I do not know that I have ever spoken to the Saints upon any principle
of the Gospel of salvation when I could do more than offer a few
opening remarks, there is so much to learn. The oldest and most
experienced persons in this Church are satisfied that they have by no
means learned all that is to be learned concerning things that pertain
to this world. To even thoroughly learn all the different branches of
mechanism is more than one man can do in this mortal life. The object
of this existence is to learn, which we can only do a little at a
time. "Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to
understand doctrine? those that are weaned from the milk, and drawn
from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon
precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a
little."
How gladly would we understand every principle pertaining to science
and art, and become thoroughly acquainted with every intricate
operation of nature, and with all the chemical changes that are
constantly going on around us! How delightful this would be, and what
a boundless field of truth and power is open for us to explore! We are
only just approaching the shores of the vast ocean of information that
pertains to this physical world, to say nothing of that which pertains
to the heavens, to angels and celestial beings, to the place of their
habitation, to the manner of their life, and their progress to still
higher degrees of perfection.
We hear many glorious truths in the discourses delivered by our Elders
here and in other places, but we return to our homes and tomorrow we
are about as we were yesterday. It is our privilege to improve each
day of our lives, but can we improve fast enough to even gain all the
knowledge that pertains to this world in the life we now possess? No;
but we can gain knowledge faster than we now do, by exercising still
greater diligence.
When we meet in a worshipping capacity, we are apt to feel anxious to
hear something new concerning the Deity or the place of his
habitation. How delightful it is to hear a man expound the
prophecies—to hear the revelations of God and things which pertain to
the celestial kingdom of God delineated! How joyful, how pleasing, how
glorious this is to both male and female, old and young, who seem to
know all about these matters, but who at home do not know enough to
make a hoe handle so that you could tell whether it was designed for
an oxbow, plow handle, or hoe handle. And the sister that rejoices
so much in the glories of the upper world, when she is at home, very
likely, does not know enough to pursue her daily avocations as she ought. Can she teach her little girls so much as to knit a
stocking tie? No; but when there is plenty of wool and yarn in the
house, she calls upon her husband to buy garters, suspenders, &c.,
from the store, while her children are running in the streets with
their heels and toes naked; she cannot even mend a stocking decently.
Can she cut her little boy a pair of pantaloons? No; a tailor must do
it. Can she make him a cap out of some old cloth that has been worn in
a coat, but is good enough for that purpose, and thereby save a few
dollars? No; she must plague her husband to spend means at the store,
when perhaps he cannot well spare it. Can she make little shoes for
her infant? No, pa, buys all the shoes. She seems of no manner of
earthly use as an helpmeet to her husband; yet it is her greatest
delight to know how the Gods live and how the heavens and all things
are sustained, but at the same time is not willing to move a finger to
sustain herself.
When Adam found himself in a state of nudity, he hid himself; and when
he heard the footsteps of the Lord in the garden, he quaked and
trembled with fear. The Lord could do nothing more for him than take
some fig leaves and probably some grass to stitch them together for an
apron to cover Adam's nakedness. The Lord could not in a few minutes
teach Adam how to make broadcloth and a pair of pantaloons, &c.; for
he had forgotten all he formerly knew, and had to gain knowledge by
degrees. Can we learn in a day how to make broadcloth or satin and
clothing or dresses? No; for it is as much as some persons can do to
learn in one day how to knit so much as a stocking tie or a pair of
suspenders.
The people are striving with all their might to learn the things of
God; but if I could only get them to understand the work and the worth
of their present life, I should feel well satisfied. We talk and think
a great deal about the life that is to come, and the life labor of
the Christian part of the world is to prepare for that. The time we
now occupy is in eternity; it is a portion of eternity. Our present
life is just as much a life in eternity as the life of any being can
possibly be. Could we all live so as to honor the life that we now
possess, I should not have one anxious thought with regard to being
fully prepared for the life which is to come. I wish to urge upon the
people the necessity of knowing what to do with their present life,
which pertains more particularly to temporalities. The very object of
our existence here is to handle the temporal elements of this world
and subdue the earth, multiplying those organisms of plants and
animals God has designed shall dwell upon it. When we have learned to
live according to the full value of the life we now possess, we are
prepared for further advancement in the scale of eternal
progression—for a more glorious and exalted sphere.
One of the speakers this morning exhorted us to take care of that
which we produce. All the energies of a farmer appear to be drawn out
to raise wheat; but when it is matured, he seems to retire in
satisfaction that he has accomplished what he sought; his energies
flag and the crop is not cared for, but is left to return again to the
earth; or, if he gathers it, he either has not the ability to properly
save and husband it, or he cares not to exert himself to do so. It is
the same in his stock raising; he values his calves and lambs—labors
hard to raise them; but when they have attained to that stage of
existence to do good to himself or the community, he suffers them to
die by starvation in the winter, or to be destroyed by the Indians or
by somebody else who gets his living by stealing cattle on the
ranges. The wheat wasted this year, for want of proper care, would
feed this whole community for a considerable length of time. Farmers
do not seem to think that every kernel of grain should be gathered and
saved as far as possible. The atmosphere that presses upon the face of
our fields imparts nourishment to the soil, and the rains from the
heavens and the waters that come dancing from the mountains and are
led over our fields are laden with plant food, so that we can gather
from this benchland—from this gravelly soil—thirty bushels of wheat
to the acre, which does not answer the end in the economy of nature
for which it is created, if it is suffered again to return to the
ground unappropriated in the way designed by the Almighty. If it is
distributed in another shape than that designed, the wheat element may
be entirely removed to another portion of the earth; and after a few
years you may not be able to raise wheat in this country. If a single
constituent part of any plant be exhausted from the soil, the plant
cannot be produced until the wanting element is restored.
Our Father in heaven wishes us to preserve that which he gives to us.
If we are prodigal and wasteful of his blessings, it will be
said—"Take from them that which they seem to have and give it to
another people." We wish to gain all that is to be gained; we wish to
enrich ourselves; but, as a people, in a great many instances, we take
a course to make ourselves poor. If we could only learn enough to be
self-preserving and self-sustaining, we should then have learned what
the Gods have learned before us, and what we must eventually learn
before we can be exalted. Trace the history of the favored people of
God in any age of the world and on any portion of the earth, and you
will find that the Lord has poured out great abundance upon them, he
has blessed them as individuals, as communities, and as nations. We
have also been greatly blessed, but we have treated lightly our
blessings in neglecting to properly and frugally use them.
That individual, neighborhood, people, or nation that will not
acknowledge the hand of God in all things, but will squander their
blessings, and thus pour contempt upon his kind favors, will become
desolate and be wasted away. So long as any people live up to the best
light they have, the Almighty will multiply blessings upon them by
blessing the earth and causing it to bring forth in its strength to
fill their storehouses with plenty; but if they become fat, and are
lofty, and kick against the Lord, and trample his blessings under
their feet in reckless wastefulness, he will cause them to inherit
barrenness, and he will give them "cleanness of teeth in all their
cities, and want of bread in all their places." The Lord needs only to
say to his angel, "Pass over the land and take away the elements of
wheat," and that crop ceases to be produced. This very thing has
transpired in the lands from whence we have been driven, and their
fruit is blasted; in fact, nothing grows there in the same abundance
and perfection that it once did. Desolation is in the path of the
wicked. It would have been so with us, if we had remained in our
former homes, and had not lived to honor the life God has given us.
In consequence of the hatred, malice, and disposition in the hearts of
the wicked to persecute his people, God has so cursed the land and
blasted the elements that they are not fruitful.
I do not think that I ever beheld anything in my life more painful to
my heart and more distressing to my feelings than I saw manifested in
the spirit and actions of this community in the years 1849,
50, 51, and 52, in the way they trampled upon the blessings of God so
bountifully bestowed upon them. Wheat was suffered to go to waste in a
shameful manner. It was fed to horses, thrown to hogs, and trampled in
the mud. I told them they would want bread, and they did. If it had
not been for the kind hand of God in his merciful providences to us,
we should have suffered much more than we did; our sufferings would
have been extreme. The Lord has poured out his blessings on the
atmosphere, on the water, and on the soil of this country. No other
people but the people of the Saints could have sustained themselves
here. If we abuse these choice blessings, the Lord will blast the
fertilizing elements with his withering touch, and leave us desolate.
Let us be thankful for what we have in possession, and use it
exclusively for building up the kingdom of God, the establishment of
Zion, and the triumph of righteousness and truth. Let every penny,
every dollar, every sum of money, large or small, be devoted to this
all-absorbing interest, as also every moment of time. These are
matters with which we are all acquainted; they are not mysteries that
are far beyond our comprehension.
Twenty-five, twenty-eight, and thirty years ago, our influence and
national character were but small indeed. The image which now presents
itself is still small, we admit; nevertheless it presents a bold front
to the nations, and has become worthy of their notice. We are trying
to be the image of those who live in heaven; we are trying to pattern
after them, to look like them, to walk and talk like them, to deal
like them, and build up the kingdom of heaven as they have done. I
think that after a while we shall attain to the very image and likeness
of the children of God who have lived before us. This image will
increase, and grow, and spread abroad, and still expand in its
proportions, stretching to the right hand and to the left, struggling
for room on all sides, in proportion as we are faithful and learn to
appreciate the blessings we have already received.
Do we appreciate the blessings of this our mountain home, far removed
from the war, blood, carnage, and death that are laying low in the
dust thousands of our fellow creatures in the very streets where we
have walked and in the cities and towns where we have lived? If we
constantly live under a proper sense of the greatness of our
blessings, the stone in the mountains will soon begin to attain
colossal proportions and roll with crushing weight upon the toes of
the "great image."
We have often heard it said by our Elders that all the heaven we shall
ever have is the one we make for ourselves. How vast the meaning of
this simple sentence! This one saying is a text worthy for all the
holy beings in heaven and on earth to preach upon; it embraces a
subject vast as eternity. We are exhorted to make our own heaven, our
own paradise, our own Zion. How is this to be done? By hearkening
diligently to the voice of the Spirit of the Lord that entices to
righteousness, applauds truth, and exults continually in goodness.
This Spirit is the companion of every faithful person! Listen to its
whisperings, and pursue with alacrity the path it points out. In this
way we may all grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth, and by
so doing we shall honor the life we now possess, while by pursuing an
opposite course we disgrace it. This life is worth as much to us as
any life in the eternities of the Gods. In that helpless infant upon
its mother's breast we see a man, an Apostle, a Saint—yea
generations of men with kingdoms, thrones, and dominions. Then the
life of that little frail mortal is fraught with great and mighty
results, and its value is inestimable.
If this be true of an infant, what may we expect to grow out of this
infant kingdom? We may look forward to all that belongs to greatness
and goodness, to might and power, to dominion and glory. Then how
jealously we ought to guard the rights of this infant power! How
zealous and constant we should be in maintaining its interests and
supporting its laws and sacred institutions! No less vigilant should
we be in preserving the lives of our children, for they are of the
kingdom of heaven. No pains should be spared, no care omitted, in
guarding the tender infant through the perilous hours of childhood to
maturer years. Through the inattention and ignorance of parents, death
makes many victims among our children, and they are deprived of
magnifying their mortal life according to the designs of the All-wise
Creator. Numbers of our children are carried off by death, through
want of sufficient promptitude in battling the destroyer when its
insidious approaches are first discovered. We have power in a great
measure to prevent disease; and when it fastens upon the vitals of our
little ones, we have power, faith, and means at hand, if promptly
applied, to restore our children to life and health, to boyhood, then
to manhood, and to honor and power in Israel. Yet we neglect our
children, and let them run out in the cold and wet. They are sick at
night; nothing is done for them; but they are sent to bed to lie all
night with a burning fever, and so they are suffered to linger on day
after day, while the Destroyer is busily at work consuming their
lives. At length the parents become alarmed and send for a doctor, who
is just as apt to destroy the life of the child as to restore it again
to good health. We mourn over the little fragile remains as we lay
them in the tomb, and comfort ourselves by saying, "Thy will be done,
O Lord; thou givest and thou takest away at thy pleasure," &c., when
by our ignorance and carelessness we have destroyed the life God gave
to us for a kingdom of glory and power, which can only be obtained
through our posterity. From this one child, this Isaac, could his life
have been preserved, nations would have sprung into existence, until
the multitudes of people through him would have become as the sands
upon the seashore for number. But he is gone, and his spirit has
returned back to God, and that is the end of his life upon the earth;
your posterity is cut off, and from whence will you receive your
kingdom and glory?
It is to our advantage to take good care of the blessings God bestows
upon us; if we pursue the opposite course, we cut off the power and
glory God designs we should inherit. It is through our own
carefulness, frugality, and judgment which God has given us, that we
are enabled to preserve our grain, our flocks and herds, wives and
children, houses and lands, and increase them around us, continually
gaining power and influence for ourselves as individuals and for the
kingdom of God as a whole. People lose their property. Why? Because
they do not take care of it. Once in a while we hear of property being
destroyed by fire, though this does not often occur among this people.
What did you do with the fire when you retired to rest? All such
occurrences happen through carelessness, want of judgment, or
ignorance. For instance, on a very dry, windy day, with a foul chimney, a wife wishes to prepare a chicken for supper, and she must
burn off the pin feathers; she gathers up an armful of shavings, sets
fire to them, and the flame that is singeing off the pin feathers is
also firing the chimney; from that it spreads to the roof, and from
the roof to the stackyard. A thousand dollars' worth of property is
destroyed by carelessly singeing the pin feathers off a chicken. Our
wives are not apt to think of this, any more than they do when they
suffer their little children to get cold, and the croup, and then
death.
This people, in their notions concerning life, are similar to the
whole world. We have brought our traditions from the world, but we
wish to learn better, and get rid of every false notion and practice.
As I told you the other day, it is impossible to believe a truth that
is not embraced in "Mormonism," whether it is found in the mental
education or physical pursuits of mortals, in the spiritual refinement
of the Gods, or in culling immortal fruits from trees that grow in the
Elysian fields of Paradise. "The life that now is" more immediately
demands our attention, and I am fearful that many spend their lives
for naught. There are persons in this community who, if they could
have their own will gratified and be possessed of plenty of means,
would not do another day's work in their lives, unless they were
urged to it. Such persons are told that they should devote their
lifetime they now have to usefulness; but they have sufficient, they
say, and have no need to be useful in performing any kind of labor.
This is a mistake. Though I possessed millions of money and property,
that does not excuse me from performing the labor that it is my
calling to perform, so far as I have strength and ability, any more
than the poorest man in the com munity is excused. The more we are
blessed with means, the more we are blessed with responsibility; the
more we are blessed with wisdom and ability, the more we are placed
under the necessity of using that wisdom and ability in the spread of
righteousness, the subjugation of sin and misery, and the amelioration
of the condition of mankind. The man that has only one talent and the
man that has five talents have responsibility accordingly. If we have
a world of means, we have a world of responsibility. If we have an
eternity of knowledge, we shall have an eternity of business to
transact and to occupy every particle of the knowledge bestowed upon
us.
Then, instead of searching after what the Lord is going to do for us,
let us inquire what we can do for ourselves, and the answer will be,
We can make our own hats, bonnets, shoes, and clothing, and we can
make our own heaven here below; and if there is anything that we
cannot make now, we will wear what we have until we can make more. I
have a word of praise for our sisters. I have seen the handsomest
homemade plaid in this city that I ever saw in any country. I would
like to see them wear it when they go to parties, instead of donning
silks and satins. Their homemade plaid will look better to me than
all the silk and satin they can put on. But when sister Susan gets a
fine dress, then Betsy will not go to the party unless she has as good
a frock as Susan's; and Sarah must have as good a one as either of the
others, or a little better. Perhaps she wants a little more gimp, a
little extra braid, some insertion, or something to make a better
dress than has either of her sisters; and so we waste for a thing of
naught the blessings we should otherwise improve.
Be careful of the clothing you have. Do not let your
children's clothing lie underfoot when you undress them at night, but
teach your boys and girls, when they come into the house, to find a
place for their hats, cloaks, and bonnets, that, when they want them,
they can put their hands upon them in a moment. When they take off
their boots and shoes, let them be deposited where they can be found
in the dark, that, if the children are obliged to get up at night,
perhaps in case of fire, they can find their clothing, and not be
under the necessity of being turned out naked. If a person can put his
hand on his clothing, he can dress in the dark. I couple the necessity
with the convenience. I hope we shall never be under the necessity of
fleeing from under a burning roof, either in the night or day. Let
there be "a place for everything, and everything in its place."
I believe in indulging children, in a reasonable way. If the little
girls want dolls, shall they have them? Yes. But must they be taken to
the dressmaker's to be dressed? No. Let the girls learn to cut and sew
the clothing for their dolls, and in a few years they will know how to
make a dress for themselves and others. Let the little boys have
tools, and let them make their sleds, little wagons, &c.; and when
they grow up, they are acquainted with the use of tools and can build
a carriage, a house, or anything else. When we see the boys or girls
inclined in this direction, let us encourage them and use every means
in our power to direct their minds in the right direction to the most
useful result.
Novel reading—is it profitable? I would rather that persons read
novels than read nothing. There are women in our community, twenty,
thirty, forty, fifty, and sixty years of age, who would rather read a
trifling, lying novel than read history, the Book of Mormon, or any
other useful print. Such women are not worth their room. It would do
no good for me to say, Don't read them; read on, and get the spirit of
lying in which they are written, and then lie on until you find
yourselves in hell. If it would do any good, I would advise you to
read books that are worth reading; read reliable history, and search
wisdom out of the best books you can procure. How I would be delighted
if our young men would do this, instead of continually studying
nonsense. And in addition to this, let the boys from ten to twenty
years of age get up schools to learn sword exercise, musket and rifle
exercise, and, in short, every art of war. Shall we need this
knowledge? No matter; it is good to be acquainted with this kind of
exercise. Let a few schools be started by those who are capable of
teaching the sciences. The science of architecture, for instance, is
worthy the attention of every student. It yields a great amount of
real pleasure to be able to understand the grand architectural designs
of those magnificent structures that are scattered over Europe and
other countries.
Learn all you can. Learn how to raise calves, chickens, lambs, and all
kinds of useful fowls and animals; learn how to till the ground to the
best advantage for raising all useful products of the soil; and learn
how to manufacture molasses and sugar from the sugar cane. Raise flax,
husbands, and let your wives learn to manufacture fine linen. In the
war of 1812, cotton raised in price from five to eleven cents per
pound; it is now from thirty-five to sixty-three cents a pound in New
York City. What are we going to do for our factory cloth? We have got
to make it. I am selling cotton cloth to those who work for me for the
same price they are now selling it in St. Louis and New York.
What will be the price by-and-by, as circumstances are now shaping
themselves in the nation?
If what I have now said about temporal things is faithfully carried
out, it will lead to our independence as a people, and to our comfort
and happiness as individuals.
May God bless you! Amen.