in their behalf. I trust their memories will live, and their names be handed down in honorable remembrance with the names of our brethren who left here as missionaries. Though they were new converts, comparatively speaking, yet they have shown all the zeal, all the devotion, and all the courage for the truth that could be expected of those who had lived for years in the Church. One of them, I think, is said to have been only 19 years of age—Martin Condor—and I pray God to bless that family, bless those who survive, and have them in remembrance today; that as we remember our brethren who went forth from our midst, as bearers of life and salvation, so may we remember the others in common with them. Also Mr. Garrett, who lived on the same creek, and in the same neighborhood, where Brother Jones, I believe, was stopping at the time of this dreadful occurrence. He also should have our blessings and be had in kindly remembrance in our midst.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in Smithfield, Cache County, Saturday morning, August 23, 1884.

We are in a very peculiar position as a people. Our position is unlike that of any other people upon the face of the earth that we have any knowledge of. God has communicated His mind and will unto the children of men, and it has been made known unto us. Others have heard it as well as we; but we are distinguished from them by our reception of this word, our willingness to obey it, and hence we are gathered together as we are in this place and in other settlements which the Saints have formed, not for the purpose, in the first place, of making money and bettering our condition, but for the purpose of keeping the commandments of God and walking in accordance with the revelations that He has given unto us. We have been gathered together by extraordinary displays of power. The world has not seen and cannot see these manifestations, for the reason that their eyes are closed by unbelief, and their hearts hardened from the same cause. God’s providences are not perceived by them. They do not distinguish the hand and the power of God in the events that are taking place. Nevertheless, we have been gathered together. Everyone who is here that has been brought from the nations has been brought by the manifestations, it may be said, of miraculous power. He has accomplished in our case or cases, that which has been foreseen by the holy prophets from the beginning. It is a most wonderful work, the gathering of this people together, as they are here this day in these mountains. The manner in which the spirit of God has been poured out upon the people who have received the Gospel, and the manner in which they have been moved upon to forsake their old homes and their old associations, and part with their friends and relatives, and move among a people with whom they were not acquainted, and to a land of which they had but a little knowledge—this is the wonder that is being wrought in the midst of the nations of the earth. Many people ask for miracles, and they plead with the Elders when they go out to show them a sign to prove to them that they are indeed the authorized servants of God. That which we behold in these mountains today is one of the greatest signs, is one of the greatest miracles which has ever been seen or exhibited among the children of men. You may read all the records that we have, either sacred or profane, and there is nothing that approaches this work in which we are engaged, and that which has been accomplished by the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon the people among the various nations. Where in the history of our race has there been such a thing taken place as that which we witness? Where from the beginning has a people been gathered out from all the nations of the earth—moved upon by one common impulse, a simultaneous impulse, an impulse of the same character, impelling them in every land where they have received the everlasting Gospel, to gather to a strange land as the Latter-day Saints are being gathered to this land? No magnet ever drew or attracted to itself that to which it has affinity, with greater power than has the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ drawn to it from the midst of the various nations those who have an affinity for the truth. It has been irresistible in its effects. No sooner has the sound saluted the ears of the elect of God throughout all these United States, throughout Canada, throughout the various islands of the sea, upon the continent of Europe, and in far-off Asia, Africa and Australia—no sooner have the glad tidings of salvation been proclaimed by the servants of God, under the auspices of the Almighty, than there has sprung up in the hearts of those who have thus heard the truth an irrepressible and irresistible desire to leave their native lands, and to identify themselves with the people of God in these remote regions, in these Rocky Mountains. To me, when I look at it, this seems the most wonderful work that has been accomplished among the children of men from the beginning. There is nothing that we can read of in God’s dealings with the children of men that compares in magnitude and in its wondrous effects with this work with which we are identified. And yet men ask for an evidence respecting the truth of this work! They ask for signs and miracles, as though there is any miracle which could be wrought in our sight that would compare in the very least degree with this great and miraculous work that is being wrought under our very eyes, and which we ourselves are helping to bring to pass. It is not as though the people of one nation were gath– ered out, or the people of one locality were moved upon; but in every land, in every language among every race and in every nationality throughout the entire earth, from pole to pole, from east to west, from north to south, wherever the Elders of the Church have carried this Gospel in the last days, and the sound thereof has saluted the ears of the children of men, they have been moved upon in this most extraordinary manner, and have traversed sea and land, without hesitation, without faltering, without doubt, and have come and associated themselves together in the place that God has designated as the place of gathering. Most wonderfully has God fulfilled the promises which He made in ancient days to His servants concerning this latter-day dispensation, and most wonderfully has He poured out His spirit and His power upon the inhabitants of the earth to cause them to contribute by their actions to the fulfillment of these remarkable predictions that were uttered thousands of years ago. There is not a Latter-day Saint within the sound of my voice this morning who has been thus moved upon but is a witness for God in this matter, and is a living evidence of what God has done and is doing, because each one knows the character of the influence that has operated upon his or her mind to bring to pass this action which has resulted in the gathering of themselves and the rest of the people together.

Now, my brethren and sisters, there has been a purpose in this. God has not come Himself from heaven and revealed Himself with His Son Jesus Christ for naught. God has not sent angels from heaven for naught. God has not poured out this Spirit to which I have referred upon all the inhabitants of the earth who have been willing to receive the truth for naught. There is a purpose that is as old as man himself, and as the earth itself, in thus bringing us together in this capacity in these valleys, and that purpose has not been that we should break the laws of God, or that we should become identified again with the world from whence we have been gathered. That certainly has not been the object that God has had in view in accomplishing these great works; but it has been that we should become a distinct people, a peculiar people, a people whom He could use according to His mind and will, and through whom He could accomplish His mighty, His marvelous, and His wondrous purposes. That is the object He has had in view in bringing us together—to separate us from Babylon. It is for that purpose that the spirit has rested upon the people, under the influence of which they have gathered out to these valleys, so admirably adapted as a home for the Latter-day Saints, so secluded from the rest of the world that they have been reserved until this late day for us as a people to inhabit. If God had designed otherwise He would have let us remain scattered among the nations of the earth; He would never have gathered us out; we would never have had that spirit resting so powerfully, and, as I have said, so irresistibly upon us; we would have remained in the lands where the Gospel found us and our fathers; we would still be connected with the people from which we have been gathered. But this was not the design. Plainly written, as plainly written as the sunlight which we behold, has been the design of our God in connection with the gathering of this people, a people separate from every other people on the face of the earth—a God-chosen people, bearing His name, having within us the Holy Ghost that He has poured out to make us His people—distinct from every other people and nation—composed of people of every nationality, yet blended together by the power of the Holy Ghost, and made one people with a oneness that is not known among peoples or nations of one common origin.

Ought we not, in view of these facts which are so well known to us, with which we are so familiar—ought we not to place ourselves in the position and continue to operate in the position in which God designs? Shall we resist these wonders that are wrought in our behalf? Shall we, having been thus elevated and gathered together, be intractable and resist the purposes of God which are so definitely and so wonderfully made manifest in our own experience? If we do, then condemnation of the most dreadful character will rest down upon us; because we cannot say that we have been ignorant of what God has done. As I have said, each Latter-day Saint who has been thus gathered, has a testimony within himself and herself, that this work is from God; that man did not create this desire within us to gather together and to become identified with the people of God. It is not a spirit that came from man; it is not a spirit that diffuses itself throughout the earth at the command of man; but it has come from God Himself; it has descended from Him and rested through His power upon all who have received it, and each one who has been thus gathered is a witness of this. We should, then, place ourselves continually in the position that God designs we shall act in, and be submissive to His will.

We have a foe opposed to us that is the most wily, that is the most cunning, that is the most determined, that is the most unscrupulous, that can be imagined, and that foe is one who was once a great angel holding authority in the presence of God. He was our brother, sitting side by side with our Redeemer, having equal opportunities with Him. But he rebelled. He turned against the Father, because he could not have his own way. He determined that he would overthrow the throne of his Father, and engaged in a rebellion to destroy his plans, and because he was not successful he has sought from that day until this day to destroy the work of the Father, and not only to destroy the work of the Father, but to destroy every-one who would listen to the counsel of the Father. Over this earth he has wielded for generations great sway: his dominion has been almost unquestioned, and he has imagined that he would gain supremacy in the earth, and be successful in preventing the Father from fulfilling his designs concerning the earth. Therefore, he has sought by every means within his power to destroy the work of the Father. He has shed the most precious blood which has coursed in the veins of mortal man to accomplish his purposes. He has filled the earth with lies. He has circulated every abominable thing. He has stirred up the children of God one against the other, and has inspired them with the most deadly and hostile sentiments against everything that is holy and pure and godlike. It is only a few days since, inspired by his wicked spirit, innocent brethren of ours were cruelly slain, and if he had the power he would sweep this entire people from the face of the earth. If he could, he would destroy us all, as those Elders were destroyed two weeks ago in Tennessee. It is because he has not the power that he does not do it; it is because our Father and God checkmates him, and restrains him, and overrules his acts that he does not do this. The disposition is there, the willingness is there, the murderous spirit is there, everything is there that is necessary to accomplish this except the power to do it, which God in His providence withholds or controls, so as to prevent its exercise. We know this. The experience of 54 years has taught this to us. We have this kind of a foe to contend against. In view of this, what should be our course? Perfect, implicit, unquestioned obedience to our Father and God. What should be the course of every Latter-day Saint? We should not by thought, by word, by action, by any example, by any influence, lend any assistance to this being that is opposed to our God, and who is our deadly enemy, and the deadly enemy of every son and daughter of God. It is for this purpose that we are gathered together. It is that we may be withdrawn from the influence of Satan. It is that our influence may be on the side of our God in establishing righteousness that we are gathered together. We could not operate in this direction with any degree of success if we were scattered among the nations of the earth. Our influence would be unfelt, it would be lost, it would have no effect. It is only by concentration, it is only by gathering together, that we can accomplish the designs of our Father and God. Look at us today. We do not number 250,000 people in these mountains, and yet where is the people whose influence compares with ours? Where is the people whose acts and whose movements attract the attention that do ours? But scatter us among the nations and what would our influence amount to? It would be unfelt and lost. But God has gathered us together, and He aims to make us a great people. He will preserve His Priesthood in the earth, and we shall be victorious over our enemies, and our children after us will inherit the land and the earth. We are laying the foundation of that kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and the Lord will at last reign undisturbed and unquestioned for 1,000 years. That is the promise of our God to us, and we are engaged in that work today.

[The above was delivered in Smithfield, Cache County, Saturday morning, August 23rd, 1884.]

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in Hyde Park, Saturday afternoon, August 23, 1884.

Every means that it has been possible to use to prevent the Latter-day Saints having peace, and to prevent them enjoying in peace and gladness their religion and the blessings thereof, have been used by our enemies with the utmost care and the utmost determination from the beginning it may be said, but especially during the last 25 years. If our enemies could have their way, those who bear the Priesthood would have no voice in the instruction or direction of the people. Already, as you know, a determined effort has been made to strip us who bear the Priesthood, and who have been forward in keeping the commandments of God, of influence, the influence which has been justly earned during long and faithful service for the benefit of the people, and that attends the exercise of civil and political power. Our enemies thought that this would be a most excellent way of putting us under ban, and judging by the effect that it would have by the operations of such plans among themselves, they fondly hoped that success would attend their efforts, and that the influence of the men, whose fault in their eyes is that they bear the Priesthood, would immediately begin to wane and eventually be broken. This is the disposition of our enemies, who have placed all who have been most forward, as I have said, in keeping the commandments of God in a position where they could not vote, and where they could not hold office, and in this manner making them a proscribed class. They supposed that the young men of the community would rise up and take possession of the offices, throw aside the influence of the older and more experienced people, and inaugurate a new policy in the midst of the Saints. In this manner they hoped that they would redeem, to use their own phraseology—Utah, and that a new order of things would be instituted in the land. This was a very cunningly devised plan, and among other people might have been successful, but among the Saints of God, so far, it has proved utterly futile, and in fact has disappointed and it may be said disgusted the authors of the plan themselves. They have felt disgusted with their own efforts. There have not been wanting, however, some few persons who would have liked to join hands with our enemies in this plan. Such persons would not have been averse to having the men who founded this commonwealth, and who principally helped to make it that which it is today—the admiration of all unprejudiced people—relegated to the background, and a younger class, who would affiliate with our declared enemies, take possession of the reins of government in this Territory, and manage affairs, so that they would be more in accord with the general sentiments, as it is said, of the nation. This feeling has been confined to very few, and has not exhibited itself to any extent.

Notwithstanding every effort which has been made, I am happy to say that we today are still the free people we were. The leading men of the community have not lost their influence among the Latter-day Saints. The Saints as a body have stood firm in their determination to be guided by the counsel which God has had to give, and it is very delightful to see the feeling which there is among the Latter-day Saints in all the settlements that we visit, to see the union and the love that prevail, and the disposition to hearken unto the will of God as it is manifested by His Holy Spirit from time to time, through those whom He has chosen to lead and guide His people. There will be wanting no end of effort, however, to accomplish the ends which our enemies seek for. There is a great hatred among the children of men—and they do not themselves know why they have this hatred, but there is a great and undying hatred among the children of men against the Priesthood of the Son of God, a jealousy of the power that Priesthood wields, and in our Territory they are constantly seeking by every means within their reach to weaken the influence of the Priesthood, especially among the rising generation. It has been expressed—and frequently expressed—that they would rather see our young men drink, chew and smoke tobacco, gamble and commit whoredoms, and do everything of this kind, in preference to seeing them obedient to the counsels of God, through those whom He has chosen to lead the people. They would rather see this, because, as I have said, they do not know the spirit which animates them. They are not conscious that they are more or less the instruments of a secret and invisible power which operates upon them; that there are influences at work in their minds and around about them which they cannot see, but of which they are the mere tools, so to speak. This power—the power of darkness—is invisible to them. They do not understand this, but, they blindly fight against the power of God, and seek in every way to undermine the influence of the Priesthood of the Son of God. If they could get you to rebel against the Priesthood they would be suited. It would please them immensely if the Latter-day Saints would rise in rebellion against the God of Israel and against the authority that He has placed in His Church.

The struggle that is now going on, so far as this class is concerned, is to destroy the influence of the Priesthood. Our effort is to have the Latter-day Saints throughout all these valleys listen to the counsels of the Priesthood, to be obedient to the Priesthood. The issue is a plain one between us and them. They say they wish you to throw off what they call the yoke of the Priesthood. We say on the contrary it is not a yoke, it is not burdensome, it is a beneficent rule, it is a rule that is pregnant with blessings to the people, and that will bring great rewards to them if they will be obedient to it. This is our statement, and we appeal to the Latter-day Saints as witnesses in our behalf to sustain it. We know, and you know, every Latter-day Saint knows, that God in restoring the everlasting Gospel and the everlasting Priesthood to the earth has brought with them every blessing which man can in reason desire. We have been pleased from the beginning to listen to the Priesthood. Who that is old enough, that can recollect his baptism or her baptism, or their first association with the Church, and their first enjoyment of the truth, whose hearts do not burn today at the recollection of the feeling they had of the sweet and heavenly influence that came to them when they first became acquainted with the everlasting Gospel as preached by the Elders. There was, as it were, a new life opened before them, even the gates of heaven seemed to be opened to them, and they saw the Kingdom of God as they never had seen it, and never had understood it. Truths that they had read carelessly and indifferently, without comprehending them, came to their minds with an assurance, and with a strength and force and power that they never had comprehended previously. And has it not been a source of blessing from that day to the present to the faithful Latter-day Saint? Has not the Gospel come laden with benefits, laden with blessings, fraught with everything that would make men and women happy? Has it not brought peace to us, and joy to our souls? Has it not opened up the future in a light that we never beheld until the Gospel revealed it?

Mankind, at the reestablishment of the Church of Christ, knew nothing about the future. All was dark and gloomy. Death was indeed a leap in the dark to the great majority of mankind. But when the Gospel came it revealed the future. It revealed to us why we were here, and the design God had in view concerning us. Men and women look forward to it, or contemplate it, when brought face to face with it, with resignation and with a degree of joy, because they know they are going to a reward that is assured to them. And so with everything connected with the future. The prospects of the future are made bright and glorious through the revelations of the Gospel, and it has brought, as I have said, peace to our hearts, peace to our habitations, it has made life enjoyable to us. It is most delightful to contemplate existence in the light of the Gospel, and the associations that we have here now through the Gospel, and through the exercise of the power and authority of the Priesthood.

So it is with everything connected with our lives. Let us glance at our temporal prosperity. Our enemies talk about what others would do for us, if they had the opportunity. But what have they done? Look at our cities, towns and villages; examine the manner in which the local government of this Territory has been conducted, the light taxation and every– thing in fact connected with our material progress, and to whom is the credit due for the blessings we enjoy? Is this credit due to those who are seeking to destroy the influence and power of the Priesthood? Certainly not. This settlement of Hyde Park, the settlement of Smithfield, every settlement in fact in this valley has been founded under the auspices or direction of men of experience, whom our enemies denounce, because they hold the Holy Priesthood of the Son of God. If we are lightly taxed, if we are out of debt, if our country is prosperous, it is due directly to the counsels of these men, whose chief offense in the eyes of our enemies is that they are God’s servants, whom He has chosen, and to whom He has given wisdom, to direct and manage affairs.

The prosperity which has attended our people is remarkable, more especially when we consider the yearly influx of poor people. I remember when I was in Europe, the four years I was there, upwards of 13,000 Saints were emigrated, the most of them coming directly to Utah. At present we have an emigration of 2,000 to 2,500 per annum, coming into this Territory from abroad—poor people. Why, there is not another population in the country of our numbers that could absorb so many people as our community does, without there being pauperism all over the land. But there is no pauperism. God has blessed the people in their fields, in their flocks, and in all their labors. They have been greatly prospered, and they will continue to prosper if they continue to listen to the voice of inspiration and hearken to the counsels of the Priesthood of the Son of God.

[The above was delivered in Hyde Park, Saturday afternoon, August 23, 1884.]

Discourse by President John Taylor, delivered in the Bowery at Rexburg, Bannock Stake, Idaho, Sunday Afternoon, Aug. 17th, 1884.

I am pleased to have the opportunity of meeting with you in this place, of visiting your homes in these new settlements, and of striking hands and conversing with many of our old friends with whom we have been associated quite a distance from here, and some a very long distance indeed.

As Latter-day Saints we have gathered to these valleys of the mountains. We are assembled together for certain purposes associated with our own individual interests; in other respects for purposes connected with the welfare of our families, of our wives, our children, our husbands, etc. And then, further, we have gathered together as we have done in these mountains to comply with certain requisitions made by the Almighty upon His people in these latter days. We have come here in accordance with a message that he has communicated from the heavens to the inhabitants of the earth. These ideas and feelings are at the foundation of all our movements, of all our acts. We occupy a very peculiar position in the midst of these United States, and also in the world. We differ from others in a great many respects, in our ideas of God, in our religious sentiments, in our social views, and in our relationship with each other, and in many respects in all the leading characteristics of human life and existence pertaining either to this world or to the world that is to come. We assemble here as Latter-day Saints—for it is to these that I am speaking—and I understand the term Latter-day Saint is used in contradistinction to former-day Saints. The Church of Christ existed some 1,800 years ago, when Christ himself was its teacher. He came down from the heavens to teach and instruct the people in the ways of life. Those who believed in Him were baptized in His name for the remission of sins, and they had hands laid upon them for the reception of the Holy Ghost. They were born of the water and of the Spirit, and were made new creatures in Christ Jesus. They were instructed in the principles of the Gospel, and they had placed among them Prophets, Apostles, Pastors, Teachers, Evangelists. We are told that these men were authorized by Jesus to preach the Gospel to all the nations of the earth. We are told that they were to tarry at Jerusalem, until they had received power from on high, notwithstanding all the teachings they had had from the Savior. What was that power? It was the gift of the Holy Ghost. Had they not received it? Not in the sense here implied. What, not those that had been with Jesus? No, I repeat, not in the sense here implied. Jesus emphatically told them that it was necessary He should go away; for if He went not away the Comforter would not come. He instructed His Apostles to teach certain principles that should exist and that ought to prevail among all the human family. But the people have departed from these things. The Gospel put them in possession of the Holy Ghost, which brought things past to their remembrance, led them into all truth, and showed them of things to come. The Savior explained the office of the Holy Ghost. It would enable those who received it to comprehend the past, the present and the future. It would draw aside the curtain of the invisible world, and they would be enabled to gaze through the dark vista of future ages and comprehend the purposes of God, as they rolled forth in all their majesty, glory and power. And then in the church, as I have said, there were placed Prophets, Apostles, Pastors, Teachers, etc., for the perfecting of the Saints, and for the work of the ministry; that men properly qualified and endowed of God, by His Holy Spirit, and ordained and set apart by Him, might go forth as messengers of life and salvation to the nations of the earth. Hence they had their Twelve, their Seventies, their Bishops, and the various officers of the Church. This organization to which I now refer, existed 1,800 years ago, on the continent of Asia, and according to accounts given in the Book of Mormon, a similar organization existed on this continent. Here they had their Twelve, and these Twelve were commissioned to preach the Gospel as the others were on the continent of Asia. Jesus visited them here as He visited the others in Asia, and they were placed under His guidance and direction.

Now, what condition was the world in before the Gospel we now preach was introduced? Many of you older men here—there are not so many old men here as we find in some places—lived when the Gospel was not upon the earth. I did and many others did. Where could we find anything resembling that which was taught by Jesus? Nowhere on the face of the wide earth. Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers, etc., were nowhere to be found. Do I know this? I do know it, for I lived in the world at that time. I knew what was going on. I was mixed up with their teachers, and was well acquainted with the different societies and organizations. Did they have the Gospel as laid down in the Scriptures? No. I remember reading with very great interest the remarks of one of the Wesleys—I do not remember now whether it was Charles or John—in some poetry of his: “From chosen Abraham’s seed the new Apostles choose O’er isles and continents to spread the soul reviving news.”

He knew very well that they did not have Apostles, nor those officers that used to exist in the Church, and he felt it keenly, as did many others. I, myself, mixed up with a society of gentlemen before I heard the fullness of the Gospel, who were searching the Scriptures to find out the true way; for we did not find any men who professed to be inspired. We were told that all inspiration had ceased, and yet there were men professing to be called of God to preach the Gospel. Now, that is a very singular thing. How can a man be called of God, if God has ceased to speak? If a man is called of God, he must be called either by the voice or Spirit of God, or by somebody who is authorized of God, and knows something about His ways. If he does not receive his calling in this way, how is he going to get it? There is one other way—that is, if God has had a regular Priesthood upon the earth, unbroken, uncorrupted and uncontaminated, then it might come down from one to another through the different ages. The Church of Rome professes to trace its authority down from the days of the Apostles until the present. But unfortunately there is a Scripture that rather interferes with them and with others, namely: “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.” I will tell you what Joseph Smith told me personally. Said he: “You are going out to preach the Gospel, and if you can find a people anywhere as you wander through the world”—which I have done a great deal, traveled thousands, and I do not know but hundreds of thousands of miles, and mingled with all classes and creeds and con– ditions of men, religious and irreligious, professors and non-professors, Christians and Jews, Gentiles and all classes of people—“if you can find,” said he, “a people anywhere having the doctrines of Christ, you need not baptize them.” But I never found anywhere, wherever I went, any persons holding the doctrines of Christ as taught by Him, with Apostles and Prophets and inspired men under the influence of the Holy Ghost, and with an organization similar to that which was introduced by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore I had to call upon all men everywhere to repent, for I could not find the kind of people Joseph said I need not baptize. Wesley and Whitfield, and going back still further, Luther, Melancthon, Knox, Zwingli, and many other reformers, started what are termed reformations. But what did they do in those reformations? Did they bring back the pure Gospel of Christ? No, they did not, and they did not profess to do it. It is left for some of their admirers to do that for them which they in their day never professed to do. What did they do? They tried to reform abuses that were in the church. Well, what was done by these people? What influence were they under? They were under the influence, more or less, of the Spirit of the living God. But they didn’t have the Gospel, you say? No; but they were not deprived of a portion of the Spirit of the living God on that account. It is a very great error for us to suppose that men throughout the whole world have not been under an influence of that kind more or less. We are told in the Scriptures that God has given unto all men a portion of His Spirit to profit withal, and many men who have followed that Spirit according to the light they have had, have done a great deal of good among men, among whom were Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, Wesley, Fletcher, and others in the various churches. Fletcher, I think, was a Church of England minister; so was John Wesley, and many others; then there were others among the Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics, etc. They were good men. They sought to do good, and did do good; for he that doeth righteousness is righteous. They followed the leadings of that portion of the Spirit of God which is given to all men to profit withal. They operated in the interests of humanity; introduced many charitable institutions; made provision for the poor and outcast, the lame, and the blind; acted in a very liberal, kind and generous manner. I have known, in my travels, many ladies and gentlemen possessing large fortunes, who spent their time and their means in trying to promote the welfare of humanity. But was that the fullness of the Gospel of the Son of God? No, it was not. Was it right for them to do these things? Yes; for it is always right for all men to do good to their fellow men; to be moral, virtuous, honorable and upright; and notwithstanding the wickedness and crime that exist in these United States, yet there are thousands and millions of good honorable men who desire to do right; but they do not know the truth, and are led astray by men who know not what they say nor what they affirm. If these men had the Gospel with which is associated the gift of the Holy Ghost, it would lead them into all truth as it did in former days. And what is said of circumstances and events that shall transpire in the last days? We are told that it shall come to pass, when the Lord shall bring again Zion, that her watchmen shall see eye to eye. This will be the case when all the people of Zion live their religion, and comply with the requirements of the Lord.

Speaking of good men, I had several gentlemen call upon me just before I left the city. They were Jews. They came from London, or somewhere in that neighborhood. One of them professed to be a lineal descendant of the tribe of Levi, and of the house of Aaron, and I was told by part of the company that he held the legitimate right to the Aaronic Priesthood, and his name agreed with the records we have pertaining to these things. Well, these men were engaged in a very charitable enterprise. They had heard that we had some sympathies with the Jews, and desired to see me and have a talk with me on the subject. They told me about the terrible scenes that had transpired in Russia lately, and the heavy persecutions that their people had endured in that country. They and their friends had subscribed some 80,000 pounds (about $400,000) to assist their persecuted brethren in Russia, and had formed a number of colonies in the United States, and thus delivered a great many from their oppressors. They have purchased large tracts of land, and established their brethren upon them. I told them they had rather missed the place—that they should have taken up Palestine. That, they said, would be all right in its time; they could easily go from this country to Palestine when the time came. I talked with them about a good many principles. I talked about our temples, and said that they would have to build one at Jerusalem, and I told them that I had spoken to Baron Rothschild on this same subject some few years ago, and that he would assist in gathering the people. They said that he had given them some help in connection with the enterprise they now had in hand, and they supposed he would assist in the future.

I speak of these things to show the good feelings that exist among men in many instances. That was certainly a very charitable act for these men to be engaged in. They were Jews and not Christians, neither were they Latter-day Saints. Why, it would be a good work for an infidel to be engaged in—to do good to his fellow men and relieve the oppressed. That is what we believe in—to do good to all men, especially to the household of faith.

It is well for us to remember that we are not the only people God has on the earth. We are told that He is the God and Father of the spirits of all flesh. He is therefore interested in the whole of the human family. The Savior commanded His Apostles to preach the Gospel to every creature. Why? Because the whole of the human family are the sons and daughters of God, and it was proper that they should have the principles of life and salvation presented to them. He has told us to do the same thing—to carry the Gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue and people—and our Elders go forth, as they did in former times, without purse or scrip, trusting in God. And some of them get killed. We have heard of two being slain quite recently in these United States, where we boast so much of freedom, human rights, liberty of conscience, etc. Right in the State of Tennessee, this atrocious deed has taken place, and it is not long since one of our brethren was murdered in Georgia. We feel sorry for these things; but, then, we cannot help it. We cannot relinquish our labors in relation to these matters. It is enjoined upon us to preach the Gos– pel to every creature, and we propose to carry out these things as the Apostles did in former times. Lives may be sacrificed for the truth’s sake; but it makes no difference where we are if we are only engaged in the work of God. Jesus said: “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” I fear God, and know no other fear, and do not want to; and when men talk sometimes about what they will do and what they are going to do with the Mormons—“Wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red Sea”—it does not make our knees shake nor our heart palsy. We feel that we are here to do the will of God, and in the name of Israel’s God we will do it; we will, God being our helper. These are my feelings, these are the feelings of my brethren around me, and these are the feelings of all good Latter-day Saints who comprehend themselves and intelligently know the principles by which they are governed.

We have embraced the Gospel of the Son of God, and God has taught us how to organize His Church. Had He not taught us we should not have known anything about its organization. Joseph Smith knew nothing about it; Brigham Young knew nothing about it; I could not have known anything about it, nor any of the Twelve, nor any man living on the earth, until God introduced it and taught us in all these things. In addition to establishing His Church, He has told us to build up a Zion to His name, and we are gathering the materials together for that purpose. We have got our Stakes organized, and we have come here to help organize your Stake. Yesterday the High Council was organized. This is a body of men that exists in the Church and Kingdom of God. All Stakes must have such a Council that they may have a perfect organization among themselves. Then you have Bishops, Teachers, etc., whose duties you are familiar with, the same being laid down in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. Brother Ricks here is your President, and with one or two exceptions, Bishops have been appointed in all the Wards, that everybody in the various settlements may be placed under proper government, and under the guidance and direction of the Almighty, according to the laws that He has introduced in His Church. For this purpose you have been taught to gather together in your towns and villages, and certain instructions have been given in regard to these matters. Before these instructions were given, Brother Preston and Brother Ricks were directed to come out and examine this land, and they found it was suitable for the settlements of the Saints. They were then requested by me to furnish a plan of the country, and also select places for cities and have them surveyed, to provide lots for meetinghouses, schoolhouses, Relief Societies and Mutual Improvement Associations. All of which they promptly attended to.

The Stake of Bannock was afterwards organized, as also a Presidency for the Stake. Town sites were selected and surveyed, and then the instructions which you have heard read were given by the First Presidency. We find you have a very good country, and are pleased to see you as comfortably situated as you are. It is hard struggling always to start new settlements. I am pleased, however, to find so many of our young men embarking in this enterprise; and by and by you will have a number of most beautiful cities in this portion of country. The land is quite productive, as was evidenced by the samples of oats, wheat, corn, turnips, etc., exhibited here yesterday. These things show you have got into a tolerably good country; and you have almost more water than you know what to do with; but when the time comes when all the land is taken up between these mountains, these streams will not be quite so big as they are now; you will be able to manage them a little better, for the earth will drink up a good deal of water. It seems to me your lines have fallen in pleasant places. Don’t be discouraged about anything. Everything is moving along all right. The great thing is to conform yourselves to the circumstances in which you are placed. There is one thing I have been very much pleased to learn. I requested Brother Preston, in talking about these things, to see that in the neighborhood of every town there should be a piece of ground set apart for the benefit of missionaries’ families; because we shall be calling upon the Elders here to go forth and preach the Gospel, the same as we are doing in other parts of the land of Zion. I asked Brother Preston to set a pattern here in this respect to the balance of the land of Zion, and then report to me, and I would call upon all other peoples in the land of Zion to do the same, that the families of the missionaries may have bread and other supplies, and thus be sustained and looked after, and not feel in any kind of bondage. Most of the missionaries, perhaps, would not be in needy circumstances, but if they should there will be something for their families and they will have no excuse to back out under these circumstances. And then we call upon the older men among the Seventies and High Priests and upon lots of the young men to attend to these matters, and thus promote the welfare of all.

And now we want to see you as Latter-day Saints, as quickly as circumstances will permit, get on to your city lots, and don’t be scattered abroad like so many stray calves. We want you to locate on your city lots, and in the mean time be preparing to build on them; for we must have beautiful cities and splendid habitations in the land of Zion. Many people begin to admire Salt Lake City; but we have done nothing there to what we intend doing. I have talked with Brother Ricks on the subject of building nice homes, and have suggested that you get some architect to furnish the plans of some pleasant cottages, and some more pretentious, according to the means and circumstances of the people. You may be able to purchase architectural books that will answer the purpose; but let us build beautiful homes. It is nearly as cheap to put up a good looking house, and one properly constructed, as it is one of those ill-favored affairs. Build your temporary homes well back in the lot, so that when you build again these will answer for kitchens, or it may be some of your boys or girls, till they can do better. But we want to see beautiful cities, beautiful houses and pleasant homes, and everything around you calculated to promote your happiness and well being.

And then we want to see you operate as one in all things. You fathers of families and you mothers, see to it that you dedicate yourselves and your habitation and everything you have to God, and that you live pure, virtuous, and holy and upright lives. See to it that you are men and women of God—children of the Most High God, and your offspring with you. And I tell you that the time is rolling on when Zion will become the praise and the glory of the whole earth. The time is coming and hastening on when, as one of the prophets predicts, people will say such and such a man was born in Zion—that is, the people of Zion will be so honorable, so upright, so virtuous, and so blessed of God, under the auspices of the Almighty, and the government which He will introduce, that they will think it an honor to have been born in Zion. We will fear God, and work righteousness on earth, and when we get through here be transplanted to the heavens until this earth shall be redeemed; for we shall again possess the earth when it shall be celestialized. God bless you all, in the name of Jesus. Amen.