I am happy for the privilege of meeting with the Saints. I delight in
seeing their faces, and am very fond of their society.
I have much experience in the various habits, feelings, customs,
manners, and conditions of mankind; and I have felt, for many years,
as though I would be perfectly satisfied to associate with those who
live in peace—with those who believe in God the Father and in his Son
Jesus—to live with those who believe in the Holy Ghost which the Lord
has bestowed upon the children of men—with those who adhere to all the
principles in the Gospel, and live according to it day by day. Such
society would be perfectly satisfactory to me. It would satisfy every
feeling, every desire—in fact, my whole soul, without ever
associating with another wicked person on the earth.
I have not the least desire, nor have I had for years, to mingle with
a person who takes the name of God in vain, who in the least betrays
his covenants, who wavers or falters in his integrity with his God or
with his fellow man; but I am most perfectly satisfied to associate
with those whose hearts are filled with peace, with praise and
adoration to our God, and whose lives are full of good works. Their
voices to me are like sweet music. I have not the least desire to
mingle with or look upon the faces of those who hate God and his
cause.
I rejoice in the privilege of meeting with the Saints, in hearing them
speak, and in enjoying the influence that is within and around them.
That influence opens to my understanding the true position of those
who are endeavoring to serve their God. I do not require to hear them
speak to enable me to know their feelings. Is it not also your
experience that, when you meet persons in the streets, in your houses,
in your offices, or in your workshops, more or less of an influence
attends them which conveys more than words can? By this the Father
knows his children, Jesus knows his brethren, and the angels are
acquainted with those who delight to associate with them and with
those who hate them. This knowledge is obtained through that invisible
influence which attends intelligent beings, and betrays the atmosphere
in which they delight to live. Can you comprehend that I understand
their condition when I meet with Saints? I am satisfied all is right:
my soul is comforted.
You do not see me here every Sabbath. Perhaps some of you wonder why.
I will tell you in a very few words. If I had my own choice, and could
have my own dictation with regard to physical and mental labor, I would set apart, for the express benefit of man, at least
one-seventh part of the time for rest. There are but very few Sabbaths
that I have ever kept in strictly resting from my labors—permitting
both body and mind to rest. Perhaps assembling here on the Sabbath is
a rest to many, though it is not very much of a rest. To those who
have been laboring all the week to the utmost extent of their
strength, it may be somewhat of a rest to sit on these hard benches;
but when I come here I have a constant labor on my mind. This
congregation, the Saints throughout the world, and the world of
mankind in general are before me. I think for them all. I would like
to take one-seventh part of the time to rest; but I do not often have
this privilege. If I had my own mind, I would devote the time for
meetings like this within the measure of the six days, and on the
seventh, rest from all my labors, for the express purpose of renewing
the mental and physical powers of man. They require it, as the Lord
well knew; hence he established a day of rest. The natural tendency of
the physical powers of man is to decay; and to preserve them as long
as possible, they need this retirement from labor—this rest—this
ease. I very seldom enjoy this privilege.
Our customs are more or less like the customs of our fathers, and
their influence is often stronger upon us than any law. There is not a
law of God, nor a law of any nation that exercises so strong an
influence upon us as do our traditions at times, to bind us to certain
customs, habits, and ceremonies: consequently, to carry out the old
traditions, we observe this day of rest as we now do. Father went to
meeting on the seventh day, and the priests and all good people go to
meeting on that day. It has been the custom from time immemorial. Some
men and women walk miles to attend meetings; some men walk as many as
ten miles, hold two or three meetings, walk back, and are in their
workshops by five o'clock on Monday morning. Custom binds us to this,
and here we are today in compliance with its force.
Brother Hyde spoke of a revelation which he tried to find in the Book
of Doctrine and Covenants. That revelation was reserved at the time
the compilation for that book was made by Oliver Cowdery and others,
in Kirtland. It was not wisdom to publish it to the world, and it
remained in the private escritoire. Brother Joseph had that revelation
concerning this nation at a time when the brethren were reflecting and
reasoning with regard to African slavery on this continent, and the
slavery of the children of men throughout the world. There are other
revelations, besides this one, not yet published to the world. In the
due time of the Lord, the Saints and the world will be privileged with
the revelations that are due to them. They now have many more than
they are worthy of, for they do not observe them. The Gentile nations
have had more of the revelations of God than is their just due. And I
will say, as I have before said, if guilt before my God and my
brethren rests upon me in the least, it is in this one thing—that I
have revealed too much concerning God and his kingdom, and the designs
of our Father in heaven. If my skirts are stained in the least with
wrong, it is because I have been too free in telling what God is, how
he lives, the nature of his providences and designs in creating the
world, in bringing forth the human family on the earth, his designs
concerning them, &c. If I had, like Paul, said—"But if any man be
ignorant, let him be ignorant," perhaps it would have been better for
the people.
You may ask whether this is rea sonable. I can prove it to be so
in a few sentences. There are men upon whom God has bestowed gifts and
graces, and women who are endowed with strong mental ability, and yet
they cannot receive the truth; and then the truth condemns them: it
leaves them in darkness. When they cannot receive every truth, let it
be ever so important or unimportant to them, their neglect to grasp in
their faith the truth God reveals for their benefit weakens them,
comparatively, from the crowns of their heads to the soles of their
feet, and the enemy may have the advantage over them in an hour when
they think not. To please our Father in heaven, and do his will in all
things, to walk up faithfully in the discharge of every duty
preparatory to being crowned in his kingdom, when a truth is presented
to an intelligent person he ought to grasp it and receive it in his
faith. There are revelations, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding yet
to be proclaimed, and whether they will please the world, or not, is
immaterial to me. I shall not pledge myself upon a single point.
I wish to impress upon the minds of the Saints the importance of so
living that they will always know the voice of the Good Shepherd. When
they hear the voice of the Spirit of inspiration—the power of God,
through any person, let the feelings and sensibilities of everyone
who professes to know anything of the things of God, be in a state to
know and discern between that which is of God and that which is not. I
have exhorted the brethren, all the day long, in this way. My whole
study is employed and my whole soul is drawn out to induce this people
to live their religion. How often has it been taught that if you
depend entirely upon the voice, judgment, and sagacity of those
appointed to lead you, and neglect to enjoy the Spirit for yourselves,
how easily you may be led into error, and finally be cast off to the
left hand? Is it desirable to lead you astray? No; it would not be a
momentary satisfaction to a Saint of God—to a servant of God—to one
who sees things as they are, to be the means of betraying and
deceiving the whole human family and leading them astray where he
pleased. For any man who understands the things of God to have power
to lead the human family astray at his will and pleasure is calculated
to destroy: it is ruin, it is waste, and will finally lead to
disorganization. But a true servant of God takes more pleasure in
saving the meanest capacity organized in human form upon the face of
the earth than a wicked person can in leading hosts astray. Let a
Prophet of God, an Apostle, or any servant of the Lord Jesus have the
privilege of bringing the very smallest degree of organized
intelligence up higher and higher until it is capable of receiving the
intelligence of angels, and it will give more consolation and
happiness than to lead all the posterity of Adam into a wrong path.
Brethren and sisters, I have a few words to say to you with regard to
our present position as connected with future events, future
prospects, future kingdoms, glories, and existence, and the rise,
spread, glory, and power of the kingdom of God upon the face of the
earth. You know that I am a today person in my preaching and
exhortations. They are for the time we now live in—not particularly
for the millennium, for the resurrection, for the eternities yet to
come; for if we can live this day as we ought to live, we shall be
prepared for tomorrow, and so on for the next day; and when the
eternities come, we shall be prepared to enjoy them. You are
constantly taught to live your religion for today. Can you not live
it for one hour? Begin at a small point: can you not live to
the Lord for one minute? Yes. Then can we not multiply that by sixty
and make an hour, and live that hour to the Lord? Yes; and then for a
day, a week, a month, and a year? Then, when the year is past, it has
been spent most satisfactorily.
We may so live our religion every moment, and so watch our own conduct
as to not suffer ourselves in the least to do anything that would
infringe upon a good conscience that is formed and regulated by the
Priesthood of God, and in all our acts to not permit ourselves to do
one act that next year or a few years hence will wound the heart and
bring shame and confusion over the countenance; but let every day be
filled with acts that will be in our reflections a source of joy and
consolation. This we can do. You are taught, both by ancient and
modern prophecies, that the Lord is going to bring again Zion—is going
to build up his kingdom on the earth, and reign King of nations as he
does King of Saints. With all this so plainly portrayed in both
ancient and modern revelations, we learn, when we look over the
history of the children of men, how they have apostatized, have
deserted their colors (the flag God gave them for their standard),
and have hewn to themselves cisterns that can hold no water. They have
wandered after strange gods, and the world has faltered and failed
from generation to generation, not only in their mental faculties and
pertaining to the things of God, but also in their physical existence.
How far back shall we have to search before we find a people that
attained to the longevity for which the body of man is framed? If we
could meet here Sabbath after Sabbath for a hundred years to come,
would it not be a glorious privilege? What parent would not rejoice in
seeing his children and his children's children grow up to manhood,
while he still lived on the earth to direct their minds and mark out
the path for them to walk in, and lead out before them in
righteousness and holiness, inspiring them to continually pursue the
way of obedience to the will of their God? Would not this be more
pleasing than laying down the body in an early grave? Would it not be
consoling to a good man to live long on the earth in the full
enjoyment of all his mental and physical faculties, filled with
experience and judgment to direct the steps of youth, and to see his
children, his grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and still
continue from year to year and from generation to generation, until he
is six, seven, eight, or nine hundred years old? "But no," says a
father or mother; "I probably shall not live until I see my children
grown up. I will direct them as well as I can while I do live." It is
seldom that men in our day can count more than three generations of
their children; but suppose we could count forty or fifty generations
of our offspring, and be all the time guiding them in the path which
leads back to our heavenly Father—to our heavenly home, guiding our
rising generations by our examples, good judgment, and the superior
counsel and experience we have gained in the things of God—of heaven
and earth; would not this be consoling to every good person?
You read in the Bible, "There shall be no more thence an infant of
days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child
shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years
old shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and inhabit them;
and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall
not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat:
for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine
elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor
in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the
blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them."
The human family has again to return to this state—not you and I as
individuals. Mankind have degenerated; they have lost the physical and
mental power they once possessed. In many points pertaining to
mechanism, men have in modern times been instructed by revelation to
them, and this mechanical knowledge causes them to almost boast
against their Creator, and to set themselves up as competitors with
the Lord Almighty, notwithstanding they have produced nothing but what
has been revealed to them. In the knowledge of astronomical and other
philosophical truths, which our modern great men are searching after
and pride themselves in, they are but babes, compared with the ancient
fathers. Do the wise men of modern ages understand the laws which
govern the worlds that are, that were, and that are to come? They
cannot fathom this matter. They have grown weaker when they ought to
have grown stronger and wiser. We look forward to a day when we must
begin to approximate towards the life that is eternal—the life that
will endure. You may ask, "Do we wish to live in the flesh always?"
No; only so long as we can endure the sufferings, hardships, toils,
labors, pains, and afflictions that are in this world, and make every
day benefit ourselves and our posterity, and our acts redound to our
own exaltation and to the increase of the kingdom of our Father who
placed us here.
Some of our old traditions teach us that a man guilty of atrocious and
murderous acts may savingly repent when on the scaffold; and upon his
execu tion you will hear the expression—"Bless God! He has gone to
heaven, to be crowned, in glory, through the all-redeeming merits of
Christ the Lord." This is all nonsense. Such a character never will
see heaven. Some will pray, "O that I had passed through the veil on
the night of my conversion!" This proves the false ideas and vain
notions entertained by the Christian world. They have no good sense
pertaining to God and godliness.
This is a world in which we are to prove ourselves. The lifetime of
man is a day of trial, wherein we may prove to God, in our darkness,
in our weakness, and where the enemy reigns, that we are our Father's
friends, and that we receive light from him and are worthy to be
leaders of our children—to become lords of lords, and kings of
kings—to have perfect dominion over that portion of our families that
will be crowned in the celestial kingdom with glory, immortality, and
eternal lives. If we are crowned to become lords of lords and kings of
kings, it will be to rule and reign over our own posterity pertaining
to this flesh—these tabernacles—this commencement in our finite state
of being. When I reign king of kings and lord of lords over my
children, it will be when my first, second, third, fourth, and so on,
son rises up and counts thousands and millions of his posterity, and
is king over them; then I am a king of these kings. Our Father, who is
Lord of all, will reign a King of kings and Lord of lords over all his
children.
Mothers really and verily have very great influence, from the
commencement, in forming the leading temperaments and feelings of
their offspring. I have not time, neither do I here wish to fully
explain this subject. When a father is abusive in any way—is a
drunkard, a swearer, &c., if the mother is humble and looks to her God, beyond her earthly lord, as it is her right under such
circumstances, the influence that would otherwise operate upon her has
little or no power to affect her offspring. If she secretly prays and
lifts her desires to her Father in heaven, beyond her miserable,
drinking, swearing husband, the sacred, peaceful, trusting, happifying
influence she enjoys, when thus living near to her God, produces its
impression upon the earthly tabernacle—upon the course in life of her
prospective offspring.
The father should be full of kindness, and endeavor to happify and
cheer the mother, that her heart may be comforted and her affections
unimpaired in her earthly protector, that her love for God and
righteousness may vibrate throughout her whole being, that she may
bear and bring forth offspring impressed and endowed with all the
qualities necessary to a being designed to reign king of kings and
lord of lords.
But few women have a realizing sense of the immortal, invisible, and
powerful influence they exert in their sphere. A mother may inquire,
"What is to be done?" Break off, by faith, and in the name of Jesus
Christ, from every false principle, from every hurtful practice, and
overcome every appetite that tends to injure and destroy the
tabernacle you wear. Take a course that will produce life, that
children may be born full of life and vigor.
And during the period of nursing, let the mother be faithful and
prayerful, that her infant may enjoy a powerful, Godlike, and happy
influence. Do mothers so act? Or do they prefer to run here and there,
and to desire this and fret for that, to gratify their appetites?
Look to it, mothers, that you desire only that which will most promote
the health and life of your offspring; and ask the Father, in the name
of Jesus Christ, to enable you to resist every depraved appetite; and
let fathers be full of the power of God, to lead, guide, direct, and
influence mothers, that they may have no desires but those which are
prompted by the influence of the Almighty. I make these few remarks
upon life, that you may know how we ought to begin to conduct
ourselves relative to the rising generation, that the days of the
children of men may begin to return to them.
It is the business, duty, and power of the eternal Priesthood to
commence laying the foundation to bring back the days, years, and
intelligence that have been lost through transgression. I intend to
pursue this course as long as I possibly can. I have a desire to live
on this earth until I am one hundred and thirty-five years old; and I
may conclude to ask the privilege to live until I am one hundred and
fifty. I intend to live as long as I can; and, through the grace of
God, I trust that I shall not commit an act that will annoy my
feelings when I meet my Savior. I pray for this every day and every
moment.
At times I may to many of the brethren appear to be severe. I
sometimes chasten them; but it is because I wish them to so live that
the power of God, like a flame of fire, will dwell within them and be
round about them. These are my feelings and desires. I wish to see
this people take a course to bring back the days, years, and
intelligence that have been lost through transgression. This cannot be
performed in a day. Zion will not be redeemed and built up in a day.
Israel will not be brought back to the fold of Christ and redeemed in
a day.
If you fully knew things as they are, you would understand that the
"peculiar institution," as it is called—that doctrine which is so
obnoxious to our beloved Christian brethren—for a man to have
more than one wife—is one of the greatest blessings bestowed upon man.
If the Elders of Israel, who enjoy this privilege, understood it as it
is in the bosom of eternity, they would not trifle with and abuse it,
and treat the blessings of the Lord lightly, as is too often the case.
How often am I called upon to hear tales of sorrow which are like
bitterness to my soul—like drinking a cup of wormwood. I hate this.
God hates it. He does not hate to have us multiply, increase, and
replenish the earth; but he hates for us to live in sin and
wickedness, after all the privileges bestowed upon us—to live in the
neglect of the great duties which devolve upon us, notwithstanding the
state of weakness and darkness in which the human family lives. Burst
that veil of darkness from your eyes, that you may see things as they
are.
Many professing to be Saints seem to have no knowledge, no light, to
see anything beyond a dollar, or a pleasant time, a comfortable house,
a fine farm, &c., &c. O fools, and slow of heart to understand the
purposes of God and his handiwork among the people. Let me present a
few ideas in regard to the things you enjoy. Suppose we say that the
time is coming when you will possess this house, that garden, the
other farm, and own such and such possessions, and have no more
headache, toothache, inflammation of the eyes, backache, rheumatism,
pain, sorrow, and death, would you not consider that you were greatly
blessed—that you enjoyed a blessing worthy of the eternal world?
Suppose it possible that you have the privilege of securing to
yourselves eternal life—to live and enjoy these blessings forever;
you will say this is the greatest blessing that can be be stowed upon
you, to live forever and enjoy the society of wives, children, and
children's children, to a thousand generations, and forever; also the
society of brethren, sisters, neighbors, and associates, and to
possess all you can ask for to make you happy and comfortable. What
blessing is equal to this? What blessing is equal to the continuation
of life—to the continuation of our organizations?
The Lord has blessed us with the ability to enjoy an eternal life with
the Gods, and this is pronounced the greatest gift of God. The gift of
eternal life, without a posterity, to become an angel, is one of the
greatest gifts that can be bestowed; yet the Lord has bestowed on us
the privilege of becoming fathers of lives. What is a father of lives,
as mentioned in the Scriptures? A man who has a posterity to an
eternal continuance. That is the blessing Abraham received, and it
perfectly satisfied his soul. He obtained the promise that he should
be the father of lives. In comparison with this, what did Abraham care
about machinery, railroads, and other great mechanical productions? We
have the privilege of becoming fathers of lives to all eternity, and
of existing in the presence of God. Is not this worthy of our living
in righteousness and complete obedience to the commandments of God?
Then away with all little meannesses, and deal out kindness to all.
Chasten, where chastening will answer best; but try persuasion before
you try the rod.
If the days of man are to begin to return, we must cease all
extravagant living. When men live to the age of a tree, their food
will be fruit. Mothers, to produce offspring full of life and days,
must cease drinking liquor, tea, and coffee, that their systems may be
free from bad effects. If every woman in this Church will now
cease drinking tea, coffee, liquor, and all other powerful stimulants,
and live upon vegetables, &c., not many generations will pass away
before the days of man will again return. But it will take generations
to entirely eradicate the influences of deleterious substances. This
must be done before we can attain our paradisiacal state, for the Lord
will bring again Zion to its paradisiacal state.
May God grant that we may see and enjoy it. Amen.