While Elder Taylor was speaking of the future condition of the
departed, the words of a writer in the Book of Mormon came to my mind,
and I think that, probably, reading it will be as appropriate on the
present occasion, to refresh the minds of the Saints in relation to
their faith, and if there should be strangers present, it will give
them an idea of the faith of the Latter-day Saints in relation to the
resurrection. I think, I say, it would be as appropriate as anything I
could say. They are the words of Jacob, the brother of Nephi, and are
recorded in the second book of Nephi and sixth chapter. Speaking to a
people who were there, Jacob says—
"Behold, my beloved brethren, I speak unto you these things that ye
may rejoice, and lift up your heads forever, because of the blessings
which the Lord God shall bestow upon your children. For I know that ye
have searched much, many of you, to know of things to come; wherefore
I know that ye know that our flesh must waste away and die;
nevertheless, in our bodies we shall see God. Yea, I know that ye
know that in the body he shall show himself unto those at Jerusalem,
from whence we came; for it is expedient that it should be among them;
for it behooveth the great Creator that he suffereth himself to become
subject unto man in the flesh, and die for all men, that all men
might become subject unto him. For as death hath passed upon all men,
to fulfill the merciful plan of the great Creator, there must needs be
a power of resurrection, and the resurrection must needs come unto man
by reason of the fall; and the fall came by reason of transgression;
and because man became fallen they were cut off from the presence of
the Lord. Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement—save it
should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on
incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man, must
needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must
have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no
more.
"O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace! For behold, if the flesh
should rise no more, our spirits must become subject to that angel who
fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the
devil, to rise no more. And our spirits must have become like unto
him, and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the
presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies, in
misery, like unto himself; yea, to that being who beguiled our first
parents, who transformeth himself nigh unto an angel of light, and
stirreth up the children of men unto secret combinations of murder,
and all manner of secret works of darkness.
"O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our
escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death
and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of
the spirit. And because of the way of the deliverance of our God, the
Holy One of Israel, this death, of which I have spoken, which is the
temporal, shall deliver up its death; which death is the grave. And
this death of which I have spoken, which is the spiritual death, shall
deliver up its dead; which spiritual death is hell; wherefore, death
and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its
captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and
the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other;
and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel.
"O how great the plan of our God! For on the other hand, the paradise
of God must deliver up the spirits of the righteous, and the grave
deliver up the body of the righteous; and the spirit and the body is
restored to itself again, and all men become incorruptible, and
immortal, and they are living souls, having a perfect knowledge like
unto us in the flesh save it be that our knowledge shall be perfect.
Wherefore, we shall have a perfect knowledge of all our guilt, and our
uncleanness, and our nakedness; and the righteous shall have a perfect
knowledge of their enjoyment, and their righteousness, being clothed
with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness.
"And it shall come to pass that when all men shall have passed from
this first death unto life, insomuch an they have become immortal,
they must appear before the judgment seat of the Holy One of Israel;
and then cometh the judgment, and then must they be judged according
to the holy judgment of God. And assuredly, as the Lord liveth, for
the Lord God hath spoken it, and it is his eternal word, which cannot
pass away, that they who are righteous shall be righteous still, and
they who are filthy shall be filthy still; wherefore, they who are
filthy are the devil and his angels; and they shall go away into
everlasting fire, prepared for them; and their torment is as a lake of
fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever and
has no end.
"O the greatness and the justness of our God! For he executeth all his
words, and they have gone forth out of his mouth, and his law must be
fulfilled. But, behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of
Israel, they who have believed in the Holy One of Israel, they who
have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it,
they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them
from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever.
"O the greatness of the mercy of our God, the Holy One of Israel! For
he delivereth his saints from that awful monster the devil, and death,
and hell, and that lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless
torment.
"O how great the holiness of our God! For be knoweth all things, and
there is not anything save he knows it. And he cometh into the world
that he may save all men if they will hearken unto his voice; for behold, he suffereth the pains of all men, yea, the pains of
every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to
the family of Adam. And he suffereth this that the resurrection might
pass upon all men, that all might stand before him at the great and
judgment day. And he commandeth all men that they must repent, and be
baptized in his name, having perfect faith in the Holy One of Israel,
or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God. And if they will not
repent and believe in his name, and be baptized in his name, and
endure to the end, they must be damned; for the Lord God, the Holy One
of Israel, has spoken it. Wherefore he has given a law; and where
there is no law given there is no punishment; and where there is no
punishment there is no condemnation; and where there is no
condemnation the mercies of the Holy One of Israel have claim upon
them, because of the atonement; for they are delivered by the power of
him. For the atonement satisfieth the demands of his justice upon all
those who have not the law given to them, that they are delivered from
that awful monster, death and hell, and the devil, and the lake of fire
and brimstone, which is endless torment; and they are restored to that
God who gave them breath, which is the Holy One of Israel."
There is much more in this chapter of a similar character, very
instructive to those who read and have faith to believe the testimony
of this man.
In speaking to you, my brethren and sisters, who are familiar with the
life of him whose remains are in our midst this morning, I need not
say to you scarcely what our views and hopes are concerning him. We
know when a man dies, inasmuch as he dies faithful to the truth,
hav ing kept the commandments of God and obeyed the ordinances of the
house of God as far as they have been revealed and as he has had an
opportunity, that he is secure, that his future is assured. He goes,
as we are taught, to the Paradise of God, there to await the morning
of the first resurrection. We know that his body will be called forth
from the dust and from the tomb, and that his spirit will reanimate
it, and he enter upon that glorious condition of existence concerning
which so many promises have been made. In this respect the faith of
the Latter-day Saints is not a chimera, it is something tangible.
While I sat here and listened to the words of our brother the
reflection came across my mind—how often we are called upon to
participate in sad scenes like the present, and yet throughout all
this Territory, among all the Latter-day Saints, there is this
peculiarity, which was not witnessed in the case of our brother
because of the suddenness of his taking off; but I have never yet
found, in any instance where people have been summoned hence by death,
that there were death and sorrow, and feelings of pain and anguish,
and dread concerning the future as I have witnessed elsewhere. In the
early days of this Church God promised unto the Latter-day Saints that
their deaths should be peaceful, and that the dread of death should be
taken away from them, and after forty-four years' experience we,
today, and in all the years that are passed, have realized the truth
of this promise.
There is something tangible about the faith which God has revealed. If
I go forth believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and am baptized for the
remission of my sins, and receive the Holy Ghost, I know that I have done that which God requires at my hands, and if I should die
at such a time what have I to fear? If the Holy Ghost has descended
upon me it is a witness and evidence to me that I have received a
remission of my sins, and that the promise of God has been fulfilled
to me, and that the man who administered that holy ordinance to me was
an authorized servant of Jesus Christ.
That was the case with brother Williams. His testimonies were of the
most remarkable character. I have heard him speak about the evidences
of its truthfulness he had when he joined this Church, and I have been
almost overpowered with joy that I lived in a day and age of the world
when God revealed his mind and will unto man as he did in ancient
days. A more powerful testimony, probably, could not be heard than has
been borne so repeatedly by our deceased brother. And then what? Why
the Spirit of God rested upon him and impelled him to leave his
friends and his former home and associations and gather with the
Saints. Did he do this because some "Mormon" Elder told him it was
right to do it? No, he did this because the Spirit and power of God
rested upon him and impelled him to do it. He was filled with joy and
peace in obeying this commandment of God, and it was so after he came
here in all the works that devolved upon him. Only the day before he
died we had a long conversation about these things together, and I
trust I shall never forget the spirit that rested upon him and myself
while talking. Speaking about the unfaithfulness of men, he did not
say in these exact words, but he conveyed the idea to me that he would
rather die, rather lay down his life than prove recreant to the
principles of the Gospel which he had espoused, he valued them so
highly, more than life and everything else on the face of the earth.
He has done all that he could do. That power which God promised, or
which Jesus rather gave unto Peter, when he said that he should have
the power to bind on earth and it should be bound in heaven, and the
power to loose on earth and it should be loosed in heaven, has been
exercised in behalf of our deceased brother. He took a wife and she
was sealed to him by the power of the holy Priesthood, and he entered
into this holy ordinance and obeyed celestial marriage as it was
revealed to him in the fullness of his faith, although it was a trial
to him. But he was impelled to do so by the power which rested down
upon him, and he knew he did that which was right. He went forward in
obedience to the commandments, putting his trust in God, and I know,
as he knew and still knows, though gone behind the veil, that he has
secured to himself, so far as his own works could secure, through the
grace and atonement of Jesus Christ, his eternal exaltation in the
presence of God our heavenly Father.
It is not a strong assurance or hope that the Latter-day Saints have,
that they will receive these blessings in the eternal worlds; but when
the promise is sealed upon their heads that they shall come forth in
the morning of the first resurrection and be crowned with glory,
immortality and eternal lives, there is a testimony from God, our
eternal Father in the heavens above, which rests down upon them and
confirms the truth of these words upon the soul of a faithful man or
woman, and they know, when words are pronounced upon them by a man who
has the authority, sealing upon them blessings, keys, thrones,
principalities, powers and exaltations in the eternal kingdoms
of God our Father, I say they know, by the testimony of the Spirit of
God which rests down upon them at such times, that these words are not
the words of men, but that they are the words of the Spirit of God
inspiring that man, and that God takes a record of that ordinance in
the heavens, and that it is sealed upon them and upon their children,
and that they will actually come forth in the morning of the first
resurrection, according to the promise, hence, there is no fear of
death in the minds of the Latter-day Saints. If the stake was standing
before us, prepared for our execution—if we had that faith that we
should have, and which animated the Saints of God in ancient days, we
would walk as calmly to that stake and be bound to it as we would walk
to eat a meal of victuals, knowing that God, our heavenly Father, will
bestow all the blessings that have been sealed upon us.
This was the faith which animated the ancients and sustained them in
the midst of persecutions, and this is the faith that we should
cherish and cultivate as a people and as individuals. Woe to the man
who has lost that faith! Dreadful is his condition if he has not that
faith living within him. Woe to that man, for his condition is far
worse than his first condition, that is before he had these blessings
sealed upon him.
My associations with our brother who has gone have been of the most
tender character. I have known him as I have known a brother. Our
associations have been very intimate from the day I first made his
acquaintance, on the Missouri River, in 1860, until the present time.
I have watched his course, and have been pleased with his
faithfulness. A more amiable, more kind-spirited or more loving man I
scarcely ever met. I do not know that I ever met one more so. He has
been beloved by all who have known him. A modest, unobtrusive man,
never setting himself forward, but faithful and diligent, performing
the labors assigned to him without any parade but with the greatest
devotion and zeal.
That God may bless his wives and his children, and pour out upon them
the spirit of consolation, that he may preserve his little ones, that
they may grow up in the truth, and tread the straight and narrow path
which he has trodden to the end, and like him be crowned with glory,
is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
- George Q. Cannon