I feel like bearing my testimony to the Gospel of the Son of God, and
I have it upon my mind to impress on the Latter-day Saints one
particular item of our faith, and that is to take a course to possess
the Spirit of the Lord. According to your experience and mine you
cannot understand the things of God but by the Spirit of God. If we
were to examine the character of the Jews in the days of the Savior we
would learn this one fact—that the people at that time were about as
destitute of the Spirit of the Lord as any nation ever need be. In our
day it seems that the Spirit will actually prompt people to liberal
thinking, to liberal actions and to liberal government, and not to be
as suppressive as they were in the days of the Jewish nation and other
nations that then bore rule; although in Christendom there have been
times when governments have been very oppressive, and when the people
were obliged to think as they were told, and when the doctrines they
believed in must be according to the precepts and teachings of
priests; but the present age is more liberal. The time has come when
the Lord is commencing to pour out his Spirit upon the people.
According to the words of the Prophet the time is to come when the
Spirit of the Lord shall be poured out upon all flesh. He says, "Your
sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream
dreams, your young men shall see visions, and also upon the servants
and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit." This
appears to be the commencement, and I am very thankful for it. Still,
according to the experience of those who examine themselves, and the
operations of the different spirits upon themselves, we learn that the
power of evil is very great, and we are more given to it than to
possess the Spirit of Christ. Yet the Spirit of the Lord enlightens
every man that comes into the world. There is no one that lives upon
the earth but what is, more or less, enlightened by the Spirit of the
Lord Jesus. It is said of him, that he is the light of the world. He
lighteth every man that comes into the world, and every person, at
times, has the light of the Spirit of truth upon him.
When we look at the conduct of the Jews and of the Romans in
Jerusalem, and other nations around, among whom Jesus traveled, we
find that it was very little influenced by those mighty miracles that
we think, talk and preach so much about. I mean the Christian world.
They cry to their hearers, "Look at the Savior, look at his acts,
behold his doings! What miracles he wrought! How he suffered
for us," and so on. What did the Jews or Romans care about all this?
Did they believe in him? It appears not, or but very few of them. And,
as we have just been hearing, it was the same among the multitudes who
followed him; although he fed them, and they saw his miracles, yet
they understood nothing of the power by which his mighty works were
accomplished. It was just so with the young man who was born blind,
whom the Savior healed. "Who opened your eyes," said the Scribes and
Pharisees. "Why, this man who is going about preaching, who says he is
the Savior, the Son of God—the king of the Jews." The priests replied:
"That is nonsense; you do not pretend to say that this man opened your
eyes!" "Well, all I know about it is, that he spat on the ground and
made a little mortar from the clay and anointed my eyes, and before
that I was blind, but now I see." "Well, do not believe on him, he is
an impostor, he is deceiving the people;" and when we examine and
understand the facts in relation to this personage whom we call the
Savior of the world, there were not, strange to say, as many persons
believed on him as have believed on Joseph Smith in the latter days.
Not that Joseph was the Savior, but he was a prophet. As he said once,
when some one asked him, "Are you the Savior?" "No, but I can tell you
what I am—I am his brother." So we can say. But Joseph was a prophet;
and so we testify, declaring that we know it. But how, in the world,
do you know it? Because somebody has made clay and anointed your eyes?
No. The young man did not know the real character of the personage by
whom his eyes were opened, nor he never would know unless the Holy
Ghost—the Spirit of revelation, rested upon him to such a degree as to
manifest to him that Jesus was the Christ.
This is a matter that we should well consider. Jesus fed the
multitudes miraculously; he walked on the water, healed the sick, gave
sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and raised the dead to life,
but what of all this? Did it prove that he was the Christ? I recollect
once, when on my travels, hearing some divines try to prove that
everybody ought to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ because of the
miracles he wrought. When they had argued some time I took the liberty
of saying, "Gentlemen, who were they who testified of these great
miracles that you speak of?" It was an Elder in Israel who was arguing
with them, and trying to prove to their minds that Joseph was called
of God to open up this last dispensation. They spurned every argument
and ignored every Scripture that was brought forward; but yet, they
said, we ought to believe on the Lord Jesus because of his great
miracles. "Who were they," said I, "who testified of these miracles? I
will return you your own words. You say that this gentleman is one of
Joseph Smith's disciples, and a party concerned and has an interest in
establishing the fact that he was a prophet and was called of God. If
he is a party concerned, were not Peter, Paul and Jude parties
concerned? And when you get the names of all who have written in the
New Testament—eight in number—you find they were all interested in
establishing the divinity of the Savior, they were all parties
concerned and had an object in view in endeavoring to establish the
fact that he was the Savior. This gentleman has told you that there
are twelve men who testify that they saw the plates from which the
Book of Mormon was written; they saw and handled these plates,
and they witness to the world that the Book of Mormon is true. Here
are twelve living men, who can be spoken to, against eight men who
have been dead for about seventeen hundred years." Well, but these
great miracles, these wonderful miracles!
I do not wish to speak the least derogatory to the character of him,
or whoever performed these miracles in the name of the Lord; but I
mention this to show how men's minds are wrought upon and how they
look at things. In my conversation I asked those gentlemen if they
believed the Bible? Yes, and they were very fervent in bringing forth
the great miracles of Moses, who was called to lead the children of
Israel. "Well, what did Moses do?" "Why, so and so."
"And you say that
Jesus raised the dead?" "Yes." "If you will turn to the Old
Testament,
you will find that a certain woman, called the witch of Endor, raised
up Samuel the Prophet. Did Jesus ever raise up a prophet?" They had to
acknowledge that he did not. "What greater work did Jesus do than a
witch, that our fathers in Massachusetts used to hang up by the neck
and burn, or make them swim across the bay, and if they went across,
that was proof they were witches or wizards; and if they could not get
quite across, but sank, they might possibly be innocent, but they were
at the bottom of the sea. What proof have you that Jesus wrought any
greater miracle than the witch of Endor—a wicked woman, who, to please
wicked Saul, brought the Prophet Samuel from his grave?"
Well, now, examine the character of the Savior, and examine the
characters of those who have written the Old and New Testaments; and
then compare them with the character of Joseph Smith, the founder of
this work—the man whom God called and to whom he gave the keys of
Priesthood, and through whom he has established his Church and kingdom
for the last time, and you will find that his character stands as fair
as that of any man's mentioned in the Bible. We can find no person who
presents a better character to the world when the facts are known than
Joseph Smith, Jun., the prophet, and his brother, Hyrum Smith, who was
murdered with him.
I will come now to my text again, and will ask the Latter-day Saints,
Do you know that Joseph Smith was a prophet? Yes. How do you know it?
Why, father and mother says it is so; Elder such-a-one says it is so,
and I believe it. They prove their doctrine by the Bible, and I am
forced to believe the Bible through the traditions of the fathers; and
these Elders establish the truth of their doctrines beyond all
controversy from Scripture, and I cannot deny it, hence I believe
Mormonism, or the Gospel.
Now, the question is, how much good will it do me to believe the
Gospel on the evidence of others, without possessing the spirit of the
Gospel? This is a question that I can answer very readily. There is no
man or woman on the earth that will live according to the laws of God,
but will possess the Spirit of God. This answers the question. But
suppose we believe and we do not quite live this law. We embrace the
Gospel, we gather up with the Saints, and yet we live in the neglect
of our duty and beneath our privileges; we do not call upon the Father
in the name of Jesus with that sincerity and earnestness necessary to
bring down the revelations of the Lord upon us, and we live in this
manner for days and years together; by and by something or other comes
along that we do not like, we cannot understand it, we have not the spirit to understand it, and consequently we reject this and
reject that; and if the Church is just right and its leaders are just
right, why the individual is not right, and he turns away from the
holy commandments of the Lord Jesus, and goes back to the beggarly
elements of the world, like the dog to his vomit, or the sow to her
wallowing in the mire.
Now, let me ask the Latter-day Saints, you who are here in this house
this day, how do you know that your humble servant is really,
honestly, guiding and counseling you aright, and directing the affairs
of the kingdom aright? Let you be ever so true and faithful to your
friends and never forsake them, never turn traitor to the Gospel
which you have espoused, but live on in neglect of your duty, how do
you know but I am teaching false doctrine? How do you know that I am
not counseling you wrong? How do you know but I will lead you to
destruction? And this is what I wish to urge upon you—live so that you
can discern between the truth and error, between light and darkness,
between the things of God and those not of God, for by the revelations
of the Lord, and these alone, can you and I understand the things of
God. When Jesus preached to the people they were destitute of the
Spirit of truth, and if they believed his teachings for the moment, as
soon as they went away the Spirit left them and they were again in the
dark, and they did not become the disciples of Jesus. So it is now.
For instance, a great many strangers come here; they see our work,
they give us praise, they acknowledge our faithfulness, industry,
prudence, economy and so forth. How do they know that we are preaching
the Gospel? "Oh," say they, "we do not know anything about that;
we do
not come here to be Mormons." But suppose they were perfectly honest
before God and sought unto him until they got the Spirit of
revelation, they would be convinced that we told them the truth, or
else that we did not preach that which we profess to teach, one of the
two. We know all about it, but they do not. Did the people in the days
of the Savior? No, they saw his miracles, but they enjoyed no more of
the Spirit of truth than some of the strangers who visit us. One thing
is very remarkable, and should be noticed by strangers who come here,
and that is, the change that takes place in their own feelings. Let me
say this to strangers, I mean those who have any regard for truth and
holiness; when you are here in this house or city, and you commune
with the Latter-day Saints, there is a spirit of peace, a holy
reverence for truth, righteousness, goodness, mercy and virtue rests
upon you; in fact, you are influenced by that spirit and influence
which hover over this people; but what do many of you say when you go
away? No longer ago than yesterday a reporter said to me, "While in
California, judging by what I heard, I supposed you had no
improvements here, you lived in dugouts, you had no schools, and that
the people did not look as the people do anywhere else—quite another
kind of people—neither industry, judgment nor discretion amongst them;
but I am perfectly disappointed, my whole mind is revolutionized, and
I see things so different to what I expected to see them, that I am
really another person here." What will he write about us? If he does
as others have done, we may expect to see a batch of
misrepresentations from him just as quick as he gets away and the
spirit of the enemy takes possession of him. Such men cater to the
world and to the ungodly priests that the world is afraid of.
But I will confine this wholly to the political world. "Yes," says the
senator, or the man who wishes to be a senator, representative,
governor or any officer, "if I do not cater to these priests I shall
lose my election." But I would see them further in heaven than they
will get in ten thousand years before I would cater to them. Truth,
honesty and uprightness in everything, and if that will not stand upon
its own basis, falsehood, deception, lying to and deceiving each other
certainly will not, either here or hereafter. It is the honest and
honorable, or, in other words, it is truth and righteousness, that
will stand the day of God Almighty. When the Lord Almighty thunders
from the heavens to try the souls of the children of men they will
want truth and righteousness.
But to return to my question to the Saints, "How are you going to know
about the will and commands of heaven?" By the Spirit of revelation;
that is the only way you can know. How do I know but what I am doing
wrong? How do I know but what we will take a course for our utter
ruin? I sometimes say to my brethren, "I have been your dictator for
twenty-seven years—over a quarter of a century I have dictated this
people; that ought to be some evidence that my course is onward and
upward. But how do you know that I may not yet do wrong? How do you
know but I will bring in false doctrine and teach the people lies that
they may be damned? Sisters can you tell the difference? I can say
this for the Latter-day Saints, and I will say it to their praise and
my satisfaction, if I were to preach false doctrine here, it would not
be an hour after the people got out, before it would begin to fly from
one to another, and they would remark, "I do not quite like that! It
does not look exactly right! What did Brother Brigham mean? That did
not sound quite right, it was not exactly the thing!" All these
observations would be made by the people, yes, even by the sisters. It
would not sit well on the stomach, that is, on the spiritual stomach,
if you think you have one. It would not sit well on the mind, for you
are seeking after the things of God; you have started out for life and
salvation, and with all their ignorance, wickedness and failings, the
majority of this people are doing just as well as they know how; and I
will defy any man to preach false doctrine without being detected;
and we need not go to the Elders of Israel, the children who have
been born in these mountains possess enough of the Spirit to detect
it. But be careful that you do not lose it! Live so that you will know
the moment the Spirit of the Almighty is grieved within you. Do you
ever see such times? I do. I watch you. I see, for instance, a company
of young people go and mingle, perhaps, with old people, and hear them
laughing, joking, and talking nonsense and folly. By and by darkness
comes—leanness of the soul; and one says, "My head don't feel right;
my heart is not right; my nerves are not right; I do not know what is
the matter, but I do not enjoy myself here this evening." Do you know
what is the matter? You ought to live so that the very moment the
Spirit of the Lord is grieved, stop that instantly, and turn the
attention of every individual to something else that will retain the
good Spirit of the Lord and give you an increase of it. This is the
way to live.
Have you this experience, sisters? Yes, many of you have. We need not
go to the Elders of Israel to ask them. Do you see people
apostatize? Yes. Will more go? Yes, many more. It is a day of
trial—a day wherein the Lord will try the hearts of the children of
men; and he is taking a course now with individuals and with nations,
to make them exhibit the very center of their hearts, as governments,
as nations, as cities, as heads of families and as individuals, that
he may reveal the secrets thereof, that they may be known to each
other. Consequently you can see the necessity of every person living
so as to have the Spirit of revelation.
Brother George A. Smith has been speaking about our little trials in
Missouri. I do not wish to cast reflections on any person, but I do
not acknowledge that I ever received persecution; my path has been so
kind from the Lord I do not consider that I have suffered enough even
to mention it. But when the words of Governor Lilburn W. Boggs were
read by General Clark, with regard to our leaving the State or
renouncing our religion, I sat close by him, although I was the very
particular one they wanted to get and were inquiring for; but as kind
Providence would have it they could not tell whether it was Brigham
Young they were looking at or somebody else. No matter how this was
done, they could not tell. But, standing close by General Clark, I
heard him say, "You are the best and most orderly people in this
State, and have done more to improve it in three years than we have in
fifteen. You have showed us how to improve, how to raise fruit and
wheat, how to make gardens, orchards and so on; and on these accounts
we want you; but we have this to say to you, No more bishops, no more
high councils, and as for your prophet," and he pointed down to where
Joseph lay, right in the midst of the camp, "you will never see him
again." Said I to myself, "Maybe so and maybe not; but I do not
believe a word of it." "And," continued he, "disperse, and become
as
we are." Do you want I should tell you what I thought? I do not think
I will. I thought a kind of a bad thought, that is, it would be
considered so by a very religious person, and especially if he was
well stocked with self-righteousness; but I would as soon as not tell
what I thought to those who have not much of this and are not very
pious, and it was, "I will see you in hell first." Renounce my
religion? "No, sir," said I, "it is my all, all I have on this earth.
What is this world worth as it is now? Nothing. It is like a morning
shadow; it is like the dew before the sun, like the grass before the
scythe, or the flower before the pinching frosts of autumn. No, sir, I
do not renounce my religion. I am looking beyond; my hope is beyond
this vale of tears, and beyond the present life. I have another life
to live, and it is eternal. The organization and intelligence God has
given me are not to perish in nonentity; I have to live, and I
calculate to take such a course that my life hereafter will be in a
higher state of existence than the present." Said he, "Forsake your
religion, and become as we are!" I had been round the country enough
to know the practice of both priest and people. On Saturday they would
get together and run horses, throw up coppers to see who would treat,
get pretty drunk, and perhaps get up a good sound quarrel, and then
the priest would step in half drunk, and with long face and
sanctimonious drawl preach on the evils of intemperance and so on.
"Become as you are? God forbid," said I. You are as low and degraded
as possible, living here without schools, orchards or mills, like the
brutes almost, in your little cabins! Bacon and hominy! Bacon
and Indian bread, honey and milk, and they were perfectly satisfied.
As I heard one of these great nobles say, on a certain occasion when
at his house; we were holding a two-days' meeting; he did not belong
to the Church, but his family did. Said he, "Mr. Young, I have a great
deal of property and some money, and I do not know what to do with it,
I think I will go up to your place and buy." He had a log house, all
in one room, with six beds in it. Not a light of glass to light the
room; and just to instruct my sisters how to cook, I will tell them
something about the first meal we had there. A twelve-quart tin milk
pan was set on the table, filled with beef, stacked as you see cannon
balls, up to the peak or roof, in arsenals. I think there was about
two ounces of butter on the table, white as cheese curd. This was in
the month of August, when the fat beeves were standing around, and I
do not know how many cows, sheep, oxen, horses, geese, turkeys and
fowls were running round his yard; and I do not think that his pile of
beef in the milk pan had a half or a quarter of an ounce of fat on it.
Said they to us, "Help yourselves, lay hold and help yourselves;" and
we did, to a piece of dry bread, dry beef and a little "clean"
butter—we always called such butter "clean," because it looked so
white. I recollect on Sunday morning, you will excuse me for telling
this anecdote, after we had sat down and had eaten a little, the lady
of the house said, "Brother Young, take a piece of pie! Brother
Kimball, take a piece of pie." They had a large peach orchard, with
hundreds of bushels of ripe peaches, probably not all worked up into
brandy, but still they could not afford a ripe peach for a pie. The
lady put a piece of pie on the plate, and I cut a little off and
turned it over and looked at it, and said I, "Yes, I will taste your
pie, for I never saw the like before in my life; did you, Brother
Kimball?" "No, S-i-r, I n-e-v-e-r did." There were peaches that had
fallen from the trees before they were ripe, cut in two and the pits
taken out, put on a piece of dough, not even the fuzz wiped off, and
then another cake put over the top, nothing else inside but this, and
then baked in a bake pan, or "Dutch oven," as we used to call it. "It
is peach pie, Brother Brigham; Brother Kimball, will you take a bit of
pie, it is peach pie." I never saw the like before, and there the man
sat, as happy and contented as could be. And this is like Missouri,
all over, as it used to be. "I do not know what to do with my means,"
and yet he had not a light of glass in the place, and had to open the
door to see to eat; and six beds in one room. We slept there with the
family, not with the wife, but with the whole family—men, women and
children. Said the owner of the place, "I declare, I think I will go
and purchase some land." I said to him, "How would it do to have this
floor fixed and made comfortable?" It was made of oak boards sawed out
and dried up, and you might have shoved your hand down between each
one; and it was just so with the chamber, and when a person walked on
it, it went "clatter," "clatter," "clatter." Said I,
"how would it be
to have this floor planed, matched and nailed down, so that when the
children walk over it it will not make so much noise? And how would it
be to have a window? When the weather gets cold, it will be pretty
uncomfortable to have to open the door to see to eat, knit, sew and so
on?" "Well," said he, "I declare I never thought of that;"
and I do
not suppose he ever had in his life. I dare not say much, so I
abridged my remarks, and wound up as quickly as possible. The
gentleman, I believe, continued to live there, and for anything I
know, he is there still; at any rate he did not come up to the
gathering place and buy property. This was the style of living there,
and they wanted us to adopt it, and become as they were. "No, sir,"
said I, "I am for improvement." I guess General Clark lived in just
about such a house, and I think the others did. We printed the first
papers, except about two, set out the first orchards, raised the first
wheat, kept almost the first schools, and made the first improvements
in our pioneering, in a great measure, from the Mississippi River to
the Pacific Ocean; and here we got at last, so as to be out of the way
of everybody, if possible. We thought we would get as far as we could
from the face of man; we wanted to get to a strange land, like
Abraham, that we might be where we should not be continually wrong
with somebody or other, and have them crying, "Oh, you Mormons!" and
have the priests preaching, the press printing, the drunkard swearing,
and all, high and low, rich and poor, wishing these poor "Mormons"
were out of the way. We got out of the way as far as we could; and if
we can get out of the way any further and do any good, we are ready to
get out of the way; but I think we are as far out of the way as we
need to be; and we have got on the highway which has been cast up, and
I think we had better stay here.
As far as our doctrines are concerned, come on my brother from the
"Mother Church," down to the last one that has come out with something
new. Come on, you revivalists, what have you got? If you have anything
better than we have, come up here and let us have it. Our belief and
doctrine with regard to the human family is that if we know more than
you, we will give our knowledge to you, then you will know as much as
we; and by the time you have acquired it we will know a little more,
and be ahead every time we impart knowledge. Like the teacher in the
school, no matter whether he is teaching a, b, c, a-b ab, or in the
higher branches, while teaching others, he or she is also increasing.
While those who, in the providence of God, are the possessors of
knowledge and wisdom, are dispensing them to others, they are
increasing their own store. That is our principle of action. Take the
poor, do not go down to the poor and the ignorant, lift them up, and
give them all we have; and we go ahead and get more, and impart to the
inhabitants of the earth until they are filled with wisdom, knowledge
and understanding.
To my text again—
How do we know that Jesus is the Christ? By the revelations of the
Spirit of God. How do we know that the Bible is true? We know that a
great deal of it is true, and that in many instances the translation
is incorrect. But I cannot say what a minister once said to me. I
asked him if he believed the Bible, and he replied, "Yes, every word
of it," "You do not believe it all to be the word of God?" "Most
assuredly I do." Well, said I, you can beat me at believing, that's
certain. As I read the Bible it contains the words of the Father and
Son, angels, good and bad, Lucifer, the devil, of wicked men and of
good men, and some are lying and some—the good—are telling the truth;
and if you believe it all to be the word of God you can go beyond me.
I cannot believe it all to be the word of God, but I believe it as it
is.
How do we know it is true? By revelation. How do we know that prophets
wrote the word of the Lord? By revelation. How do we know that Joseph
Smith was called of God to establish his kingdom upon the earth? By
revelation. How do we know that the leaders of this people teach the
truth? By revelation. How do we know the doctrine of baptism for the
remission of sins to be true? It is written in the Bible; but the
Christian world deny it, because it is not manifested to them by the
revelations of the Lord Jesus. They have not the keys of revelation,
although some believe baptism by immersion, but they do not believe it
is for the remission of sins, except one society, which came out from
the Close Communion Baptists, founded by Alexander Campbell. He
baptized for the remission of sins. At this time I was a Methodist.
Said I, "Why not lay on hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost?"
"O," said they, "we have no authority to do that, it is done away."
"How do you know that baptism for the remission of sins is not done
away? Your arguments confuse themselves, and these self-confounding
arguments are all chaos to me. If you have the right to baptize for
the remission of sins, you have the right to lay on hands for the
reception of the Holy Ghost; and if you have this power and authority,
of course you have prophets, and possess the various gifts and graces
recorded in the New Testament. Do you lay hands on the sick?" "Oh,
no." "Do you prophesy?" "We do not believe in it." Most
Christians
disbelieve in these things, but "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," is
their great point; and, so far as it goes, it is good. But unless we
obey his Gospel, where God and Christ are we cannot live hereafter,
but shall have to take another kingdom, live in another place and be
administered to by those who are higher. What do you say, is that
correct? I will just read a word or two and then stop. Here is the
doctrine. I am not going to say anything about it, but will just read
it. "For, for this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are
dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but
live according to God in the Spirit." First Peter, 4th chapter, 6th
verse.
What does that mean? Not only in the world, but out of the world, they
who expect to receive any salvation at all must hearken to the
requirements of heaven, thus far, to entitle them to the Spirit of the
Lord Jesus, that they may live by the revelations thereof, and walk no
more in darkness, but in the light of life. I do wish that each and
every one of us would do that. Are we able to do it? Certainly; it is
the simplest thing in the world. Well, then, just believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. "Oh," say the Christians, "we do believe." Well,
then,
come forward and be baptized for the remission of your sins, and
receive the laying on of hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost,
then you shall receive the witness, and you shall be the possessor of
the Spirit of revelation according to the gifts and graces of God as
he dispenses them to you—speaking in tongues, interpreting the same,
prophesying, dreaming dreams, and so forth, for all these are by the
selfsame Spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ.
If we will live so that Christ can make us one through our obedience,
where are wars and contentions? All will cease. Where is the spirit of
bickering? There will be no more of it. How much pleasanter it would
look, and how much better it would be for the world if these things
were to cease! "Well," say the world, "you Mormons, forsake
this obnoxious doctrine and practice of having more wives than one."
For heaven's sake, then, cease killing the men, and let them live and
take the women, or you will oblige us to take more than we know what
to do with. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, obey his doctrine, cease
your warring and contention, beat your swords into ploughshares and
your spears into pruninghooks; make railroads, build colleges, teach
the children, give them the learning of the world and the things of
God; elevate their minds, that they may not only understand the earth
we walk upon, but the air we breathe, the water we drink, and all the
elements pertaining to the earth; and then search other worlds, and
become acquainted with the planetary system, the dwellings of the
angels and the heavenly beings, that they may ultimately be prepared
for a higher state of being, and finally be associated with them. I
wish we would do it; I pray the Lord to do it, but he will not, unless
we help him.