I am thankful for the privilege of assembling with the congregation of
the Saints on another day that is set apart to worship God. I delight
in hearing the servants of the Lord speak of those things that pertain
to life and salvation. Practical religion is what we all need, to
prepare us to enjoy that which we have in our anticipations—that
which we hold in our faith. Merely the theory of any religion does
people but little good. This is the great failing of Bible Christians,
as they are called. They have the theory of the religion of which the
Bible testifies, but the practical part they spurn from them. This is
why the Latter-day Saints have become so obnoxious to the Christian
world. They believe in the practical part of the religion of which the
Scriptures are a history. You may take the plan and details of former
Christianity; But, unless it is reduced to practice, it will not
benefit the people.
I delight extremely in plain simplicity. Brother Kimball desires to
be plain and simple, even like a child. I delight in this. I believe,
according to my feelings, that if I had all the mastery of language
that has ever been obtained by the learned, my spirit would delight
more in childlike conversation, and that, too, in a simple language,
than in the most learned literary style that is used. A plain clear
method of expressing ideas is the most pleasing to me. I always
delight to hear brother Kimball speak, and I will take the liberty of
saying to this congregation that brother Heber C. Kimball, in his
spirit and in his faith, I do believe, is as true, as faithful, and
correct, as any man that ever lived; but he has not that peculiar
mastery of language that some have. He does not tell the people all
that is in his mind: that would be impossible. He conveys a great deal
in a few words.
There is no person that ever heard me complain of or disapprobate in
the least anything that brother Kimball says. The reason is simply
this: I do know his spirit, and what is in his mind. Whether he tells
one fourth of it, or speaks it to the right or to the left, or whether
he hits a particle of it, I know what he means, and know that his
meaning is just right. If he was blessed with the talent to clearly
convey and explain the ideas that are in his mind, I will venture to
say that he would be one of the greatest speakers that ever spoke on
this earth, for true knowledge, sentiment, and principle. We need the
spirit by which he speaks and lives in order to understand all that he
means by his expressions. I say this, not having any fear in my mind
that brother Kimball will, in his feelings, cast any reflections upon
me for thus expressing myself.
I know that I am a great many times placed under difficulty to bring before the people the truth in a manner plain and simple
enough to reach their understandings; and I know that this is the case
with others.
I have seen Joseph when it was impossible for him to give the people
his views upon a subject that he designed to speak upon.
Such is the case with myself; such is the case with every man that I
ever heard speak. It is so with brother Kimball and many others who
arise to address you here. When some rise here to present a dish of
mental food to the congregation, they will be two hours, perhaps, in
bringing out a dozen kernels of corn; but brother Kimball produces a
full dish of both corn and beans in one quarter of the time, or less;
and we have a fine soup and sweetmeats mixed with it—a taste here and
a taste there. If it could be comprehended by the people, they would
generally find as much in one of his sermons as there is in forty or
two hundred sermons delivered by those flowery speakers that sometimes
address you.
Brother Kimball was afraid of tiring us. I said that I should never be
afraid of being tired with eating sucketash so long as I had room for
a single spoonful. I generally deal out the sucketash, and I do not
care whether there are two beans to one grain of corn, or one bean to
two grains of corn; for those who like the beans best can pick them
out, and those who prefer the corn can select it out. I really like
the sucketash that brother Kimball has just laid before you, for it
contains ingredients that pertain to our salvation.
I told you last Sabbath, and I can tell you again today, what brother
Heber has just told you, that the enemy of all righteousness never was
more formidably arrayed against the Saints than at this very present
time. There never was a greater hatred against pure, undefiled,
practical religion; and it seems as though every person was our enemy.
But if your eyes were opened, as were those of Elijah's servant, you
would see more that are for us than all that are against us.
When people falter in their path, and stumble, and fall, if they had
eyes to see—if they would cling to the Lord, and sustain His cause
here upon the earth, in preference to turning their backs upon it,
they would see that there are infinitely more for His cause than there
are against it.
Men and women must have eyes to see, or they cannot understand these
things: they must be revealed by the Spirit of God; for that is the
only way in which people can understand the things of God. This makes
it our imperative duty to study and know the will of God, and then do
it with all our might. It brings us under the deepest obligations, for
our own safety and security, to live so that we can have the mind of
Christ within us, and understand the mind of the Lord day by day. If
we do this, we are a happy people. As brother Heber observed, we are
the happiest people upon the face of the whole earth.
You cannot go into any other community on the earth, and find that
peace and union and those principles of honor, of justice, and of
right between man and man, that you find in this community. You cannot
find the same amount of good works, faith, virtue, kindness,
gentleness, and peace that you find here: there is hardly enough of
these good qualities among the world to enable me to establish a
comparison. The whole world is in a turmoil, in a terror, and every
man's hand seems to be against his neighbor, nation against nation,
party against party, people against people. The world is in confusion,
but this people are dwelling in peace.
As I told you last Sabbath, I have an experience with regard
to the feelings of over one hundred brethren during our late travels.
Perfect peace and union reigned. If there was a cross word, I did not
hear it; if there was a cross look, I did not see it; if there was a
cross feeling, I did not perceive it. Can any other community produce
such a set of men and women? Is any other people blessed like this
people? No. We have the privilege now of living in peace, of securing
to ourselves our temporal salvation: we enjoy this right. And we will
find those words of brother Kimball to be true with regard to the
suffering of the children of men around us; and if we do not hearken
to the counsel given us, we will see the day in which we will wish
that we had. We will lament, if we do not go to and secure to
ourselves means for our temporal existence.
It is true that the Savior says, "Seek first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness;" but now we have the kingdom of heaven with us. We
have sought it, and we have it in our possession. We enjoy the
blessings of that kingdom; consequently, if we neglect everything
else, we would be foolish, we would become extinct. But inasmuch as we
have the kingdom of God within us, inasmuch as we have it here among
us, inasmuch as we have the keys of it, the glory of it, the comfort
of it, the power of it, and the laws of it, let us now go to and
sustain our bodies, that we may live long on the earth to do good. And
let us sustain our families—our wives and children—inasmuch as we have
the necessary means and blessings preparatory to having all things
added unto us.
Be wise: be as wise as the generations of this world. In the days of
Jesus, those who received the kingdom and the spirit of the kingdom
seemed to lose all sight of a temporal salvation; and Jesus said to
his disciples, "The children of this world are wiser in their
generations than the children of light." The children of light did not
know how to sustain themselves; they did not understand how to
preserve themselves and the kingdom with them.
There is danger on the other hand with this people. We have witnessed
it; we have an abundant proof of it, that when the people actually
turn to the world and seek after the things of this world, in order to
secure to themselves the comforts of life, their affections appear to
be weaned from the kingdom of God, and they become attached to the
things of the world. It would be better if you and I never should have
anything pertaining to this world, than to lose the spirit of the
Gospel and love the world.
But have we not learned enough? Do we not now understand enough to
know that strict economy is required at our hands, in order to sustain
ourselves and prepare for our friends, and also for our foes, and to
be able to deal out the staff of life, not only to our friends, but
also to our foes, and prove to them, what we have preached all the day
long, that we are the friends of mankind? We are actually their
friends, not only spiritually, but temporally. Let us go to, then, and
lay up in our storehouses, and prepare for the day of famine, of
sorrow, and of trouble; for all those things written in the
prophecies, in ancient days and in this our day, will surely come upon
the inhabitants of the earth.
I bless you and your substance, with all that pertains to you; and if
I could, I would so bring the Spirit of God upon you that you might
have eyes to see, and be able to know the mind and will of God for
yourselves.
We are in the happiest situation of any people in the world. We
inhabit the very land in which we can live in peace; and there
is no other place on this earth that the Saints can now live in
without being molested. Suppose, for instance, you should go to
California. Brothers Amasa Lyman and Charles C. Rich went and made a
settlement in South California, and many of the brethren were anxious
that the whole Church should go there.
If we had gone there, this would have been about the last year in
which any of the Saints could stay there. They would have been driven
from their homes. It is about the last year that brother Amasa can
stay there. Were he to tell you the true situation of that place, he
would tell you that hell reigns there, and that it is just as much as
any "Mormon" can do to live there, and that it is about time for him
and every true Saint to leave that land.
Suppose that we should go south. A great many wanted to go to the Gila
River: that was proposed when we first came to this Valley. It was
said to be a lovely country, and that men could live there almost
without labor. What if we had gone there? You see what has followed
us here; but what would have been the result, if we had gone there?
Long before this time we would have been outnumbered by our enemies:
there would have been more against us than for us in our community.
Suppose we had gone to Texas, where Lyman Wight went? He tried to make
all the Saints believe that Joseph wanted to take the whole Church
there. Long before this, we would have been killed, or compelled to
leave that country. We could not have lived there; and it is as much
as ever they can do to let us alone here.
As I have often said, I am thankful to a fulness that the Lord has
brought us to these barren valleys, to these sterile mountains, to
this desolate waste, where only Saints can or would live, to a region
that is not desired by another class of people on the earth. When they
come and have succeeded in getting our money, they will not stay any
longer. When they have made all they can out of the Latter-day Saints,
they wish to leave. And when you see a person who becomes tired of
"Mormonism," and falters in his path, backslides in his feelings, at
once his eye is to the States, to California, or to some other place
besides this. Though, previous to their departure, such persons will
write to their friends, and to newspapers abroad, every conceivable
misrepresentation; and even the majority of the officers that have
been sent here are trying to make the Government believe that we are
taking the country; that we are actually usurping power to ourselves
with regard to the soil; that we are transgressing the laws of the
United States; that we are treasoners in our feelings, alienated from
our Government, and so on and so forth. They also declare that the
"Mormons" are getting out what little timber there is in the canyons,
and that if the timber is used up this land is not worth one penny an
acre.
In playing the game that they do, they give us nine out of ten. A
gentleman by the name of Morrill wished to deliver a speech in the
House of Representatives, on the "Mormon" question; but his friends
managed to prevent it; for they saw the light surface on which he rode
while he was writing his speech. They saw that the delivery of his
speech would do the "Mormons" more good than harm, and they managed to
head off its delivery by a motion to adjourn, which prevailed. He felt
chagrined at losing the opportunity to make his speech, which he
thought was full of thunder, and which occupies six-and-a-half columns
in a large newspaper, and much of it in nonpareil type. They did not
want to hear it. Every man of sense said, "Mr. Morrill, this
will destroy your influence with your constituents, and do the
'Mormons' more good than hurt, and ruin our cause." No doubt his
friends wished to steal it from him and let it have a stillbirth; but
Mr. Morrill feels himself imposed upon, runs straightway to the Globe
Office, and gets it stuck into the paper, much to our credit and
advantage. That is the way all our enemies do; they overshoot the mark
they are aiming at.
Another man has written and got published a long article; and I have
really thought that I would like to have the speech, which was never
delivered, the long article, and some other articles of like character
read before the public congregation. William Smith, brother to the
Prophet, is the one suspected of having dictated the writing of the
long article mentioned. He defies the United States to send a Governor
here that can do anything with the "Mormons," except himself. He
declares that no man can go to Utah but a man who is well acquainted
with the "Mormons," and one who has as much influence among them as
Brigham Young; and presents himself as the man. He also tells about
the Danites, and asserts that they are in every town and city
throughout the whole of the United States, and that their object is
not known by the people; that they are all over the world; that there
are thousands of them; and that the life of every officer that comes
here is in the hands of the Danites; that even the President of the
United States is not safe; for, at one wink from Brigham, the Danites
will be upon him and kill him. After all this, he says that no man can
go there; and when he gets through with his story, sufficiently so to
expose who he is, he says, in purport, "I can go there; and if you do
not believe me, try me; and if you think I cannot, give me the right
to go there with a good large army.
Judge Drummond comes out with death and thunder on the "Mormons," and
that no other man ought to govern the "Mormons" but Judge Drummond,
the HORSE DEALER; and so it goes. And they publish that we have
thousands and tens of thousands of men scattered over the world, full
of fervor, integrity, and courage, and ready at a moment's warning.
Just one word from Brigham, and they are ready to slay all before
them; and then they turn round and proclaim that the "Mormons" ought
to be used up, and that you can do this and that with them. It is all
a pack of nonsense, the whole of it.
"The devil is mad, and I am glad;
And what can we do to please him?"
I know what I think, but I will not tell it now. It would please me
better to have him kicked out of doors than anything else, and
especially from this community.
If we would not say one word about people's living their religion, and
let this Temple alone, and the spirit of improvement in regard to our
religion, and everything pertaining to the world, and bid the world
welcome to our houses and firesides, and strike hands with them, and
call them our friends, we should have no difficulty with them. They
have nothing against us, only they cannot do as they please when they
come here, but have to observe the laws of the United States and this
Territory, and a certain degree of moral decorum. They cannot do as
they please in their corruptions, and they raise a hue and cry against
the "Mormons."
If we would not say to the brethren and sisters, Try and live your
religion according to the Spirit of the Gospel, grow in grace, and in
the knowledge of the truth, and in all the graces and gifts of God's
Spirit, all would be peace between us and the wicked. If we
were to say nothing about building a Temple to the name of Israel's
God, the Devil would not be mad, and the case would be like that of a
priest. In his vision in the night, he came along to a pretty
good-sized town, walled in fine and nice; and he thought that he came
to one corner where there stood a post, and that the Devil sat asleep
and nodding on the top of it. But he opened his eyes—and noticed the
priest, and asked him, "Which way are you going?—to the city?"
"Yes,"
replied the priest, "but what are you doing here?" "O I am just
overlooking the city." "How many devils does it take, besides you, to
take care of this people?" "There is no other here besides myself; the
whole people are under my control, and I have trained them so well
that I have nothing to do; and they are so well learned in the
doctrine of the devils, that they can almost get along without me. I
am merely here to see whether they continue to do as they have been
doing. I was thinking that I should have to go to another city; but,
as you have come, I shall have more work." If we live so that the
devil has need to look after us carefully, all is right.
The world would like to have us their friends, and to have us to do
service to their father the Devil. We profess to be Saints of the Most
High, and the people prove it by their actions. They are full of
integrity and good works, and yet there are a few that ought to mend
their ways; though I am happy to see that there are not many in this
community, and that that number is growing less. And it is my constant
prayer, all the day long, that God would multiply the righteous and
righteous principles throughout the world, while he decreases the
ungodly; and also that we may so live as to enjoy all the brethren
have spoken of this morning, root out the devils, and bid all foul
spirits to depart from our houses and community, that we may enjoy the
peace of the Gospel in its fulness.
I pray both for my friends and for my enemies, that, if they will not
repent, the earth may be speedily emptied of the ungodly. I have often
told you how I love my enemies. I would do something for their
salvation, if the Lord would permit me. And if the time was come, I
would take a step to give them, not a superlative heaven, but a
comparative place of peace. If it was in my power, I should perhaps be
for doing this before the time.
Pray that our enemies may have no power over us; pray for the Spirit
of the Gospel, that the Lord may strengthen the Elders, and keep them
in the spirit of humility, while they are out preaching the Gospel;
pray for the anointed of the Lord, for the house of Israel, those poor
degraded Lamanites, that light and truth may spring up among them more
and more. They begin to improve greatly; pray that it may continue,
that they may come to a knowledge of the truth, and help to build
up Zion, and they will be a shield to us in the day of trouble. All
this, and a great deal more, I feel to say; but, for the present, I
will give way. May God bless us all. Amen.