Beloved Brethren and Friends—Since it has fallen to my lot to address
you this afternoon, I hope you will not only lend me your undivided
attention, but favor me with an interest in your prayers, that I may
ever speak according to the mind and will of God, upon all those
subjects which may engage my attention.
I shall take a text, according to the mode and fashion of the day;
yet, I will not promise to confine myself to it, or take any position
that may be calculated to forestall the dictates of the Spirit of God
in me. You may be surprised when you are made acquainted with the name
of the author of my text. Were I to quote from Joseph Smith, or from
Brigham Young, a sentiment for my groundwork, you might be gratified
and complimented; but the world, or outsiders might think it
folly, blasphemy, nonsense, and trusting in man. I shall not,
therefore, borrow my text from either of the foregoing; but from a
distinguished outsider, that thereby I may pay a proper tribute of
respect unto that department of God's dependent creatures.
In the last General Epistle of Franklin Pierce, Chief Apostle of the
United States of America, written to his brethren of the Senate and
House of Representatives in General Conference assembled, first clause
of the first verse, you will find these remarkable words recorded:
"The past has been an eventful year, and will hereafter be referred to
as a marked epoch in the history of the world. While we have been
happily preserved from the calamities of war, our domestic prosperity
has not been entirely uninterrupted. The crops, in portions of the
country, have been nearly cut off. Disease has prevailed to a greater
extent than usual; and the sacrifice of human life through casualties
by sea and land is without parallel."
When we consider that the author of these words was chosen by the
sovereign will of the American people to preside over the destinies of
our common country, that he was duly set apart for that station, and
regularly installed in power, it is but reasonable to suppose that his
words are prompted by the conviction and faith of the nation; and he
can hardly be expected to give utterance to an incorrect idea, if the
faith of the nation be correct. He, therefore, being the head and eye
of the Republic, discovered that the land declined to produce in its
usual strength, that disease had marked out its increased number of
victims with unerring precision, and that sea and land had conspired
against the lives of the thousands that float on the former, and the
millions that walk on the latter.
Why this increase of Providential manifestations in the form of
scourges and chastisements? Is it because the nation has reformed and
grown better? Is it because the true God is more correctly and
devoutly worshipped? Or is it because the present is an age not so
enlightened and scientific; and hence, not so well qualified to guard
against the casualties and ills of life as former and more enlightened
ages? Or is it because the Prophets of God have been cruelly and
treacherously slain, and their brethren and friends banished by
violent hands, from their homes, into an untried and wilderness
country, where it was hoped and believed, by many, that savage
ferocity would terminate our existence as a people?
When the Latter-day Saints fled before the fiery blast of
persecution's bitter hate, they left, it is true, their goods and
their homes as a prize, rich with curses, to those whose guilty hearts
and bloody hands rendered them legitimate heirs to their ill-gotten
gain. We brought but little with us when we fled; yet we took what the
nation can never regain until they punish those murderers according
to their own laws, chastise the guilty coadjutors in deeds of cruelty
and rapine, and compensate the sufferers for the losses which they so
unjustly sustained. We brought away with us from the nation that
suffered us to be cast out, the goodwill and blessing of our God,
even the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. That blessing and
goodwill cannot return until we return and carry them.
Allow me, in this place, to give you a legal opinion. None of you
entertain a doubt but that your claims and titles to the lands sold,
under duress, in Missouri and Illinois, are as good and valid now in
the eyes of God as they ever were; but I tell you that they are just
as good and safe to you at this very moment, in the eye of the Constitutional laws of the land, as they ever were. No deed of
conveyance of real estate, executed by any of you in Missouri or
Illinois, after you were warned to leave, and threatened with violence
if you did not leave, is worth one red cent. No court of chancery in
the nation, having jurisdiction, could lawfully avoid giving you your
lands again, with interest and damage. But would the Government
sustain the decision of such a court? There is the rub, and hence the
guilt?
But let us see if we can account for the fearful increase of
pestilence, scarcity, and destruction of human life spoken of in our
text. God is said to be with His servants and people. "Lo, I am with
you alway, even unto the end of the world." If a nation or people
cast out the Saints and servants of God from their midst, God goeth
with them and leaveth that nation, and leaveth it under evil
influences and afflicting agents.
To illustrate the foregoing statements, I will refer you to the
history of Joseph's being sold into Egypt. This younger son of the old
Patriarch Jacob was a visionary man, and a great dreamer. His visions
and dreams seriously annoyed his elder brethren, and greatly aroused
their jealousy. At one time, the lad dreamed that he and his brethren
were binding sheaves in the field; and they set them up; and all their
sheaves made obeisance to his sheaf. This dream nettled them, and made
them very angry, under the conviction that one day the boy might rule
over them. The dream appeared to foreshadow the fact. At another time,
he dreamed that the sun, moon, and eleven stars made obeisance to him.
This dream even aroused the old man's resentment, and drew forth from
him a rebuke upon his son; for he thought the dream indicated that he
and his mother and his brethren should bow down to him. His brethren
greatly envied him; but his father observed the dream and reflected,
notwithstanding the rebuke. The fire of jealousy burning in the hearts
of the elder brethren against their younger brother, they resolved to
slay him, and conspired to perpetrate this bloody deed! Not that
Joseph had injured them, or done them any wrong. It was because they
feared he would do something, as his dreams evinced. But, behold the
inconsistency of his elder brethren! If his dreams were of God, it was
a sufficient cause of great joy to them, that they could have a ruler
of divine appointment; and hence worse than madness to oppose him. If
his dreams were not of God, they had no cause to fear his elevation to
the ruling power. But his dreams were of God, and the means which they
adopted to prevent their fulfillment proved, under the overruling hand
of Providence, to be the very means to bring about the things
foreshadowed by them.
It is not infrequently the case, that plans and measures devised by
the greatest cunning, ingenuity, and wisdom of the wicked against
God's chosen, prove to be the most impressive and happy means to bless
and exalt those against whom these plans are laid. Instead of slaving
their brother, they agreed to cast him into a pit where there was no
water, that he might perish there. But being a little conscience
smitten at this specimen of cruelty towards their brother, they agreed
to sell him into Egypt as a slave, and thus rid themselves and the
country of this troublesome dreamer.
But God was with Joseph in Egypt, in the house of Potiphar, and
blessed Potiphar's house for Joseph's sake. Potiphar, a poor benighted
heathen, saw that God was with Joseph, and that he made all things to
prosper that were in his hands; and therefore committed his house and
all he had into the care of Joseph. Step by step did he gain
influence and consideration in Egypt; and the favor and blessing of
God were manifest upon him, and upon all that he did. God even blessed
the whole kingdom for his sake. He apprised him, in the interpretation
of Pharaoh's dream, of the approaching famine, and greatly multiplied
the fruits of the earth, that they might be laid up in store against
the time of need. Thus, the country to which the chosen of God was
banished, was enabled to feed the starving millions that fled thither
for seven long years, and Joseph was prime minister to the crown, and
general superintendent of all the affairs of Egypt. He controlled all
the food that had been laid up in store. The famine waxed strong in
the land from which he was expelled, and they had nothing laid up in
store; for they had no Joseph to warn them of the approaching
distress. They had driven him away, and God greatly blessed the land
to which he fled.
Soon it fell out that Joseph's brethren had to go down to Egypt to buy
corn. "Their sheaves began to bow to his sheaf." Again they went,
being sorely pressed with famine in their own land; and Joseph made
himself known to them. Prince as he was, Prophet and minister of God
as he was, I cannot think that the propriety of a union of Church and
State was discussed at their meeting at all; especially not until they
had taken their dinner together. Thanks be to the God of Israel, they
had plenty to eat!
Next, the old man himself came down to Joseph, and all the
family—"sun, moon, and stars, made their obeisance to him" sure
enough! His brethren do not feel towards him now, as they did when
they sold him! O, integrity! Like the magnet that ever attracts its
own, thou dost command and draw around thee all thy kindred hosts! Oh,
selfishness, and narrow-minded jealousy! You are humbled in the
dust—you are prostrated at the feet of him whose life and liberty were
the sport of your palmy days. How changed the scene? Yet God be
praised.
Can anyone, acquainted with the Latter-day Saints' history, see any
similarity between their expulsion from the States, and the causes of
that expulsion; and the banishment of Joseph into Egypt, and the
causes of that banishment? Neither of them had done any wrong, but it
was feared that they would. They both would dream, and tell their
dreams. They were both superlatively hated and envied by their
brethren—were both sent away among heathens to perish, and both have
been sustained by the favor of God. We both have had coats of many
colors: ours, patch upon patch! We have had at least, one coat
different from his, probably because such coats were not fashionable
in his day, a coat of tar and feathers. Neither of us went away by his
own choice; but were forced away contrary to our wishes, and contrary
to existing laws. Both went into countries where there is but little
rain. The chief difference that I can see, is this. Their sheaves
bowed to his sheaf. The sun, moon, and stars bowed to him when they
came to him for bread. It has not yet happened so unto us. But when
scarcity increases in the land from whence we came, pestilence and
plague abound, the channels of business and trade completely broken
up, civil war and know nothing within, the wheels of diplomacy in the
mud without, and foreign foes press sorely on our coasts, then the
nation may begin to ask—Was Joseph Smith a Prophet? Is God angry with
us because we have only winked at his treacherous murder? Is He angry
because we have quietly suffered His chosen people to be robbed,
plundered, murdered, and driven like chaff before the wind,
without interposing in any way to prevent it? Is it because we have
turned a deaf ear to their petitions and cries for redress?
With all the respect that is due from an humble citizen, to the words
of the chief ruler of a great and powerful nation, and with all the
modesty that diffidence and delicacy can inspire, I feel it my duty to
say, in the name of that God whose I am, and whom I serve, that here
lie the causes of the increasing evils in the land, spoken of in our
text. For thus the Lord hath spoken. Nations shall be cut off when
they are ripe in iniquity. But they are not ripe in inquity, until
they kill my servants, and cast out my people—then will I visit
them in my anger, and vex them in my displeasure, and cut off their
bitter branches. A desolating sickness shall cover the land. (See Book
of Covenants.) Famine shall sorely oppress them—confusion and war
shall make their hearts to faint, and their knees to tremble. Would to
God that our nation had never given cause for the distress which they
now only begin to suffer! Would to God that they, chiefly for their
sakes, had never provoked the anger of the Almighty by killing our
Prophets, and casting out our people. Yet for us, it is all the
better! For if we had not been driven away, we might have remained
there to suffer as they are suffering and will suffer. "The wrath of
man is often made to praise the Lord," as in this case; and
everlasting honors be ascribed to Him for His mercy, His justice, and
His truth.
In view of the approaching crisis which has been preached about,
written upon, and prophesied of by us for the last twenty years, I
would call upon the people of Utah, both Saint and sinner, Jew and
Gentile, white men and red, to quit their vain and unprofitable
traffic and speculation, and go to with their might to raise wheat,
corn, and stock. Be not anxious to drive your stock to California.
Save all your grain, and sow all you possibly can. Rich deposits of
snow are now being made in the mountains, according to your prayers,
which betoken a fruitful year. Ask God to bless your labors, and every
seed that you sow in the earth. Prepare storehouses in which it can be
saved. Remember Joseph in Egypt! The old man himself, and all the boys
had to go to him, for he had corn in time of famine. Politicians
oppose our gathering together. But if you will have plenty of wheat,
pork, and beef on hand, all hell cannot stop them from coming here.
Look out for the old man and all the boys to come bending unto you,
and I'll venture they will not quarrel with you about the union of
Church and State, at least not until they have had their breakfast. We
may then tell them that when we were with them, they burned up our
wheat in the stack, in the shock, and that which was scattered in the
field. They burned our hay and our houses; and left our sick, our
women and children in the scorching sun and beating rain, without food
or shelter.
We told them when they did it, that we would have wheat when they had
none. When these poor starving thousands flock here for food, will it
not be glory enough for you to begin with, to feed them, to give them
shelter, and administer to their sick? Will not such coals of fire
heaped upon their heads be hot enough to satisfy your righteous
indignation? If you will do as you are told, your eyes shall witness
just such scenes! You may ask, "When shall these things be?" Answer.
Just so soon as you can possibly lay up the wheat. If the United
States will not make Brigham Young Governor, wheat will. Joseph's
brethren never voted to make him Governor over them; but he
was elected to that office by a joint ballot of wheat and corn. There
is more salvation and security in wheat, than in all the political
schemes of the world, and also more power in it than in all the
contending armies of the nations. Raise wheat and lay it up in store
till it will bring a good price; not dollars and cents, but kingdoms,
countries, peoples, tribes, and tongues. "They have sold themselves
for nought; and must be redeemed without money!" It will take wheat to
redeem them! Raise wheat and lay it up securely and it will preach the
"gathering" more eloquently, successfully, and extensively than all
the missionaries that we can send out to sweep through the nations,
with the proclamation of the judgments of God abroad in the land!
If I feel at our approaching Conference as I now do, I shall ask to
move that our home missions be not diminished, but increased, if
possible; and all set to raising wheat, and make Zion a house and city
of refuge for the Saints and for the sons of strangers, that they may
come and build up our walls, even as the old Prophet hath spoken. Many
of you have finished your seeding, perhaps, for the season; but
suppose you add another edition, enlarged, if not revised. Trust in
God! And if your works be good, and plenty of them, your faith will
not be questioned!
I will now call your attention, for a short time, to some occurrences
that have taken place in our city.
On Sunday, the 4th day of February, brothers Kimball and Grant spoke
very plainly and pointedly in relation to the intercourse of the
Saints with the world; and seriously objected to that intercourse when
it tended to debase and corrupt the Saints. They were tolerably well
posted up in some matters upon which they spoke. I will not say by
what means they were posted, whether by private confession of some
conscience-smitten guilty participant in things not right, or by the
common or ordinary means of knowledge. Suffice it to say, that they
meant those and those only who were guilty of improprieties, that
cannot be looked upon with complacency by this people. The line was drawn
between vice and virtue, so clearly and plainly that none need mistake
it. Several persons took serious exceptions to the teachings that were
then given, and felt themselves insulted, excluded from society, and
as the Indians say; "thrown away."
The next day, Monday, the Eastern Mail arrived, and brought a very
belligerent article from the Charleston Mercury. It is said to have
been prompted by the Cabinet at Washington, with design to raise a
fuss with the "Mormons." The article shows a deep-rooted and heated
feeling against the Saints, and takes it for granted that every evil
that can be said of us is true. The following is a short quotation
from the article—
"There can be no fellowship between Mormon and Christian. They cannot
exist under the same social system. They cannot be partners in
political power."
Here the line is drawn! All fellowship is denied us. No social
relations are permitted. Did brothers Grant and Kimball say anything
more than this. Did they not make as many honorable exceptions as are
made in the foregoing? We are obliged to pocket all such sayings, and
go along about our business.
Brothers Grant and Kimball were only God's looking glasses, to reflect
the sentiment entertained towards us, which, like some other coming
events, cast its shadow one day in advance of the mail, and was
partially endorsed and responded to before it arrived. If outsiders do
not like us to endorse their paper, they should not present it; and
when we endorse it to a limit ed extent, it ill becomes them to
object to their own doctrine when the tables are turned.
Aside from all strife or prejudice on either side, to what extent are
the Saints to unite with the world? They are God's creatures as well
as we. He sustains them and has regard for them. We ourselves were
once of the world, and should not forget the rock from whence we were
hewn, nor the hole of the pit from whence we were digged. How far,
then, is it our duty to extend our fellowship and regard for them;
that we may be justified in the eyes of God who presides over us all?
Remember, ye Elders in Israel, that you are to go to all nations, and
preach the Gospel to every creature. While abroad on your missions in
the discharge of your official duties, what favors have you a right to
ask of the world? If you are hungry, you have the right to ask them
for food. If you are in distress or in want, and cannot relieve
yourselves, you have the right to ask them for relief and aid. If
anyone kindly and generously gives you food, clothing, or money for
Christ's sake, and because he respects and loves you as a good man,
let your peace and blessing rest upon that person, and upon all others
that kindly administer to your wants; and then when you all appear
before the God of truth, forget not to give a good account of those
who favored you on your missions through this world, and say: "When I
was hungry, they gave me food; when a stranger, they took me in;
naked, they clothed me; and when thirsty, they gave me a cup of cold
water." Remember that your comfort and happiness in this life were
measurably suspended upon their kind offices towards you; and in turn,
their future comfort and happiness will be suspended upon your
testimony, and upon your favorable report it will be said unto them,
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my
brethren, ye have done it unto me. Enter thou into the joys of thy
Lord!"
But when you go abroad on business of a worldly or temporal nature,
you have not this claim upon the hospitality of the world; but should
pay your way the same as a worldling. But whether you are abroad on
ordinary business, or as a minister of God, you have no right to make
any more free, or take any more liberties, with other men's wives,
sisters, or daughters, than with the men themselves; and the higher
you stand in the Church, the more heinous and criminal would be such
an offense. Whenever a "Mormon" will do any such thing, you may know
that he is under transgression, that the spirit of truth, of honor, of
integrity, or of God, is not with him. But if any of you, outsiders,
have a "Mormon" wife, who became a "Mormon" before you
married her,
and you married her with your eyes opened to the fact, I cannot
promise that your happiness with her will always be uninterrupted. I
say the same in relation to a "Mormon," if he marry out of this Church
(a circumstance that never occurred to my knowledge). Any '" Mormon"
who will seek the company of a lewd woman, either at home or abroad,
or that will try to seduce a virtuous woman, is looked upon precisely
the same, and with similar feeling to those with which we would look
upon the contents of a bilious stomach ejected by the aid of lobelia,
or tartar emetic. We spew such out of our mouth. We can look upon no
such character as a Christian or a gentleman, though he be the highest
"Mormon" official, a civil or military officer, the king upon his
throne, or the President in his chair. The higher the station, the
more sinful and loathsome the act.
But if a man, in good faith and integrity, with righteousness as the
girdle of his loins, take unto himself many wives, acknowledge
and sustain them, and honorably care and provide for their offspring,
it is all right with me, and with God, so far as I know and understand
His law, with the Prophets and Apostles of old, with the Patriarchs
and wise men of the East, to which quarter we look for light, natural
and spiritual. But woe be unto him who, alone for guilty pleasure,
corrupts himself—who, to gratify the lower passions, prostrates the
fair temple of virtue, and turns the feet of the unwary and
light-hearted female, by soft and flattering words, from the high road
of honor, life, and immortality, to the shades of misery, shame,
corruption, and death. A creature (not a gentleman), once said to me,
"I found that she was corrupt, and hence no sin if I paid her; as,
with the price of her shame and debauchery, she could supply herself
with the means of a living." "Ah!" thought I, "better die than live
by
such means. Had you given her aid with a word of kind reproof, and
kept yourself free from her snare, you would not have patronized or
encouraged her in her sin. Your behavior would have been that of a God
and a Savior; but as it is, you have acted the part of a devil—joined
hands with corruption, and identified yourself with the prostitute,
and with the whore." Let any man, however high or honorable he may
wish to be thought, give evidence to this community that such is his
moral caliber, he will be spurned from the domiciles and homes of the
Saints (that are Saints) with that becoming indignation that God and
angels will approve. But that man whose mind is unfortified by
religious influence, yet who, from the force of moral principle and
natural goodness and virtue, keeps himself free and unspotted from
those vices, is more to be valued than the fine gold of Ophir, or the
diamond that glitters in the monarch's crown. He is as the shadow of a
great rock in a weary land, or like the oasis in the desert, which
lures the weary wanderer to repose his brawny limbs on its verdant
bed. He draws around him all that venerate genuine moral worth, and
holds an influence that will not allow him, like a certain Judge, to
fly the track and cry, "Mad dog," when the hydrophobic virus is
concealed under his own tongue.
It is our custom to receive all strangers, who come among us under the
name and style of respectability, with kindness and cordiality, and
yet with cautious reserve. We try to make them comfortable and happy.
But if we discover that an advantage is sought to be taken of our
generous good feeling, to practice what our religion, laws, and vital
prejudices are strenuously opposed to, I mean that practice so common
and popular in the world, sexual intercourse without respect or regard
to the solemnities of the marriage vow, then the thread will be cut at
once, and such characters dropped and despised by the virtuous and
good. The armies of the world cannot force us or frighten us to honor
or respect such persons. They will then question our patriotism, and
send away all manner of reports, prejudicial to our religious and
political standing. But they will be careful about reporting what they
have done. They, of course, are the innocent ones! It is my candid and
unqualified opinion, that but few, if any, persons living among us,
and not of our Church, have ever sent or carried evil reports of us,
who themselves have not met with some unexpected obstacle in their way
to vice and criminal pleasure and indulgence, or to political ambition
and advancement. This may serve as a key to many things. Because
strong language is used in relation to such vile practices, it may be
inferred that much corruption exists here. But the contrary is true.
If licentiousness or illicit intercourse had gained the footing and reputation here that it has in London, New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, or Washington, then we might be comparatively silent
while such vices carried the popular sway. But anything unusual, and
of a corrupting character in our midst, excites in us an indignation
that often finds vent in maledictions upon the heads of the demons
that attempt to introduce it.
If there were none but Latter-day Saints living in Utah, we should
have no occasion to speak upon this subject as we do; but being
infested by those "who profess the pure morality of the religion of
Jesus," such as the Charleston Mercury endorses and eulogizes,
we are
constrained to speak in great plainness. I will now leave this
subject, knowing that he or she that is righteous will be righteous
still; and they who are filthy will be filthy still.
I discover that some of the Eastern papers represent me as a great
blasphemer, because I said, in my lecture on Marriage, at our last
Conference, that Jesus Christ was married at Cana of Galilee, that
Mary, Martha, and others were his wives, and that he begat children.
All that I have to say in reply to that charge is this—they worship a
Savior that is too pure and holy to fulfil the commands of his Father.
I worship one that is just pure and holy enough "to fulfil all
righteousness;" not only the righteous law of baptism, but the still
more righteous and important law "to multiply and replenish the
earth." Startle not at this! For even the Father himself honored that
law by coming down to Mary, without a natural body, and begetting a
son; and if Jesus begat children, he only "did that which he had seen
his Father do."
But to return to our subject—the fellowship of the world. Unite with
them just as far as you require them to unite with you, and upon the
same principle. If they are hungry, feed them when in your power. If
they are in distress, trouble, or difficulty, relieve them. Take them
in when strangers, if they ask you. Be kind unto them and courteous;
yet remember that God has given to you His Holy Spirit as a standard,
to which the world should come. It is your duty to honor that
standard, and to keep it erect. If the world have fellowship and union
with you, let it be in the Spirit of the Lord. But if you allow that
standard to fall in your own hearts, or to become recumbent, and you
slide back into the spirit of the world and unite with them, you have
virtually struck your colors to the enemy, and gone over to his side!
The salt has lost its savor, and is become powerless to save. It is
only fit to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.
If you love and respect the welfare of the world, never allow
yourselves to imbibe their spirit, or to become one with them. For if
you do, you cannot be a savior, but need one as well as they; for you
both stand upon one and the same level. The world hated the Savior
before they hated us, and they killed him because he would never unite
in heart and spirit with them. They will kill some of us for the same
cause. But blessed are the man and the woman that are hated by the
world because they will not be one with them. "Do them all the good
you can, and as little harm as possible."
In conclusion, the present is an important era, an era in which the
nations are becoming angry. They thirst for each other's blood; and
who knows but that all nations will, respectively, file off under the
heads of Greek and Roman, or "Gog and Magog," to fight the terrible
battles spoken of in sacred writ?
Ye Saints of latter days, keep your lamps trimmed and burning, that
you walk not in darkness. Ye virgins, wise and foolish, awake, for,
behold, the day is near, and the hour fast approaching, when it
shall be said—"Behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him!"
Allow me here to close by giving you the translation of a stanza from
a celebrated German poet—
"Calmly bear the frowns of fortune,
Soothe the heart oppressed with woe;
Sacred keep the plighted promise,
True alike to friend and foe.
Manly pride display to Princes,
Give to modest worth its due,
Cherish truth with all her vot'ries,
Deprecate the faithless crew."