As there is still a little time which may be occupied to our benefit
this morning, I arise to improve it.
These are happy days to the Saints, and we should rejoice in them;
they are the best days we ever saw; and in the midst of the sorrows
and afflictions of this life, its trials and temp tations, the
buffetings of Satan, the weakness of the flesh, and the power of death
which is sown in it, there is no necessity for any mortal man to live
a single day without rejoicing, and being filled with gladness. I
allude to the Saints, who have the privilege of receiving the Spirit
of truth, and have been acquainted with the laws of the new covenant.
There is no necessity of one of these passing a day without enjoying
all the blessings his capacities are capable of receiving. Yet it is
necessary that we should be tried, tempted, and buffeted, to make us
feel the weaknesses of this mortal flesh. We all feel them; our
systems are full of them, from the crown of the head to the soles of
the feet; still, in the midst of all these weaknesses and frailties of
human nature, it is the privilege of every person who has come to the
knowledge of the truth, to rejoice in God, the rock of his salvation,
all the day long. We rejoice because the Lord is ours, because we are
sown in weakness for the express purpose of attaining to greater power
and perfection. In everything the Saints may rejoice—in persecution,
because it is necessary to purge them, and prepare the wicked for
their doom; in sickness and in pain, though they are hard to bear,
because we are thereby made acquainted with pain, with sorrow, and
with every affliction that mortals can endure, for by contrast all
things are demonstrated to our senses. We have reason to rejoice
exceedingly that faith is in the world, that the Lord reigns, and does
His pleasure among the inhabitants of the earth. Do you ask if I
rejoice because the Devil has the advantage over the inhabitants of
the earth, and has afflicted mankind? I most assuredly answer in the
affirmative; I rejoice in this as much as in anything else. I rejoice
because I am afflicted. I rejoice because I am poor. I rejoice because
I am cast down. Why? Because I shall be lifted up again. I rejoice
that I am poor, because I shall be made rich; that I am afflicted,
because I shall be comforted, and prepared to enjoy the felicity of
perfect happiness, for it is impossible to properly appreciate
happiness, except by enduring the opposite.
I was glad to hear brother Babbit speak this morning. He wondered why
he had been called to the stand to speak, and could not conceive of
any other reason, except it was that the people might know whether he
was in the faith or not. He guessed pretty nigh right. He has been
gone some time, and travels to and fro in the earth, playing into law
up to the eyes, mingling with the bustle of the wicked world. Has he
got any faith? We think he has. I wanted to hear him speak, and to
know what his feelings were, and if the root of the matter was in him;
so we had him come before the public congregation, to exhibit it
there. My reasons for pursuing such a course are known to myself; but
one thing is certain, if we magnify our calling as Elders in Israel,
we are the saviors of the children of men, instead of being their
destroyers. We were ordained to save the people, and to save them in
the manner the Lord has pointed out. The Savior came not to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance; and we preach to the people, and
call upon them to be saved—not the righteous, but we call upon
sinners; for those that are well, need no physician, but they that are
sick. With those who are saved already, we have nothing to do. But it
is those who are in sin and transgression, who are
in darkness and in
weakness, those who are wrapt up in the superstitions and false
traditions of the nations that have lived and passed away, whom we
must plead with and try to save; and if they begin to see, continue to
anoint their eyes with truth, that they may see clearly; and put them in every possible condition we can place them in, to
encourage them to call upon the Lord, and trust in Him alone; for
those who will trust in the Lord will be made strong.
As for the weaknesses of human nature, we have plenty of them;
weakness and sin are with us constantly; they are sown in the mortal
body, and extend from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet.
We need not go to our neighbors for sin, to palliate all our crimes,
for we ourselves have plenty of it; we need not crave weakness from
our fellow man, we have our own share of it; it is for us to trust in
the Lord, and endeavor to deliver ourselves from the effects of sin,
plead with every person to take the same course, and propose and plan
every possible means to become friends of God, that we may thereby
become friends of sinners, and receive a great reward in a day to
come.
I am satisfied with the remarks of brother Babbitt and if we sum them
all up, and make a close calculation upon the whole, looking over the
lives of Prophets, Patriarchs, and Apostles; not overlooking the
circumstance of Peter denying his Lord, or any of the old ancients
faltering in their steps, transgressing, falling into weaknesses,
turning away from the commandments of the Lord, or being overtaken in
any fault whatever—sum up the whole, and add the weaknesses and sins
of modern Prophets, Apostles, and Saints; then sum up all the
weaknesses and sins of mankind, and bring them together, and you will
find that it will never justify you nor me one moment in doing a wrong
thing, in forsaking the Lord, and serving the devil, or any of his
emissaries. Consequently, I feel to urge
upon every person who has
named the name of Christ, the necessity of his being faithful to the
requirements of his religion, and of shunning all evil, as quick as he
becomes acquainted with the principle by which he can discriminate
between good and evil; and cleave unto the good, follow after it, pray
for it, and cling to it by day and by night, if he wants to enjoy the
blessings of a celestial kingdom. I wish this for myself and for my
brethren. Never think that the Lord will permit you to commit a little
sin here, and a little sin there; that He will permit you to lie a
little, serve yourselves or somebody else a little, besides Him,
because you have faith, and are a professed friend of God, and have a
desire to see His kingdom prevail, thinking you will be saved at last.
This throws a person, at least, upon the ground where he is liable to
be overthrown by the enemy. It is a risky position to stand in, to say
the least of it, for a Saint of God to say he can serve himself, or
the enemy, or anything else in this world, for gold; those who do it,
stand upon slippery ground, and if they are saved at all, it will be
by the skin of their teeth; so I will not justify any person in
pursuing such a course. Brother Babbit has to law it here, and law it
there; though he may not feel justified in doing so, I rejoice to hear
him declare that the root of the matter is in him. Would I not rather
see him an almighty man before God, thundering out the truths of
eternity, and living in the flame of revelation, than see him engaged
in the paltry business of pettifogging? I thank the Lord for all the
good and for all the faith there is in him. Brother Babbit is near to
my heart, for notwithstanding all the faults of the brethren, I love
them—the old, middle-aged, and young; if they have a particle of love
in them for the truth, they are near to my heart. I wish to bind them
to the Lord, and to His cause upon the earth, that they may secure to
themselves salvation.
I am happy, and am made glad this day. If you wish to know what I
think of brother Babbit, I will tell you. If we could keep him
here a few months, and in our councils a few years, I think that he
would despise litigation as he would the gates of hell. If we had him
here, we would wrap him up in the Spirit and power of God, and send
him to preach glad tidings to the nations of the earth, instead of his
being engaged in the low and beggarly business of pettifogging. If he
would dwell among us, doubtless he would despise it, for it is from
hell, and it will go there.
We have heard good remarks, but let me forewarn you again, that the
Elders in Israel need never flatter themselves that they can serve the
devil, because they think the root of the matter is in them, for
before they are aware, they will be led captive by him, and he will
lead them down to hell. That is my exhortation, not only to the Elders
in Israel, but to all Saints.
There is one thing in the sayings of brother Babbit, which I will
refer to, in relation to the loyalty of this people. I am at the
defiance of the rulers of the greatest nation on the earth, with the
United States all put together, to produce a more loyal people than
the Latter-day Saints. Have they, as a people, broken any law? No,
they have not. Have the United States? Yes! They have trampled the
Constitution under their feet with impunity, and ridden recklessly
over all law, to persecute and drive this people. Admit, for
argument's sake, that the "Mormon" Elders have more wives than one,
yet our enemies never have proved it. If I had forty wives in the
United States, they did not know it, and could not substantiate it,
neither did I ask any lawyer, judge, or magistrate for them. I live
above the law, and so do this people. Do the laws of the United States
require us to crouch and bow down to the miserable wretches who
violate them? No. The broad law of the whole earth is that every
person has the right to enjoy every mortal blessing, so far as he
does not infringe upon the rights and privileges of others. It is also
according to the acts of every legislative body throughout the Union,
to enjoy all that you are capable of enjoying; but you are forbidden
to infringe upon the rights, property, wife, or anything in the
possession of your neighbor. I defy all the world to prove that we
have infringed upon that law. You may circumscribe the whole earth,
and pass through every Christian nation, so called, and what do you
find? If you tell them a "Mormon" has two wives, they are shocked, and
call it dreadful blasphemy; if you whisper such a thing into the ears
of a Gentile who takes a fresh woman every night, he is thunderstruck
with the enormity of the crime. The vile practice of violating female
virtue with impunity is customary among the professed Christian
nations of the world; this is therefore no marvel to them, but they
are struck with amazement when they are told a man may have more
lawful wives than one! What do you think of a woman having more
husbands than one? This is not known to the law, yet it is done in
the night, and considered by the majority of mankind to be all right.
There are certain governments in the world, that give women license to
open their doors and windows to carry on this abominable practice,
under the cover of night. Five years ago the census of New York gave
15,000 prostitutes in that city. Is that law? Is that good order? Look
at your Constitution, look at the Federal law, look at every wholesome
principle, and they tell you that death is at your doors, corruption
in your streets, and hell is all open, and gaping wide to enclose you
in its fiery vortex. To talk about law and good order while such
things exist, makes me righteously angry. Talk not to me about law.
Suppose that the things they are pleased to say about this
people are true, do you suppose I care about it? I do not, for I ask
no odds of them. This people have treated them kindly. Did we not pay
for our land honorably when we settled in Missouri and other places?
We have paid them millions of dollars for land, of which we have been
basely robbed; and shall I crouch down, and say I dare not speak of
it? I would rather have my head severed from my body in this room,
than be compelled to be silent on this matter. I am a green mountain
boy, I was born in the State of Vermont, and plead for my rights, and
the rights of this people, upon the broad Constitution of the United
States, which we shall certainly maintain, in spite of the poor,
rotten, political curses that pretend to enforce the Constitution. I
ask no odds of them. I will feed them, if they come hungry to my door,
for they are flesh of my flesh. The King upon the throne, and the
President in his chair, are the same to me as these poor emigrants,
who are lying around my doors—when they are hungry, I feed them; when
they are sick, I nurse them; the same as I would the President of the
United States, or any of the kings of Europe, unless they were better
men.
As for the pride that is in the world, I walk over it, it is beneath
me. To see men who are called gentlemen of character, sense, taste,
and ability, who pass through this city, and come bending with their
recommendation, saying, "Governor Young this," and "Governor Young
that" —it makes me feel to loathe such hypocritical show, in my heart.
I shall not say all I think about it. If they would come to me, and
say, "Brigham, how are you?" or, "I want to speak to you, &c.," with a
good honest heart in them, instead of, "Governor Young," "Governor
Young," in a canting tone, with hearts as black and deceitful as hell,
they would command that esteem from me which is due to an honest man.
A blackleg is a polished rascal. If you go to the polished circles of
society, you will find the greatest scape-graces and pickpockets
concealed under the most polished gentlemen in appearance. A man never
can be a polished scoundrel, until he can figure in polished society.
It proves the truth of the saying, that it takes all the revelations
of God, and every good principle in the world, to make a man perfectly
ripe for hell.
You will not see in the nature of a man who has a soul in him, and who
is filled with the Holy Ghost, a disposition to bow and scrape to
every blackguard that may come in the shape and address of a
gentleman. But if you are thirsty, hungry, or destitute, I will assist
you. How many have I helped away to California, and given them bread
and meat, notwithstanding they wanted to go to the devil; this made no
difference to me; I have helped them, and told them to go, if they
wished to. There is no tyranny here, but perfect liberty, which is a
boon held sacred to all men. They have a right to come and go as they
please. I do not ask you to be a "Mormon." Can you point out one
person who has entreated any of the emigrants to become "Mormons,"
since they came into our midst? Since their arrival here, we have been
kind and hospitable to them, and have not cared whether they have been
"Mormons" or Methodists. They can come and hear preaching, if they
think proper; but we shall never put them to any trouble because they
are not "Mormons."
You may say you do not believe in God. Well, it is your privilege to
believe as you like; you can believe in the Methodists' God, that has
neither body, parts, nor passions (which amounts to nothing at all),
if you please.
But one may say, "I belong to the holy Catholic Church." You
have a right to belong to what Church you please. Another may say he
believes in and worships a white dog, for he has lived with the
nations who have a tradition teaching them to do so. It is all right;
you are as welcome to worship a white dog as the God I do, if it is
your wish. I am perfectly willing you should serve the kind of a god
you choose, or no god at all; and that you
should enjoy all that is for you to enjoy.
There are some things, however, I am not willing you should do. For
instance, I am not willing you should steal the money out of my
pocket, and then cry, "Bad dog;" and get somebody to kill me. I am not
willing you should enter my house to defile my bed, or endeavor to
bring death upon an innocent people. I am not willing you should drive
me and my brethren from our houses and farms, as has been the case in
former times. There are scores of thousands, I may say hundreds of
thousands, of acres of land in the United States, for which we have
paid money, but which we cannot possess. I am not willing you should
drive your cattle into my corn field, which has been done before my
eyes, by men who have thought, "You are only poor damned Mormons
anyhow, and we'll tread you down." I am willing every man should
worship God as he pleases, and be happy. But the measure that has been
meted to this people, will be measured to that people; and it will be
heaped up, pressed down, and running over; and then as much again
thrown in; all this good measure I am willing they should have when
the Lord will. I shall not exult in the miseries that will come upon
them, but weep over them; whereas I have seen a mob with their rifles
pointed at me by hundreds, and could not be moved to tears, but I felt
like Daniel of old,"I will worship my God, and pray with my windows
open, if my life
should be the penalty." I would not be afraid if the
whole artillery of the United States, with the best engineers that
could be raised to manage it, were arrayed against me for
righteousness' sake, knowing that the God of heaven, in whom I trust,
would not suffer a ball to touch me, if it was His will that I should
yet live. This I have felt time and time again.
I do not desire to harass the feelings of the people by reiterating
the past, but if you want these things buried up, treat us like men
and human beings, and they will be forgotten, but if you still want to
probe us with the hot iron of persecution, probe on.
We came here ourselves, unassisted by any power, but that of God, and
walked through the Indian tribes as independent as I am this day. We
dug our way through the canyons, and made the roads to this place;
while at the same time five hundred of our most energetic men were
fighting the battles of the United States in Mexico.
When our women and children were left on the banks of the Missouri, in
a helpless condition, I said to one of the United States officers, who
had been threatening those who were left behind—"While I am gone to
find a home for my family, if you meddle with them, or insult them in
the least, by the Gods of Eternity I will be on your track." And had
their threats been executed, I would have slain them, even though I
should have had to go into the heart of Washington city to do it. Says
he, "Mr. Young, you talk strangely." "Well," I said, "let my family
alone;" for they wanted to persuade them back to the other side of the
river, to afflict them still more.
Five hundred of our best men were then in the United States' army,
traversing the sandy deserts and scorching plains of the South,
without shoes to their feet, or clothes to cover them.
There are scores in this congregation who can prove this
declaration. On one occasion they traveled day and night for ninety
miles, through the scorching sands, without one drop of water. And
now, as payment for this arduous service, they try to taunt us by
saying—"We don't want to give you Mormons anything." I care not if you
should never give us one dime.
Now let me tell you the great killing story—"Governor Young has
sixteen wives, and fourteen babies." Now they did not see that sight;
but the circumstance was as follows. I took some of my neighbors into
the large carriage, and rode down to father Chase's, to eat
watermelons. When driving out of the gate in the evening, brother
Babbit walks up, and I invited him into the carriage, and he rode up
into the city with me, and I suppose he told the United States'
officers. That I believe is the way the story of sixteen wives and
fourteen children first came into circulation. But this does not begin
to be the extent of my possessions, for I am enlarging on the right
hand and on the left, and shall soon be able, Abraham like, to muster
the strength of my house, and take my rights, asking no favors of
Judges or Secretaries.
Do you think we shall all die in Utah? If so, why have we not died ere
this, when we dwelt in the midst of a people that cherished hostile
feelings against the Latter-day Saints? Who delivered Joseph Smith
from the hands of his enemies to the day of his death? It was God;
though he was brought to the brink of death time and time again, and,
to all human appearance, could not be delivered, and there was no
probability of his being saved. When he was in jail in Missouri, and
no person expected that he would ever escape from their hands, I had
the faith of Abraham, and told the brethren, "As the Lord God liveth,
he shall come out of their hands." Though he had prophesied that he
would not live to be forty years of age, yet we all cherished hopes
that that would be a false prophecy, and we should keep him forever
with us; we thought our faith would outreach it, but we were
mistaken—he at last fell a martyr to his religion. I said, "It is all
right; now the testimony is in full force; he has sealed it with his
blood, and that makes it valid."
I would be happy, exceedingly happy, to let our past experience and
afflictions sleep forever; but the Lord will not suffer me to let
them sleep. I would be willing to forget them, but I cannot. The Lord
will never suffer this people to dwindle down, and be hid up in a
corner; it cannot be; neither does He want any person to help them but
Himself. Satan and the Lord never can shake hands, and He will let the
nation know it; for He has got servants who will do His righteous
will, and that faithfully. I would rather be chopped to pieces at
night, and resurrected in the morning; each day throughout a period of
threescore years and ten, than be deprived of speaking freely, or be
afraid of doing so. I will speak for my rights. I would just as soon
tell a government officer of his meanness and filthy conduct, as I
would any other person; they are all alike to God, and to those who
know His will.
I have studied the law, and say again, I defy the united authorities
of the earth to show where this people have not been loyal, wherein
they have not proved loyal, in Germany, in France, in England, or in
the United States; for they are the best people upon the face of the
earth to observe the law and keep order. I want to live perfectly
above the law, and make it my servant, instead of its being my master.
That is the way to live; to be humble before God, and observe the
laws; for there is no necessity of breaking the laws in America, in keep ing the commandments of God. When the law is our master,
the yoke is hard to bear; but when it is our servant, it works easy;
whereas, if it be our master, we are continually compelled and driven
by it.
There is not a single constitution of any single state, much less the
constitution of the Federal Government, that hinders a man from having
two wives; and I defy all the lawyers of the United States to prove
the contrary.
Let the past experience be buried in the land of forgetfulness, if the
Lord will; but if this is done at all, it will be by showing kindness
towards us in the future. If they wish us to forget the past, let them
cease to make and circulate falsehoods about us, and let all the good
people of the Government say—"Let us do this people good for the
future, and not try to crush them down all the day long by continuing
to persecute them."
If we are a company of poor, ignorant, deluded creatures, why do not
they show us a better example? Why not send the money to pay the
expenses of our legislature, and the expenses of the expeditions
against the Indians, as they do to other territories? Their present
course towards us, put in language, is, "We will squeeze them still,
and dig out their eyes if it be possible." While they continue to
pursue that course towards us, we shall continue to tell them of it.
It makes me think of what an old farmer said in Boston, who had been
in the habit of paying his merchant's bills very punctually, but, from
some cause, he did not continue to meet his payments as usual. The
merchant sent for him, and said—"I have always found you to be a very
honest man, why do you now lie to me?" The farmer replied—"Because I
am pinched." The merchant asked—"How hard should an honest man be
pinched to make him lie?" The farmer replied—"Just pinch him till he
lies." They want to pinch us till we are led to do something to bring
the whole nation down upon us, according to the plan of old Tom
Benton, but, gentlemen, this cannot be done, for there is a God in
Heaven, and He rules, thank His Holy Name; and we will be wise enough
to keep His commandments, that we may be saved. Amen.