And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We
will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel: only let us be called
by thy name, to take away our reproach.
In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious,
and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that
are escaped of Israel.
And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that
remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is
written among the living in Jerusalem.
The portion of the prophecy of Isaiah which I have read indicates that
at a certain day and under certain circumstances, spoken of by the
Prophet as being holy, seven women would claim to be called by the
name of one man. Most of us have a different opinion with regard to
the application of this prophecy. God inspired the Prophet, and it
might be necessary, peradventure, to inquire what it all means. Seven women are to lay hold of one man, saying, "We will eat our own
bread and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by thy name, to
take away our reproach." What is the meaning of this last sentiment?
We will let the Bible explain it. You remember that when Rachel, the
second wife of Jacob, the father of the tribes of Israel, found
herself barren, while the other wives of her husband were bearing
children, she prayed to the Lord that he, in his abundant mercy, would
give her children, and when God heard her prayer and worked a miracle
in her favor, causing her who was barren to become fruitful and bring
forth a child, she said, God had taken away her reproach. This
illustrates the meaning of the text. I did not make the prophecy,
neither had I anything to do with making the history of Rachel, or
even chronicling the event named.
In relation to Father Jacob, it is true he had four wives, and they
bore him twelve sons, and their descendants are the twelve tribes of
Israel. We are told by the Apostle John that the names of Jacob's
twelve sons—the sons of a polygamist and his four wives—will be
written upon the gates of the holy Jerusalem; and there are none of us
who expect to enter in through those gates but will have to
acknowledge the truth of that doctrine. It is true that the principle
of plurality of wives was adopted by the Church of Latter-day Saints
in consequence of the revelation and commandment which God gave to
Joseph Smith, and which, through him, were laid upon the heads of this
people; and we quote the passages that we do quote, in relation to the
principle of celestial marriage from the Old and New Testament, to
prove that God is consistent with himself; that if he revealed to his
Saints in the last days, the doctrine of plurality of wives, it was in
fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah and others of the Prophets, and
in accordance with the example which was set by Abraham, Jacob, Moses,
and by holy men of ancient days.
In relation to the word "reproach" in our text, I will make another
reference. In the first chapter of Luke's Gospel, verses 23 and 24, we
find Elizabeth rejoicing because God had taken away her reproach. She
though she had been barren, became the mother of John the Baptist.
These passages tell in so many plain words why it was that seven women
wished to be called by the name of one man—it was that they might have
the privilege of bearing children.
Now, if God brings to pass this prophecy in the glorious day which our
text speaks of, when holiness and righteousness are to rule, and when
truth is to have dominion, and peace dwell in the earth, although all
the world may have been opposed to it, we cannot be responsible.
Until some person can find a passage in the Old or New Testament that
definitely forbids a plurality of wives, with the many incidents of
history, items of law, and declarations of Prophets in relation to the
practice by the ancient Saints of that doctrine, we are able to assert
that the Bible is a polygamous book, and that no man can believe it
without believing plurality of wives, under some circumstances to be
correct. I know it has been said that the Old Testament permitted
plurality of wives, but the New forbids it. The Savior said he came
not to destroy the law but to fulfil it, and that not a jot or tittle
of the law or Prophets should pass away, but all should be fulfilled.
The new dispensation did not annihilate the principles of law and
right, as revealed in the Old. Both John the Baptist and the
Savior denounced all sins with an unsparing hand, and especially
adultery, fornication and divorce; and not a sentence is found in the
New Testament which prohibits plurality of wives, though the Savior
and his Apostles lived in a country where it was practiced; and it is
impossible to believe that if it were a sin it would have escaped
definite rebuke and absolute condemnation.
The petition to Congress which has been read here today is a perfect
wonder, I presume, to those who have heard it. It is astonishing to
me, and doubtless to all who listened to it, and especially those who
reside here, that such a statement could be got up by any individual
whatever, that any imagination could be so tortured as to manufacture
so unmitigated a tissue of utter and absolute falsehoods; and much
more that persons could be found who would think so little of their
reputation as to sign such a statement. We understand, however, that
many of the persons whose names are on that petition did not see the
original. Many of them thought they were simply signing a petition
against the admission of Utah as a State, without bringing personal
charges against a people among whom they have lived in perfect safety,
and in a country where peace and order have prevailed, and where all
have enjoyed the uniform protection which our Territorial laws and the
general organization of society give. I regret exceedingly that such a
document should be made public; but as it is, with the list of names
attached to it, was published by order of the United States Senate, it
was thought proper to read it to the congregation that all might have
a chance to know what it was and judge for themselves.
I came to this valley in 1847, being one of the 143 pioneers who
searched out and made the roads from the Missouri River here. The
ample property we possessed in Illinois we had left there; and we made
the roads, about 300 miles, or nearly across the State of Iowa,
bridging about thirty streams, and passing through a wilderness
totally uninhabited save by a few scattered Indians. That was as far
as we could get the first year. The second year—1847—we made the roads
from what we termed Winter Quarters, about five miles above where
Omaha is now situated. We traveled on the north side of the river,
established our ferry across the Elkhorn, and made our road, striking
the old Oregon trail, as it was called, at the mouth of Ash Hollow;
that is, we went up on the north side of the Platte to the north fork;
while Independence road went up on the south side, and struck the
north fork at Ash Hollow, probably a hundred and eighty miles below
Fort Laramie. We thought some of crossing the river and taking the
trapper's trail, but we found it difficult, so we continued making a
new road on the north side until we reached Fort Laramie. There we
crossed and made a road a portion of the way, and followed the old
trail a portion of the way through to Fort Bridger. On this route we
encountered some companies who were going to Oregon, and being unable
to get across the Platte and Green rivers we got up the means of
ferrying, and ferried them across both these rivers, and they
proceeded on the route to Oregon, while we worked our way across this
Wasatch range into this valley.
When we reached here we found the place very barren; but it was the
best prospect we had seen for five hundred miles. The creek we now
call City Creek came out of the mountains, and divided into branches, and finally sank down into the ground, apparently
without reaching Jordan River. It had about its sinks some green spots
of rushes and grass, but except that the country was very naked and
barren. The city plot here did not even bear good sage; and there was
a little grass, but it was very dry. Along the stream were a dozen or
so of scrubby cottonwoods and a few willows. The rest of the ground
was naked, except being nearly covered with immense numbers of large,
black crickets, which had devoured most of the leaves of the
cottonwoods and willows; and when we went to work to cut a ditch to
carry the water down to the place known as Old Fort block, where we
first built our fort, so dry was the soil of the ditch that it took
the whole stream two and a half days to reach the desired point.
It was in this desolate place—1034 miles from the Missouri River, and
thirteen or fourteen hundred from Nauvoo—the place whence we had been
expelled, that we commenced our location. It was understood that a
party had undertaken to cross west here, some year or two before, and
had perished. The name of the man who led the party was Hastings, and
the route west is called Hastings' cut off. It is said that John C.
Fremont had been in this valley the fall previous, but we had no
report of his explorations. We had an account of him visiting the
north end of Great Salt Lake, and the south end of Utah Lake; but so
ignorant was he at the time of the country between the two lakes that
his map, published after his return from his exploration, shows Salt
Lake and Utah Lake to be one body of water, whereas there is a river
about fifty miles long between them.
In a few days after we reached here another party arrived, increasing
our numbers to about four hundred. We had but very little provisions,
which we had brought with us. The country was destitute of game, and
the most rigid economy was necessary in order to subsist. We remained
about a month, when a portion of the pioneers, myself among the
number, started back for our families, who were still encamped at
Winter Quarters, on the Missouri River; and on our way back we met
about seven hundred wagons with families moving on for this place.
These families came in late, and enclosed themselves in the Old Fort
block, and the two blocks south of it, where they lived in security
from the Indians, and during the winter they succeeded, partially, in
enclosing a field, making preparations for irrigation, and sowing
several thousand acres of grain. They found it necessary to ration
themselves on account of the scarcity of their provisions, and I
believe that almost every family allowanced themselves to half a pound
of flour a day, that is, if they had it, many to less; and they went
over these hills digging the sego—a wild, bulbous root, sometimes
eaten by the Indians, and everything that they could get that had any
nutriment in it. In those days the animals that were killed, having
crossed the plains, were generally very poor; but they were used with
the greatest economy, hides, feet and tail, all being eaten. I believe
they tell a story of a certain rule among the Mahomedans, in relation
to eating swine's flesh. Some of them refuse it, but as a general
thing the various classes of them only refuse certain portions—some
reject the snout, some the ear, others the feet, others the tail, and
so on; but among the whole Mussulman race they "go the whole hog."
Among the earliest settlers in this valley there was no rejection; and there are some, who lived here the first two years after our
arrival, who will now say that they never tasted any food so sweet as
boiled rawhide. About the time our first crop began to head out, the
crickets made their appearance, and devoured the greater portion of
it. This was awfully discouraging. Our nurserymen had collected their
seeds, and planted them, and some twenty or thirty thousand trees had
got up, may be five or six inches high, and one day, while the
nurserymen had gone to dinner, a swarm of crickets came down and
destroyed all the trees but three. That was the commencement of our
nursery business in this city. It is believed, fully, by the
Latter-day Saints of that time, that God delivered them from utter
starvation by sending flocks of gulls from the lake, which ate up the
crickets, and saved a portion of their crop. The crickets have not
troubled the agriculturists in the valley, materially, since, but the
flying grasshoppers have come in immense numbers, and in 1855 reduced
all the families in the Territory to half the allowance of food they
needed; and for several years back this plague has probably destroyed
from one-third to one-half the fruits of the farmer's labors. These
are very material drawbacks to our prosperity with which we have had
to contend here in Utah. Persons unacquainted with the manner and
difficulties of irrigation cannot realize the immense labor, care and
attention that are necessary to commence this work. Friends come in
and look over our city, and say, "Why, how nice this water is that
runs through all the street!" But the fact is, there is not a tree,
bush, or spear of grass grows in these low valleys without being
irrigated naturally or artificially, and there is only very few and
very small spots where natural irrigation is attainable. By natural
irrigation I mean that the water is so near the surface of the ground
as to moisten it sufficiently to make it produce vegetation, and these
places are only found about the sinks of creeks. Just turn the water
that passes through these streets back into the original channel, and
next fall would see most of the trees dead. All the results you see
here, in the way of agriculture, were made, are held by main strength
and constraint and continued diligence.
During the days of our early settlement, it was necessary that
measures be taken to supply the wants of those who were without food,
and for years a fast was held every month, and sometimes every week.
The amount of food that would have been consumed by a family during
that fast was presented to the needy, and in this way, struggling for
three years in succession, the people were sustained, and nobody
perished. When we did finally succeed in raising the necessaries of
life, thousands of strangers came pouring in here, a great many of
them destitute of bread. They had started for the gold mines without
knowing how far it was, what outfit to take, or how to take care of
themselves; and great numbers of them, when they reached here, had to
be assisted on their journey, and there were thousands who went to
California during the early days of the gold excitement there, who
must have perished had it not been for the assistance they obtained
from the settlements of these valleys.
We came here full of enterprise, and our only hope for subsistence was
in agriculture. We found mines of lead, and minerals of various kinds;
but we could do nothing with them. The Legislative Assembly
memorialized Congress for a railroad and a telegraph line
across the continent, and they set forth in that petition, in 1852,
that the mineral resources of these mountains could never be developed
without a railroad; and that if they would build a railroad, or make
the necessary arrangement for one, the trade of China and the East
Indies would pass through the heart of the American States. We have
lived to see these predictions fulfilled.
You may pass, friends, over the Territory at your leisure; go from the
north to the south, and you will find the inhabitants, generally,
industrious, temperate, moral, straightforward, diligent and honest,
very few spending their time about gambling hells or drinking saloons;
in fact very few villages support such establishments, and wherever
you find them you may be sure that modern civilization has made
inroads there. When you see a gang of men standing round, loafing
about a place, smoking cigars, drinking whiskey, and looking for
something to turn up, you may generally set it down there is no
Latter-day Saint there, or if there is a "Mormon" mixed up with them
he is becoming demoralized. If the faith of the Latter-day Saints be
adhered to as it should be, men would be temperate and moral, and they
would avoid using profane language; and one of the injunctions of
their religion is that the idler shall not eat the bread of the
laborer.
We have fed thousands and tens of thousands of strangers who have
passed through here without means, and no person has been permitted to
go hungry in our midst if we knew it, admitting at the same time that
our means of subsistence were limited, and all that we have wrenched
from the soil has been by main strength.
I would like to draw a little comparison: I moved my family in '49. I
came out in '47, and went back again and made arrangements to get back
with my family, the earliest possible, which was in '49. I brought in
two hundred pounds of flour a head for the family, which I ran out in
short allowances to each one of them, and I divided some to the
neighbors, there being numbers of them around who had got out of food,
and we eked it out little by little, little by little. If a friend
called and had his dinner with us, why, we had to shorten our
allowance of bread. There was no place we could go and buy a little
flour or a little beef, for nobody had any but what they wanted
themselves, and what they must have themselves, and if we divided our
little out we, ourselves, must go hungry. If we lived fast today, we
must starve tomorrow, and in this way we stretched the matter along.
God, in his mercy, blessed us with good health; we had good health,
hard work and short allowance of food. There was one thing we were
very thankful for: We had been mobbed a number of times—five times
driven from our homes. We had left our inheritances in Missouri and
Illinois, and had got nothing for them, and here, whatever other
things we lacked, we had the privilege of worshiping God according to
the dictates of our consciences, and we could go to meeting, and
preach and pray without anybody interrupting us; for although there
were thousands and thousands of strangers constantly passing through
our territory, they generally treated us with kindness and
consideration. How is it now with us with regard to the necessaries of
life? If a man is out of bread he can hardly find a house but what, if
he enters and says, "I am hungry, give me something to eat," the reply
will be, "Yes, we have plenty." And there are thousands of men and
women who have come from the States and from Europe. We have
contributed immense sums, and sent our teams by the hundred to the
Missouri River to bring them here; and when they got here, their
labor, industry and economy would enable them at once to obtain food
and the necessaries of life, plain, to be sure, but an abundance of
such as the country afforded. No one that is hungry can go to a house
or a family and ask for bread and not obtain it. Look at the contrast;
and it has been effected by years of fasting and united industry,
poverty and toil, by the pioneers of this country. To be sure we have
had plenty of the sayings of the Savior upon our heads to satisfy us
that we were right in one particular. He says: "Blessed are ye when
men shall persecute you, and say all manner of evil concerning you,
falsely, for my sake."
We bid welcome to our friends. The fields are wide and open, and the
mountains are, no doubt, full of mineral. At any rate, every man has
his chance, if he will dig for it. Dig for the treasures, and open the
fields and the farms, but do not trespass on the rights of your
neighbors. Worship God according to the dictates of your conscience,
observe the law of heaven, but never, under any circumstances, intrude
upon the rights of others. These are the principles which rule here.
Look at these things, and realize that it is to the efforts of the
inhabitants of this country, their labors, toils and sacrifices, that
we owe our present comfort. We commenced by hauling carding machines
and printing offices across the mountains; we built factories, and
undertook to raise wool; we labored to produce flax and hemp, not very
successfully, but we did all we could. Thousands of our brethren did
not believe it possible ever to raise fruit; but God tempered the
climate, and, although in the tops of the mountains, we have raised
abundance of fruit in many of our settlements. Our sheep have become
productive, our herds have increased, and we have laid a foundation
for plenty; and any pilgrim who comes along, who wishes to obtain food
and raiment, can obtain it, for it is here; and he can go into the
mountains, and if fortune favor him he may strike something which he
may desire, though I must honestly confess that, so far as I am
concerned, I believe the plan for any man to pursue who wishes to lay
a foundation for future independence, is to procure a piece of land
and make a farm. He might, peradventure, strike an "Emma" mine; but I
think that kind of luck will be the exception instead of the rule;
but, as a general thing, the man who labors industriously to make
himself a farm, creates around him a good, comfortable home in a few
years. Of course, if men go prospecting for minerals, they know it is
a good deal like a lottery. Our railroad is going south, and as it
progresses, new mines and new mining interests will, without doubt, be
opened and developed; and as a result of the labors of developing the
resources of the Territory, I realize that millions will be
benefited.
There is one thing that our friends do not realize. When they come
here they make up their minds that "Mormonism" is a humbug, and their
mistake is, it is true. Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, and the
plan of salvation revealed through him is the Gospel of Jesus Christ;
and every man and every woman who rejects it, rejects the truth, and
will be responsible for it; and every man and every woman who walks in
obedience to its precepts will receive glory, honor,
immortality and endless lives. I am not talking something I guess, I
know these things are true; and it is the wisdom and prudence, the
light and the intelligence of the Almighty, revealed through his
servants to the Latter-day Saints, that have gathered a hundred
thousand people from the four quarters of the earth and planted them
down in comfortable homes in Utah, and it is only the inspiration of
the father of lies that circulates the false reports and the abuse
concerning them.
May God bless you my friends. You are welcome in this land. Go and be
blessed; and as you go to your homes, to the four winds of heaven,
tell the truth about the Latter-day Saints. May God enable us to
overcome and be faithful in all things, that we may finally inherit
his kingdom, through Jesus our Redeemer. Amen.
- George A. Smith