I did not have the privilege of listening to all the remarks of Elder
Taylor this forenoon, yet to what I did hear I can bear testimony of
its truth. I always delight in seeing a man valiant in the testimony
of Jesus Christ. There is something glorious in the principles of the
Gospel. I always did, from my boyhood, hope and pray that I might live
long enough in the earth to find some man who would have sufficient
courage and independence of mind to believe in the same doctrine and
Gospel that Jesus Christ taught, and I have lived long enough to see,
hear and partake of it, and I glory in it, because it is true.
The religion or Gospel of Jesus Christ is a very unpopular thing, and
has been in every age of the world. Show me a man who was ever
inspired of the Lord God of Israel to do a work for him who was
popular. You cannot find such a man in the whole history of the
world. You may take Noah, who was about a hundred and twenty years
building an ark, and how many friends did he have? I think about seven
in all. Lot was very unpopular the morning he left Sodom and Gomorrah,
and so have been all the Patriarchs and Prophets in every age of the
world. Jesus Christ, when he came to Jerusalem, the Son of God, the
Savior of the world, the great Shiloh of the Jews, came to his own
father's house, yet there was not a man more despised in all Judea and
Jerusalem than was Jesus Christ, from the day of his birth until he
came to the cross. Why is this? Because men love darkness rather than
light—because their deeds are evil. The Lord Almighty, in the last
days, has set his hand to carry out and fulfill his words for the past
five or six thousand years, given through the mouths of his servants
the Prophets and Apostles whenever he has had them on the earth. He
has commenced this work and he will perform it, for, as brother Taylor
has justly said, there is no power on the earth that can stay his
hand, for the simple reason that God controls the destinies of all
men—kings, princes, rulers, presidents, statesmen, governors, nations,
tongues and people, upon the face of the whole earth, and men are
placed in a position where they are under the necessity of exercising
faith in God in order to build up his kingdom. Read the eleventh
chapter of Hebrews, and you will find that, beginning with the
creation of the world, everything has been accomplished by faith. The
whole of the work of all the ancient Patriarchs and Prophets was
accomplished by the exercise of this principle; and it is just so in
the last dispensation of the fullness of times. When God sent angels
to Joseph Smith, he knew and understood, by the teachings given unto
him, what he had to perform in a measure. The Lord called him to do a
work, and raised him up for this purpose. Was Joseph Smith popular
among men? No, never, he was persecuted until the day of his death,
until he sealed his testimony with his blood. But the persecution
against him, and the unbelief of the world, do not make the truth of
God without effect. The Lord has carried out and fulfilled all these
prophecies from the commencement until now; there never has been a jot
or tittle allowed to fall unfulfilled; there never was a revelation,
from the days of father Adam until this, given by the inspiration of
the Holy Ghost through the mouth of Patriarch or Prophet that will
fall unfulfilled. Though the heavens and the earth pass away, these
things will not fail of their fulfillment, and, as brother Taylor has
said, the world cannot stay the work of God. They never have done, and
they never will.
This is a different dispensation from all others. God has set to his
hand to build up his kingdom and Zion, and that kingdom and Zion must
be built up, or the revelations of God will fall unfulfilled. The
Bible is full of these teachings, and they must have their
fulfillment, and I bear testimony to their truth. The Bible is true,
and its prophecies were spoken by holy men of old as they were moved
upon by the Holy Ghost. The revelations of Isaiah concerning the
building up of the Zion of God in the last days will have their ful fillment. The house of God will be established upon the
tops of the mountains, and all nations must flow unto it. Zion must
arise and put on her beautiful garments, she must be clothed with the
glory of her God. The Temple of God has got to be built also upon the
tops of the mountains; the Gospel must be preached to every nation
under heaven before the end shall come.
The world say they do not believe these things; that is true, we do
not expect them, we never have expected them to believe them, but the
unbelief of the world does not change the work of God. We have to live
by faith. When Moroni hid in the earth the record which the Book of
Mormon was translated from, four hundred years after Christ came in
the flesh, he did it by faith, as much so as Noah built the ark. He
looked forward and saw that record come forth in the last days, in
fulfillment of the sayings of Ezekiel and of the saying of Isaiah,
when the stick of Joseph should be put with the stick of Judah, and
they should become one stick in the hands of the servants of the Lord
before the eyes of the world, and when the truth should spring out of
the earth and righteousness look down from heaven. These things were
to be a beginning of the great work of God preparatory to the
gathering of the twelve tribes of Israel in the latter days. That work
has come forth, just as everything has been fulfilled which has been
done by faith and by the commandment of God.
When Joseph Smith began to receive revelations from God he was a boy,
an illiterate youth; and had he not had faith and the inspiration of
the Almighty upon him, he never could have had power and courage to go
forth and introduce the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the midst of a
gene ration of false doctrine, ignorance and darkness. But God
preserved, inspired and sustained him, and caused him to live upon the
earth until he had planted this kingdom, in fulfillment of the
revelations. He organized the Church, he received the holy Priesthood
from the hands of angels sent from God—men who had held the Aaronic
and Melchizedek Priesthood in other generations upon the earth; they
conferred upon Joseph all the powers and keys of the Priesthood
necessary to build up the kingdom of God upon the earth, and he lived
long enough to organize that kingdom, and it will never be thrown down
any more forever.
The revelations of God to us have been encouraging, and we have seen
them fulfilled, and we shall continue to do so until the end. I will
say to the Latter-day Saints, that we are in the same position that
other generations have been—we have got to walk by faith, we must have
confidence in the fulfillment of the revelations of God. No man or
woman on the face of the earth will ever be disappointed with regard
to the fulfillment of the word of the Lord, for he has uttered
decrees, made covenants, and through his servants the Prophets has
declared his word and will concerning the world and its inhabitants,
and not one of his sayings will fail, all must be fulfilled. If it
could be otherwise, the Zion of God would never be built up; but God
has decreed that his kingdom will be established, that Zion will arise
and shine, and that every weapon formed against her will be broken.
The prayers of hundreds and thousands of Saints, dwelling in these
valleys of the mountains, daily ascend into the ears of the Lord of
Sabaoth, beseeching him to fulfill his word upon the earth and to
sustain his servants. Do not the Saints pray for anybody else?
Yes, they pray for everybody—for President Grant, Judge McKean, the
Governor of Utah, and every man holding official positions here, as
well as for Brigham Young and the Apostles. These prayers ascend
before the Lord and they will be heard and answered.
Talk about Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, how many have said to
Joseph Smith—"How on the earth do you govern and control this people?
How easy you do it!" Our enemies, today, look at Brigham Young, and
they say—"If he would only die, Mormonism would stop;" but in this they
are mistaken. This work does not depend upon President Young; it did
not depend upon Joseph Smith. All the world thought if they could only
slay Joseph Smith there would be an end of Mormonism, and so there
would have been had it not been the work of God Almighty; if it had
been the work of man it would long since have ceased to exist on the
earth. The power that has sustained this work from the beginning
sustains it now. As brother Taylor has said, all the holy Prophets and
Apostles who have been slain on the earth for the testimony of Jesus
and the word of God, and who now sit on the right hand of God in the
heavens, are just as much engaged in carrying on the work of God here
as when they lived in the flesh, and more so, because they have more
light and power. And Jesus Christ, himself, who died on the cross, and
after his resurrection visited the other sheep of his fold on this
continent, and offered the Gospel to Jew and Gentile, that same Jesus
is pleading with the Father today, and has been from the day his body
lay in the tomb, to carry out and fulfill his purposes and to
accomplish his work in our day and generation. We are not alone in our
efforts to carry on the work of God. If the eyes of the world were
open, they would see that there are more for us than against us. We
are only, in one sense of the word, worms of the dust in the hands of
God. This work does not depend on any man or set of men. The Lord
Almighty has set his hand to accomplish his purposes, and he is
feeling after the honest and meek throughout the world, in order to
find those who are willing to take hold and help to build up his
kingdom in the latter days. He has found a few, and he will find many
more.
How has it been with Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, the Apostles, and
thousands of the Elders of Israel who have gone forth to preach the
Gospel to the world without purse or scrip, offering the word of life
and salvation without money and without price? They have carried their
knapsacks on their backs, or with valise in hand have traveled
thousands and thousands of miles for this purpose. They have been
inspired to do this by the power of the Most High God, and that
inspiration has sustained them all the way through; it has upheld this
Church from the time it came forth until this hour, and will unto its
consummation. We came in here on the 24th of July, 1847, having been
driven from our homes, the graves of our fathers, and from lands we
purchased from the general Government because of the word of God and
the testimony of Jesus Christ, or, in other words, because of our
religion. We came here and found a barren desert, containing nothing
but a few roving Indians, coyote wolves, crickets and grasshoppers.
There was no mark of the Anglo Saxon race or of the white man here
then, but the whole region of country was a desert of the most
forbidding and desolate charac ter. Now when strangers come up
to Zion on this great highway, cast up in fulfillment of the
revelations of God, what do they see? They see no longer a desert, but
a belt, for six hundred miles, of cities, towns, villages, orchards,
fields and crops. Who has done this? The Lord God of Israel has
inspired his Saints to do it. President Young has been led, guided,
counseled and moved upon by the Holy Ghost and by the revelations of
Jesus Christ, and that which strangers now behold in this Tabernacle,
and throughout this Territory is in fulfillment of that volume of
revelation which you can read in the prophecies of Isaiah and others
of the Prophets and Patriarchs. These things are true and your eyes
can see them, whether you believe them or not has nothing to do with
it. I will tell you that if this work had not been of God, and God had
not borne testimony to the preaching of the Elders, we might have
preached until we had been as old as Methuselah and we could not have
gathered the people from almost every nation under heaven as we have
done, according to the predictions of the ancient Prophets contained
in the Bible. But the Lord has never disappointed anybody so far as
his work is concerned. It did not stop after the death of Joseph, and
it never will on account of the death of any man, Prophet, Apostle or
any other man, for it is in the hands of God, and he has decreed that
it shall stand forever, and that it shall extend until its dominion
becomes universal.
We do not see today what we saw twenty-four years ago, and we do not
see today what will be seen twenty-four years hence; there will be no
stoppage to the building up of the Zion of God, or to the carrying out
of his work. Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, raised up by the Lord
Almighty, and the inspiration of God guided and sustained him to the
day of his death. He sealed his testimony with his blood, and that
testimony is in force upon all the world. This record which I hold in
my hands (Book of Doctrine and Covenants) contains the revelations of
God, and in one of them the Lord says—"Let earth and hell combine
against you, and they shall not prevail, the kingdom is yours—I have
given it into your hands—and you are called upon to build it up." The
Lord is at the helm to govern, guide and control this work, and he
will do so unto the end.
Now when men undertake to fight against this work, as brother Taylor
has said, they fight against God; it is not against Brigham Young, the
Apostles or this people alone, but it is against God. Every man will
be rewarded according to his works. Our prayers go up before God day
and night, that he will execute justice, judgment, righteousness and
truth, that he will sustain everything that leads to good, and does
good, and that he will overthrow all that lead to evil and do evil;
and we are assured by revelation that the Lord will hear and answer
our prayers. The Lord is with this people; but as Latter-day Saints, I
do not think that we always prize our privileges. We are called upon
to perform a work; the Lord has placed this work in our hands, and we
are held responsible before the heavens and the earth to use the
talents—the light and truth, which have been committed into our hands.
What is this life? What are the things of this life? The Latter-day
Saints are living for things the other side of the veil, the same as
all servants of God have done in every age of the world. Now is it not
a curiosity that so few of the human family have an interest
in eternal things—things the other side of the veil? Bless your souls,
our lives here are only a few days in duration, but on the other side
of the veil we shall live eternally, we shall live and exist just as
long as our Creator will exist, and our eternal destiny depends upon
the manner in which we spend our short lives here in the flesh. Will
it not pay any man, any Prophet, Apostle or Saint, in this or any
other age of the world, to be true and faithful to his God, to magnify
his calling, to be valiant in the testimony of Jesus Christ, to preach
the Gospel, to bear record of the things of the kingdom to Jew and
Gentile in his day and generation? Yes, it will pay men to do right,
and men will sorrow and bitterly regret taking any course in this or
any other generation against God or his work. What have been the
afflictions of the Jews who rejected Jesus Christ? Why every word
spoken concerning them by Moses and Jesus has had its fulfillment
until the present day, for hundreds of years past and gone. They have
been a hiss and a by-word, and trodden under the feet of the Gentiles,
in fulfillment of the words of Jesus Christ, and they will continue in
their present position until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
Jesus offered his Gospel to the Jews in his day, but in these latter
days it has been offered first to the Gentiles, thus fulfilling the
saying that the first shall be last and the last shall be first; and
when the Gentiles count themselves unworthy of eternal life, the
Gospel will go to the House of Israel and they will receive it. The
Gentiles should heed the warning given them by the Apostle Paul, lest
they fall through the example of unbelief as did the Jews, who were
broken off because they rejected the Messiah, and refused the message
of salvation which he delivered unto them. From that day to this they
have been scattered, peeled and afflicted; their city was overthrown
and their Temples destroyed, and the land of their fathers has been in
the hands of Gentile nations until today. The Lord has
said—"Vengeance is mine and I will repay," and we may rest assured
that the Lord will reward those who seek to destroy the lives of his
people and to overthrow his kingdom. Vengeance is in the hands of the
Almighty. "I will fight your battles," saith the Lord. We do not seek
any man's hurt, however much of an enemy he may be to us, we leave him
in the hands of God, we know that he will reward him, and the reward
will be all that God, Saints, angels, devils or wicked men can ask,
and it will be all that any man can want. When we undertake to fight
against God we have to pay for it. Men will have to pay for every sin
committed in the flesh; no matter what they do, they will have to be
accountable for it. If a man does right, is valiant in the testimony
of Jesus Christ, obeys the Gospel, and keeps his covenants, when he
passes to the other side of the veil he has an entrance into the
presence of God and the Lamb; having kept celestial law he enters into
celestial glory, he is preserved by that law, and he participates in
that glory through the endless ages of eternity. It pays any man under
heaven to obey and be faithful to the law of God the few days he
spends in the flesh. I say to the world, to every sect under heaven,
if you ever obtain any blessings in the eternal worlds from anybody at
all it will be from the God the Latter-day Saints worship, for God
made us all; whether we are Methodists, Baptists, Mormons or anything
else we are all the children of one parent. Then why should we
persecute one another because of our religion? It is folly in the
highest degree. We live in a land and under a constitution which
guarantees the right to worship God according to the dictates of
conscience to every sect, party, name and denomination under heaven,
then why should we be so narrow-minded as to hate or seek to persecute
or kill our neighbor because he differs from us in religion?
We worship God and we are Latter-day Saints because we know that the
Gospel which has been revealed in these latter days is true. We have
received it and have realized the promises made to those who would
obey it. The Holy Ghost and the testimony of Jesus Christ never
deceived us, and we have received that testimony while abroad in
almost every nation under heaven. By this power we have been gathered.
That is the reason we are Mormons, as the world call us. We know this
work is true, we know it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We would not
persecute, abuse, or quarrel with any man because of his religious
views. A man's religion, let it be what it will, is between him and
his God. He is going to the eternal world, and he will receive his
reward, and there is no reason or use in quarreling about religion,
and we have never felt to do this in our lives. Whatever may have been
said concerning us, our Tabernacles—this and others—have been open to
every minister who came along, no matter to what sect or party he
belonged. We are not afraid of our doctrines, and we are not afraid to
have our children hear the doctrines of others. If any man has got a
truth that we have not got, let us have it. Truth is what we are
after, and we are not afraid of the doctrines of any man; we are
willing to stand by the revelations of God. These are the feelings of
the Latter-day Saints. When our Methodist friends came to this city,
erected their tent and held their big camp meeting, what was the
course pursued by the Latter-day Saints? The President of the Church,
the Twelve Apostles and citizens with their wives and children gave
them a congregation of many thousands, and we sat in their tent and
listened to them while they abused us just as much as they pleased. We
believe in giving every man the privilege of saying what he pleases,
we have always been willing to let every man express his sentiments
here among us. We are not afraid of them. If we have not the truth,
that is what we are after, we want it. But we know that we have it,
that the Gospel as restored, revealed through Joseph Smith, is the
truth of God, and we know that the Lord has set to his hand to build
up Zion, and he is going to do it. We bear record of this because we
know it is true.
I pray that God will bless the Latter-day Saints. I pray that we may
prize our privileges, that we may enjoy the spirit of our calling, and
that the Holy Ghost may enlighten our minds continually, that we may
not walk in the dark but in the light. I pray that the Spirit of God
may bear record to the stranger within our gates. I am satisfied that
it does, and it has done more or less for the forty years that are
past and gone. But it is the same today as it was in the days of
Jesus. He told Nicodemus that light had come into the world, but men
loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil, and
here is where condemnation comes in, but we cannot help that. My
brethren and I have traveled a great many thousands of miles to preach
the Gospel to our fellow men; we have done this because we
know this Gospel is true. We are willing to stand by this Gospel, this
testimony and this work in life and in death, in time and in eternity.
We shall meet the strangers who come here and visit us, on the other
side of the veil; they will meet us there, and if they never know
before, they will know then that our testimony is true.
I pray God our heavenly Father that he will bear testimony by his Holy
Spirit to the meek and honest among the children of men, that they may
receive the truth and be prepared to inherit eternal life, for Jesus'
sake. Amen.