There are many things I wish to say before this Conference comes to a
close, but I labor under the same difficulty as did one of the
speakers yesterday, for I would like to touch upon so many subjects
that I am at a loss to know where to begin.
And when this Conference is over, I presume that I shall think of many
things omitted, which it would have pleased me to talk about. When a
great number of people are together it affords an excellent
opportunity for teaching them the principles of practical religion.
Our Conference has been well attended; there has been the greatest
number of Saints assembled that I have ever seen at one time, and they
will outnumber any meeting that the Latter-day Saints have had on
this continent, or on any other. I doubt not but this is the largest
congregation of Saints that has ever been assembled at one time and
place on the face of the whole earth, since the days of the Jews in
Jerusalem, or of the Nephites on this continent while they were in
their glory and strength.
When all the male members of Israel were obliged to go up to Jerusalem
twice a year to worship, pay tribute, &c., probably their
congregations were larger than the one today, but no other
denomination in all Christendom assembles so many people, at one
meeting, as we now have in this Conference.
I can here teach a great many at once their duty to their God, to
themselves, to their families, and to their neighbors, if you could
spare the time to listen.
As I have observed to my brethren, and as I will now observe to you,
neither in China, Siam, nor in any other country in Asia, nor in any
part of Europe and Africa, nor in any other place on God's earth, is
there a people who now need preaching to more than do the Latter-day
Saints in this Territory, and that too by faithful Elders, faithful
ministers of the Gospel, messengers of life and salvation.
The inhabitants of this Territory have been taught the ways of life,
they have been taught the principles of the Everlasting Gospel and
have received them; they have forsaken their former homes, the
countries in which they were born, their friends and family
connections, for the Gospel's sake; they are here in the midst of these
mountains, and many of them will be damned, unless they awake out of
their sleep, unless they refrain from their evil ways. Many are
stupid, careless, and unconcerned, their eyes are like the fool's eye,
to the ends of the earth, searching for this, that, and the other,
they have become greedy, are slow to fulfil their duty, are off their
watch, neglect their prayers, forget their covenants and forsake their
God, and the devil has power over them.
It is of necessity then that we appoint missionaries for this
Territory, to preach to them the word of God which is quick and
powerful. Some people say that they believe the Gospel who never live
it, they did not embrace it for the love of it, but because they knew
its truth. They will not give up their carnal, selfish, devilish
dispositions and traits of character, and if you undertake to choke
them off from these dispositions you will have to choke them to death
before they will let them go; they will hang on to their evil feelings
and evil deeds with greater tenacity than does the terrier dog to his
prey, or antagonist; it is almost impossible to separate them from
evil.
As for making Saints of those characters, we have no such
anticipation; we wish to make Saints of those who sincerely desire to
be Saints, who are willing to sacrifice their carnal, sinful, devilish
feelings, to forsake them altogether, and to strive to become Saints
and to establish the principles of honesty within them; we expect that
such persons will be Saints, and we feel like doing all that we can to
aid them in a righteous course.
As I observed at the commencement of our Conference, people must be
chastened; we believe in this principle. We receive as correct
doctrine what is said to have been written by one of the ancient
Apostles, (why I make this peculiar remark is because this
congregation heard brother O. Pratt scan the validity of the Bible,
and I thought by the time he got through, that you would scarcely
think a Bible worth picking up and carrying home, should you find one
in the streets) viz.; For the Lord loveth whom he chasteneth, and
scourgeth every son whom he receiveth, and if you are not chastened
you are "bastards, and not sons."
I am quite inclined to believe this, and I do not care how many hands
it has passed through. I will remark that brother Orson has clearly
shown how the Bible has come into our hands, in order to convince the
people of the necessity of positive proof for the validity of the Book
of Mormon, the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and that Joseph Smith
was a true Prophet of God, and to prove that our testimony, witnesses,
evidence and knowledge of these facts are ten thousand times more than
can be produced in favor of the Bible, unless a man has the power of
God to testify to it, for there can be no proof in its favor short of
revelation.
This we have known all the time, we have understood it from the
beginning. That made us very anxious, in the days of Joseph, to get
the new translation; but the Bible is good enough just as it is, it
will answer my purpose, and it used to answer it very well when I was
preaching in the world.
When brother Luddington was telling about the elephant walking through
the cane, it made me think of our Elders going through the world, in
past days, with the proclamation of the Gospel. They could take a host
of priests, in fair argument, and pull them up by the roots and throw
them aside, as easy as that elephant did the cane.
The Bible is good enough as it is, to point out the way we should
walk, and to teach us how to come to the Lord of whom we can receive
for ourselves.
It is good for this people to be chastened, and we may expect it, and
I delight in the feelings and spirit just manifested by brother
Luddington in his remarks, there was no crying, no whining upon his
mission: if they expelled him from one house he went to another
without crying or whining about it.
All that we have received as chastisement is from the hand of the
Lord, and I do not consider that it has been necessary to shed
one tear about it. It always takes something besides chastisement, or
afflictions heaped upon us by our enemies, to bring tears from me. I
can cry for joy, I can cry on beholding my friends after being
separated from them.
The soft, loving, still, small voice of the Spirit will bring tears to
my eyes, but all the sufferings that could be brought upon me by the
malice of the wicked, and all that could be said or done against me by
them, I think will not bring many tears from my eyes.
They might torture my body until it would cry, but all that we have
hitherto met with, in the shape of affliction, I have received as from
the hand of the Lord, and I think the chastisement has been light.
Let us reform, that we may be chastened no more; let us try to profit
by the blessing we receive, instead of being made to profit by the
tidings we suffer, for afflictions we shall be obliged to receive, if
we do not profit by our blessings.
If we are chastened a little, do not worry about it. We think we are
chastened, this season, in the failing of our crops, but I receive
this as one of the greatest blessings that could be bestowed upon us.
I have felt like weeping, since I have been in this Territory, on
beholding the ungrateful feelings of many of this people, their
ingratitude towards their God, and at seeing them trample grain under
their feet as a thing of naught.
Now I think what we have received this season is but a small portion
of what we will receive, if we do not take care of the things the Lord
bestows upon us, and be thankful for them. I look upon it as a
prelude, forerunner, or testifier, that afflictions will come upon us,
unless we humble ourselves before our God.
This, however, is but a very slight affliction. We have plenty here,
no person is going to starve, or suffer, if there is an equal
distribution of the necessaries of life which are in the country.
There are practices among this people which have injured my feelings.
I see some men so greedy after the things of the world, that they will
take their grain from the mouths of innocent, helpless women and
children who are suffering for food, and sell it to Gentile merchants
to speculate upon. I have learned, since this Conference commenced, a
circumstance that took place a year ago; it may appear trifling to
some, but to me it is grievous. Some of the brethren from San Pete and
Fillmore came here last year, when they had plenty of wheat, and sold
their flour to C. A. & E. H. Perry, for three, four, and four and a
half dollars per hundred weight, and that firm sold all they could to
the poor women and children, and made them pay a very high price.
Those brethren afterwards learned that I bought nearly the whole of it
for four dollars a hundred, and that I paid in cattle at a good,
liberal price, and some have felt grieved about it. Why are they
grieved? Because they had not the means to buy it themselves to
speculate upon.
They have not raised any wheat this year, and now they are whining
after me, "Will you let us have a little tithing wheat?" They ask what
I have to say to them; I have this to say to every man in this
congregation and throughout this Territory, and from this time
henceforth, know my feelings, if you will sell grain to the Gentiles,
or to your enemies, for the sake of their money when it is needed to
be distributed among this people, I wish you would take your property
and leave this Territory, for you are not worthy of belonging to the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you are unworthy a
citizenship in the kingdom of God. If those who are going to
sell their grain to speculators this year will rise up and tell us who
they are, I will hold up my hands for them to be forthwith severed
from this Church, to be delivered over to the buffetings of Satan.
Some who are unacquainted with me may say, "Brother Brigham, don't you
speculate?" Yes, I am the greatest speculator in the world, and one of
the greatest misers, for I am seeking after eternal riches. "But,
don't you speculate on your flour? You have fine mills." Ask those who
recollect to a few years ago, when wheat was tramped under foot by
man and beast. I then had a hired man who said he wanted to get a
little money; I told him that I did not want to sell flour to the
Gentiles in order to get it. He replied, "If you are willing, I would
like to sell them a little, for they are from my country." He did so,
to the value of ninety-three dollars. I do not think that besides that
amount, I have ever received fifty-cents in cash for flour sold from
my mills, though I have had emigrants come, in a scarce time, and
offer me fifty and seventy-five dollars for a hundred pounds. I said
to them, you may plead until you are as gray as a rat, and you will
not get flour from me for your money, but if you will stay and help us
through harvest, and go to work like good men, we will pay you the
same as we pay our brethren, and then you may go to California, or
anywhere you please; but as to your getting one pound of flour from my
bin for money, you cannot do it, and they never have so far as I
recollect. It all goes to feed those men and women who work; those are
the ones who eat my flour.
If I cannot get rich only upon the principle of oppressing my
brethren, and depriving them of the comforts of life, I say, may God
grant that I may never have another farthing upon earth. I do not want
it upon such terms, and if I ever should, I hope the Lord will keep it
from me.
I told you the other day what makes me rich, it is the labor of those
whom I feed and clothe; still I do not feel that I have a dollar in
the world that is my own, it is the Lord's and he has made me a
steward over it; and if I can know where the Lord is pleased to have
it appropriated, there it shall go. The covetousness of some of this
people has grieved me, and it has caused my spirit to weep and mourn
to observe their greediness, their cheating and lying, their scheming
in every possible way to wring a picayune out of this man, or that
woman. I can put my finger upon owners of little shops in this city,
who will lie to you for half an hour on a stretch, who will, if you
send a child to their shops to buy a yard of ribbon that is worth ten
cents, charge the child fifteen or twenty cents for it, but if I go to
purchase the same article I can have it for ten cents. I know what
goods are worth, but let an ignorant person go to those places and
they will cheat him. I can put my hands upon traders now before me,
who are guilty of such conduct.
It grieves me to see men who have believed the Gospel, forsaken the
land of their nativity for the sake of life and salvation, endured all
they have in coming here, and then, for a paltry sum of money,
sacrifice their salvation. Such men cannot be saved in the celestial
kingdom of God; they may receive their endowments, but they will do
them no good; they may read over their Patriarchal blessings every
day, but they will do them no good. No man or woman can receive life
everlasting, only upon the principle of strict obedience to the
requirements of the celestial law of heaven; no man can inherit such a
blessing upon unholy principles.
Men must be honest, they must live faithfully before their
God, and honor their calling and being on the earth. You ask if that
is possible? Yes; the doctrine which we have embraced takes away the
stony hearts.
We are naturally prone to wander from that which is good, and to
receive every species of iniquity; we must get rid of this
disposition, and the Gospel of salvation is expressly for the purpose
of changing it, that we may receive the principles which prevail in
heaven and are loved by the angels. It is possible for a man who loves
the world to overcome that love, to get knowledge and understanding
until he sees things as they really are, then he will not love the
world but will see it as it is; he will see that it is in the hands of
a Superior Being.
Man cannot control the heavens; he cannot control the earth, nor the
elements; he can fertilize and prepare the ground for the reception of
seed; he can plant, water, till, and reap from the ground the fruit of
his toil, but, until his mind is opened by the Spirit of God, he
cannot see that it is by a superior power that corn, wheat, and every
kind of vegetation spring into life, and ripen for the sustenance of
man and beast. Is it possible for him to arrive at this knowledge? It
is, and that is what we have brought the doctrine of life and
salvation to you for, that you may exchange your low, narrow,
contracted, selfish dispositions for the ennobling Spirit of the Lord,
for the Spirit of the Gospel, which gives joy and peace. If you enjoy
that, your food will be sweet to you, your sleep will be refreshing,
and your days will pass away in usefulness.
On the contrary, those who are covetous and greedy, anxious to grasp
the whole world, are all the time uneasy, and are constantly laying
their plans and contriving how to obtain this, that, and the other.
Their minds are continually on the stretch to solve, "How can I obtain
this farm, or that house and lot? How can I manage to get such and
such teams? I want to get my lumber and adobies to build me a house,
how can I manage and not pay much for them? I will deceive every man
who comes nigh me; I will make him believe that my property is worth
more than it is; I will sell ribbons for double their value, and I
will ask forty cents a dozen for glass buttons that are worth only
twenty, and in this way I will build a house for eighteen hundred
dollars that will be worth four thousand."
Their minds are so intent on cheating their brethren that they cannot
sleep soundly, their nerves twitch and they have the jerks in their
sleep, thinking, "How shall I manage with this man tomorrow? I want
enough out of him to get my adobies." And they lie and think, and
think, and contrive, and plan, and the devil helps them all the time
to manage to cheat the Saints. If such men should get a few bushels of
wheat, would they let the Saints have it? No, they would sell it to
our enemies and feed them, and let the Saints starve.
Again, it is known to all that a great many of the poor are as bad as
those who have property; they are all the time in a sweat to know how
to get their living without procuring it honestly. They are just as
covetous and craving in their feelings as are the rich who hoard up
their means and keep it from the honest poor; they are all the time
scheming to get along without labor. There are many who live in this
city without labor; I have neighbors near me that I do not believe get
one cord of wood in the year, only as they steal it, and you have
neighbors near you who steal your wood. If you want to keep your wood
from the hands of these pilferers, you will have to put it in your
houses, and if you want to keep your chickens, you will have to lock
them up. I have often told you that we have all kinds of fish
in the Gospel net; we have all kinds of poor, but after all the Lord's
poor outnumber the poor devils.
A few sinners mixed in a community make the whole appear dishonest and
odious to the honest portion of the human family, because they have
not the power to properly discriminate between them. I have to labor
under the same disadvantage that you do, and if I know any of the
infernal scoundrels I dare not tell of them, or point them out, unless
I have a mind to. There are a great many guilty persons whom I wish to
say nothing about; they are liars and thieves, and I know it; but I do
not wish to expose their names, in hopes that they will repent and
refrain from their bad practices.
A likely man is a likely man, and a good man is a good man, whether in
this Church or out of it; and a poor, miserable, sinful creature who
gathers as a Saint, is worse than one who gathers as a Gentile. A
person who is a thief, a liar, and a murderer in his heart, but
professes to be a Saint, is more odious in the sight of God, angels
and good men, than a person who comes out and openly declares that he
is our enemy. I know how to take such a man, but a devil with a
Saint's cloak on is one of the meanest characters you can imagine. I
say, blessings on the head of a wicked Gentile who is my avowed enemy,
far sooner than upon an enemy cloaked with a Saint's profession.
There is one more difficulty in the minds of this community with
regard to Saints and sinners, and that is in relation to the channel
of our public trade. In the days of Joseph, men would come to me, men
who are now in this Church, and some of whom are in this congregation,
and say, "Brother Brigham, what do you think? I went down to brother
Joseph's store, and I wanted to get a gallon of molas ses, eight yards
of calico, a little crockery, &c., and I could not have the articles
without paying the money down. Do you think that is right?" I always
had but one feeling with regard to such matters, since I have been a
Latter-day Saint. My reply to such questions was, should he not be
paid for his goods as well as anybody else? But the reply is, "I can
go to the store of an enemy, of a man who does not profess to be a
Saint, much less a Prophet, and he will trust me, though I hate to go
there and run into debt."
So he goes with his money to the enemy's store and buys a dress
pattern, a piece of factory, some tea, a set of cups and saucers, a
dozen knives and forks, boots and shoes for his wives and children,
and then turns round and says, "God bless you," and "well done."
But
of Joseph's store it was, "God Almighty curse you, because you would
not allow me to carry off your goods without paying for them."
Hundreds of instances of this kind I have witnessed in this kingdom,
and it is a great fault with many of this people. That is the reason
why men who are not in the Church prosper and fatten on the wealth of
this people, and the reason why I do not bring goods in sufficient
quantities to supply this market. There is not a trader in this
community who is paid better than are the Gentile merchants. I could
bring plenty of goods into this city and Territory every year, were it
not for this fact. I am going to keep this subject before the minds of
the Latter-day Saints and pursue it, until such a practice is driven
from their midst. Good men, who would give away their shoes and go
barefoot, if they saw anybody else going barefoot, were tried because
brother Joseph would not trust them.
Brother Woolley was also a mercantile target for our shots in Nauvoo;
I say "our," because I class myself with the Saints. The pious
brethren, who were professedly so good, and loving sisters who went to
brother Joseph's store, and could not get trusted, would go to the
Gentiles and get trusted and pay them, and think that they had a right
to neglect paying Joseph, because he was a Prophet, I presume.
This community would do just so here, if I had a store of goods. They
would come to my store and say, "Brother Brigham, I am poor and needy,
my wife is feeble and needs a little tea and sugar, and a little
medicine; I also want some crockery and a little clothing, can't you
fill the bill?" Yes, if you will pay me for it. "Of course, I will pay
you for all I get." How? "O, never question me about that, am I not
good for five or ten dollar's worth?" Yes, but when are you good, and
how? You are good to that Gentile store where you have run into debt,
for you will sell your last cow, pawn the dress pattern you got there
for your wife, and the teacups and saucers, to pay the money to that
storekeeper; but if you trade ten dollars or fifty dollars on credit
at brother Joseph's or brother Brigham's store, what next? There is no
more about it, that is the end of it.
I have known persons that would have cursed brother Joseph to the
lowest hell hundreds of times, because he would not trust out
everything he had on the face of the earth, and let the people
squander it to the four winds. When he had let many of the brethren
and sisters have goods on trust, he could not meet his liabilities,
and then they would turn round and say, "What is the matter brother
Joseph, why don't you pay your debts?" "It is quite a curiosity that
you don't pay your debts; you must be a bad financier; you don't know
how to handle the things of this world." At the same time the coats,
pants, dresses, boots and shoes that they and their families were
wearing came out of Joseph's store, and were not paid for when they
were cursing him for not paying his debts.
But that is nothing, "O," say they, "it is all in the family. Why,
yes, brother Joseph, I will pay you just as quick as I can." The proof
of this is with you, ye rich and poor Saints. I will ask the men who
have helped the poor to this place from different countries, when they
get a house, a horse, an ox, or a cow, and have accumulated the things
of this world, do they often express themselves able to pay you? You
will all say "no." I will hardly make one exception in this
congregation, or in this kingdom. There is a sister from Wales, the
wife of brother Dan Jones, who has expended thousands of pounds to
help the poor to this place, and they have cursed her all the day
long, and she has now to labor hard for the support of herself and
children.
Can we refer to other instances of this kind? We can. That is the
great fault among this people, and I wished to lay it before them that
they may learn the truth, and their duty to each other. Let the
Latter-day Saints be as punctual in paying the merchant who belongs to
the Church of God, as they are in paying a miserable scoundrel, who
would take all their money and then turn round and cut their throats,
or ask a mob to do it, but thank God such characters are very scarce
here. But no, a great many of this people will sustain their enemies,
will feed, and clothe them, and trade off their wheat and cattle to
them, and foster them in their wickedness, while those very persons
would cut the throats of the Saints, if they could get along as well
without trading with them. And at the same time that which they owe to
their brethren in this kingdom who have helped them here, and who have
blessed them all the time, never comes due, and they, perhaps,
never think of it any more.
Have you the proof of all this before your eyes? You have. I have
hundreds and thousands of dollars owing to me by this community and
contracted upon a fair business principle. People will say, "O,
brother Brigham, won't you let me have a team? I must have a horse;
won't you let me have this wagon? I very much need a cow; won't you
help me in my building? And won't you do this? And I wish you would do
that; and could you not do the other?" And the pay never comes. But
you will go to a Gentile and run into debt, and sell your last cow to
pay that wicked man. You may say, "O, that is only in our business
transactions." Is not the upbuilding of the kingdom of God on earth a
temporal labor all the time? It will be built up by physical force and
means, by manual labor more than by any particular mental effort of
the mind. Suppose that one Elder was left alone among the inhabitants
of the earth, and that he should begin, with all the power of his
mind, to imagine himself in England, Scotland, France, Germany,
Denmark, Sweden, or anywhere else and still sit in one place, saying,
"Now I am laboring in the kingdom of God, it is a spiritual labor."
What real good would he accomplish? Not any.
You know the old theory is that the kingdom of God, and all pertaining
to it, is spiritual and not temporal; that is the traditional notion
of our brother Christians. But a person may merely think until he goes
down to the grave, and he will never be the means of saving one soul,
not even his own, unless he adds physical labor to his thinking. He
must think, and pray, and preach, and toil and labor with mind and
body, in order to build up Zion in the last days. You cannot build
your house, nor gather up your substance and come to this place from
different nations by mere thinking, it also requires physical labor.
If we attend to the things of the kingdom of God, and nothing else in
good weather, we can do everything else, that is necessary to be done,
in rainy and bad weather.
If we talk to you and you sit and hear, that involves labor, and
everything connected with building up Zion requires actual, severe
labor. It is nonsense to talk about building up any kingdom except by
labor; it requires the labor of every part of our organization,
whether it be mental, physical, or spiritual, and that is the only way
to build up the kingdom of God. Hence, what I have been laying before
you is directly pertaining to the building up of that kingdom.
Will the people still take a course to feed strangers, and let their
brethren starve? They will not. I say to every man who has wheat, set
the poor to building your houses, to making fences, opening farms, or
doing something, and hand out your grain to them. And if those who
wish to speculate in grain, in consequence of the scarcity through
drought and the ravages of the grasshoppers, come and offer you money
for your grain, do not sell a bushel for five, ten, or twenty dollars,
but tell them, "No, our wheat is to feed the poor Saints, and no one
else." If you do not do this, I am watching you. Do you know that I
have my threads strung all through the Territory, that I may know what
individuals do? If you do not pursue a righteous course, we will
separate you from the Church. Is that all? No, if necessary we will
take your grain from your bin and distribute it among the poor and
needy, and they shall be fed and supplied with work, and you shall
receive what your grain is worth.
There is plenty for all who are now in the Territory, and for all that
will come in this fall. Talk about starving to death! How do
you suppose you could? You could not enter a house in these mountains,
where there is one potato left, and tell them that you were perishing
for food, but what the inmates of that house would divide with you; I
say, not one, whether belonging to Jew or Gentile, Saint or sinner.
This is speaking to the praise of those who have the grain.
I do not believe that there is a grain owner in this Territory who
does not feel just as liberal as he need to; at least, I know of no
one but what wishes to do right. One man, who had a fine crop of
grain, came to this city, and was offered three dollars a bushel for
it; he said, "Shall I take that? Or what shall I do with it?" I
replied, let us have it in the Tithing Store, and we will distribute
it to the poor.
Flour is six dollars per hundred in that store. What was it last year?
Six dollars. You cannot starve to death, because those who have got
the grain are willing to divide with you. If you should happen to get
hungry you could run to your neighbors for a pumpkin or a squash, and
they would even jump out of bed to serve you, in case you chanced to
call upon them late in the night. There is no law in this country
against begging, therefore, if need be, we can beg from one another,
and from Him who gave it all, so we cannot starve to death.
Go without eating two or three days! Bless your souls, I know not what
it is to go without food since I have been a "Mormon." I could travel
over the earth without purse or scrip, and not be obliged to go
hungry. Before I knew "Mormonism" I was acquainted with straitened
circumstances, but it has clothed and fed me, and blessed me all the
day long.
We have now held our meeting for three hours and a half, and after
singing we will dismiss for one hour.