Often in the Tabernacle the congregations were crowded, but there is
room under this bowery for more than are here today. If the brethren
and sisters do not wish to come to meeting, knowing what they know,
they have the privilege of staying at home. While Bishop Hunter was
relating his feelings with regard to the people, and speaking of his
great interest for their welfare, an anecdote occurred to me—one which
many of you, perhaps, have heard. Many of you have heard of Lorenzo
Dow and his oddities. He would go into the woods, get onto a stump,
and preach without a soul being near to hear him, and probably leave
an appointment to preach in the same place a year from that day. I
have seen him. He was as odd looking as were his acts. When traveling
in the State of New York to fill an appointment, as he neared the foot
of a bad hill, he overheard a man cursing and whipping his team, and
rode on carefully until he overtook the swearing man, and said to
him—"If you will swear as wickedly as you can until you reach the
summit of the hill, I will give you a dollar." The man agreed, and
added to his own condemnation by striving to earn the dollar, which
Dow handed to him, and rode on his way.
How many of you will stay away from meeting for a dollar? This people
delight in attending meetings.
If any Elder dislikes to hear others preach, come to the stand
yourself, full of the Holy Ghost, and preach the everlasting Gospel to
the people, and they will come to hear you again. But when you spend
your time foolishly, and your hearts and affections are, like the
fool's eye, to the ends of the earth, after speculation, if you come
here and speak to the people, you are like "sounding brass and a
tinkling cymbal." Though a man should say but a few words, and his
sentences and words be ever so ungrammatical, if he speaks by the
power of the Holy Ghost, he will do good. The people want the shepherd
to feed the sheep, though it is not prudent to feed them too much at a
time. Brother Kimball says that he holds the salt tight, and lets the
sheep lick it through his fingers, and they run after him; but if you
throw down a large quantity at once, they will eat until they are
cloyed, and will not follow you. Improve upon even a small portion of
what has been taught, and you may grow day by day, which you cannot so
well do when surfeited with good things.
Unless you improve upon it, every correct principle advanced through
the authority of the holy Priesthood becomes to you a dead letter. But
if you have the life within you, you will grow, whether you stay at
home or come to meeting; and every true principle, power, and
manifestation that God gives you, you will improve upon and treasure
up in your hearts. Ask the Father, in the name of Jesus, to
help you to treasure every true principle in good and honest hearts,
that it may produce to your own advantage and that of others. Then
your capacity and ability will increase, your faith in Christ will
increase, and the light of Christ will increase within you.
As I have before mentioned, I heard brother John Taylor preach in the
Tabernacle one of the most heavenly discourses ever spoken, upon the
principle of Jesus Christ being in man a well of living water. If
people will live to the light they have, and to every manifestation
from God, they will arrive at such a state of perfection that God will
dwell in them a well of everlasting life—a fountain of living water
that will dispense life wherever they go. Whatever they do, every act,
thought, and word will be full of life, and they will grow into
eternal lives in the kingdoms of our God. It is your privilege to so
live that you are constantly filled with the light of revelation, that
Jesus Christ may be within you as a fountain of living water
continually springing forth and yielding life eternal.
God bless you! Amen.