The subjects that have been dwelt upon this morning are such as must
interest every one who has a desire to comprehend the principles of
salvation, as believed in and practiced by the Latter-day Saints. To my mind there has been an evidence of their truth
accompanying every word that has been spoken. The Spirit of God bears
testimony to the things of God, and there would be no difficulty in
convincing the inhabitants of the earth of the truth of the principles
believed in by the Latter-day Saints, were it not for tradition and
the prejudices which exist in men's minds in relation to the truth.
Let a man start out with the Bible in his hand, determined to receive
the truth wherever it may be found, and commence examining the various
institutions and churches that exist among men, and he would, if he
believed the Bible, and were not prejudiced by tradition and
education, expect to find, when he found the Church of Christ, a
Church organized in every respect like that of which the New Testament
gives us an account. He would expect to find Apostles and Prophets,
and the ordinances of baptism, and the laying on of hands for the
reception of the Holy Ghost in that Church; he would expect to find
the gifts of prophecy, revelation, tongues, the interpretation of
tongues, healing, wisdom, the discernment of spirits, and all the
gifts that existed in the Church of Christ in ancient days. He would
look for just such a church as this, and if he did not find it he
would conclude that that church had been withdrawn from the earth. The
evidences that abound in the Scriptures all go to prove that this was
the character of the Church of Christ in ancient days, and that there
should be no change, for the Scriptures tell us that God is the same
today, yesterday and forever, and that if men, in this day do the
same things—exercising the same faith as they did in ancient days—the
same blessings will follow their obedience. If we examine the Bible
there is nothing to sustain the idea that there should be any change
in any of these things; and when men hear it proclaimed that God has
restored the everlasting Gospel, and they have a desire in their
hearts to comprehend the truth, there is a spirit accompanies the
testimony of the servants of God which bears witness to their spirit
that these things are true. But immediately another spirit steps in,
and the reflection arises in the minds of many—What will my parents,
relatives or friends say? What will the world say if I believe this
doctrine? There is ignominy associated with belief in these doctrines.
There is shame to be encountered if I go forward and join a people so
despised as these. What will men say of me? In what light, shall I be
viewed? These reflections arise, and the testimony of the truth is
extinguished in the hearts of many. It requires, therefore, on the
part of people now, as in ancient days, great strength of mind, great
moral courage, and great love of the truth, an overpowering desire to
obtain salvation, and the Spirit of God to aid them, in order to
enable people to receive the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence it
is that so few, comparatively speaking, in every age have received the
truth. It requires courage to sustain men when opposed by every kind
of treachery and of violence. It required courage to enable men to go
forth to the stake, to be cast into dens of wild beasts, or fiery
furnaces, to be crucified, beheaded, sawn asunder, or to be exiled as
was John the Revelator. It required, in ancient days, and it requires
it in our days, this kind of sublime courage to enable men and women
to receive the truth; and in view of all this, we can see and compre hend the truth of the words of the Savior when he
said—"Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto
life, and few there be that find it," and "wide is the gate, and broad
is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in
thereat." It has been so easy for men to reject the truth and flow
with the current; it has been so easy for men to spread their sails,
catch the popular breeze and glide before it; and it has been so
difficult for men to stem the tide of opposition which they have
always had to contend with when they have embraced the truth, that it
requires on our part, brethren and sisters, devotion to the work which
God has restored. Every man and woman who has entered this church,
however ignorant and illiterate, and has been humble and truly
repented, has received a testimony from God that this is the truth.
God bestows his holy Spirit upon those who obey his Gospel as he
bestows light upon the earth. There have not been a privileged few,
there has been no hierarchy, there has been no monopoly of knowledge,
for some exclusive set to receive while the rest would be destitute;
but it has been diffused like the blessing of air—it has been to all
who have believed it, and every man and woman has received a testimony
for himself and herself respecting the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it
has been revealed and taught in these last days. Hence you travel from
one end of this Territory to the other and you find all the people
bearing testimony, when called upon, that they know this is the Gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, restored in its ancient purity and
simplicity. You go to foreign lands, and they bear the same testimony
everywhere. Illiterate, humble, uneducated, weak men have gone forth,
and proclaimed this truth, authorized by God, and God has condescended
to confirm the truth of their testimony and administrations among the
people, and we are now brought together in this land. We are
surrounded by peculiar circumstances, we are in a place to be tried
and tested, as we never have been before. There are many tests,
temptations and trials now assailing the Latter-day Saints, with which
they never had to contend before. We have had mobs, expulsion from our
lands, from the temple of God that we reared, and from the pleasant
homes which we had created, from the graves of our friends and kindred
whom we buried after they had fallen victims to the land which we had
redeemed from the condition in which we found it. We have passed
through these scenes and there has been but little faltering
considering the circumstances we have had to contend with. Men have
bravely stood all these things, and feeble women have been filled with
courage and strength to pass through these privations without their
faith failing them.
I hope that we shall not have such scenes to endure again. I pray that
we may be delivered from the violence of our enemies, that they may
not have power over us again as they have had in the past. But we must
make calculations on having trials and difficulties to contend with,
and having tests for our faith to be endured and passed through. We
cannot expect to accomplish the work that God has laid upon us
without being tested and proved. Men and women need not expect that
they will attain unto the glory which God has in store for the
faithful without being tested in all things. If we have a weakness, or
anything about us that is not thoroughly sound, we may expect
that sooner or later, that weak spot in our nature will be found, and
we will be tested to the very uttermost. If we expect to sit down with
Jesus and the Apostles and those who have fought the good fight of
faith, and who have laid down their lives for the truth in past ages,
or in our age, we must expect, like them, to be proved and tried in
all things, until everything in our nature that is drossy shall be
purified, and we be cleansed and made fit to sit down with them, pure
and holy—their peers.
Can I then, or can you, give way to lust? Can you love the world, and
the things of the world more than you do the things of God? Here is
the danger that is before us as a people—it is the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eye, the lust of wealth, the fondness for worldly ease
and comfort. We are being assailed by these trials. As a people we are
increasing in wealth. Wealth is multiplying upon us on every hand. I
know of no people, today, who are prospering as the Latter-day Saints
through these valleys are. God has blessed our land, rendered it
fertile, and made it most productive. He has placed us in the center
of the continent. We occupy the key position, and may be termed the
keystone Territory or State of the West. Wealth is pouring into our
lap, and we cannot help being wealthy, that is, if we follow the
course that has been indicated to us. We are as sure to be a wealthy
people as that the sun shines. It is the inevitable consequence of our
position, habits, union, &c.
There are more dangers in wealth than in mobocracy. There is more
danger in having abundance of money, houses, lands, comforts,
carriages, horses and fine raiment, than in all the mobs that ever
arrayed themselves against us as a people from the beginning until we
came here. We should realize this, and there is only one way that we
can escape the evil consequences thereof. Wealth has ruined and
corrupted every people almost that ever lived and attained unto power.
It has sapped the foundation and vitality of the most powerful peoples
and nations that ever existed on the face of the earth. We are human
as they were; we are exposed to the same trials and temptations as
they were, and we are liable to be overcome as they were; and the only
safeguard for us is to hold everything that we have subject to the
counsel and will of God our heavenly Father, until a different order
of things shall be instituted among us as a people.
I see young men growing up, and in their growth is the love of wealth,
the love of ease and worldly comfort, and the desire and greed for
money. I will tell you that the man who has the greed or hunger for
money within him, and does not repress it, cannot be a Latter-day
Saint. A woman who has the love of finery and of earthly ease and
comfort within her, and that is the paramount feeling in her heart,
cannot be a Latter-day Saint. No man can be a Latter-day Saint in
truth and in deed who does not hunger after righteousness and the
things of God more than he does after everything else upon the face of
the earth; and whenever you see or feel this money hunger, this dress
hunger, this hunger for worldly ease and comfort, in yourselves or
others, you may know that the love of God is being withdrawn from you
or them, and sooner or later it will be extinguished, and the love of
the world will grow until it becomes predominant. I do not know
anything more corrupting than this greed, hunger and lust for
the things of this life, or anything more degrading and debasing in
its effects, except it be the love or lust for women. As a people we
believe that lust for women is, next to murder, shedding innocent
blood, the most deadly of all sins. Committing whoredom or adultery
destroys the man who indulges in it, and next to that, in my
estimation, is the love of wealth—the lusting after the things of this
life; and there ought to be, and is in every rightly constituted
nature, a constant warfare against this evil. We have this to contend
with. We should watch it in our children and in ourselves, and we
should endeavor to govern and bring all our feelings and desires into
such a position that they can be controlled by the love of the truth.
God has most wisely designed, in my humble view and opinion, that, as
a people, we should be called upon from time to time to make
sacrifices in order that we may be weaned from the love of the things
of this life, that our love may be concentrated upon Him and upon the
salvation of our fellow men, for the mission that is entrusted to us
is to save the inhabitants of the earth. And what a glorious field
spreads out before us in this direction, when we see the thousands of
poor, perishing souls who are dying for the want of the blessings that
we enjoy. We build Temples, we organize emigration societies, and
expend our means that we may be the instruments in the hands of God of
saving and bringing salvation to the inhabitants of the earth—our
brethren and our sisters.
God required Abraham to sacrifice that which was most dear to him, and
he will also require at our hands that which is most dear to us. If
you have wealth, and are increasing in wealth, one of the best things,
under such circumstances, is to be always particular in doing that
which God requires of us. He requires of us one-tenth of all that we
have. Let us be liberal in this. He requires that we shall pay means
for the emigration of the poor from the distant nations of the earth.
Let us be liberal in this also. Then, if he requires our time and
talents and all that we have, let us be willing to devote ourselves to
his Work, for he blesses us with everything that our hearts desire.
There is nothing we have ever desired as individuals or as a people,
that has been good for us, and proper that we should have, that he has
withheld from us. On the contrary, he has multiplied blessings upon us,
and he will make us wealthy if we will only be devoted to him. There
is no danger that we shall not become wealthy, the danger is that we
shall become wealthy and not be willing to use our means to his glory
and for the advancement of his kingdom. That is the danger with which
we are threatened.
God bless you, my brethren and sisters, in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
- George Q. Cannon