If my friends will have patience with me I will say a few words. To
the Latter-day Saints I say, I do pray you to prove the words of
Brother Cannon true with regard to being obedient to your President in
all things, and doing as he tells you. I pray you to hearken to this
counsel; if you do, contention and sin will cease, and we shall not
see men going to the canyon or riding out for pleasure on the Sabbath
day, instead of coming here to meeting; we shall hear no more of their
taking advantage of each other, stirring up strife, going to law,
bearing false witness, or pilfering a little the one from the other. I
pray you to take this counsel, and cease your wickedness, Latter-day
Saints, and do as your President tells you. I feel to say this; and if
you will be patient with me I will say a little more.
There are strangers here, and to them I will say we have traveled the
earth over, and where we could not go we have sent by Elders and by
proclamation. We have asked the inhabitants of the earth to become
acquainted with our doctrine. Would they read it? No. Would they go to
hear an Elder preach? No, as a general thing they would not. If we had
been let alone while with the Christians we would have been there now
proclaiming the Gospel. But I wish to say to strangers that we were
not persecuted because we believed in having many wives, for that
principle was not known to our persecutors until we came to these
mountains, although the revelation was received by Joseph Smith and
written a year before his death. Since this doctrine has been
proclaimed we have lived in peace.
The inquiry among many, and especially among our political friends,
is, "What are you going to do? Are you going to observe the law
against plurality of wives, or are you going to obey the revelation?"
We have obeyed the revelation thus far, and still live; that I can
say, and perhaps that is enough. What do we say about the lawmakers?
Go to, ye legislators, and make a law that every man in this
government shall have one wife. You have just as good a right to do
that as to say that we shall not have two. Let every man have his
wife, raise his family, live virtuously and keep his vows, and our
difficulty is at an end. We say to Congressmen and Presidents, have
your wife; and we also say to every political and financial man the
world over, marry the women and take care of them and save us the
trouble. If you do not, we will gather them up, just as sure as the
world. Many destroy life; we save it; and as we have said, years and
years ago, we say now to all, the day that you will be virtuous and
cease your unlawful connections with the sex and every man have his
wife, and all the inhabitants of this government observe this rule, we shall have then but one wife apiece; but we shall save all we
can save. The men are the lords of the earth, and they are more
inclined to reject the Gospel than the women. The women are a great
deal more inclined to believe the truth than the men; they comprehend
it more quickly, and they are submissive and easy to teach, and if we
cannot save the men, let us save the women for God's sake, and do not
find fault with us.
Again, a gentleman said to me, the other day, "What are you going to
do with the anti-polygamy law?" I replied, "Nothing at all, we mind
our own business, and I hope everybody else will. We have not meddled
with it, and do not expect to; but we expect to live."
I want to say a word with regard to what are called our former
persecutions; though I, for one, will acknowledge that I have never
been persecuted. As for what people do with my name, I do not know nor
care; they use it for good or for evil, just as they please. The Lord
gave a revelation through his servant to me, that my name should be
had for good and for evil before the nations of the earth, and if that
is the way they use it, all right—either one or both, no matter. Hands
off is all I ask, and let us have the privilege of living in peace.
But will you hearken to the truth? Will you listen to the words of
eternal life? We have traveled the earth over, and have read to the
people out of the book of life; but as a general thing they have
refused to receive it. It is true that a few have received it in the
past, and I hope that many will in the future. We shall gather and
save all we can. The rise and cause of our persecutions have been just
the same as it has ever been in the experience of the Saints of God.
Who were the leaders and foremost in the ranks of the Savior's
persecutors? The Scribes and the Pharisees. Who were foremost in the
ranks in persecuting Joseph Smith, even when he had the pledge of the
governor of the State of Illinois that he should be preserved, and
when not one scratch or law could be found against him? Who led the
blackened crew who said that if the law could not reach him, powder
and ball should? The priests; they have always led the van, and always
will. It is Baal against Christ now, as it always was.
When we were in Missouri the order was issued, "You 'Mormons' must
leave the State," and thirty-five hundred men were paraded for battle
against about three hundred of the Elders of Israel, but they did not
happen to kill us all. They took Joseph, or rather they sent for him
and Hyrum, and, they went down to their camp, and General Clark called
the brethren together, and, said he, "Give up your arms and every
weapon you have;" and the brethren gave them up. I stood there and
heard the General declare, "Gentlemen, you are the best and most
peaceable community there is in this State; but," said he, "as for
your prophets, bishops, high councils, &c., we shall not permit you to
have them any longer. Forsake your religion and abandon your Prophet!
We have him, and you will never see him again; forsake this banding
together and being one, and live with us and become as we are. You are
the very mechanics and farmers we want. You have shown us how to build
mills, set out orchards, raise wheat, rear comfortable habitations,
school the children, build meetinghouses, and, in short, you have
done more to make the country in three years than we have in fifteen.
You are good citizens, but you must not clan together, you must disperse among the people; if you do not, remember the militia
will be upon you." We bid them goodbye and left our property; we
would not forsake our prophets then, and we are of the same mind yet.
Here we are, though we did not come here because we chose to get out
of the way of the Christians. We wanted to stay with our former
brethren, to induce them if possible to receive the truth; but they
would not hear it. The world of mankind is sunk in ignorance and
darkness; but the Lord Almighty has revealed his will from heaven, and
we shall declare it to the people, and give them a chance to receive
or reject it. The Lord invites all to come, and partake of the
benefits of his Gospel, which, we are told in the Scriptures, is the
power of God unto salvation; and our experience has proved that it is
so, whether taken in a moral, social, political, or financial point of
view. We have gathered the poorest class of men to be found on the
continent of America, and I was one of them; and we have gathered the
same class from Europe, for very few indeed of those who have obeyed
the Gospel have ever been the possessors of any wealth. We have taken
the poor and the ignorant from the dens and caves of the earth and
brought them here, and we have labored day and night, week after week,
and year after year, to make ourselves comfortable, and to obtain all
the knowledge there is in the world, and the knowledge that comes from
God, and we shall continue to do so. We shall take the weak and the
feeble and bring them up to the standard that God requires. The Gospel
of life and salvation does not reduce those who obey it to beggary;
but it takes the poor and the ignorant, makes them wise and happy, and
surrounds them with the comforts of life and everything de sirable, and
teaches them to serve God with all their hearts.
This, gentlemen, is our doctrine, faith, and practice; and we wish
strangers to understand that we did not come here out of choice, but
because we were obliged to go somewhere, and this was the best place
we could find. It was impossible for any person to live here unless he
labored hard and battled and fought against the elements, but it was a
first-rate place to raise Latter-day Saints, and we shall be blessed
in living here, and shall yet make it like the Garden of Eden; and the
Lord Almighty will hedge about his Saints and will defend and preserve
them if they will do his will. The only fear I have is that we will
not do right; if we do we will be like a city set on a hill, our light
will not be hid. I trust that the time will soon come when, in all
things, our conduct will be such that all the world might pattern
after us with advantage. I can say that at the present time we are far
from that. It is sometimes said by strangers, "We suppose you
Latter-day Saints consider yourselves perfect, don't you?" I answer,
not by any means; we are as imperfect as a people ought to be, and a
little more so.
I wish that what Brother George Q. said of you was true—that you were
all obedient to your President. If you all will be, you will cease
sinning, tattling, lying, backbiting, and strife; all will be
industrious, prudent, faithful and full of wisdom and good works, and
the power of God will be upon us more and more, and we will be able to
do more good to the inhabitants of the earth. We have no quarrel with
anybody. We exchange ideas, but we will not contend. As I used to say
to the ministers, when traveling and preaching, "I will not dispute.
If you want the truth I will give it you; and if you have a
truth that I have not, I want all you have; but contention is not my
calling; it is no part of the Gospel of Christ; that is peace, life,
light, and salvation. The Lord has given that to me and you, and you
are welcome to it."
I wanted to say these few words to you. I thank you for your patience.
God bless you. Amen.