I desire to be heard, not that I am ambitious of speaking, but if I
speak I desire that my strength shall not be unnecessarily taxed.
One of the ancient expounders of the Christian religion said, that the
Gospel was the perfect law of liberty. I believe it; and if I take a
text at all, that is my text.
The Gospel as understood and expounded by the Savior and his ancient
Apostles, is a perfect law of liberty. Everything pertaining to the
spirit of the Gospel, as taught and expounded and practiced by the
Savior and His disciples, tended to liberty. All the revelations which
God ever gave to man from the beginning of the world tended to
liberty. The government which our heavenly Father has exercised, or
attempted to exercise over His children on the earth or in the
heavens, has not in the least tended to restrain or abridge them in
their liberty, but rather to enlarge it, to extend it, to insure, to
preserve and maintain it. The Gospel of Christ, and all of the
revelations of God to man have sought to mark the line of distinction
between liberty and license, between correct principles of government
and anarchy or oppression and slavery. Oppression and slavery are the
result of sin and wickedness, violations of the principles of the
everlasting Gospel either by the rulers or ruled or both, and
generally both. True freedom of mind and body and true liberty, even
the enjoyment of human rights is founded and maintained, and rests upon human integrity and virtue and the observance of those
principles of truth on which all true happiness and true freedom is
founded. Sin was never righteousness, nor can be; license was never
liberty nor can be; misery was never happiness, nor can be; and yet
because of the blindness and ignorance of some people, they never
appear to be happy only when they are perfectly miserable. And there
are some people too who think they are always in slavery and bondage
unless they are trying to get themselves into trouble; and they think
there is no true liberty only in acting like the devil. The Nihilists
of Russia, the Socialists of France and their sympathizers in America,
including the "Liberals" of Utah, are panting for liberty; they are
restive under the restraint of order and law; they are opposed to
government, and like the French Socialists and Communists, they would
destroy Jehovah himself and behead the king and burn up Parliament and
assassinate every representative of power and government; and when
they had reduced the country and themselves to anarchy, they would
look upon their condition as the acme of freedom and human liberty.
The world today is drifting in this direction, including our own
liberal America.
If we take a retrospective view of the dealings of God with his people
whom he recognized, and who acknowledged his laws, and among whom he
raised up Prophets, and with whom he established his covenants, we
will find that they have been the freest of all peoples which have
existed on the earth. The students of the Bible and the Book of Mormon
know this to be the case. They know that the first king who ruled over
ancient Israel, was chosen at their own earnest solicitations, when
they began to apostatize from God, and to despise His counsels. They
know that Samuel the Seer, who judged them in righteousness, and who
taught them faithfully the ways of the Lord, earnestly remonstrated
with them when they clamored for a king to go out and in before them
and lead them to battle, that they might be as other nations who were
around them. Samuel foretold the results—that such a course tended to
bondage; that they were but forging the links of the chain that would
bind them and deprive them of freedom. He labored long and arduously
to dissuade them from it; but they would not listen to him. And yet
they were not willing to consent for anybody else to make them a king
but that same Samuel; and when he had prayed to the Lord, the Lord
told him to "hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say
unto thee; for they have not rejected thee but they have rejected me,
that I should not reign over them." Samuel did as the Lord commanded
him, and Israel was ruled over by a king of their own choosing. But
the heavens were displeased with them for so doing, and you who are
conversant with Bible history are familiar with the troubles and
sorrows which befell Israel in consequence of this departure from the
ways of God. And those who read the Book of Mormon find the same
spirit breathed throughout that book. The people, in the days when
they were willing to listen to the voice of Prophets and inspired men,
were the freest and best of all people; but when they began to
apostatize and harden their hearts against the words of the Lord and
the counsel imparted to them by His servants, they began to drift
with sin and oppression and bond age. Anarchy—shall I say, is
the worst of all governments? No: Anarchy is the absence of all
government; it is the antipodes of order; it is the acme of confusion;
it is the result of unbridled license, the antipodes of true liberty.
The Apostle Paul says truly: "For there is no power but of God: the
powers that be are ordained of God." At first this is a startling
statement. Even the monopoly of the one-man-power as in Russia, or the
monopoly of the aristocracy as in other parts of Europe, or the
imbecility and sometimes stupidity of a republic like our own, is far
better than no government at all. And for this reason, says the
Apostle Paul, "The powers are ordained of God," not that they are
always the best forms of government for the people, or that they
afford liberty and freedom to mankind, but that any and all forms of
government are better than none at all, having a tendency as they do
to restrain the passions of human nature and to curb them, and to
establish and maintain order to a greater or less degree. One monopoly
is better than many; and the oppression of a king is tolerable, but
the oppression of a mob, where every man is a law to himself and his
own right arm, is his power to enforce his own will, is the worst form
of government. The efforts of extremists clamoring for human freedom
are all tending in this direction; and those who clamor for human
rights are, as a general thing, the first to trample them under foot—I
mean those who are the most loud-mouthed; their ideas of freedom are
all on their tongue; they conceive of no freedom only when they wield
the sword, or dictate terms to others. The Gospel of the Son of God
extends to the world that perfect law of liberty. Founded on truth,
and a proper appreciation of those principles which tend to the
largest possible happiness to humanity, it restrains mankind, not in
the enjoyment of freedom and liberty, but from efforts to deprive
their fellows of it. In other words, the power which God has sought to
exercise, and which he has recommended and sanctioned, is only to
seize the arm which is raised to fell his fellow, and to stop the loud
tongue of the raging maniac, which would destroy the peace of his
fellow man, and who would seek to build himself up on the ruin of
others. There is no system of government ever instituted among men
which is so well calculated to give and maintain human freedom, and at
the same time to restrain the vices and excesses of fallen humanity,
as the government of the Gospel sought to be established by the Savior
and His Apostles. We heard quoted this forenoon the words of God
spoken through the Prophet Joseph, and which are and always will be in
force among this people, to the effect that the powers of the
Priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and
cannot be exercised in any degree of unrighteousness; that the power
of that man departs from him when he attempts in the least degree to
exercise an unrighteous dominion over his fellow man—or any power or
dominion except that power of truth and of persuasion founded upon it.
The teachings of the Savior in relation to the settling of
difficulties arising among brethren in the Church of Christ, through
visiting them and talking frankly one with another, explaining and
expounding to each other until they come to an understanding of all
troubles which may arise among members of the Church; and in
cases of disagreement invoking the aid and council of visiting priests
and teachers to act in the premises as peacemakers, as helps to the
parties to arrive at a proper understanding, constitute the best
method of settling and adjusting the differences of mankind which has
ever been instituted; agreeing with the experience of Bishop Hunter,
who has often said, that no cases of difficulty are so thoroughly and
effectually settled as those which are disposed of in this way. This
is the chief labor of the visiting Priesthood among the people of God.
And yet the enemies of this people prate a great deal about the
oppression of the Priesthood. There is no pope or bishop, priest or
clergyman or ecclesiastic belonging to any sect on the earth, so far
as my knowledge extends, which is so approachable as the President and
Apostles and Priests and Bishops and Elders of this Church, whose
hearts and ears are open to everybody to hear what everybody has to
say, and to give it due weight in all patience and long-suffering, to
enlighten and teach them correct principles, so that they may act
honestly with each other and secure each other the greatest possible
amount of liberty, freedom and happiness. The same may be said of the
domestic relations in the family circle—I will not say with wicked
men, with men who are naturally tyrannical, having the spirit of
tyranny and oppression born in them; but I will say that free men and
women who are imbued with the spirit of the everlasting Gospel, who
are living in polygamy, that they manifest a greater degree of
parental affection and of conjugal love, and evince greater earnest
desire to promote peace and happiness and comfort and liberty and
freedom to each member of their families, than at least the great
majority of the families of the Christian world. And as I have often
said—and I am as well acquainted with polygamous families in Utah, as
perhaps, any other man, in consequence of my traveling constantly
among the people and mingling with them—that, as a rule, the
polygamous families of Utah are the best regulated families in the
land, and they enjoy the greatest degree of happiness and freedom,
unity, fellowship and love and reverence for correct principles. Our
would-be regenerators would feign try and make us believe that unless
we all go to the polls and vote their ticket we are slaves to the
Priesthood; that because we chose to vote for our friends, we are
doing the bidding of the Priesthood. Yes, and so we are. The
Priesthood has always taught us that we would be fools, indeed, to
vote for our enemies, for those who would rob and plunder us, for
those who would not only rob us financially, but would steal from us
the common rights of citizenship were it in their power to do so. And,
yet, forsooth, because we vote for our friends, for men in whom we
have confidence, they say we are priestridden, etc. And what does it
all mean? "Why, we want you Mormons to vote for us that we may get our
arm into the public treasury, for we are too lazy to work." All who
are acquainted with the administration of affairs in Utah, know that
the affairs of government, both territorial and county, and also
municipal, are the most economically administered of any other
Territory or State in the Union; that there is not one delinquent or
case of embezzlement to where there are ten in any other Territory or
State. And yet our would-be regenerators are exceedingly angry
because we will not vote for men to misrepresent us and our interests
at the seat of government; because we do not squeak when they squeak,
because we do not sneeze when they take snuff. This they call liberty!
And there are perhaps some of our own people who are so far befogged
that they run with this class of men; they read their twaddle so much
and they become so much beclouded that they think it is necessary, in
order to show their manhood, to vote for their enemies because, if
they do not vote for their enemies they will be put down as "Mormon
slaves;" and this would be too much for them, they could not stand so
much.
Now, thinking men understand the object of all this cry. It is
prompted by the same spirit which we see manifested by the extremists
almost throughout the civilized world. It is true there is a great
deal of oppression in the world, and these men see it and they wish to
improve things, but do not know how; and instead of commencing to
rectify what is wrong in their own hearts and in their own families,
and then extend their influence for good to those immediately around
them, instead of using moral suasion and showing a good example, they
turn to and undertake to serve God like the devil, trying to right
things the wrong way by casting down everything in the form of order
and government, producing anarchy and ruin instead. Like the idiot
who, because he himself was houseless, having to sleep on the doorstep
of some rich man, put the torch to the rich man's palace and destroyed
it. Fools can demolish and destroy; it requires wise men to build.
I said of the ancient people of God; I say of the Latter-day Saints,
there is no people capable of appreciating true liberty and of
understanding the principles on which it is founded, and who know so
well how to maintain them; because we have found it in the Gospel
which we have received. And every man who has received the spirit of
the Gospel, and whose heart is warmed with the love of it, is
preparing his heart and is using his influence to educate the people
to understand the true principles of human freedom, and the means by
which they can be maintained. And I say, as President Cannon has said,
referring to what the Prophet Joseph Smith told us, that the time
would come when the extremists of the land, who are undermining the
fabric of freedom, and little by little breaking under foot the
guarantees of human liberty which have been raised up by our heavenly
Father, through the instrumentality of wise men whom he raised up to
establish the institutions of our country; these extremists of the
land are gradually undermining those safeguards of human liberty, and
plotting to carry out their nefarious designs in their endeavoring to
oppress the people of God, and to destroy the institutions of heaven
out of the earth. The time will come when the voice of such men will
be heard in the land, like the roaring of a tornado, so that the still
small voice speaking from the heavens cannot be heard; and the voice
of the loudmouth, plotting destruction to human liberty and freedom
will be heard all over the land, and everybody raise up and say, it is
the voice of God; and they will be willing to stand and look on and
see the Saints butchered and Prophets martyred, and our institutions
wrested from us and wasted away. But when that time arrives, the Lord
will come forth from his hiding place and "vex the nations;"
he will raise his arm, and it shall not be turned back, and he will
stay the hand raised against his people to destroy them and their
institutions.
The Gospel has been the means of gathering us out from among the
nations, and has made us a free and happy people, an able and united
commonwealth; and the Lord is using us to establish its principles in
these mountains, that throughout these valleys may be formed a nucleus
around which honorable men and women may gather, men who will be
capable of appreciating the blessings of liberty and of helping to
extend them to others. And all presidents and senators and judges, and
all men in official authority who shall lend themselves and their
influence to trample upon the common rights of man, those rights which
God has bestowed upon us and which are our common heritage, and who
shall be found warring against God and his institutions, when the cap
of their iniquity shall be full, the Lord Almighty will cause them to
disappear from the public gaze, he will let them sink into oblivion
and disgrace.
Those who suppose they can secure happiness in doing wickedly are
grievously mistaken. And if they seek to oppress their neighbor by
appropriating to themselves his hard earnings without rendering him a
just equivalent, they will find every time they do it, they are but
weaving together withes for their own backs, preparing punishment for
themselves, and bringing themselves into bondage—the bondage of sin.
For all judgments and punishments which the law of the Lord has
ordained and appointed unto man are designed to correct their errors
and sins. And where they are corrected and they learn better, then He
is ready to stretch forth His hand to save and exalt them. The Gospel
is ever ready to step in to assist repentant man when he has become
sensible that he needs help to be redeemed, and he realizes that he
has not the power to redeem himself. Then repentance unto life is
granted to him; but it never can come until his judgment is convinced,
until his mind is enlightened and his eyes are opened to see himself,
and to comprehend his true position. And whether he be in this world
or the world to come, he must place himself in a condition to be saved
before redemption can come unto him; and it is only by the light of
truth and of true and correct principles which can bring happiness and
liberty and freedom, and with it a disposition to extend that liberty
to all around, and to maintain it and protect each other in its
enjoyment; and not with a spirit of vengeance upon the erring, and
oppression upon the ignorant, but only with a disposition to seize and
hold the hand which is raised to smite his fellow and stop in his
wayward course the individual who would override his fellow. And all
men should be protected in this freedom to go so far and no further.
May the Lord help us to live and walk in the light, and think for
ourselves, and act like sensible people, paying heedless regard to the
blatant foolish lunatics who are attracting the attention of the
world. They, however, have their day, after the manner of the old
adage—Every dog has his day; and when it is past he will cease to bark
and bite.