It has been almost one year since I have been able to stand up before
a congregation to address them, having been severely afflicted during
that period of time. I am now blessed with the opportunity and
privilege of occupying a few minutes, as long as my health would
justify, in speaking a few words to the congregation. I am just able
to stand upon my feet, most of the time scarcely able to sit up. I
believe that the Saints have exercised their prayers and their faith
in my behalf. If they had not done this, I doubt very much whether I
would now be able to appear before you. Notwithstanding the
afflictions of my body and the long silence that I have kept, so far
as public congregations are concerned, yet I have felt the same
enduring love for the principles of truth and for the people of God in
all my afflictions, that I had in the time of my health. There is
nothing so precious to me as the great principles of salvation. They
have for the last 51 years of my life—it being 51 years tomorrow
since I was baptized—occupied the uppermost place in my mind. Riches,
the honors of this world, etc., have been but a very small
consideration with me, com pared with the riches of eternal
salvation, the blessings of the everlasting Gospel, the new covenant
which we have embraced, the great work which the Lord our God is
performing by his mighty hand in the age in which you and I live. I
trust and verily believe that that which has had so conspicuous a
place in my understanding, in my thoughts, in my meditations, in my
mind, will continue to hold the same position with me so long as the
Lord shall permit me to tarry here in this probation. Fifty-one years
ago tomorrow, as I have said, I entered this Church, the Church then
being confined to a small district of country in the State of New
York. The knowledge of the Gospel, and the doctrines which we have
taught, had not spread forth except within a very small limit of
country. What a contrast between then and the present! Tomorrow—if I
live till tomorrow—I shall be 70 years of age, which is said to be
the average old age of man. They are the years appointed to man. So
says one of the inspired writers, and if man, peradventure, should
reach a few years beyond three score and ten, it is said that it is
filled up with afflictions and sorrow and infirmities of old age. I
trust, however, that if I am permitted to tarry still longer than this
appointed time, or rather this period of time, I trust that my days
may not be those of suffering. At any rate, so far as my mind is
concerned, my understanding, that is at rest, that is at peace. I know
what my hopes are. I know the plan of salvation. I have had the
communications of the spirit of the Lord God, to teach me more or less
all the days of my life, and this has given me great consolation.
Hence, if I live past seventy, I do not expect to have sorrow of mind.
I may have afflictions; I may encounter them; I may not to any great
extent.
I wish to call your attention for a few moments to a subject closely
connected with those days that I have been speaking of—the rise of the
Church. It will be next Thursday night, 54 years since the Prophet
Joseph Smith, then but a lad, was permitted by the angel of the Lord
to take the gold plates of the Book of Mormon from the hill Cumorah,
as it was called in ancient times, located in the State of New York.
This I consider one of the most marvelous occurrences which has taken
place for the past eighteen centuries—to be permitted to observe the
face of an holy angel, and then be permitted, in addition to that, to
take out of the ground, in fulfillment of ancient prophecy, a record of
one-half of our globe, giving a history of the peoples and nations
that occupied this great western hemisphere—more marvelous than
anything that has transpired during that long period. What makes it
still more marvelous is, that it is connected with revelation, with
something that comes from heaven, with divine authority. God permitted
this record to be taken from its place of ancient deposit. He it was
that sent the angel to deliver those records into the hands of this
boy. It was God. And what object did the Lord have in performing this
marvelous thing? It was to establish on this earth that kingdom
predicted by the ancient Prophet Daniel, that should be set up in the
last days, which should stand forever, and should finally become a
great mountain and fill the whole earth. What could be of more
importance? Such an event was predicted to happen, that such a
kingdom should arise, that God should be the autho rity of it,
that he should lay the foundation of it, that he should set it up. If
we go back to the finding of the records of the Book of Mormon; if we
go back to that eventful day when God sent his angels to confirm the
divinity of that record to three other persons; if we go back to the
time of the organization of this Church, we find that God has in all
these matters spoken himself. We did not select the day on which this
kingdom should be organized. Joseph Smith, the Prophet, did not select
the day, but God pointed out the very day, the very month, in which
this work should be performed. Hence it is God's work; it was God and
not man that set up this kingdom. Has there been an authority
established in this Church from the day of its organization that was
established by man's authority? Not one. Every authority in this
Church, however high or however low, or whatever the nature of the
callings might be, whatever the duties of the callings, God has
introduced that authority. We have no record, no minutes in our
Church, where there have been Apostles called and ordained in this
kingdom, by man's authority. It is just what we might expect. Anything
else than this would not be ascribed to the kingdom of God. The
kingdom of God could not be set up by man. Man has no right to select
even the day for the organization of that kingdom. Man has no right to
select the least officer of that kingdom; it must all come from
heaven. It was said that such a kingdom should be set up. It was set.
It was set up according to the mind of God, according to his own mind,
not according to the whims and notions of sectarians, or any
theologians, or any learned man, but according to the mind of the
great Jehovah. We have seen the progress of this kingdom. We have seen
what God has accomplished during the last 51 years. We have seen his
hand made manifest. We have seen the kingdom organized, not to dwell
in the place of its particular organization, and the people be
scattered all over the world like sectarianism, but a kingdom that
should gather together the sons and daughters of God, according to the
predictions of the ancient prophets into one place upon the face of
our globe, to prepare them for the mighty events and occurrences that
should take place when he should accomplish that work. And how
marvelous it is to see the hundreds and hundreds of vessels that have
crossed the ocean, the mighty ocean, in perfect safety, bringing the
Saints of God to their destined haven, to rejoice in one body, in one
place, in one region in the mountains of Israel, the great back bone
of the western hemisphere, if we may so term it. This is all to fulfil
prophecy.
But I must not enlarge upon this subject. How happy I feel that I am
once more, after having been brought so low, so near the gates of
death—how happy I feel that I am permitted once more to lift up my
voice before you. I do not know that I can make you all hear, but I
trust that my voice will be strengthened, I trust that my body will be
strengthened, I trust that my mind—if it has been weakened at all by
sickness—may also be strengthened, and that I yet may have the humble
privilege of lifting up my voice and testifying, before thousands of
people in these mountains, if not abroad among the inhabitants of the
earth, of God's power. It is a day in which he has commenced to
perform a mighty work, and the foundation is already laid and
is quite broad, and he has quite a numerous people through whom he can
work and accomplish his mighty purposes; and although feeble in body,
I do not know but what the Lord may yet strengthen me to again publish
glad tidings of great joy abroad among the nations of the earth, or
perform whatever duties may be assigned unto me by the general
authorities His Church.
May God bless the people of Zion—all the Latter-day Saints scattered
throughout all these mountain regions: may he favor us before many
years with a full and complete redemption according to the promises
that are made in His word. Amen.