I thought I would come here today to mingle my condolence and sympathy
with yours while paying the last token of respect to the remains of
your husband, your father, your friend, your Bishop.
These are occasions that cause us to feel sorrowful, and yet we should
not sorrow at the departure of a good man—a highminded, honorable man,
a good Latter-day Saint, as I have always esteemed Bishop Miller to
be. I am told that many of you were not born when Brother Miller was
first installed Bishop; that there are only two women, of whom his
wife is one, and three men that are now living in the Ward when he was
first ordained Bishop here; and that he has during his
bishopric blessed, when children, a great many of the congregation
assembled here today.
When a man who has been faithful and true leaves the world to go into
another state of existence, what is there to mourn for? Should his
family mourn? No. They cannot help the natural feelings of sympathy
that well up in the heart at the departure of their friends; wives
cannot help having sympathy for their husbands, and husbands for their
wives, parents for their children, and children for their parents. The
family of Brother Miller have lost a good husband, a loving father, a
faithful friend, and under such circumstances they mourn when they are
deprived of his society and his counsel.
When men leave this earth they leave it to occupy another sphere in
another state of existence. And if, as is the case with Brother
Miller, they hold the Priesthood that administers in time and in
eternity, having fulfilled this part, as many others have done who
have left the world, and as our deceased brother has done, they hold
that Priesthood in the eternal worlds, and operate in it there. It is
an everlasting Priesthood, that administers in time and in eternity.
And the Gospel that we have received unfolds to us principles of which
we were heretofore entirely ignorant. It shows us the relationship
that exists between God and man, and it shows us the relationship that
exists between men who have dwelt upon the earth before and those who
exist today. It shows that while God has revealed the Priesthood to us
upon the earth and conferred upon us those privileges, that in former
generations he revealed the same Priesthood to other men, and that
those men holding that Priesthood min istered to others here upon the
earth; and that we are operating with them and they with us in our
interests and in the interests of the Church and kingdom of God, in
assisting to build up the Zion of God, and in seeking to establish
truth and righteousness upon the earth; and that there is a connecting
link between the Priesthood in the heavens and the Priesthood upon the
earth.
God, our heavenly Father, has gathered unto himself, through the
atonement of Jesus Christ, very many great and honorable men who have
lived upon the earth, and who have been clothed with the powers of the
Priesthood. Those men having held that Priesthood and administered in
it upon the earth are now in the heavens operating with the Priesthood
in the heavens in connection with the Priesthood that exists now upon
the earth. Consequently I do not feel sorrowful when I see a good man
go, and yet in some respects I do. There is something painful about
the separation. But I look upon it a good deal as it was with us when
we were coming to this land. Said you to your friends when they were
leaving: "Thomas, Mary, James or William, you are going away to Zion;
I am sorry to see you go, and yet I am glad you are going." We feel
sorry to part with our friends; but when the struggle is over, when
they have battled with the world and the powers of darkness, and by
the Spirit and power of God have overcome and triumphed, having
remained true and faithful to the last, and have gone to join the
hosts in the eternal worlds, to associate with the eternal Priesthood
that exists there, do we feel to mourn? No, I do not; there is no
cause to mourn: it is a cause of rejoicing. By and by we shall
follow; for we expect to mingle with them.
A few days ago I attended the funeral of one of my wives; and while
doing so I looked upon the great city of the dead. I thought to
myself, here are thousands of honorable men and women who are sleeping
the sleep of peace, who have served their God, and who have got
through with the affairs of this world; and that while their bodies
are decaying here, their spirits are soaring in the heavens. Do I feel
sorry for them? No, they have gone to rest, and all is peace with
them, according to the mind and will of God in relation to those
matters, He having appointed unto man that he must die.
Since the organization of the world myriads have come and have taken
upon themselves bodies, and they have passed away, generation after
generation, into another state of existence. And it is so today. And
I suppose while we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are
rejoicing to meet him behind the veil; and while he has left us,
others are coming into the world at the same time, and probably in
this our territory. There is a continuous change, an ingress of beings
into the world and an egress out of it. As near as my memory serves
me, from one-third to one-fourth of our population today are children
under eight years of age. There are thousands of men upon the earth
today, among the Saints of God, of whom it was decreed before they
came that they should occupy the positions they have occupied and do
occupy, and many of them have performed their part and gone home;
others are left to still fulfill the duties and responsibilities
devolving upon them.
I was remarkably struck on look ing at the three mottoes before me, one
is, Holiness to the Lord, which I suppose was placed there by your
late Bishop. There is something beautiful and glorious in the
contemplation. And when I heard Brother Gardiner speak about his
visits with Brother Miller to talk over the things of the kingdom of
God, it indicated to me that his heart and feelings were interested in
it, as well as interested in the welfare of the county, as others have
testified of. We should all have those feelings, not only Bishops and
Presidents but all the people ought to be interested in one another's
welfare. Our welfare and happiness depends upon our obedience to the
laws of God, upon our conduct before him in all our acts. We wish to
have inscribed not only in our meetinghouse, but in our hearts and
acts, Holiness to the Lord, God is my God, God is my Father, God is
my friend; and I wish to devote and dedicate myself unto Him, ought to
be the feeling of every man and woman, and especially of every
Latter-day Saint. Let there be no act of my life, no principle that I
embrace, that shall be at variance with these words which were first
inscribed by the Almighty, and prophesied of that it should come to
pass in the last days, that even upon the bells of the horses should
be written "Holiness to the Lord." That is not in name only, but it
is to be written on the tablets of our hearts, as with a pen of iron,
for when this principle shall become universal, righteousness will
extend "from the rivers to the ends of the earth."
Then, here is another motto: "Thy kingdom come." All these things are
full of meaning and interest. This was taught by Jesus to his
disciples when they came to him, saying, teach us to pray, as
John taught his disciples. Said he, "When you pray, say, Our Father,
who art in heaven." Who? Our Father. What, my Father and your Father?
Yes; and the God and Father of the spirits of all flesh. Our Father
who art in heaven; hallowed be Thy name. Let me reverence Thee, O God,
in all my doings, in all my acts, in all my proceedings, in all my
associations with men and with the Church and kingdom of God and with
the world—let me always reverence Thee. Hallowed be thy name. Thy
kingdom come. What kingdom? What is the meaning of "thy kingdom come?"
It means the rule of God; it means the law of God; it means the
government of God; it means the people who have listened to and who
are willing to listen to and observe the commands of Jehovah; and it
means that there is a God who is willing to guide and direct and
sustain his people. Thy kingdom come, that thy government may be
established, and the principles of eternal truth as they exist in the
heavens may be imparted to men; and that, when they are imparted to
men, those men may be in subjection to those laws and to that
government, and live in the fear of God, keeping his commandments and
being under his direction. Thy kingdom come; that the confusion, the
lasciviousness and corruption, the evil and wickedness, the murder and
bloodshed that now exist among mankind may be done away, and the
principles of truth and right, the principles of kindness, charity and
love as they dwell in the bosom of the Gods, may dwell with us.
"Thy will be done." Not my will, not my desires, not my wishes. I do
not know, you do not know, what would be good for us; I do not know
what would be good for this people only as God teaches me. I do not
want to teach my ideas; I want to know the will of God, and then teach
it. We should all seek to know the will of God, and then do it. Thy
will be done. What brought you and me here? Did we have any knowledge
of the will of God? Not until he revealed it. Did we have any
knowledge of the kingdom of God? Not until He revealed it; and numbers
of us have very little knowledge of it today, very little indeed. We
have very little knowledge of the kingdom of God; and yet we have been
here year after year, and have been taught for many years the sacred
principles of truth communicated by the holy Priesthood, but we hardly
comprehend them. Is there a principle that we have received associated
with the Gospel of the Son of God, that we should have received if God
had not revealed it to Joseph Smith His Prophet? No; we knew nothing
about them. Is there anybody among these aged and grayhaired men who
came to an understanding of even the first principles of the Gospel
until he revealed them anew? No. Do you know it? I know it to be a
fact. I knew Joseph Smith and Brigham Young very well and other
prominent men of this Church; and I have met with men in different
nations, of all grades and classes of position and intelligence, and I
know that they do not know the principles of eternal truth as God has
revealed them to us. Have we anything, then, to boast of or to glory
in? I have not, only in God. But I thank God our Heavenly Father and
His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Priesthood that existed, that God in
his mercy has been pleased through their instrumentality to
again restore the everlasting Gospel, bringing with it light,
immortality and eternal life.
What did we know about the ordinances of the Gospel—could I find them
anywhere? There is not a man living today that could, only as God
revealed them, and I am at the defiance of any man to say that he knew
anything about the principles of the everlasting Gospel until God
revealed them. Did any of us find out anything about the Gospel? No.
Who knew anything about the gathering? The prophets had spoken about
it, but who comprehended their words? Nobody. Did they know anything
about gathering men together to a land of Zion that should be, or
about the kingdom of God that was to be set up? Some of them would
talk about what Daniel saw, but they knew nothing about it; and they
are in the dark about it today, for no man can know the things of God
but by the Spirit of God, and they cannot obtain that Spirit only by
obedience to His law, and hence there is so much misapprehension about
us, and they will remain in the dark until they obey the Gospel of the
Son of God. What do they know about the future? Nothing. What do they
know about the celestial, or the terrestrial or the telestial glory?
Nothing; they do not comprehend anything about these matters; and when
they leave this world, as a prominent philosopher has said, they take
a leap in the dark. We know where we are going; we know where Brother
Miller has gone. God has revealed these things to us, and consequently
we are enlightened. But did we find it out by our own wisdom and
intelligence? No, it was the Lord who revealed it.
And what about our dead, and what about our Temple building? That is a
singular thing for men to be engaged in. Do you find anything like it
anywhere else? No. I remember talking with Baron Rothschild when
showing him our Temple. He asked what was the meaning of it. Said I,
Baron, your Prophets centuries ago, when under the inspiration of the
Almighty, said that the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his
temple. "Yes," he said, "I know they said that." "Will you
show me a
place upon the face of the earth where God has got a temple to come
to?" Said he, "I do not know of any such place." But if your Prophets
told the truth, then there must be a Temple built before your Messiah
can come. Said he, Is this that Temple? No, sir. What is this then? It
is a Temple but not the Temple your fathers spoke of. But you will yet
build a Temple in Jerusalem, and the Lord whom you seek will come to
that Temple. What is this for, he enquired? Among other things that we
may perform the sacred ordinances about which we are so much maligned,
wherein we make eternal covenants with our wives, that we may have a
claim upon them in the resurrection. Who revealed this? God our
Heavenly Father. And because he has revealed these things, and because
we are fulfilling these things, our nation, groveling in darkness,
wrapped in midnight gloom, knowing no more about God and eternity than
that piece of iron railing, makes it criminal for us to form
associations that are to exist "while life or thought or being lasts
or immortality endures" —associations with our wives and children, with
our fathers and mothers, with our friends and associates, so that when
the last trump shall sound and the dead hear the voice of the Son of God, that we with them may come forth to obtain the exaltation
which God has prepared for those that love him, keep his commandments,
and are obedient to his laws. Shall we forego these things and give up
our hopes of eternal lives and exaltations at the instance of low,
degraded, corrupt, besotted and benighted men. Verily I say unto you,
Nay. We are after truth, exaltation and eternal lives; exaltation for
ourselves, for our fathers and mothers and for all men and women who
can comprehend the law of God, and who will obey his precepts and not
reject the Gospel of his Son.
These are the things that we seek, and God is with us and will be with
us, and will sustain us, and no power on earth or in hell can stop the
progress of this work; for it is onward according to the decree of
Almighty God, and will be from this time henceforth and forever. And
as the prophets have said, so say I, woe to those men and woe to that
nation or to those nations that lift up their hands against Zion, for
God will destroy them. I prophesy that in the name of the Lord God of
hosts. And he will be with his Israel, and will sustain his people and
bring them off victorious; and if faithful to the end we shall obtain
thrones, principalities, powers, dominions, exaltations, and eternal
lives in the kingdom of our God, and Brother Miller will be there. Let
us try to emulate his good example and seek to do that which is right
in the sight of God and man. God has given us great principles and put
us in possession of great blessings. Let us appreciate them. Let us,
in all sincerity, be honest and virtuous, truthful, holy and pure. Let
us abstain from covetousness, fraud, lasciviousness and corruption of
every kind, and be in deed and in truth what we profess to be, the
Saints of the living God.
God bless you in time and throughout the eternities to come, in the
name of Jesus, Amen.