It appears on the present occasion that we enjoy the privilege of
partaking of the sacrament in commemoration of the death and suffering
of our Lord and Savior, to witness to each other that we are willing
to keep his commandments, and to observe the requirements of the
fulness of the Gospel until he shall come. Under these circumstances
we assemble and call together our wandering thoughts and minds. We
review our conduct, our feelings to our Heavenly Father, our actions
and doings in relation to His laws, and also our faith towards our
brethren, and make a kind of settlement with ourselves, a balance of
accounts in our minds, repenting of our sins and follies, and we lay
the foundation in our own minds to renew our diligence and exertions
in future, that wherein we have failed to walk up to the line of our
duty we may improve, and that we may partake of those emblems under an
express influence, and with a perfect understanding of a covenant that
we will remember Him in all things until he comes. Marvel not, says the
Savior, if the world hate you; for remember that it hated me before
it hated you.
One of the first principles that we are brought to feel, perhaps, on
receiving the Gospel, is, that the world hates us. You may ascend or
descend into every department of its society, and you find that hatred
more or less manifests itself; and this causes a great many people who
receive the truth to have misgivings, and they will ask why is it that
we are under the necessity of receiving a religion that is hated of
all men? The Savior said to his disciples, "Ye shall be hated of all
men for my name's sake; and blessed are ye when all men shall
persecute you, and speak all manner of evil of you falsely for my
name's sake." But this is a kind of blessing that we hardly
appreciate; but at the present time I am a witness that no people upon
the face of the earth have so much reason to be thankful, neither have
Latter-day Saints seen any time when they have had greater reason to
consider themselves blessed under this promise of our Savior, than
at the present time.
Much is said of the powerful engine of the press, the
powerful medium by which truth or falsehood are so quietly circulated.
And for the last year, or the last six or eight months, those engines
have been universally turned with vengeance upon the devoted heads of
this people.
There is nothing that excites more interest in the minds of the
reading public, nothing that creates greater anxiety, nothing that is
so readily received as statements, or information, as it is termed,
concerning the "Mormons;" and nothing that is true can be printed, but
to a very limited extent; whereas anything that is false, it matters
not how false or exaggerated, it is circulated and represented to the
uttermost extreme. It is as an old gentleman told me in Virginia: said
he, "There is nothing published that is so extravagant concerning your
people but what we believe it readily."
The spirit of lies has taken hold of the people; it has got possession
of their hearts. They love lies; they like to read them; they like to
print them, and they really relish them; but truth is another thing.
"Truth," says the Prophet, "has fallen in the streets; yea, truth
faileth; he that departeth from iniquity maketh himself a prey." Such
is the case in the present generation. There are lies from responsible
sources, lies over fictitious names, lies certified by responsible
editors; and lies certified and clothed with judicial authority are
current, and are the most important information that is or has been
current in the United States for the last season.
What does it all amount to? Men will have what they like; for the
spirit that is in men loves lies; they will read them and believe
them. At the same time, there is no man or woman upon the face of the
earth but what is more or less responsible for what they read and
receive; for there is an innate spirit in the man who desires to know
the truth that will generally dictate to him which is truth and which
is falsehood.
A terrible people these "Mormons!" A dreadful set of fellows! An awful
state of society! Oh, tremendous bad people! I was conversing with a
gentleman from Vermont on the subject of "Mormonism," and he expressed
himself tremendously shocked at the immorality of the "Mormons," and
was particularly anxious to regulate their morals. He was strongly in
favor of having them corrected by the power of the Federal
Government. He said it must be done, for he considered them a disgrace
to the nation. I told him that we regarded the Vermont people as a
very immoral community. Said I, "We consider their laws of a very
immoral character; and we believe that the people would be better, but
that their laws and institutions are of a character that tends to
prevent it—that their laws are calculated to encourage licentiousness,
and to cause them to live in open violation of the first commandment,
to multiply and replenish the earth." "Why how so? Vermont is the most
moral State in the Union." I replied, "It may be so, sir; but your
laws provide that no man shall have but one wife; and there is a great
proportion of females over that of males, and there is a great
proportion of males that are too wicked and corrupt to marry and raise
up families; and the consequence is that a great proportion of your
females are compelled to live single, and hence many of them become
prostitutes. We deprecate such a corrupt order of things; but as it is
in your State, it is your business and not ours; therefore we shall
not interfere with it." I never saw a man more astonished, to think
that I should question the moral tendency of the institutions of
Vermont. "But, in our country," I said, "we are determined that
every man shall acknowledge and sanction his own blood. We shall not
interfere with Vermont, Massachusetts, or Maryland about their
immorality; it is their own business, and they must attend to it
themselves; but we do not wish to submit to such immoral regulations
in Utah."
I was talking with a member of Congress, who was very pious (he was a
minister, by the bye), and he intimated that the doctrine of plurality
of wives was so at variance—so grossly at variance with all the
civilized world, that it was intolerable to all Christians. I told him
that I was surprised at that; "for," said I, "all our Christian
friends expect to sit down in the kingdom of God with father Abraham;
and he practiced Polygamy." "Father Abraham," said he, "was
guilty of
a great many eccentric tricks." I replied, "Eccentric as he might be,
it is in his bosom that all Christians expect to rest."
Strange as it may appear, yet it is true that these things are not
understood or appreciated; but the corrupt, the licentious of the
world are the people who are respected, while the sayings of the
honest and truthful are not allowed to spread. Such is the corruption
of the world. They lay down, in the first place, the position that
"Mormonism" is not true. If you ask why it is not true, they begin to
bring their reasons, and they are a good deal like this—"The Mormons
are deceived; and the reason why they are deceived is, because they
are deceived, sir." The people actually take such logic as this for
argument; they take it for granted and for certain, and they lay it
down as a matter of fact, that "Mormonism" is false, and so it
follows. Oh, they say it will all come to an end and fall to pieces in
a few days; and they have been saying this for the last twenty years;
they have kept crying "Mormonism" will go down; it is bound to fall in
pieces. Still the bubble rolls ahead and does not burst up; it does
not fly to pieces as they have predicted.
I consider that it is necessary that every man should mind his own
business and suffer his neighbors to do likewise. I do not know how
careful they may be in relation to us. So far as our being admitted
into the Union is concerned, we are on just as good and fair a footing
as Oregon, Kansas, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Washington. To be sure,
they have prejudices against us because we are "Mormons;" but they
also hate each other, and they calculate to use each other up, and
then to use up the "Mormons."
I came up the Missouri River with some Free State men, who said, "If
ever a fuss breaks out again, we are ready for it; we have got the
"Volcanic Rifles," and we calculate to wipe the border ruffians out of
existence;" and they showed that they had the tools which do up the
business. Whenever I conversed with any of the pro-slavery men on this
subject, they generally told me that if the other party should begin
again, they were prepared to wipe them out all at once, and leave them
much in the same position that Dr. Kane's ship "Advance" was, when it
came between two immense masses of ice, and they found themselves
liable to be crushed up in what the Arctic men call a "nip." After
they use each other up, we will stand a little better chance. They
need not be alarmed if they see some of the "Mormons" in the Congress
of the nations. No, they need not be surprised if they yet see some of
our Elders in the halls of Congress—men who understand national
affairs equal to any in the nation standing forth to save that
Constitution which we are now accused of opposing.
I thank the Lord that I am once more in your midst, and for the
privilege of striking hands with my brethren and sisters. But when I
think that the enemies of all righteousness are raging, I feel to
thank the Lord for the fulfillment of the words of His servants. I
realize and know that the keys of exaltation rest in the midst of
Israel; and when the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain
thing, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and
against His anointed, then "He that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh
at their calamity: the Lord shall have them in derision." Amen.
- George A. Smith