I want to say to the young men and the young ladies and to all the
people—but especially our children, the youths in Israel—that the
leaders of this people do not speak of themselves. That which they are
striving to impress upon the people is of the Lord and not of man. The
Latter-day Saints have not been gathered from the different nations of
the earth, and brought together in these mountains to worship man, nor
to serve man, to be their slaves, nor to be obedient unto man, and if
anybody has such an idea or intention they have got hold of the wrong
people. The people who are gathered here are not the people calculated
to do such a thing. The faith we teach throws everybody upon their own
responsibility; they are at liberty to act and choose for themselves,
and all will be held responsible before God for their faith and
conduct. The free agency of man is and always has been a prominent
doctrine in this Church, and no one advocated it more strongly than
the Prophet Joseph Smith. The free agency of man is inseparably
connected with intelligence, as the revelations of God in the Doc trine
and Covenants plainly and explicitly declare, that all intelligence is
independent. Without this agency there would be no self-existence. And
because of this agency, which existed in eternity before the worlds
were, with intelligent beings, with our spirits when they existed in
the spirit world—through the exercise of this agency Satan fell, and
all those who clung to him and rebelled against our Heavenly Father.
Brother Cannon has impressed us with the idea that obedience to
correct principle, believing in the truth and living it and obeying
it, is as good an evidence of independent thought and character—and
perhaps a little more so—than to be disobedient; that no man, woman or
child will be more independent by rejecting the truth, by disobeying
correct laws and correct principles, than those who receive and obey
the truth with contrite hearts. Now, what say you, you must all judge
for yourselves, and choose what you will be. My experience and
observation of the Latter-day Saints is that they are the hardest
people I know anything about to either drive or lead in a wrong direc tion. Brother Cannon speaks of President Young and
President Taylor, and other good men, our leaders, being led, as it
were, by a hair in obedience to the Priesthood, which implies simply
obedience to truth and to correct doctrine, and to righteousness. This
is the explanation the Prophet Joseph Smith gave to a certain lawyer
in his time who came to see him and his people and expressed
astonishment and surprise at the ease with which he controlled the
people, and said it was something that was not to be found among the
learned men of the world. Said he: "We cannot do it. What is the
secret of your success?" "Why," said the Prophet, "I do not
govern the
people. I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves." I
have been young, now I am getting old and expect to pass away soon, as
well as all those who have been for many years before the people
serving the Lord, and laboring to promote the welfare of the people;
but from my youth up I have observed the dealings of God with the
Latter-day Saints. I am pretty well acquainted with them. They are
pretty well acquainted with their leaders. They are pretty well
acquainted with the voice of truth, and they know it when they hear it
as a rule—that is, all those who are humble and prayerful and who love
the truth and the voice of the good Shepherd, they know it when they
hear it, and when principles are taught that are good, that come from
God, they comprehend them and receive them. But as Paul said in one of
his epistles to the ancient Saints: "There is a law in our members,
warring against the law of the spirit and bringing our bodies into
bondage to the law of sin and death." That is, the lusts and desires
of the flesh and the pride of life which we have to war against. And
this warfare commences as soon as we begin to grow up to maturity. It
is this that lays the foundation for rebellion. As soon as this begins
to manifest itself in us, in our youth, so soon we need to begin to
curb it. And here comes in the duty of parents in their Priesthood and
calling, to watch over those children that are given them of the Lord,
which are lent to them for a season. It is required of them to teach
those children the law of the Lord and the ways of the righteous, and
to restrain them from passions, from anger, from strife, from
contention, from envy, from jealousy, from disobedience; to impress
them with the necessity of doing right and repenting of wrong whenever
they do it, that they may hold in check the passions that are common
to our nature; and to show them how to enjoy all that the Lord has
designed for our happiness in this world and our exaltation in the
next without excess, without allowing our tabernacles to be used as
instruments of sin and wickedness.
We have heard during this conference—and especially this forenoon from
President Taylor—some very important principles advanced for our
government, as individuals and as communities, principles which we are
to observe and which are essential to our purity and progress as a
people, and as individuals, and our exaltation in the eternal world.
For the law of the Lord is strict unto those who are instructed and
have opportunities to observe it, and far more so with us as
Latter-day Saints than with the Gentile world. The Lord will make
greater allowance for the Gentile world than He will for us, and He
has had compassion upon us and made greater allowance for us
in the days of our ignorance than He will do for us in the future; for
He expects us as a people to profit by our experience and our
instruction and the opportunities afforded us, and to improve our
condition, to purify our persons, our families, and our communities,
and to purge evil from our midst. And touching moral purity and the
intercourse of the sexes and the objects and purposes of this
intercourse, God has revealed to the Latter-day Saints, as He also
revealed unto our fathers, that He has a great and glorious and grand
object in view in placing us here upon the earth, male and female, and
commanding us to multiply and replenish the earth. His purposes in
these things are from eternity to eternity. They reach back into our
first or former existence, and consequently will reach forward through
this our second, and into our next estate, and through all eternity.
And we need a correct understanding of the proper use of the
privileges and blessings that are given unto us. On this depends the
glory and exaltation of ourselves and our children for evermore. The
Lord is striving to educate a people that will properly understand
these things and appreciate them, and that will not trifle with the
fountains of life and with those choice blessings that are placed
within their reach. When we look abroad into the Gentile nations at
the present time, those who are acquainted with their condition are
constrained to acknowledge that we live in a wicked and adulterous
generation. Adultery, whoredom and lust have cursed the Gentile
nations, and the wicked portion of all mankind, we may say, from time
immemorable. But with the seed of Abraham, the children of Israel—who
were called an holy nation, a peculiar people—God has sought to
regulate, by His laws, those things, and to teach the people so that
they may raise up unto Him a holy nation, a peculiar people, a royal
priesthood. He chose Abraham from among the nations and blessed him.
He promised to multiply his seed like the stars in the heaven or the
sands of the seashore for number. He tried and proved him well as we
heard this morning. He blessed him and blessed his seed after him,
likewise his son Isaac and his grandson, Jacob, and promised that the
oracles should remain with him and his seed. Nevertheless, the
promises made were general; they were not promises to individuals
alone. Yet the promises were conditional. They were given on condition
that their posterity should abide in the truth, follow the teachings
and examples of their fathers, and prove themselves worthy; for Nephi
has said concerning these things in the Book of Mormon that God
covenants with none except those that repent and believe in His Son
and keep His commandments. But there are special promises to the
children of Israel, the seed of Abraham, as a people; for as a people
they are the elect of God. But as individuals every one is held
responsible for his own sins. No promise of the father can save any
individual. Nevertheless, according to the promise made unto the
fathers, God makes manifest among the children of Israel the
Priesthood and reveals unto them the Gospel, and gives them an
opportunity to receive it and obey it and obtain exaltation through
it, if they will, and in this respect they are more favored than the
Gentile nations throughout the whole world, though He has
said that whoever fears God and works righteousness is accepted of Him
among all nations and all peoples, Jew or Gentile. But the Lord has
set His hand to gather His people, and He is selecting them by the
preaching of the Gospel to the world by the Elders of Israel. The
spirit which accompanies the preaching of the Gospel feels after and
searches out and gathers together the seed of Abraham that are worthy
to be saved. It gathers together those whom God has called to have
part in the latter-day work, in the "dispensation of the fulness of
times" —the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh,
spoken of by Moses when he blessed the tribes of Israel.
Well, now, because the Lord has set His hand to gather out from the
nations of the earth the humble and the honest in heart and those that
will be obedient and will submit themselves to the truth and to the
law of the Lord, therefore He reveals unto them a new and everlasting
covenant, the holy covenant of marriage for time and for all eternity,
the union of the sexes, the sealing of wives to husbands and husbands
to wives, children to parents, etc., the uniting and sealing us in the
holy Priesthood unto the fathers and even unto our Lord Jesus Christ,
who stands at the head of the kingdom of righteousness, the Chief
Apostle and High Priest of our profession; and unto this new and
everlasting covenant has the Lord purposed and designed His people to
be united and bound together with the Son, our Savior, and through Him
unto His Father; for He has said, "Whosoever receiveth me receiveth my
Father, and all that my Father hath shall be given unto him."
This new and everlasting covenant reveals unto us the keys of the Holy
Priesthood and ordinances thereof. It is the grand keystone of the
arch which the Lord is building in the earth. In other words, it is
that which completes the exaltation and glory of the righteous who
receive the everlasting Gospel, and without it they could not attain
unto the eternal power and Godhead and the fullness of celestial
glory. Now, many may enter into the glory of God, and become servants
in the house of God and in the celestial kingdom of God, who are not
able to abide this new and everlasting covenant; but as we are told in
the Doctrine and Covenants, with them there is an end to their
exaltation. They may remain in their saved condition without
exaltation, but they enter not into the order of the Gods. They cannot
progress through the ceaseless rounds of eternity except they abide in
the covenant, and abide the law that governs it, and the Lord will not
be mocked in these things.
We heard this morning how strict was the law pertaining to these
matters. Now we say unto all Israel, old and young, these things are
revealed unto us for our good. The strictness of the law may not in
times past have been taught us and enforced upon us as we may look for
it being taught and enforced in the future. But it behooveth us to
reflect upon these things, and while it is our privilege to go
forward, earnestly desiring and seeking after all that the Lord has to
bestow upon us, yet we must remember that the more we receive and the
greater privileges we are permitted to enjoy, the more strict
accountability will be required of us, and the more dreadful will be
the consequences of transgression or violation of the holy
covenants and obligations which we assume.
Now, I wish to say that I realize that there are some in our
midst—whether they are in your midst in this Stake of Zion or not, I
am not prepared to say with any certainty, for I can only judge of the
condition and feeling of the people as I am informed from time to
time—I say, there are some whom Satan would stir to disobedience and
try to make an impression upon their minds that the system of plural
marriage, and those things that pertain to the sealing of men and
women for time and for eternity, and the revelation which has been
read in our hearing, given through the Prophet Joseph pertaining to
this subject—that it was the work of man and not the work of God. We
have recently had published in some of the Utah papers some letters on
this subject, and one from Joseph Smith, the eldest son of the
Prophet, in which a great deal of sophistry is made use of, special
pleading, such as the lawyer that he is, seems only capable of using.
And the object of this special pleading and the sophistry is to try to
leave an impression upon the ignorant, those who know no better, that
plural marriage was not introduced and sanctioned and practiced by his
father, but that it has been an innovation of man, and does not belong
to the system of religion which he believed and practiced and taught
the people. And there are some among us who would fain take this view
of the subject; not that there are many who believe it, but there are
some who would like to believe it. And so there are in the world many
people who fear that "Mormonism" as a whole is true and of God; they
are very much afraid that it is, but they hope that it is not. They do
not want to receive it; they do not want to live it, but they are
afraid it is true, and multitudes of people have been convinced of its
truth, but have not the honesty to acknowledge it; and many who would
acknowledge it for a little season, would afterwards, because of the
love of the world, fall away, and thus condemnation has fallen upon
the world because they will not obey the truth when they hear it. And
so it is with some among the Latter-day Saints. They are pretty well
satisfied that this doctrine of plural marriage is true, and that it
was revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith, but they would like an
excuse for disavowing and rejecting it. And why so? Mainly because
their minds are closed up and have not been able to comprehend the
principles that are embraced in this doctrine and connected with it.
Their minds are contracted and limited. They think more of this
present life than they do of the future. They want to lay up riches;
they want to gather personal comforts around them; they want to
gratify the pride of life and the lusts of the flesh. They do not
understand that which is for their real good, their real happiness.
But I testify that there is more real happiness in serving God and
abiding in His law, and submitting to all its conditions and
requirements than there can be in taking an opposite course. This is
the testimony of all who receive and abide in the truth, and there is
abundant evidence in their lives and conduct to prove that they, in
receiving the truth, enjoy more comfort and happiness than those who
reject it. And touching our plural families, I will say that, with all
the weaknesses that are common to frail humanity, and that manifest
themselves in our midst— the men who enter into this order in
the sincerity of their hearts and with devotion to God, and the women
who also enter into it in the love of the truth and in the earnestness
of their souls, fearing God and desiring to do His will—that with all
the weaknesses that manifest themselves, I say there is treble the
genuine comfort and happiness in those families who enter into this
order and abide in it, than is to be found in the same number of
families in monogamy in this Church, to say nothing of the Gentile
world. And then we will take the Latter-day Saints as a whole, whether
in plural marriage or single marriage, and we will say that there is
ten times more genuine happiness and comfort in believing and obeying
the Gospel—whether in plural or single wedlock—than is to be found
among the same number of people in any part of the world outside of
this Church. Now, in this you are all my witnesses. Many of you have
been in the world. You know what you were, and how you felt, and how
your neighbors felt, and what kind of enjoyment you had before you
heard the fullness of the Gospel. You know pretty well the condition
of the world now—the condition of those who have not received the
Gospel—and you know what your condition is and has been since you
received the Gospel. And who among you, Latter-day Saints, would
exchange your present condition for the condition of the outside
world? Are we not prepared to testify that our happiness is trebled,
through having believed and obeyed the Gospel?
Now, as I said to the Priesthood last night, we are arriving at a
political crisis in our affairs. The priests and bigots of
Christendom—and of America especially—are driving our lawmakers into
trying to hedge up our way and to oppress us politically as well as
religiously. They are endeavoring not only to deprive us of religious
freedom, but to deprive us of political freedom, and to bring us into
bondage. Well, now, they will do it as far as the Lord will allow them
and no further. He will block their wheels. He will throw obstacles in
their way. He will stay their onward progress. But He allows His
people to be tried to see whether they will trust Him and have faith
in Him, or whether they will deny Him, whether they will deny their
covenants and their principles through fear of the power of the
wicked, through fear of oppression, through fear of prisons or of
death. For we have among us those who will falter, those who will halt
between two opinions, those who wish to serve the world and who, at
the same time, would like to serve the Lord a little. Well, can such
people always continue in this doubtful and divided condition? No,
they cannot. They will be tried and proven, and by and by they must
take sides one way or another; they must either turn their backs upon
the wicked and cleave unto God and His people with full purpose of
soul, or they will turn their backs upon God and His people and go
down to perdition with the ungodly of the world.
Well, now, in regard to those who are seeking for an excuse to reject
plural marriage and are inclined to receive the statement of young
Joseph Smith, I wish to say that I know that Joseph Smith is entirely
ignorant of what he says, or he is a liar; for I know that he does not
speak the truth. How far his mind has been blinded or how he has been
influenced to look upon these things as correct, or to think that he speaks the truth, I do not know. But he is woefully in the
dark if he thinks he does speak the truth in regard to this matter. I
do not wish to accuse him of lying knowingly and intentionally. But
there are multitudes of witnesses who know better, and know that when
his father was murdered this son Joseph was in his eleventh year, and
like other children of that age knew little either of his father's
life or his teachings and the principles that governed his life. He
knew but little of what was being taught among the people. But there
are multitudes of witnesses that were older than he, and that were
intimate with the Prophet Joseph, that know better. Now, those who
take this other view, and are trying to convince themselves that this
is an institution of man and not of God, bring forth the law that was
given to the Nephites of old upon the American continent, which was
given them by Jacob, the brother of Nephi, and which you can read, as
doubtless you have often read, in the Book of Mormon. Jacob arraigned
some of the people because the men were giving way to the lusts of the
flesh and the pride of life, and whoredoms, and they attempted to
justify themselves in their whoredoms by referring to what is written
in the Jewish Scriptures concerning David and Solomon and other men
having many wives and concubines, which Jacob informed the Nephites
was an abomination in the sight of the Lord, and gave unto them a
commandment that not any man among them should have save it be one
wife, and concubines they should have none, saying that the Lord
"delighteth in the chastity of woman." And in the same connection the
Lord said: "For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto
me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these
things." Now, there was a reason why the Lord gave this commandment to
the Nephites. But this reason did not exist when the Lord called
Abraham and promised that his seed should be like the sand upon the
seashore for number. He recognized the righteousness of a plurality
of wives, and never at any time did he restrict them from the days of
Abraham until Christ, so far as we have any record in the Jewish
Scriptures. But there were reasons, as I said before, why he
restricted the Nephites, but in this restriction He intimated that
when the time should come that He should raise up seed unto himself,
He would command His people.
Now, when the Lord raised up the Prophet Joseph to lay the foundation
of this Church, He found monogamy instead of polygamy to be the rule
of Christendom, and He enjoined, in the early revelations to this
Church, that every woman cleave unto her husband, and that every man
cleave unto his wife and none else, saying that he that looketh upon
a woman to lust after her who is not his wife hath committed adultery
already with her in his heart. This was the law governing Christendom
which had been inherited by the Gentiles for ages past, and introduced
among the Roman Empire and perpetuated by the Roman church and the
Protestant churches that had sprung out of her, and the Lord in the
early history of this people continued this order of things, but
revealed unto the Prophet Joseph, nevertheless, that the time would
come when He would require His people to enter into plural marriage as
He did Abraham and the prophets of old, to bring about His
purposes in the latter days. Joseph revealed this unto some of the
first Elders of the Church, taking care to enjoin them that they must
preserve these things in their own hearts; that the time had not yet
come when the Lord required His people to enter into this order, but
the time would come when He would require them to do so. This was made
manifest in the early stages of this Church, but not until 1843 was
this law committed to writing and given to the people. This revelation
we find in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants.
Now, Joseph—I refer now to the young man that is alive and who was a
mere boy at his father's death, and who with his mother and her
children remained behind, though his mother did know for herself that
her husband did teach and practice this order of marriage, yet she was
not willing to own or acknowledge it to her children, and her
children, the oldest of which, as I have said, was only eleven years
old when his father was murdered—were studiously kept ignorant of the
facts of the case as far as she was concerned, and therefore we can
make allowance and excuse in part for what they assert. But there are
great numbers that I can call to mind who know for themselves that the
Prophet Joseph did receive from the Lord and teach this order to the
first Elders of this Church, and did receive and commit to writing
this revelation on the subject of plural marriage which is contained
in the Doctrine and Covenants, and did teach it and did practice it,
and I am one of those witnesses. I know that he taught to me as early
as in the spring of 1842 what God had revealed to him on the subject;
I know that he gave to me my second wife and assigned his brother,
Hyrum, to seal her to me; and I know that he taught this doctrine to
quite a good few others—the Twelve Apostles and others of the faithful
Elders of Israel—and that very many of the faithful and good women of
Israel know and understand and are witnesses of these things for
themselves. And we testify of these things, that God has reserved to
Himself this right to command His people when it seemeth to Him good
and to accomplish the object He has in view—that is, to raise up a
righteous seed, a seed that will pay respect to His law and will build
up Zion in the earth. And while the wicked are hardening their hearts
in sin and giving themselves up to whoredoms and lust, and seeking to
prevent the increase of offspring among them, God is impressing upon
us the heinousness of these crimes and showing us the beauty and glory
of multiplying the families of Israel. When we visit the settlements
of the Saints and attend the Quarterly Conferences throughout the
land, what do we hear in the reports? We hear that an average of about
thirty percent of the entire population are children under eight
years of age, and another one-third between that and twenty, and
scarcely one-third of the population are yet old enough to enter into
the marriage relation. And what do we hear? Reports from the Relief
Societies and the Improvement Associations and the Sunday school
teachers and superintendents that are engaged in instructing them—and
what do we hear? Why, we hear that the spirit of the Gospel is in
them, that faith is in them, and that they possess bright, intelligent
minds that are reaching out after knowledge, and hearts that
are grasping the things of God. It is this that causes the world to
fear and tremble and this is the cause of the opposition waged against
us.
Brethren and sisters, let us put our trust in God, who will give us
the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.