Chapter XXVIII…

Chapter XXVIII

MISSIONARY WORK

The Gospel to be Preached to all Men--The Gospel must be preached to the world, that the wicked may be left without excuse. 4:58.

It is necessary that all have the privilege of receiving or rejecting eternal truth, that they may be prepared to be saved, or be prepared to be damned. 7:139.

Our Father in Heaven, Jesus, our Elder Brother and the Savior of the world, and the whole heavens, are calling upon this people to prepare to save the nations of the earth, also the millions who have slept without the Gospel. 18:77.

The Lord has called me to this work, and I feel as though I will do it. We will send the Gospel to the nations; and when one nation turns us away we will go to another and gather up the honest in heart, and the rest we care not for until we come on Mount Zion as saviors, to attend to the ordinances of the house of God for them. 8:230-1.

The Lord has restored the Priesthood in our day for the salvation of Israel. Does he design to save anybody else? Yes; he will save the House of Esau, and I hope to live until I see Mount Zion established, and saviors come up to save those poor, miserable beings who are continually persecuting us--all who have not sinned against the Holy Ghost. Our labor is to save ourselves, to save the House of Israel, to save the House of Esau, and all the Gentile nations--every one that can be saved. 7:281.

This Kingdom or work is proffered to the whole of the human family, even to all who will accept it, upon the terms of strict obedience to all its ordinances and requirements, {490} and to its organization of Prophets and Apostles, gifts and blessings and graces. 11:249.

There are, doubtless, millions of just as honest people among the several religious denominations as are amongst the professedly Latter-day Saints. But they have not the Gospel, they are in darkness with regard to the plan of salvation, and their teachers are blind guides, totally unable to give the people the living word, the way of life. If they live up to the best light and knowledge they have and can get, they are safe, and in a saved condition. What is the sin of the ministry and people of the present Christian denominations? It is that light has come to them and they reject it. The condemnation of the Jewish nation was that light had come into the world, but they chose darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil; so says the Savior. The same Gospel that Jesus taught to those who rejected him is entrusted to us to preach to the whole world with the same consequences which must reach them at some time, in some condition. 17:262.

I shall be very happy when I can know that the people of the East Indian Archipelago, and the people on every island and continent, both the high and the low, the ignorant and intelligent, have received the words of eternal life, and have had bestowed upon them the power of the eternal Priesthood of the Son of God, by which they may become truly civilized. 8:7.

The day will come when the Gospel will be presented to the kings and queens and great ones of the earth; but it will be presented with a different influence from that with which it has been presented to the poor, but it will be the same Gospel. We shall not present any other Gospel; it is the same from everlasting to everlasting. 13:150. {491}

The Elders have also preached through the different nations of Europe so far as they were allowed to do so. In some countries the law would not permit them; but the Lord will yet revolutionize those nations until the door will be opened and the Gospel will be preached to all. 12:256.

Had I the choice whether to go to the Saints and gather Saints, or to go where the Gospel was preached by the ancient Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, among the children of the people who have formerly had the Gospel preached to them, I would engage to go to the States and gather one hundred Saints to one that could be gathered from among the children of those who heard Peter, Paul, and others of the ancient Apostles preach the Gospel. 4:306.

Though the people in the States are daily becoming more hardened against the truth, yet if I were in New York this day, and it was my business to be there, I would not be there long before I would have many Elders preaching through different parts of that city; I would have them preaching in the English, Danish, French, German, and other languages. And soon would have Elders dispersed all over the State, and would raise up new friends enough to sustain me, that is, if the Lord would help me, and if he did not, I would leave. 4:37.

Help to Save Every Person--What is Babylon? It is the confused world: come out of her, then, and cease to partake of her sins, for if you do not you will be partakers of her plagues. 12:282.

If to all eternity you could praise God, through being the means of saving one soul, I may say the least or most inferior intelligence upon the earth, pertaining to the human family,--if you could be the means of saving one such {492} person, how great would be your joy in the heavens! Then let us save many, and our joy will be great in proportion to the number of souls we save. Let us destroy none. 9:124.

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. 8:59.

We had better gather nine that are unworthy than to neglect the tenth if he is worthy. 15:18.

We gather the poorest of the people, the unlearned, and a few of the learned; but generally, we gather those who are poor, who wish to be redeemed; who feel the oppression the high and the proud have made them endure; they have felt a wish to be delivered, and consequently their ears were open to receive the truth. Take those who are in the enjoyment of all the luxuries of this life, and their ears are stopped up; they cannot hear. 12:256.

And when you are called to preach the Gospel on foreign missions, take a course to save every person. There is no man or woman within the pale of saving grace but that is worth saving. There is no intelligent being, except those who have sinned against the Holy Ghost, but that is worth, I may say, all the life of an Elder to save in the Kingdom of God. 9:124.

This people are mostly gathered from what are termed the laboring and middle classes. We have not gathered {493} into this Church men that are by the world esteemed profound in their principles, ideas, and judgment. We have none in this Church that are called by them expert statesmen. How frequently it is cast at the Elders, when they are abroad preaching, that Joseph Smith, the founder of their Church and religion, was only a poor illiterate boy. That used to be advanced as one of the strongest arguments that could be produced against the doctrine of salvation, by the wise and learned of this world, though it is no argument at all. The Lord should have revealed himself to some of the learned priests or talented men of the age, say they, who could have done some good and borne off the Gospel by their influence and learning, and not to a poor, ignorant, unlettered youth. Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble, speaking after the manner of men, are called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty; and base things of the world--things which are despised by the world, hath God in his wisdom chosen; yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. 6:70.

It is the House of Israel we are after, and we care not whether they come from the east, the west, the north, or the south; from China, Russia, England, California, North or South America, or some other locality; and it is the very lad on whom Father Jacob laid his hands, that will save the House of Israel. The Book of Mormon came to Ephraim, for Joseph Smith was a pure Ephraimite. 2:268.

If this net does not gather the good and the bad we should have no idea that it is the net that Jesus spoke about when he said that it should gather of all kinds. 14:78. {494}

I may say that this Gospel is to spread to the nations of the earth, Israel is to be gathered, Zion redeemed, and the land of Joseph, which is the land of Zion, is to be in the possession of the Saints, if the Lord Almighty lets me live; and if I go behind the veil somebody else must see to it. My brethren must bear it off shoulder to shoulder. 3:361.

Words to Departing Missionaries--We wish the brethren to understand the facts just as they are; that is, there is neither man or woman in this Church who is not on a mission. That mission will last as long as they live, and it is to do good, to promote righteousness, to teach the principles of truth, and to prevail upon themselves and everybody around them to live those principles that they may obtain eternal life. 12:19.

When I came into this Church, I started right out as a missionary, and took a text, and began to travel on a circuit. Truth is my text, the Gospel of salvation my subject, and the world my circuit. 9:137.

We do not wish a man to enter on a mission, unless his soul is in it. 2:267.

The brethren who have been called upon foreign missions we expect to respond to the call cheerfully. 4:264.

Go forth and preach the Gospel, gain an experience, learn wisdom, and walk humbly before your God, that you may receive the Holy Ghost to guide and direct you, and teach you all things past, present, and to come. 8:176.

Go trusting in God, and continue to trust in him, and he will open your way and multiply blessings upon you, and your souls will be satisfied with his goodness. I cannot promise you any good in taking an unrighteous course; your lives must be examples of good works. 8:73.

I think that the brethren were required to go and preach {495} "without purse and scrip," and that is what I am now trying to get them to do--to go "without purse and scrip," and not beg the poor Saints to death. Let us support the Elders, instead of making the poor do it. We are able to send these men out to preach the Gospel, and they may go "without purse or scrip." 8:169.

I wish the Elders to go forth as I have taught them. If you have a clean shirt and one to be washed, then be satisfied. If you are clothed so as to be comfortable, be satisfied, and do not let your minds reach out after anything, only to preach the Gospel and gather the souls of men. That is all the business you have upon your hands--it is your whole mission; and trust in God to get home--trust in the Lord to go from place to place, and the way will be opened for you. 8:185.

Those who now go forth upon missions will feel more of the power of God than they ever had, and will speak as men having authority, asking no odds of the wicked. 8:172.

I would like to impress upon the minds of the brethren, that he who goes forth in the name of the Lord; trusting in him with all his heart, will never want for wisdom to answer any question that is asked him, or to give any counsel that may be required to lead the people in the way of life and salvation, and he will never be confounded worlds without end. Go in the name of the Lord, trust in the name of the Lord, lean upon the Lord, and call upon the Lord fervently and without ceasing, and pay no attention to the world. You will see plenty of the world--it will be before you all the time--but if you live so as to possess the Holy Ghost you will be able to understand more in relation to it in one day than you could in a dozen days without it, and you will at once see the difference between {496} the wisdom of men and the wisdom of God, and you can weigh things in the balance and estimate them at their true worth. 12:34.

If the Elders cannot go with clean hands and pure hearts, they had better stay here. Do not go thinking, when you arrive at the Missouri River, at the Mississippi, at the Ohio, or at the Atlantic, that then you will purify yourselves; but start from here with clean hands and pure hearts, and be pure from the crown of the head to the soles of your feet; then live so every hour. Go in that manner, and in that manner labor, and return again as clean as a piece of pure white paper. This is the way to go; and if you do not do that, your hearts will ache.

Will you be liable to fall into temptation and be overtaken by sin? Yes, unless you live so as to have the revelation of Jesus Christ continually, not only to live in it today or while you are preaching, in a prayer meeting, or in a conference; and when you are out of these meetings, when you are guarded more particularly by the Spirit, say that you can get along without the Holy Ghost. You must have it all the time--on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and every day through the week, and from year to year, from the time you leave home until you return; so that when you come back, you may not be afraid if the Lord Almighty should come into the midst of the Saints and reveal all the acts and doings and designs of your hearts in your missions; but be found clean like a piece of white paper. That is the way for the Elders to live in their ministry at home and abroad. 6:273-4.

I want to say for the consolation of the Elders of Israel and those who go forth to preside, you need have no trouble with regard to the building up of this Kingdom, only do {497} your duty in the sphere to which you are assigned. 14:79.

Elders who go forth to proclaim the Gospel, unless they do something to clip their faith, or cause them to apostatize from their religion, so that they are left in the dark, are generally on the increase in improvement, grow in grace and in knowledge. They are advancing in the principles of truth, while the world are receding from the truth they once had; consequently, it appears to the Elders, and to those who go from the Saints into the world, that it is growing wicked faster than it really is, and the Elders do not always realize that their advancement in truth produces much of the appearance of the great distance between them and the world. 3:221-2.

If those who are going to preach do not go with that faith that pertains to eternal life, and that spirit that is like a well of water, springing up into everlasting life, their labors will be vain. They may be the best theoretical theologians in the world--may be able to preach a Bible and a half in a sermon, to read history without a book, and understand all the dealings with men from the days of Adam till now; and, without the Spirit of the living God to guide them, they will not be able to accomplish anything to their credit towards building up his Kingdom. They must realize that success in preaching the Gospel springs not from the wisdom of this world. They must so live as to enjoy the power of God. 8:70-71.

Don't carry your wives or your children in your hearts or in your affections with you one rod. Dedicate them to the Lord God of Israel, and leave them at home; and when you are in England, or among other nations, no matter where, when you pray for your families, pray for them as being in the Great Salt Lake Valley, and do not bring them {498} close to you, as though they were in your carpet-bag. Pray for them where they are. You must feel--if they live, all right; if they die, all right; if I die, all right; if I live, all right; for we are the Lord's, and we shall soon meet again. 6:276.

I wish to say to you that are left here, whose husbands and fathers are going away for a season--don't cling to them one particle, but let them go as cheerfully as you would give a weary traveler a cup of cold water. If you live, it is all right; and if you fall asleep before they return, it is all right. Don't send your hearts after them one step, nor suffer your spirits to cling to them one moment. Then you, wives, in very deed will be blessed and be helpmeets to your husbands. 6:276.

Many have such feelings, that they are greater who are in the world preaching the Gospel than those who remain here. It is a grand mistake. 6:274.

Look over the history of the Church of the living God on the earth from the days of Adam until now, and I will ensure that you cannot find the equal to the excessive labor of the Elders of Israel in our day in spreading the Truth through the world to save mankind. I have no idea that it was done in the days of Enoch; for the human family had then spread over the earth but little, and the Elders did not have to travel scores of thousands of miles without purse or scrip among the wicked. So also in the days of Noah; they had but a short distance to travel. In the days of the Israelites, of the Prophets, of Jesus Christ, and the Apostles, what was their labor in the extent of its field, compared with that of this people? Very small. You may trace the course of their travel, and you will find that it {499} was far less than that of the Elders of Israel in our day. 5:351.

If you go on a mission to preach the Gospel with lightness and frivolity in your hearts, looking for this and that, and to learn what is in the world, and not having your minds riveted--yes, I may say riveted--on the cross of Christ, you will go and return in vain. Go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, full of the power of God, and full of faith to heal the sick even by the touch of your hand, rebuking and casting out foul spirits, and causing the poor among men to rejoice, and you will return bringing your sheaves with you. Let your minds be centered on your missions and labor earnestly to bring souls to Christ. 12:33-34.

Advice to Missionaries in the Field--The travels and labors of the Elders about to go on missions will throw them into positions which will cause them to seek unto the Lord. They need to live their religion, to go forth with pure hearts and clean hands, and then preach the Gospel by the power of God sent down from heaven. They should touch not and taste not of sin, and when they return they should come pure and clean, ready to meet the Saints with open countenances. 8:178.

When you reach your respective fields of labor in the States, in England, or elsewhere, do not begin to pull down your predecessors. So far as their conduct will permit, speak of them as your brethren, and as men who have done the best they knew how. Testify that you know them to be good men, when you know that they have been doing according to their best judgment and understanding; and do not say hard words about your predecessors in the vineyard. Not one who does this will gain anything by it. {500} Do not discourage, deride, or bring anything against any of your predecessors to lessen the character of any one who has done the best he knew how. 8:181.

Gather the Saints, but do not flatter; invite, but do not urge, and by no means compel any one. 8:72.

If you have a happy influence with your brethren and sisters, preserve it, for it is more choice than fine gold. How many times have I told the Elders, "When you go on missions, be careful to preserve your God-like dignity and integrity." 8:346.

The Elders who are going abroad should deal out kindness to those they are sent to watch over, and your smiles will be far better than your cursings could be. 8:74.

You know that I have said that, if it were now my calling to go and preach the Gospel, I could make as many converts as I ever did; for I would go in such a manner that the bitterly prejudiced would have to labor hard to find out that I was a "Mormon" until I had induced them to love the truth. Then they would say, "If that is 'Mormonism' I want it." 5:5.

I wish the Elders of Israel to understand mankind as they are--to go to the people and take them as they are. 9:121.

I wish you all to understand that no Elders go to any place among the world but what the wicked find fault with the people of God. 4:78.

Let me now say to my brethren, the Elders of Israel, it is always proper to ask kindly and affectionately the people to perform what you wish performed, instead of ordering them to do it. This principle is always good for parents and teachers to observe. 10:228.

Elders of Israel, learn to be spiritual physicians. Carry {501} the medicine with you to deal out to every patient as he needs it. If a patient has chills and fever in his spirit, you must carry the medicine to cure it. 9:125.

Never suffer yourselves to mingle in any of those recreations that tend to sin and iniquity, while you are away from the body of the Church, where you cannot so fully control yourselves. 1:48.

I recollect, in England, sending an Elder to Bristol, to open a door there, and see if anybody would believe. He had a little more than thirty miles to walk; he starts off one morning, and arrives at Bristol; he preached the gospel to them, and sealed them all up to damnation, and was back next morning. He was just as good a man, too, as we had. It was want of knowledge caused him to do so. I go and preach to the people, and tell them at the end of every sermon, He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved; and he that believeth not, shall be damned. I continue preaching there day after day, week after week, and month after month, and yet nobody believes my testimony, that I know of, and I don't see any signs of it. "What shall I do in this case, if I am sent to preach there?" you may inquire. You must continue to preach there, until those who sent you shall tell you to leave that field of labor; and if the people don't manifest by their works, that they believe, as long as they come to hear me, I will continue to plead with them until they bend their dispositions to the Gospel? Why? Because I must be patient with them, as the Lord is patient with me; as the Lord is merciful to me, I will be merciful to others; as he continues to be merciful to me, consequently I must continue in long-suffering to be merciful to others--patiently waiting, with all diligence, until the people will believe, and until they are prepared to {502} become heirs to a celestial kingdom, or angels to the Devil. 3:91.

In the first place, I want to say to the Elders who go forth to preach the Gospel--no matter who may apply to you for baptism, even if you have good reason to believe they are unworthy, if they require it, forbid them not, but perform that duty and administer the ordinance for them; it clears the skirts of your garments, and the responsibility is upon them. 14:78.

The meek and lowly Jesus sent his disciples without purse or scrip; and when the honest in heart see our Elders go in the same manner that Jesus' disciples did, with the doctrine that he delivered to his disciples, and preach without purse or scrip, our Elders will find plenty of honest-hearted persons who will receive their testimony. But when the Elders go into the great cities, hire large halls and hire carriages to ride to their pulpit in, the people say it is a speculation, and such Elders do not have much of the Spirit of the Lord to preach to the people. 13:90.

When you reach your fields of labor, do the best you can; and when the enemy comes along and tells you that you are somebody, say, "Mr. Devil, it is none of your business. What I have spoken is what the Lord gave to me. I have presented it to the people, and that is all I have to do with it." If you cannot preach as nicely and smoothly as you wish, and a feeling rises that you cannot preach at all--that you had better return home, tell Satan to get behind you--that he has no power to dictate whether you preach a word or not, for you are in the Lord's service. So live that the Spirit of the Lord can instruct your minds at all times, and you can then defy the Devil and all his emissaries. If you have nothing from the Lord to present {503} to the people, be as willing to be silent as you would to preach what might be termed a splendid discourse. 8:55.

I do not think there was worse said about the Savior and his disciples in ancient days than has been said about the people of Utah in modern times. Take no notice of this, but attend to the business about which you have been sent. Tell this generation the truth, and pass along. Do not contend or argue much but pass along peaceably and preach the first principles of the Gospel. 8:56.

If you should have visits here from those professing to be Christians, and they intimate a desire to preach to you, by all means invite them to do so. Accord to every reputable person who may visit you, and who may wish to occupy the stands of your meeting houses to preach to you, the privilege of doing so, no matter whether he be a Catholic, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Baptist, Free-will Baptist, Methodist, or whatever he may be; and if he wishes to speak to your children let him do so. Of course you have the power to correct whatever false teachings or impressions, if any, your children may hear or receive. 14:195.

When men enjoy the spirit of their missions and realize their calling and standing before the Lord and the people, it constitutes the happiest portions of their lives. 8:53.

Some inquire, "Why cannot we serve God in other countries as well as here?" You can just as well in England, in France, in Germany, in Italy, on the islands of the sea, in the United States, in California, or anywhere else, as you can here. 2:253.

The Returned Missionary--Come home with your heads up. Keep yourselves clean, from the crowns of your heads to the soles of your feet; be pure in heart,--otherwise you will return bowed down in spirit and with a fallen countenance, {504} and will feel as though you never could rise again. 2:253.

I wish to make this request: that the Elders who return from missions consider themselves just as much on a mission here as in England or in any other part of the world. 14:220.

We frequently call the brethren to go on missions to preach the Gospel, and they will go and labor as faithfully as men can do, fervent in spirit, in prayer, in laying on hands, in preaching to and teaching the people how to be saved. In a few years they come home, and throwing off their coats and hats, they will say, "Religion, stand aside, I am going to work now to get something for myself and my family." This is folly in the extreme. When a man returns from a mission where he has been preaching the Gospel he ought to be just as ready to come to this pulpit to preach as if he were in England, France, Germany, or on the islands of the sea. And when he has been at home a week, a month, a year, or ten years, the spirit of preaching and the spirit of the Gospel ought to be within him like a river flowing forth to the people in good words, teachings, precepts, and examples. If this is not the case he does not fill his mission. 14:100.

Do not come from your missions leaving behind you people whom you have oppressed, from whom you have begged their money. I would work my way there and back again, or beg from strangers, before I would take one dime from the Saints, unless they of their own free will and accord wished to make me presents, and were able to do so without distressing themselves. True, I have seen the time, and so have many of my brethren, when my heart has ached to see men and women go without food day after {505} day for the sake of feeding me, when I could feed myself; but any other course would not satisfy them. Under such circumstances you must humor the people and yield to their feelings. 8:55.

Those faithful Elders who have testified of this work to thousands of people on the continents and islands of the seas will see the fruits of their labors, whether they have said five words or thousands. They may not see these fruits immediately, and perhaps, in many cases, not until the Millennium; but the savor of their testimony will pass down from father to son. 8:142.

The Gospel is Preached With Authority--When a man who is called and ordained of God goes forth he preaches the ordinances, faith in Christ and obedience to him as our Savior. He declares that the first step to be taken, after believing in the Father and the Son, is to go down into the waters of baptism and there be immersed in the water, and come up out of the water as Jesus did. Some may inquire why the Latter-day Saints are so strenuous on this point? We do it for the remission of sins; Jesus did this to fulfil all righteousness. 14:96.

Perhaps some may say that I have too much faith in the prophecies of God, in the latter-day work, and in the administration of individuals that now live and have lived on the earth in our day. Be it so, no matter to me. I am here to testify in the name of the God of Israel that for many years past there have been men traveling through the length and breadth of the earth who possess the same power and authority as that with which Jesus endowed his Apostles when he told them to go into all the world and "preach the Gospel to every creature, and he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be {506} damned, and these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out devils, heal the sick, speak with new tongues," etc. 14:131.

The Spirit, Not Logic or Debate, Makes Converts--Let one go forth who is careful to prove logically all he says by numerous quotations from the revelations, and let another travel with him who can say, by the power of the Holy Ghost, Thus saith the Lord, and tell what the people should believe--what they should do--how they should live, and teach them to yield to the principles of salvation,--though he may not be capable of producing a single logical argument, though he may tremble under a sense of his weakness, cleaving to the Lord for strength, as such men generally do, you will invariably find that the man who testifies by the power of the Holy Ghost will convince and gather many more of the honest and upright than will the merely logical reasoner. 8:53.

However good and useful a classical education may be in the possession of a good and wise man, yet it is not essentially necessary for him to have it, to tell the simple truth which is given to mankind by the revelations of God, because it can be told by the simple and the unlearned. 11:215.

Debate and argument have not that saving effect that has testifying to the truth as the Lord reveals it to the Elder by the Spirit. I think you will all agree with me in this; at least, such is my experience. I do not wish to be understood as throwing a straw in the way of the Elders storing their minds with all the arguments they can gather to urge in defense of their religion, nor do I wish to hinder them in the least from learning all they can with regard {507} to religions and governments. The more knowledge the Elders have the better. 8:53.

I had only traveled a short time to testify to the people, before I learned this one fact, that you might prove doctrine from the Bible till doomsday, and it would merely convince a people, but would not convert them. You might read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and prove every iota that you advance, and that alone would have no converting influence upon the people. Nothing short of a testimony by the power of the Holy Ghost would bring light and knowledge to them--bring them in their hearts to repentance. Nothing short of that would ever do. You have frequently heard me say that I would rather hear an Elder, either here or in the world, speak only five words accompanied by the power of God, and they would do more good than to hear long sermons without the Spirit. That is true, and we know it. 5:327.

When a false theory has to be maintained, it requires to be set forth with much care; it requires study, and learning, and cunning sophistry to gild over a falsehood and give it the semblance of truth, and make it plausible and congenial to the feelings of the people; but the most simple and unlearned person can tell you the truth. A child can tell you the truth, in child-like language, while falsehood requires the lawyer and the priest to tell it to make it at all plausible; it requires a scholastic education to make falsehood pass for truth. 11:214.

The servants of God have truth, and nothing but truth, to present to the world, that the world may be sanctified by the truth. The truth needeth no polish to make it lovely and desirable to those who love it. 11:234.

They must eventually either acknowledge that he is the {508} Son of God and that his Gospel is the only Gospel, or they must take infidelity. Sooner or later the sects, one after another, will deny the Savior and every one of the ordinances of his Gospel, until they are all enveloped in infidelity, or they must accept the whole. Strange as it may appear, they are now following shadows, phantoms of the brain, and mischievous manifestations. 14:74.

What should the wicked hear? They should hear a man testify that Joseph Smith was and is a Prophet of God, that he was a good man, and that he did plant and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth, and we know it. "How shall I know?" says one. By obeying the commandments given to you. The Lord has said, go into the waters of baptism and be baptized for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive a witness that I am telling you the truth. How? By baptism and the laying on of hands alone? No. By seeing the sick healed? No, but by the Spirit that shall come unto you through obedience, which will make you feel like little children, and cause you to delight in doing good, to love your Father in Heaven and the society of the righteous. Have you malice and wrath then? No, it is taken from you, and you feel like the child in its mother's lap. You will feel kind to your children, to your brothers and sisters, to your parents and neighbors, and to all around you; you will feel a glow, as of fire, burning within you; and if you open your mouths to talk you will declare ideas which you did not formerly think of; they will flow into your mind, even such as you have not thought of for years. The Scriptures will be opened to you, and you will see how clear and reasonable everything is which this or that Elder teaches you. Your hearts will be comforted, you can lie down and sleep in peace, and {509} wake up with feelings as pleasant as the breezes of summer. This is witness to you. 3:211.

The Latter-day Saints realize that there is no period of man's existence not incorporated with the plan of salvation, and directly pointing to a future existence. Consequently, when we stand here to speak to the people, let every man speak what is in his heart. If one of our Elders is capable of giving us a lecture upon any of the sciences, let it be delivered in the spirit of meekness--in the spirit of the holy Gospel. If, on the Sabbath day, when we are assembled here to worship the Lord, one of the Elders should be prompted to give us a lecture on any branch of education with which he is acquainted, is it outside the pale of our religion? I think not. If any of the Elders are disposed to give a lecture to parents and children on letters, on the rudiments of the English language, it is in my religion, it is a part of my faith. Or if an Elder shall give us a lecture upon astronomy, chemistry, or geology, our religion embraces it all. It matters not what the subject be, if it tends to improve the mind, exalt the feelings, and enlarge the capacity. The truth that is in all the arts and sciences forms a part of our religion. Faith is no more a part of it than any other true principle of philosophy. Were I to give you a lecture today upon farming, would I be speaking upon a matter that transcends the bounds of our religion? Agriculture is a part of it as well as any other truth. Were I to lecture on business principles of any kind, our religion embraces it; and what it does not circumscribe, it would be well for us to dispense with at once and forever. 1:334.

Humility and Devotion, the Essentials--The Kingdom of our God, that is set upon the earth, does not require men {510} of many words and flaming oratorical talents, to establish truth and righteousness. It is not the many words that accomplish the designs of our Father in Heaven, with him it is the acts of the people more than their words; this I was convinced of before I embraced the Gospel. Had it not been that I clearly saw and understood that the Lord Almighty would take the weak things of this world to confound the mighty, the wise, and the talented, there was nothing that could have induced me, or persuaded me, to have ever become a public speaker. 4:20.

On the other hand, I do not wish any of the brethren to be discouraged, for if you feel that you cannot say a single word, no matter, if you will only be faithful to your God and to your religion, and be humble, and cleave unto righteousness, and forsake iniquity and sin, the Lord will guide you and give you words in due season. 2:268.

I have known some of the Elders when they thought they would be called out to preach, keep away from meeting lest they should be called upon, for they feel their littleness, their nothingness, their inability to rise up and preach to the people. They do not feel that they are anybody, and why should they expose their weaknesses? I have noticed one thing in regard to this--quite as many of these men become giants in the cause of truth, as there are of any other class; for when they get away they begin to lean on the Lord, and to seek unto him, and feeling their weaknesses, they ask him to give them wisdom to speak to the people as occasion may require. Others can rise up here and preach a flaming discourse, insomuch that you would think they were going to tear down the nations; but when they go out into the world they often accomplish but little. 2:267. {511}

Preach Only That Which is Known--With regard to doctrinal points, that which we do not understand should not be talked about in, this stand; and the Elders of Israel should never contend about any point of doctrine that does not pertain to the present day's salvation. 7:47.

I will give a caution to my brethren, the Elders--never undertake to teach a thing that you do not understand. Such things will come into your minds; but without launching out on such subjects, questions may be asked and answered, and we gain knowledge from each other. There is plenty within the scope of our own brains that, by the assistance of the Spirit of the Lord, will enable us to tell many things--more than the world, or even more than the Saints can receive. 13:263.

If you do not understand a doctrine or a portion of Scripture, when information is asked of you, say that the Lord has not revealed that to you, or that he has not opened your understanding to grasp it, and that you do not feel safe in giving an interpretation until he does. 8:56.

Hints for Preachers--Short sermons fitly spoken, are better than long ones ill spoken. 3:249.

The spirit of truth will do more to bring persons to light and knowledge, than flowery words. 4:21.

I wish to see the Elders get up here and manifest their spirits, and speak as they feel when they are alone in their meditations. 3:237.

I care little for a man's language, if his spirit proves to me that he has the love of God within him. 9:290.

The preacher needs the power of the Holy Ghost to deal out to each heart a word in due season, and the hearers need the Holy Ghost to bring forth the fruits of the preached word of God to his glory. 8:167. {512}

No man ever preached a Gospel sermon, except by the gift and power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Without this power, there is no light in the preaching. 8:138.

Elders in this Church--men who have been members for years,--often speak of principles in the abstract, when they would be better understood if they spoke of them in connection with other kindred principles. 8:259.

Perfection in conveying ideas is not yet given to the children of men. Our language is altogether inadequate for always conveying our ideas with unmistakable precision, and the same ideas are generally advanced in different words by different persons. 8:259.

When a person opens his mouth, no matter what he talks about, to a person of quick discernment he will disclose more or less of his true sentiments. You cannot hide the heart, when the mouth is open. If you want to keep your heart secret, keep your mouth shut. 6:74.

There are two thousand persons in this assembly, and if only half a dozen of them have done wrong, I could not chastise them without appearing to chastise the whole congregation, which in reality is not so. By chastising the guilty, however, it is impossible to spot the conscience of good men and women, whose hearts are clean and pure as a piece of white paper. 1:92.

We can form some kind of an idea how a man feels by looking at him, but if you wish a man to portray himself faithfully you must get him to talk, and I will insure that the organs of speech will show out the true state of the mind, sooner or later, and reveal the fruit of his heart. No man can hide it if he is allowed to talk; he will be sure to manifest his true feelings. 3:237. {513}

If you wish to impress on the minds of individuals or an audience anything that you desire them to remember, you will have to use language accordingly. 14:193.

When we hear a man that can speak of heavenly things, and present them to the people in a way that they can be understood, you may know that to that man the avenue is open, and he, by some power, has communication with heavenly beings; and when the highest intelligence is exhibited, he, perhaps, has communication with the highest intelligence that exists. 8:206.

I do not like to hear men make excuses, although it is natural, and I put up with it. I wish they could see and understand that they have had advantages above many of their brethren--that they have been greatly blessed, and should never complain, but should stand up here and exercise themselves according to the best of their ability, and do all the good possible for them to do. 5:97.

The truth is easily understood, and as easily told. The agriculturist and the mechanic can tell the truth, and become efficient ministers of it, by living faithfully in accordance with what they know of the Gospel; for in this way they obtain the Holy Ghost, which giveth utterance. 11:214.

When people are hungry they need substantial food; when they are thirsty they need substantial drink. Moses' smiting the rock would not have benefited the people in the least, if water had not gushed out. It is the duty of the true minister of Christ to instruct the people of God how to get their food today, and to teach them by precept and example how to become an independent nation. 11:133.

It is my business to teach mankind how to live, how to honor their present existence, how to treat their bodies so as to live to a good old age on the earth, and have power {514} to do good and not evil all their days, and be ready to enter into the rest prepared for the Saints. 10:27.

It yields solid satisfaction to hear men testify of the truth of the Gospel. It is always peculiarly interesting to me to hear the Saints tell their experience. It is to me one of the best of sermons to hear men and women relate to each other how the Lord has wrought upon their understanding and brought them into the path of truth, life, and salvation. I would rather hear men tell their own experience, and testify that Joseph was a Prophet of the Lord, and that the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and other revelations of God, are true; that they know it by the gift and power of God; that they have conversed with angels, have had the power of the Holy Ghost upon them, giving them visions and revelations, than hear any kind of preaching that ever saluted my ears. 1:89.

A man who wishes to receive light and knowledge, to increase in the faith of the Holy Gospel, and to grow in the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, will find that when he imparts knowledge to others he will also grow and increase. Be not miserly in your feelings, but get knowledge and understanding by freely imparting it to others, and be not like a man who selfishly hoards his gold; for that man will not thus increase upon the amount, but will become contracted in his views and feelings. So the man who will not impart freely of the knowledge he has received, will become so contracted in his mind that he cannot receive truth when it is presented to him. Wherever you see an opportunity to do good, do it, for that is the way to increase and grow in the knowledge of the truth. 2:267.

If a congregation wish to be instructed so as to understand alike and alike receive an increase of wisdom and {515} knowledge, their minds must be intent on the subject before them. They must not suffer their thoughts to be roaming over the earth; they must not permit their minds to be scanning and traversing their every-day duties and avocations. 6:93-4.

Elders of Israel and Bishops, be fathers, and take a course by which you will win the affections of the people. How? With your silken lips? No, no; but with the fear of the Almighty. Do you know that men and women of God love truth? They do not love sophistry, it is an abomination to them. 4:283.

A few words now, with regard to preaching. The greatest and loudest sermon that can be preached, or that ever was preached on the face of the earth, is practice. No other is equal to it. 12:271-2.

If you will reflect upon what class of speakers have most edified you, no matter whether they are taught or untaught in, the learning of the schools, you will readily discover that it has been those whose minds were stored with good ideas, and who spoke so that you could readily and easily understand them, whether their language was couched in the most approved style or not. When you hear individuals speak whose minds are stored with rich ideas, do they not benefit you the most? I care but little about your language, hand out the ideas, and let us know what you have stored in your minds. 3:243-4.

I have the same diffidence in my feelings that most public speakers have, and am apt to think that others can speak better and more edifying than I can. There are but few public speakers but what feel more or less timidity. That is probably not so much a man-fearing spirit as it is a natural delicacy or timidity. All of you have doubtless to {516} some extent realized the same feeling, either in large or small assemblies, and also in social conversation. People generally are more or less disturbed and thrown off their balance by the sound of their own voices, especially when speaking to an audience, even after being much used to addressing assemblies. Some of our most eloquent and interesting speakers would rather do almost anything than speak to the congregations that assemble here. That diffidence or timidity we must dispense with. When it becomes our duty to talk, we ought to be willing to talk. If we never exhibit the knowledge within us, the people will not know really whether we have any. 6:93.

If an Elder in preaching the Gospel, does not feel that he has the power to preach life and salvation, and legally to administer the ordinances, and that, too, by the power of God, he will not fill his mission to his own credit, nor to the good of the people, and the advancement and honor of the Kingdom of God. From all I can read, from all I can gather, from the revelations from God to man, and from the revelations of the Spirit to me, no man can successfully preach the Gospel and be owned, blessed, and acknowledged by the heavens, unless he preaches by the power of God through direct revelation. Not but that, in a great many instances, a man may not be manifestly under the immediate and powerful influences and direction of revelation to dictate him all the time in his meditations and reasonings, and yet can advance many good ideas that he has gathered by means of his natural reasoning. But to magnify and make honorable the calling of an Elder in this Church, I cannot conceive, in my understanding, any other true principle by which it can be done, only when perfectly controlled by the Spirit of the Lord. 8:52-53. {517}

When a "Mormon" Elder offers evidence of this great work to unbelievers, they tell him that he is a party concerned, and his evidence cannot be taken with regard to Joseph Smith's mission. I ask the Christian world, Where are your witnesses that Jesus is the Christ? Who are those who testified of his mission, and how many are there? Eight persons testified of him, and their testimony is recorded, and they were his disciples and parties concerned; yet at this day all the Christian world is ready to receive their testimony. I testify that this work of God in which we are engaged has been commenced to gather the House of Israel and establish Zion in the last days, and has more outward and weighty evidence to prove that it is of God than there was in the days of Jesus to prove that he was the Christ. When the Book of Mormon came forth it was testified to by twelve witnesses, and who can dispute their testimony? No living person on the earth can do it; and besides the testimony of these twelve witnesses, hundreds and thousands have received a witness to themselves from the heavens, and who can dispute their testimony? No living person on the earth can do it. This infidel world inquires, "Where do you get your testimony?" We answer, we get it from the heavens. Were we to ask them where they get the knowledge they possess, they reply, "We do not know; it came to us; we know not its source." We have testimony that the Bible is true, that the prophecies contained in it are true, that Jesus is the Son of God, and came to redeem the world. Have the so-called Christian world this kind of testimony? They have not. All the testimony they can boast of is the testimony of eight men who lived nearly two thousand years ago. The infidel world cannot {518} receive their testimony, because they were parties concerned. 12:208.

Brother Whiting says that he is a man of but few words. I am satisfied that there is greater wisdom with many who say but little, than there is with those who talk so much; as for the multitude of words, they are but of little consequence, the ideas are by far the greatest importance. 4:20. {519}

Chapter XXIX

VISIONS, MYSTERIES AND MIRACLES

Visions of a Personal Nature--I ask, Is there a reason for men and women being exposed more constantly and more powerfully, to the power of the enemy, by having visions than by not having them? There is and it is simply this--God never bestows upon his people, or upon an individual, superior blessings without a severe trial to prove them, to prove that individual, or that people, to see whether they will keep their covenants with him, and keep in remembrance what he has shown them. Then the greater the vision, the greater the display of the power of the enemy.

So when individuals are blessed with visions, revelations, and great manifestations, look out, then the Devil is nigh you, and you will be tempted in proportion to the visions, revelation, or manifestation you have received. 3:205-206.

If the Lord Almighty should reveal to a High Priest, or to any other than the head, things that are true, or that have been and will be, and show to him the destiny of this people twenty-five years from now, or a new doctrine that will in five, ten, or twenty years hence become the doctrine of this Church and Kingdom, but which has not yet been revealed to this people, and reveal it to him by the same Spirit, the same messenger, the same voice, the same power that gave revelations to Joseph when he was living, it would be a blessing to that High Priest, or individual; but he must rarely divulge it to a second person on the face of the earth, until God reveals it through the proper source to become {520} the property of the people at large. Therefore when you hear Elders say that God does not reveal through the President of the Church that which they know, and tell wonderful things, you may generally set it down as a God's truth that the revelation they have had is from the Devil, and not from God. If they had received from the proper source, the same power that revealed to them would have shown them that they must keep the things revealed in their own bosoms, and they seldom would have a desire to disclose them to the second person. 3:318.

Leave Mysteries Alone--Now, brethren, preach the things that we verily believe, and when we come to points of doctrine that we do not know, even if we have good reason to believe them, if our philosophy teaches us they are true, pass them by and teach only to the people that which we do know. 13:265.

What is a mystery? We do not know, it is beyond our comprehension. When we talk about mystery, we talk about eternal obscurity; for that which is known, ceases to be a mystery; and all that is known, we may know as we progress in the scale of our intelligence. That which is eternally beyond the comprehension of all our intelligence is mystery. 1:274.

These are the mysteries of the Kingdom of God upon the earth, to know how to purify and sanctify our affections, the earth upon which we stand, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the houses in which we dwell and the cities which we build, that when strangers come into our country they may feel a hallowed influence and acknowledge a power to which they are strangers. 10:176.

Jesus said to his disciples, to them it was given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them that {521} were without, it was not given. If we were to examine the subject closely, we should learn that a very scanty portion of the things of the Kingdom were ever revealed, even to the disciples. If we were prepared to gaze upon the mysteries of the Kingdom, as they are with God, we should then know that only a very small portion of them has been handed out here and there. God, by his Spirit, has revealed many things to his people, but, in almost all cases, he has straightway shut up the vision of the mind. He will let his servants gaze upon eternal things for a moment, but straightway the vision is closed, and they are left as they were, that they may learn to act by faith, or as the Apostle has it, not walking by sight, but by faith. 1:264.

You may now be inclined to say, "We wish to hear the mysteries of the kingdoms of the Gods who have existed from eternity, and of all the kingdoms in which they will dwell; we desire to have these things portrayed to our understandings."

Allow me to inform you that you are in the midst of it all now, that you are in just as good a kingdom as you will ever attain to, from now to all eternity, unless you make it yourselves by the grace of God, by the will of God, which is a code of laws perfectly calculated to govern and control eternal matter. 3:336.

If they will only live up to it, there has already been enough taught the brethren who have lived here for years to prepare them to enter into the strait gate and into the New Jerusalem, and be prepared to enjoy the society of the holy angels. 8:177.

Providences of God, All Miracles--The providences of God are all a miracle to the human family until they understand them. There are no miracles, only to those who are {522} ignorant. A miracle is supposed to be a result without a cause, but there is no such thing. There is a cause for every result we see; and if we see a result without understanding the cause we call it a miracle. 14:79.

The Gospel plan is so devised, that a miracle to make people believe would only be a condemnation to them. When you hear people tell what they have seen--that they have seen great and powerful miracles wrought, and they could not help believing, remember that "devils believe and tremble," because they cannot help it. When the voice of the Good Shepherd is heard, the honest in heart believe and receive it. It is good to taste with the inward taste, to see with the inward eyes, and to enjoy with the sensations of the ever-living spirit. No person, unless he is an adulterer, a fornicator, covetous, or an idolator, will ever require a miracle; in other words, no good, honest person ever will. 8:42.

You have gathered the idea from me that it is not the miracles that are performed before a person's eyes that convince him that one is of God, or of the Devil; yet, if the Lord designs that a person should heal the sick, the individual can do so; but is that to convince the wicked that the operator is sent of God? No, it is a blessing on the Saints, and the wicked have nothing to-do with it, they have no business to hear of it; that is for the Saints, it is especially for their benefit, and theirs alone. 3:211.

This, in my own mind, is argued out perfectly, upon natural principles. It is natural for me to believe that, if I plough the ground and sow wheat, in the proper season I shall reap a crop of wheat; this is the natural result. It was precisely so with the miracles that Jesus wrought upon the earth? At the wedding in Cana of Galilee, when they {523} had drunk all the wine, they went to the Savior and asked him what they should do. He ordered them to fill up their pots with water, and after having done so they drew forth of that water and found that it was wine. I believe that was real wine; I do not believe that it was done on the principle that such things are done in these days by wicked men, who, by means of what they term psychology, electrobiology, mesmerism, etc., influence men and make them believe that water is wine, and other things of a similar character. The Savior converted the water into wine. He knew how to call the necessary elements together in order to fill the water with the properties of wine. The elements are all around us; we eat, drink and breathe them, and Jesus, understanding the process of calling them together, performed no miracle except to those who were ignorant of that process. It was the same with the woman who was healed by touching the hem of his garment; she was healed by faith, but it was no miracle to Jesus. He understood the process, and although he was pressed by the crowd, behind and before, and on each side, so that he could scarcely make his way through it, the moment she touched him he felt virtue leave him and enquired who touched him. This was no miracle to him. He had the issues of life and death in his power; he had power to lay down his life and power to take it up again. This is what he says, and we must believe this if we believe the history of the Savior and the sayings of the Apostles recorded in the New Testament. Jesus had this power in and of himself; the Father bequeathed it to him; it was his legacy, and he had the power to lay down his life and take it again. He had the streams and issues of life within him and when he said "Live" to individuals, they lived. The diseases that are {524} and ever have been prevalent among the human family are from beneath, and are entailed upon them through the fall--through the disobedience of our first parents; but Jesus, having the issues of life at his command, could counteract those diseases at his pleasure. The case of the Centurion's servant is a striking instance of this. The Centurion sent and besought Jesus to heal his servant. "Say in a word," said he, "and my servant shall be healed." Jesus, seeing the man's earnestness and solicitude, said, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." And it is said that they who were sent, returned to the Centurion's house and found the servant healed. Jesus counteracted the disease preying upon the system of this man, but to himself, knowing the principle by which the disease was rebuked, it was no miracle. 13:140-141.

As quick as I admit that the history Moses gives of himself is true, I cannot have any question in the world but what in ancient days they understood in a measure how to command the elements. The magicians of Egypt were instructed in things pertaining to true riches, and had obtained keys and powers enough to produce a bogus in opposition to the true coin, as it were, and thus they deceived the king and the people. They could cause frogs to come upon the land, as well as Moses could. They could turn the waters of Egypt into blood, and in many more things compete with Moses. There was one thing, however, they could not do, though they produced a very good bogus, but it was not quite the true coin. When they threw their staffs on the floor before the king, these could not swallow the staff of Moses, but the staff of Moses swallowed the staffs of the magicians. I have no {525} doubt that men can perform many such wonders by the principles of natural philosophy. 1:270.

Miracles for Believers--Miracles, or these extraordinary manifestations of the power of God, are not for the unbeliever; they are to console the Saints, and to strengthen and confirm the faith of those who love, fear, and serve God, and not for outsiders. 12:97.

"Why do not the people speak with tongues?" We do, and we speak with tongues that you can understand, and Paul says he would rather speak five or ten words in a language that can be understood, than many in a language that cannot be. This is what may be conveyed. 15:133.

Faith Not Dependent on Miracles--I do not want to see a miracle to confirm the truth of any doctrine or saying that is revealed to me. If I can see that it is calculated to purify the hearts of the people and to sanctify their affections, and to reconcile them to God and to his law and government, it satisfies me; and so far as this goes, I might say that I am like the Christian world, in the belief that miracles are no longer needed. But I believe that miracles are as absolutely necessary now as they ever were. 13:140.

Take the case of the Children of Israel and the miracles that were wrought in their deliverance from the land of Egypt. The question arises, was it through their faith, or because of the promises which God had made to their fathers? * * * It was not because of the righteousness of the Children of Israel, but because of the promises of the Lord to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for he must fulfil the promises made to his servants. He wanted at one time to destroy the whole people, and told Moses to let him alone that he might destroy them because of their wickedness {526} and rebellion, and he would make of him (Moses) a great nation; but Moses pleaded in their behalf, and called upon the Lord to remember his promises, and they were preserved. 12:242-243.

Do you suppose that Jesus Christ healed every person that was sick, or that all the devils were cast out in the country where he sojourned? I do not. Working miracles, healing the sick, raising the dead, and the like, were almost as rare in his day as in this our day. Once in a while the people would have faith in his power, and what is called a miracle would be performed, but the sick, the blind, the deaf and dumb, the crazy, and those possessed with different kinds of devils were around him, and only now and then could his faith have power to take effect, on account of the want of faith in the individuals. 3:45-46.

If we have faith to feel that the issues of life and death are in our power, we can say to disease, "Be ye rebuked in the name of Jesus, and let life and health come into the system of this individual, from God, to counteract this disease;" and our faith will bring this by the laying on of hands by administering the ordinance of the holy Gospel. 13:141.

Men who have professedly seen the most, known and understood the most, in this Church, and who have testified in the presence of large congregations, in the name of Israel's God, that they have seen Jesus, etc., have been the very men who have left this Kingdom, before others who had to live by faith. 3:205.

You will recollect that I have often told you that miracles would not save a person, and I say that they never should. If I were to see a man come in here this day, and say, "I am the great one whom the Lord has sent," {527} and cause fire to come down in our sight, through the ceiling that is over our heads, I would not believe any more for that. It is no matter what he does, I cannot believe any more on that account. What will make me believe? What made the twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ witnesses? What constituted them Apostles--special witnesses to the world? Was it seeing miracles? No. What was it? The visions of their minds were opened, and it was necessary that a few should receive light, knowledge, and intelligence, that all the powers of earth and hell could not gainsay or compete with. That witness was within them, and yet, after all that was done for them, after all that Jesus showed them, and after all the power of the spirit of revelation which they possessed, you find that one of them apostatized, turned away and sold his Lord and Master for thirty pieces of silver, in consequence of his not being firm to his covenant in the hour of darkness and temptation. Another of them was ready to say, "I do not know anything about the Lord Jesus Christ," and denied him.

Some are apt now to say, "I don't know anything about this Mormonism, I don't know about the Priesthood." Did you not once know? "I thought I did, but now I find myself deceived." What is the reason? Because they give way to temptation; they may have had great light, knowledge, and understanding, the visions of their minds may have been opened and eternity exhibited to their view, but when this is closed up, in proportion to the light given to them, so is the darkness that comes upon them to try them. 3:206-207.

A sister who receives the gift of tongues is not thereby empowered to dictate her president, or the Church. All gifts and endowments given of the Lord to members of his {528} Church are not given to control the Church; but they are under the control and guidance of the Priesthood, and are judged by it. Some have erred upon this point, and have been led captive by the Devil. 11:136.

If you say that you want mysteries, commandments, and revelations, I reply that scarcely a Sabbath passes over your heads, those of you who come here, without your having the revelations of Jesus Christ poured upon you like water on the ground. 3:336-337.

Some are very anxious that I should have visions. I have all that the Lord gives to me; and all that he keeps back he may; for that is no concern of mine. We are on the old ship Zion; and if God is not at the helm, the old ship will wreck and go to the Devil. As for my taking charge of the Kingdom of God on the earth, exclusively and independently of direction from heaven, I shall not do any such thing. If the Lord does not direct the old ship and act as captain and pilot, it will go to destruction.

He is at the helm, and will stay there. If you and I will bring our feelings to the point I have just spoken of, he will continue to guide the welfare of Zion and all its rights. 5.352. {529}

Chapter XXX

TRIALS AND PERSECUTION

Trials are Necessary--We are now in a day of trial to prove ourselves worthy or unworthy of the life which is to come. 12:167.

If we have correct doctrines, and will fashion our lives to them, we may sanctify ourselves without being chastened. 12:310.

The people of the Most High God must be tried. It is written that they will be tried in all things, even as Abraham was tried. If we are called to go upon mount Moriah to sacrifice a few of our Isaacs, it is no matter; we may just as well do that as anything else. I think there is a prospect for the Saints to have all the trials they wish for, or can desire. 4:369.

All intelligent beings who are crowned with crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives must pass through every ordeal appointed for intelligent beings to pass through, to gain their glory and exaltation. Every calamity that can come upon mortal beings will be suffered to come upon the few, to prepare them to enjoy the presence of the Lord. If we obtain the glory that Abraham obtained, we must do so by the same means that he did. If we are ever prepared to enjoy the society of Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or of their faithful children, and of the faithful Prophets and Apostles, we must pass through the same experience, and gain the knowledge, intelligence, and endowments that will prepare us to enter into the celestial kingdom of our Father and God. How many of the Latter-day Saints will endure all these {530} things, and be prepared to enjoy the presence of the Father and the Son? You can answer that question at your leisure. Every trial and experience you have passed through is necessary for your salvation. 8:150.

Should our lives be extended to a thousand years, still we may live and learn. Every vicissitude we pass through is necessary for experience and example, and for preparation to enjoy that reward which is for the faithful. 9:292.

If Adam had not sinned, and if his posterity had continued upon the earth, they could not have known sin, or the bitter from the sweet, neither would they have known righteousness, for the plain and simple reason that every effect can only be fully manifested by its opposite. If the Saints could realize things as they are when they are called to pass through trials, and to suffer what they call sacrifices, they would acknowledge them to be the greatest blessings that could be bestowed upon them. But put them in possession of true principles and true enjoyments, without the opposite, and they could not know enjoyment, they could not realize happiness. They could not tell light from darkness, because they have no knowledge of darkness and consequently are destitute of a realizing sense of light. If they should not taste the bitter, how could they realize the sweet? They could not. 2:301-302.

You will learn this in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and in the revelations given through Joseph. We must know and understand the opposition that is in all things, in order to discern, choose, and receive that which we do know will exalt us to the presence of God. You cannot know the one without knowing the other. This is a true principle. 4:373.

Now if you possess the light of the Holy Spirit, you {531} can see clearly that trials in the flesh are actually necessary. 2:8.

Purpose of Persecution--Let any people enjoy peace and quiet, unmolested, undisturbed,--never be persecuted for their religion, and they are very likely to neglect their duty, to become cold and indifferent, and lose their faith. 7:42.

He led this people in different parts of the United States, and the finger of scorn has been pointed at them. Officers of the Government of the United States have lifted their heel against them, and this people have been driven from town to town, from county to county, and from state to state. The Lord has his design in this. You may ask what his design is. You all know that the Saints must be made pure, to enter into the celestial kingdom. It is recorded that Jesus was made perfect through suffering. If he was made perfect through suffering, why should we imagine for one moment that we can be prepared to enter into the kingdom of rest with him and the Father, without passing through similar ordeals? 8:66.

We are infinitely more blessed by the persecutions and injustice we have suffered, than we could have been if we had remained in our habitations from which we have been driven--than if we had been suffered to occupy our farms, gardens, stores, mills, machinery and everything we had in our former possessions. 10:38.

Persecution May Be Expected--I wish to inform you, brethren and sisters, who have just arrived in these valleys, that all your trials hitherto are but trifling in comparison to the trials you will now be called to meet and pass through. 8:163.

War has been declared against the Saints over twenty-seven {532} years, and our enemies have only fallen back so as to gain strength and pretexts for making another attack. Will that spirit increase? If it does, and we love our religion, let me tell you that we will increase faster than our enemies will. 5:340.

Only be faithful, brethren and sisters, and I promise that you shall have all such privileges as shall be for your good. You need not be discouraged, or mourn, because you were not in Jackson County persecutions, or were not driven from Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, and stripped, robbed and plundered of all your property. Do not mourn and feel bad, because you were not in Nauvoo; have no fears, for if the word of the Lord is true, you shall yet be tried in all things; so rejoice, and pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks, even if it is in the spoiling of your goods, for it is the hand of God that leads us, and will continue so to do. Let every man and woman sanctify themselves before the Lord, and every providence of the Almighty shall be sanctified for good of them. 1:279.

The ancient Saints were, and the Saints of latter days have been, driven from pillar to post, their name a hiss and a by-word, and their character traduced to the lowest degree. I will appeal to men in this congregation, who have lived for years in the society of the world, who are judges, magistrates, sheriffs, merchants, mechanics, and farmers, if anything was ever alleged against their character until they joined the Latter-day Saints. But where are your characters now in the world? Your former friends now have found out that you always were miserable creatures, they now declare they never had any confidence in you, for you always were enthusiastic beings, and knew not what you were doing. They always believed you would prove yourselves {533} dishonest, etc. This has been the character given to the Saints by the world in all ages. 1:236.

[IMAGE: BRIGHAM YOUNG AS A YOUNG MAN]

[IMAGE: BRIGHAM YOUNG MATURED]

[IMAGE: THE HOME OF BRIGHAM YOUNG IN NAUVOO]

Meet Trials Cheerfully--We are the happiest people when we have what are called trials; for then the Spirit of God is more abundantly bestowed upon the faithful. If the Lord requires it, I would as soon consume all I have and go into the mountains with my family as to do a good many other things. 5:332.

I say to the Latter-day Saints, all we have to do is to learn of God. Let the liars lie on, and let the swearers swear on, and they will go to perdition. All we have to do is to go onward and upward, and keep the commandments of our Father and God; and he will confound our enemies. 19:50.

There is not a hardship, there is not a disappointment, there is not a trial, there is not a hard time, that comes upon this people in this place, but that I am more thankful for than I am for full granaries. 4:51.

We have passed through a great many scenes, we may say, of tribulation, though I would have all my brethren understand that I do not take this to myself, for all that I have passed through has been joy and joyful to me; but we have seemingly sacrificed a great deal, and passed through many scenes of trial and temptations, no doubt of this. We have had to suffer temptation more or less, and we have taken the spoiling of our goods joyfully. I have, myself, five times before I came to this valley, left everything that the Lord had blessed me with pertaining to this world's goods, which, for the country where I lived, was not a very little. 18:237.

As to trials, why bless your hearts, the man or woman who enjoys the spirit of our religion has no trials; but the {534} man or woman who tries to live according to the Gospel of the Son of God, and at the same time clings to the spirit of the world, has trials and sorrows acute and keen, and that, too, continually.

Cast off the yoke of the enemy, and put on the yoke of Christ, and you will say that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. This I know by experience. 16:123.

I have heard a great many tell about what they have suffered for Christ's sake. I am happy to say I never had occasion to. I have enjoyed a great deal, but so far as suffering goes I have compared it a great many times, in my feelings and before congregations, to a man wearing an old, worn-out, tattered and dirty coat, and somebody comes along and gives him one that is new, whole and beautiful. This is the comparison I draw when I think of what I have suffered for the Gospel's sake--I have thrown away an old coat and have put on a new one. No man or woman ever heard me tell about suffering. "Did you not leave a handsome property in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois?" Yes. "And have you not suffered through that?" No, I have been growing better and better all the time, and so have this people. And you may take the history of the world from the days of Adam down, and I am at the defiance of any historian to prove that the Saints have ever suffered as much as the sinners. This is my belief about the religion of Jesus Christ. Some may say, "Did not the children of Israel suffer?" Yes. "Why?" Because of their iniquity. They transgressed the laws God had given them; they changed the ordinances and broke the everlasting covenant, and for their sin and disobedience they were led into captivity. If they had been obedient, I reckon they would have been led direct to the Holy Land, and stayed there. {535} Some may say, "Now, Mr. Speaker, you have been driven from your home, was it for righteousness?" No, I expect not. I expect it was to chasten me and make me better. 13:147.

Cause of Persecution--Hatred and persecution have been the lot of every man that ever lived upon the earth holding the oracles of the Kingdom of Heaven to deliver to the children of men. Wicked men, Satan, and all the powers of hell and hate are at war with every holy principle that God wishes to place in the possession of his children. That is the true reason of the hatred and persecution meted out to us. 8:13.

Do you know that that very principle caused the death of all the Prophets, from the days of Adam until now? Let a Prophet arise upon the earth, and never reveal the evils of men, and do you suppose that the wicked would desire to kill him? No, for he would cease to be a Prophet of the Lord, and they would invite him to their feasts, and hail him as a friend and brother. Why? Because it would be impossible for him to be anything but one of them. It is impossible for a Prophet of Christ to live in an adulterous generation without speaking of the wickedness of the people, without revealing their faults and their failings, and there is nothing short of death that will stay him from it, for a Prophet of God will do as he pleases. 3:48.

The false religion that is in the world, is what raises this "hue and cry," misguides the people, and opposes itself against the Kingdom of God on the earth. Now if we would only fall in with the wicked all would be right, and then no person would wish to persecute us. 2:181.

Why should we have enemies? "Why is it," say our objectors, "that you cannot mingle and mix in society like {536} other religious denominations?" It has been seen that the people would not permit us to dwell in their midst in peace. We have been universally driven by illegal force, by mobs, murderers, and assassins, as unworthy of having a place amongst the abodes of civilized man, until, as a last resort, we found peace in these distant valleys. It is because our religion is the only true one. It is because we have the only true authority, upon the face of the whole earth, to administer in the ordinances of the Gospel. It is because the keys of this dispensation were committed by messengers sent from the Celestial world unto Joseph Smith, and are now held on the earth by this people. It is because Christ and Lucifer are enemies, and cannot be made friends; and Lucifer, knowing that we have this Priesthood, this power, this authority, seeks our overthrow. 2:177.

All hell is moved against this people, because we are of one heart and of one mind. 5:228.

It is light, intelligence, the power of God that make the wicked tremble and wish "Mormonism" out of the way. If it were a false doctrine or a false theory, the Devil would not endeavor to disturb it, wicked men would not fear it, Heaven would not smile upon it, nor give a revelation to any man or woman to believe it, and we should have poor success; and Heaven forbid that we should have success or gain influence upon any other principle than the revelations of Jesus Christ. 7:160.

We were not persecuted because we believed in having many wives, for that principle was not known to our persecutors until we came to these mountains, although the revelation was received by Joseph Smith and written a year before his death. 14:119.

We are Christians professedly, according to our religion. {537} People have gathered to themselves certain ideas, and laid them down as systems, calling them religion, all professing to believe and obey the Scriptures. Their religions are peculiar to themselves--our religion is peculiar to God, to angels, and to the righteous of time and eternity. Why are we persecuted because of our religion? Why was Joseph Smith persecuted? Why was he hunted from neighborhood to neighborhood, from city to city, from state to state, and at last suffered death? Because he received revelations from the Father, from the Son, and was ministered to by holy angels, and published to the world the direct will of the Lord concerning his children on the earth. Again, why was he persecuted? Because he revealed to all mankind a religion so plain and so easily understood, consistent with the Bible, and so true. It is now as it was in the days of the Savior; let people believe and practice these simple, God-like truths, and it will be as it was in the old world, they will say, if this man be let alone he will come and take away our peace and nation. 18:231.

Disobedience Causes Persecution--When we look at the Latter-day Saints, we ask, is there any necessity of their being persecuted? Yes, if they are disobedient. Is there any necessity of chastening a son or a daughter? Yes, if they are disobedient. But suppose they are perfectly obedient to every requirement of their parents, is there any necessity of chastening them then? If there is, I do not understand the principle of it. I have not yet been able to see the necessity of chastening an obedient child, neither have I been able to see the necessity of chastisement from the Lord upon a people who are perfectly obedient. Have this people been chastened? Yes, they have. 12:308.

We have been persecuted, driven, smitten, cast out, {538} robbed and hated; and I may say it was for our coldness and neglect of duty; and if we did not exactly deserve it, there have been times when we did deserve it. If we did not deserve it at the time, it was good for and gave us an experience, though I must say that one of the hardest lessons for me to learn on earth is to love a man who hates me and would put me to death if he had the power. I do not think I have got this lesson by heart, and I do not know how long I shall have to live to learn it. I am trying. 14:97.

Those who turn away from the holy commandments will meet trials that are trials indeed. They will feel the wrath of the Almighty upon them. Those who are still and are good children will receive the rich blessing of their Father and God. Be still, and let your faith rest on the Lord Almighty. 7:136.

Result of Persecution--Every time you kick "Mormonism" you kick it upstairs; you never kick it downstairs. The Lord Almighty so orders it. 7:145.

Can you destroy a true religion by persecuting it? No. 7:145.

Joseph could not have been perfected, though he had lived a thousand years, if he had received no persecution. If he had lived a thousand years, and led this people, and preached the Gospel without persecution, he would not have been perfected as well as he was at the age of thirty-nine years. You may calculate, when this people are called to go through scenes of affliction and suffering, are driven from their homes, and cast down, and scattered, and smitten, and peeled, the Almighty is rolling on his work with greater rapidity. 2:7.

Well, do you think that persecution has done us good? {539} Yes. I sit and laugh, and rejoice exceedingly when I see persecution. I care no more about it than I do about the whistling of the north wind, the croaking of the crane that flies over my head, or the crackling of the thorns under the pot. The Lord has all things in his hand; therefore let it come, for it will give me experience. 2:8.

Every time they persecute and try to overcome this people, they elevate us, weaken their own hands, and strengthen the hands and the arms of this people. And every time they undertake to lessen our number, they increase it. And when they try to destroy the faith and virtue of this people, the Lord strengthens the feeble knees, and confirms the wavering in faith and power in God, in light, and intelligence. Righteousness and power with God increase in this people in proportion as the Devil struggles to destroy it. 8:225-6.

If we did not have to bear the iron hand of persecution, the principles we believe in, which attract the attention of the good and the evil upon the earth and which occupy so many tongues and circumscribe their philosophy, would be embraced by thousands who are now indifferent to them. The evil-doer would crowd upon our borders; and we have plenty of them now without receiving any more. They would crowd into this Church. 18:359.

I say the same now. Let us alone, and we will send Elders to the uttermost parts of the earth, and gather out Israel, wherever they are; and if you persecute us, we will do it the quicker, because we are naturally dull when let alone, and are disposed to take a little sleep, a little slumber, and a little rest. If you let us alone, we will do it a little more leisurely; but if you persecute us, we will sit up nights to preach the Gospel. 2:320.

Moses was not to blame because Pharaoh's heart became {540} more and more hard. He was not to blame because an overwhelming destruction came upon that devoted army. Neither is God, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, myself, or the Apostles and Prophets of this last dispensation to blame for the unbelief of this nation, and for the dark and lowering tempest that now threatens to overthrow them with a terrible destruction. Still, as Pharaoh's heart became harder and harder, so will it be with the persecutors of God's people and purposes in the latter times, until they are utterly destroyed. 10:4.

Cannot Overtake Falsehood--We have been asked a good many times, "Why do you not publish the truth in regard to these lies which are circulated about you?" We might do this if we owned all the papers published in Christendom. Who will publish a letter from me or my brethren? Who will publish the truth from us? If it gets into one paper, it is slipped under the counter or somewhere else; but it never gets into a second. They will send forth lies concerning us very readily. The old adage is that a lie will creep through the keyhole and go a thousand miles while truth is getting out of doors; and our experience has proved this. We have not the influence and power necessary to refute the falsehoods circulated about us. We depend on God, who sits in the heavens. Our trust is in him who created the heavens, who formed the earth, and who has brought forth his children on the earth, and who has given the intelligence which they possess. 13:177.

If I now had in my possession one hundred million dollars in cash, I could buy the favor of the publishers of newspapers and control their presses; with that amount I could make this people popular, though I expect that popularity would send us to hell. 3:160. {541}

Danger of Persecuting the Saints--When men lift their hands against the Latter-day Saints, they lift them against the Almighty. 11:119.

He who lifts his heel against the Lord and against his anointed will find himself a poor, pusillanimous, weak instrument in the hands of the Devil to accomplish his designs. 8:33.

When men operate against this people, they may spend all they possess and all their ability, and it will pass away like an empty sound, and they will be forgotten. Such persons have always come to naught, and all who fight against the people of the Most High will continue to come to naught. 3:259.

Tell the world--sound it in the ears of kings and rulers, that they are persecuting a people to whose God they will have to pay every debt they contract; they will be brought into judgment for every act against this Kingdom. This is the Kingdom of God; these are the people of God, as are all who receive the truth and follow its principles. As to parentage, we are no more the children of God than are the rest of the inhabitants of the earth. Originally, as to our parents, as to our organization and that which pertains to our life, we are all the children of one Father, whether we be Jew or Gentile, bond or free, black or white, noble or ignoble. The difference we see arises in consequence of the different use made of the agency given to man. 8:194-5.

The sufferings that have come upon the Latter-day Saints, through persecution, will not compare in severity with the sufferings which have come upon the wicked in our own day. 11:274.

Persecution Comes From Efforts of Few--Now to tell the truth, there are but few, in comparison with the numbers {542} that now live, who are rabid against and seek to destroy the Kingdom of God. A great portion of the human family are honorable men and women, and they would just as soon that "Mormonism" should live as any other ism. The few who seek to destroy the Kingdom of God are priests, politicians, and office seekers, and they would care nothing about it, only they are afraid we will take away their place and station. 11:323. {543}

Chapter XXXI

POLITICAL GOVERNMENT

Theocratic Government--I believe in a true republican theocracy, and also in a true democratic theocracy, as the term democratic is now used; for they are to me, in their present use, convertible terms. 6:346.

What do I understand by a theocratic government? One in which all laws are enacted and executed in righteousness, and whose officers possess that power which proceedeth from the Almighty. That is the kind of government I allude to when I speak of a theocratic government, or the Kingdom of God upon the earth. It is, in short, the eternal powers of the Gods. 6:346-7.

If the Kingdom of God, or a theocratic government, was established on the earth, many practices now prevalent would be abolished.

One community would not be permitted to array itself in opposition to another to coerce them to their standard; one denomination would not be suffered to persecute another because they differed in religious belief and mode of worship. Every one would be fully protected in the enjoyment of all religious and social rights, and no state, no government, no community, no person would have the privilege of infringing on the rights of another; one Christian community would not rise up and persecute another. 6:343.

But few, if any, understand what a theocratic government is. In every sense of the word, it is a republican government, and differs but little in form from our National, State, and Territorial Governments; but its subjects will {544} recognize the will and dictation of the Almighty. The Kingdom of God circumscribes and comprehends the municipal laws for the people in their outward government, to which pertain the Gospel covenants, by which the people can be saved; and those covenants pertain to fellowship and faithfulness.

The Gospel covenants are for those who believe and obey; municipal laws are for both Saint and sinner.

The Constitution and laws of the United States resemble a theocracy more closely than any government now on the earth, or that ever has been so far as we know, except the government of the Children of Israel to the time when they elected a king.

All governments are more or less under the control of the Almighty, and, in their forms, have sprung from the laws that he has from time to time given to man. Those laws, in passing from generation to generation, have been more or less adulterated, and the result has been the various forms of government now in force among the nations; for, as the Prophet says of Israel, "They have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, and broken the everlasting covenant."

Whoever lives to see the Kingdom of God fully established upon the earth will see a government that will protect every person in his rights. If that government was now reigning upon this land of Joseph, you would see the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic, the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Quaker, the Shaker, the Hindoo, the Mahometan, and every class of worshipers most strictly protected in all their municipal rights and in the privileges of worshiping who, what, and when they pleased, not infringing upon the rights of others. {545} Does any candid person in his sound judgment desire any greater liberty? 6:342-343.

In the sincere observances of the principles of true religion and virtue, we recognize the base, the only sure foundation of enlightened society and well-established government. 2:178.

I have had some people ask me how I manage and control the people. I do it by telling them the truth and letting them do just as they have a mind to. 14:162.

Republican Government--There is no other platform that any government can stand upon and endure, but the platform of truth and virtue. 10:108.

How can a republican government stand? There is only one way for it to stand. It can endure; but how? It can endure, as the government of heaven endures, upon the eternal rock of truth and virtue; and that is the only basis upon which any government can endure. 9:4.

What is a true republican government is easily answered. It is a government or institution that is perfect--perfect in its laws and ordinances, having for its object the perfection of mankind in righteousness. This is true democracy. 7:10.

Individual self-government lies at the root of all true and effective government, whether in heaven or on earth. Those who govern should be wiser and better than the governed, that the lesser may be blessed of the greater. Were this so, then the people would willingly repose their dearest interests to the trusts of their rulers or leaders, and with a feeling of pleasure bow to and carry out to the letter their instructions and conclusions on all matters that pertained to the general good. This will apply to great kingdoms and mighty nations, to small companies of immigrants crossing the plains, or to the home circle. A republican government in the hands {546} of a wicked people must terminate in woe to that people, but in the hands of the righteous it is everlasting, while its power reaches to heaven. 10:19.

Suppose this people inhabiting these mountains are broken off entirely from the nations of the world, rendering no allegiance to any earthly power combined or isolated; free to make laws, to obey them, or to break them; free to act, to choose, and to refuse, and, in every sense of the word, to do as they please, without any fixed order of government whatever, and they make a constitution a system of government for mutual protection and advancement in the principles of right, to be framed according to the best wisdom that can be found in this community;--I say, let them govern themselves by a republican system of government, selecting a man from their midst to preside over them. 7:11.

A true system of civilization will not encourage the existence of every abomination and crime in a community but will lead them to observe the laws Heaven has laid down for the regulation of the life of man. There is no other civilization. A truly civilized person is one who is a real gentleman or lady; in language and manners he is truly refined, and gives way to no practice that is unhallowed or uncomely. This is what we are after, and trying to attain to. 12:287.

I believe in a true republican government; but where is the man capable of exhibiting in their true character the principles of such a government? 7:10.

The man who fights with coolness and calculation in moral and domestic reform will win every time. 10:205.

God and Governments--Every government not ordained of God, as we have just been hearing, will, in its time, crumble to the dust and be lost in the fog of forgetfulness. 14:93.

If your eyes were opened, you would see his hand in the {547} midst of the nations of the earth in the setting up of governments and in the down-fall of kingdoms--in the revolutions, wars, famine, distress, and wretchedness among the inhabitants of the earth. In these manifestations you would discern the footsteps of the Almighty just as plainly as you may see the footsteps of your children upon the soft earth. 7:144.

Why are they thus led to sow the seeds of their own destruction? Because the kingdoms of this world are not designed to stand. When men are placed at the head of government who are actually controlled by the power of God--by the Holy Ghost--they can lay plans, they can frame constitutions, they can form governments and laws that have not the seeds of death within them, and no other men can do it. 4:267.

In the laws of every government now on this earth, there are certain principles in their constitutions that will ere long sap the foundations of their existence; and so it will be, so long as men continue to persist in ruling and making laws, in regulating and controlling by human wisdom alone, and in issuing their mandates and sending their officers to administer laws, made by the wisdom of man. 4:267.

If a nation transgresses wholesome laws and oppresses any of its citizens or another nation, until the cup of its iniquity is full, through acts that are perfectly under its own control, God will hurl those who are in authority from their power, and they will be forgotten; and he will take another people, though poor and despised, a hiss and a by-word among the popular nations, and instill into them power and wisdom; and they will increase and prosper, until they in turn become a great nation on the earth. 6:146.

Great and mighty empires are raised to the summit of human greatness by him, to bring to pass his inscrutable purposes, {548} and at his pleasure they are swept from existence and lost in the oblivion of antiquity. All these mighty changes are pointing to and preparing the way for the introduction of his Kingdom in the latter times, that will stand forever and grow in greatness and power until a holy, lasting, religious and political peace shall make the hearts of the poor among men exult with joy in the Holy One of Israel, and that his Kingdom is everywhere triumphant. 9:368.

Fitness of Rulers--No being is fit to rule, govern, and dictate, until he has been controlled, governed, and dictated,--has yielded obedience to law, and proved himself worthy, by magnifying the law that was over him, to be master of that law. 8:324.

What is the reign of a king who cannot control his passions? Will not his subjects sorrow? Yes, they will feel the weight of his wrath, and their backs will ache, and their heads will ache, and they will receive the lash from a heavy hand. 8:324.

Labor and Politics--Put a community in possession of knowledge by means of which they can obtain what they need by the labor of their bodies and their brains, then, instead of being paupers they will be free, independent and happy, and these distinctions of classes will cease, and there will be but one class, one grade, one great family. 16:20.

Do you wish to possess enlarged influence in a political point of view? Gather around you the poor and honest of mankind and bestow your charity on them, not by giving them in the way that charity is almost universally understood, but supply them labor that will pay an interest on the outlay of means and, at the same time, afford food, raiment and shelter to the laborer; in this way the man of means becomes a benefactor to his race. 10:193. {549}

If you wish to gain power in the minds of any people, give them the same opportunity that you possess to become independent and self-sustaining, and endow them with all the wisdom and knowledge that they are capable of receiving, and let them increase with you and unitedly grow and become strong. 10:190.

Saints and Politics--I stand for Constitutional law, and if any transgress, let them be tried by it, and, if guilty, suffer its penalty. 10:109.

I say God speed everybody that is for freedom and equal rights! I am with you. Whom do we want to fill our public offices? We want the best men that we can find for governor, president and statesmen, and for every other office of trust and responsibility; and when we have obtained them, we will pray for them and give them our faith and influence to do the will of God and to preserve themselves and the people in truth and righteousness. 13:274.

If we live our religion, honor our God and his Priesthood, then we shall honor every wholesome government and law there is upon the earth and become aliens to all unrighteous, unjust and unlawful administrators, wherever they may be found. In the various nations, kingdoms and governments of the world are to be found laws, ordinances and statutes as good as can be made for mortal man. 10:41.

Are we a political people? Yes, very political indeed. But what party do you belong to or would you vote for? I will tell you whom we will vote for: we will vote for the man who will sustain the principles of civil and religious liberty, the man who knows the most and who has the best heart and brain for a statesman; and we do not care a farthing whether he is a whig, a democrat, a barnburner, a republican, a new light or anything else. These are our politics. 13:149. {550}

If nobody will speak for us, let us speak for ourselves; if no person else will do anything for us, let us do something for ourselves. This is right; it is politically right, religiously right, nationally right, socially and morally right, and it is right in every sense of the word for us to sustain ourselves. 11:140.

Let those called Latter-day Saints so learn wisdom as to carry out the true principles of government, that they may be able to govern and control all things wisely. 7:64.

The Constitution of the United States, an Inspired Document--We mean to sustain the Constitution of the United States and all righteous laws. 9:157.

We will cling to the Constitution of our country, and to the government that reveres that sacred charter of freemen's rights; and, if necessary, pour out our best blood for the defense of every good and righteous principle. 10:41.

It was observed this morning that the Government of the United States was the best or most wholesome one on the earth, and the best adapted to our condition. That is very true. 2:310.

To accuse us of being unfriendly to the Government, is to accuse us of hostility to our religion, for no item of inspiration is held more sacred with us than the Constitution under which she acts. As a religious society, we, in common with all other denominations, claim its protection. 2:175.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence and the framers of the Constitution were inspired from on high to do that work. But was that which was given to them perfect, not admitting of any addition whatever? No; for if men know anything, they must know that the Almighty has never yet found a man in mortality that was capable, at the first intimation, at the first impulse, to receive anything in a state of {551} entire perfection. They laid the foundation, and it was for after generations to rear the superstructure upon it. It is a progressive--a gradual work. 7:14.

The general Constitution of our country is good, and a wholesome government could be framed upon it, for it was dictated by the invisible operations of the Almighty; he moved upon Columbus to launch forth upon the trackless deep to discover the American Continent; he moved upon the signers of the Declaration of Independence; and he moved upon Washington to fight and conquer, in the same way as he moved upon ancient and modern Prophets, each being inspired to accomplish the particular work he was called to perform in the times, seasons, and dispensations of the Almighty. God's purpose, in raising up these men and inspiring them with daring sufficient to surmount every opposing power, was to prepare the way for the formation of a true republican government. They laid its foundation; but when others came to build upon it, they reared a superstructure far short of their privileges, if they had walked uprightly as they should have done. 7:13.

We believe that the Lord has been preparing that when he should bring forth his work, that, when the set time should fully come, there might be a place upon his footstool where sufficient liberty of conscience should exist, that his Saints might dwell in peace under the broad panoply of constitutional law and equal rights. In this view we consider that the men in the Revolution were inspired by the Almighty, to throw off the shackles of the mother government, with her established religion. For this cause were Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, and a host of others inspired to deeds of resistance to the acts of the King of Great Britain, who might also have been led to those aggressive acts, for ought we know, to bring to pass the purposes of God, in thus establishing a new {552} government upon a principle of greater freedom, a basis of self-government allowing the free exercise of religious worship.

It was the voice of the Lord inspiring all those worthy men who bore influence in those trying times, not only to go forth in battle but to exercise wisdom in council, fortitude, courage, and endurance in the tented field, as well as subsequently to form and adopt those wise and efficient measures which secured to themselves and succeeding generations, the blessing of a free and independent government.

This government, so formed, has been blessed by the Almighty until she spreads her sails in every sea, and her power is felt in every land. 2:170.

This, then, is our position towards the Government of the United States and towards the world, to put down iniquity, and exalt virtue; to declare the word of God which he revealed unto us, and build up his Kingdom upon the earth. And, know all men, Governments, Nations, Kindreds, Tongues, and People, that this is our calling, intention, and design. We aim to live our religion, and have communion with our God. We aim to clear our skirts of the blood of this generation, by our faithfulness in preaching the truth of heaven in all plainness and simplicity; and I have often said, and repeat it now, that all other considerations of whatever name or nature, sink into insignificance in comparison with this. To serve God and keep his commandments, are first and foremost with me. If this is higher law, so be it. As it is with me, so should it be with every department of the Government; for this doctrine is based upon the principles of virtue and integrity; with it, the Government, her Constitution, and free institutions are safe; without it no power can avert their speedy destruction. It is the life giving power to the Government; it is the vital {553} element on which she exists and prospers; in its absence she sinks to rise no more. 2:176.

The Saints Will Yet Save the Constitution--When the day comes in which the Kingdom of God will bear rule, the flag of the United States will proudly flutter unsullied on the flag staff of liberty and equal rights, without a spot to sully its fair surface; the glorious flag our fathers have bequeathed to us will then be unfurled to the breeze by those who have power to hoist it aloft and defend its sanctity. 2:317.

How long will it be before the words of the prophet Joseph will be fulfilled? He said if the Constitution of the United States were saved at all it must be done by this people. It will not be many years before these words come to pass. 12:204.

When the Constitution of the United States hangs, as it were, upon a single thread, they will have to call for the "Mormon" Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth and do it. 2:182.

The present Constitution, with a few alterations of a trifling nature, is just as good as we want; and if it is sustained on this land of Joseph, it will be done by us and our posterity. 8:324.

I expect to see the day when the Elders of Israel will protect and sustain civil and religious liberty and every constitutional right bequeathed to us by our fathers, and spread these rights abroad in connection with the Gospel for the salvation of all nations. I shall see this whether I live or die. 11:262.

Religious Liberty Should be Observed--The Government of the United States, and the President of the United States ought to treat the religion of the Latter-day Saints as they do Methodism, Presbyterianism, Quakerism, Shakerism, and many other isms, and say, "Here, I wish you to hold your tongues about the 'Mormons,' for they have just as good a {554} right to their religion as you have to yours." And when the people petition for this or that (as the right of petition should never be denied), it is the duty of those who are addressed to hearken to the petitions of the people 2:186.

Are not our religious sentiments as sacred to us as to any other portion of the community? And should it not be the duty, as well as the pride, of every American citizen to extend that provision of the Constitution to us which he claims for himself? And is not that sacred instrument invaded and broken as much in debarring and excluding this people from its privileges, rights, and blessings, as it would be if your rights and privileges were thus invaded? No, gentlemen, we have broken no laws, our glorious Constitution guarantees unto us all that we claim. Under its broad folds, in its obvious meaning and intents, we are safe, and can always rejoice in peace. All that we have ever claimed, or wish to, on the part of the Government, is the just administration of the powers and privileges of the National Compact. 2:172.

I pause now to ask, Had not Joseph Smith a right to promulgate and establish a different, a new religion and form of worship in this Government? Every one must admit he had. This right was always held sacred, for upon it was based the religious liberty of every citizen of the Republic. It was a privilege held sacred in the bosom of every class of people; no judge dared invade its holy precincts. No legislator nor governor ventured to obstruct the free exercise thereof. Whenever the iron hand of oppression and persecution has fallen upon this people, our opposers have broken their own laws, set at defiance and trampled under foot every principle of equal rights, justice, and liberty found written in that rich legacy of our fathers, The Constitution of the United States. 2:171.

Whether our religion is believed by any other people or {555} not, it is by us, and no power or authority in the Government can lawfully or righteously molest us in the peaceable and quiet enjoyment thereof. It cannot be done without law, and surely the Government has no right to make any law concerning it, or to prevent the free exercise thereof. 2:177.

The Government of the United States has never engaged in a crusade against us as a people, although she has remained silent, or refused us, when appealed to for redress of grievances. She has permitted us to be driven from our own lands, for which she had taken our money, and that too with her letters patent in our hands, guaranteeing to us peaceable possession. She has calmly looked on and permitted one of the fundamental and dearest provisions of the Constitution to be broken; she has permitted us to be driven and trampled under foot with impunity. Under these circumstances, what course is left for us to pursue? I answer that, instead of seeking to destroy the very best Government in the world, as seems to be the fears of some, we, like all other good citizens, should seek to place those men in power who will feel the obligations and responsibilities they are under to a mighty people; who would feel and realize the important trusts reposed in them by the voice of the people who call them to administer law under the solemn sanction of an oath of fidelity to that heaven inspired instrument, to the inviolate preservation of which we look for the perpetuity of our free institutions. 2:175.

Opposed to Corrupt Administrators of Law--I do not lift my voice against the great and glorious Government guaranteed to every citizen by our Constitution, but against those corrupt administrators who trample the Constitution and just laws under their feet. 5:232.

It is a pretty bold stand for this people to take, to say that they will not be controlled by the corrupt administrators of our {556} general Government. We will be controlled by them, if they will be controlled by the Constitution and laws; but they will not. Many of them do not care any more about the Constitution and the laws that they make than they do about the laws of another nation. That class trample the rights of the people under their feet, while there are many who would like to honor them. All we have ever asked for is our Constitutional rights. We wish the laws of our Government honored, and we have ever honored them; but they are trampled under foot by administrators. 5:231.

I repeat that the Constitution, laws, and institutions of our Government are as good as can be, with the intelligence now possessed by the people. But they, as also the laws of other nations, are too often administered in unrighteousness; and we do not and cannot love and respect the acts of the administrators of our laws, unless they act justly in their offices. 6:344.

The President of the United States--As I have already stated, the President of the United States should be a perfect pattern for all the people to walk after; so also should the Vice-President, the members of the Cabinet, and of Congress, the Governors of States and Territories, and in fine, all the officers in the Government, be patterns for the people to imitate. 2:183.

And the people should concentrate their feelings, their influence, and their faith to select the best man they can find to be their President, if he has nothing more to eat than potatoes and salt--a man who will not aspire to become greater than the people who appoint him, but be contented to live as they live, be clothed as they are clothed, and in every good thing be one with them. 7:12-13.

When the best man is elected President, let him select the best men he can find for his counselors or cabinet; and let all {557} the officers within the province of the Chief Magistrate to appoint, be selected upon the same principle to officiate wisely in different parts of the nation. 6:345.

The Government of the United States is republican in form, and should be in its administration, and requires a man for President who is capable of communicating to the understanding of the people, according to their capacity, information upon all points pertaining to the just administration of the Government. He should understand what administrative policy would be most beneficial to the nation. He should also have the knowledge and disposition to wisely exercise the appointing power, so far as it is constitutionally within his control, and select only good and capable men for the office. He should not only carry out the legal and just wishes of his constituents, but should be able to enlighten their understanding and correct their judgment. And all good officers in a truly republican administration will constantly labor for the security of the rights of all, irrespective of sect or party. 7:63.

In the free and independent Government of the United States, who in the eyes of the Almighty ought to have the privilege of sitting in the Presidential chair, to be countenanced, adored, loved, and reverenced in his capacity, and be justified therein by the heavenly hosts? It is that man who is sanctified before God, and who loves the Lord Jesus with all his heart, or in other words, who is endowed with wisdom from on high, and has revelations, visions, and dreams, giving him understanding to provide for the welfare of every portion of the nation, and a willingness to preserve to every one their fair and just religious rights, as well as political, for the good and benefit of all. In the eyes of eternal justice, only such a man has a right to that office. They are afraid to put a man there who is a professor of religion, lest he favor his own party. A {558} man is a fool that would do that, when he has laws to preserve and keep inviolate towards all religious denominations. 2:188-189.

In our Government a President is elected for four years, and by custom re-elected but once, thus limiting the time of any one person to but eight years at most. Would it not be better to extend that period during life or good behavior; and when the people have elected the best man to that office, continue him in it as long as he will serve them?

Would it not be better for the States to elect their Governors upon the same principle; and if they officiate unjustly, hurl them from office? If a good man is thus elected and continues to do his duty, he will keep in advance of the people; and if he does not, he does not magnify his office. Such is the Kingdom of God, in comparison. 6:345.

Is a man fit to be President of the United States, who will bow and succumb to the whims of the people? No. A President should learn the true situation of his constituents, and deal out even-handed justice to all, utterly regardless of the clamor of party. 5:126.

We want men to rule the nation who care more for and love better the nations' welfare than gold and silver, fame, or popularity. 7:12.

Who is the most suitable judge between man and man? The man who is the most capable of judging between right and wrong; let him sit upon the judgment seat, and do not ask him whether he is a Democrat, a Whig, a Tory, or a Republican. Is he a just man, and will he render an impartial judgment? If so, I care not to what political party he belongs; I am content that he should adjudicate between me and my neighbor. 10:193.

Political Parties--It has been told me from my youth up {559} that opposition is the life of business, especially in the political arena. It is opposition that has ruined our nation, and has been, is and will be the ruin of all nations. 10:190.

When the people's affections are interwoven with a republican government administered in all its purity, if the administrators act not in virtue and truth it is but natural that the people become disaffected with mal-administration, and divide and sub-divide into parties, until the body politic is shivered to pieces. 10:108.

Parties in our Government have no better idea than to think the Republic stands all the firmer upon opposition; but I say that it is not so. A republican government consists in letting the people rule by their united voice, without a dissension,--in learning what is for the best, and unitedly doing it. That is true republicanism. 5:228.

States' Rights--Suppose there is a division between the North and South, and the fifteen slave States try to form a permanent government, can they do it? I tell you they cannot. How long will it be before some other States, perhaps New York, forms a separate government? And if a State has a right to secede, so has a Territory, and so has a county from a State or Territory, and a town from a county, and a family from a neighborhood, and you will have perfect anarchy. 8:322.

If we are what we profess to be--a republican Government, there is no State in the Union but what should be amenable to the general Government holding to the old English rights in Rhode Island. Then Congress, with the President at their head, could meet and veto every act made by any department of the Government, if it was necessary. So let Congress come together when any of the States transcend the bounds of right and hold them amenable for their actions. The general Government should never give any portion of the nation license {560} to say they are free and independent. This should only apply to the nation as a whole. 7:13.

So it is with States and Territories. Let them be unduly fostered and sustained by the general Government, and it will lead them into idleness, inactivity, and corruption; they will not be as spirited and active as when they are made to rely upon their own resources. 2:321.

Forebodings of the Civil War--The nation that gave me and many of you birth is very nigh to the hours of sorrow. Their cup is very nigh filled to the brim. They reject the servants of God; they reject the Gospel of salvation; they turn away from the principles of truth and righteousness; and they are sinking in their own sins and corruptions. I would that they would have mercy on themselves: I will pray the Lord to have mercy on them, but I pray them to have mercy on themselves to return to the Lord, forsake their wickedness and learn righteousness, and then God would have mercy on them, and bestow his blessings upon them, if they would receive them. 4:371.

What will be their condition when the Spirit of the Lord is withdrawn? They will whet the knife to cut each other's throats, and as Brother Hooper remarked, try to make Mason and Dixon's the dividing line; but that will not remain, for they will cross it to destroy each other, and the sword and fire will be prevalent in the land. 8:147-8.

Yes, his mercy yearns over the Nation that has striven for a score of years to rid the earth of the Priesthood of the Son of God and to destroy the last Saint. He has mercy upon them, he bears with them, he pleads with them by his Spirit, and occasionally sends his angels to administer to them. Marvel not, then, that I pray for every soul that can be saved. 8:124. {561}

War--If I had my wish, I should entirely stop the shedding of human blood. 10:108.

There is a spirit which prompts the nations to prepare for war, desolation, and bloodshed--to waste each other away. 8:174.

From the authority of all history, the deadly weapons now stored up and being manufactured will be used until the people are wasted away, and there is no help for it. The spirit of revolution goes on through the nations: it never goes back. 8:157.

Do not be discouraged when you hear of wars, and rumors of wars, and tumults, and contentions, and fighting, and bloodshed; for behold they are at the thresholds of our doors. 4:369.

Does one nation rise up to war with another without having motives, and those which they will substantiate as being good and sufficient? Will one people rise up to war with another people, except the motive that moves them is of a nature to justify them in their own minds and judgment for doing so? No. There is not a people upon the face of this earth that would do so; they all calculate to do that which seemeth good to them. 3:88.

The difficulty with the whole world in their divisions and sub-divisions, is that they have no more confidence in each other than they have in their God, and that is none at all, no, not one particle. This confuses nations, and breaks them up; it weakens them, and they tumble to pieces. It disturbs cities and countries, and really the seeds of destruction are within those kingdoms where the people have not confidence in each other. 4:296.

Wars, commotions, tumults, strife, nation contending against nation, and people against people, have all been governed {562} and controlled by him whose right it is to control such matters.

Among wicked nations, or among Saints, among the ancient Israelites, Philistines, and Romans, the hand of the Lord was felt; in short, all the powers that have been upon the earth, have been dictated, governed, controlled, and the final issue of their existence has been brought to pass, according to the wisdom of the Almighty. Then my testimony is, it is all right. 1:163.

Of one thing I am sure; God never institutes war; God is not the author of confusion or of war; they are the results of the acts of the children of men. Confusion and war necessarily come as the results of the foolish acts and policy of men; but they do not come because God desires they should come. If the people, generally, would turn to the Lord, there would never be any war. Let men turn from their iniquities and sins, and, instead of being covetous and wicked, turn to God and seek to promote peace and happiness throughout the land, and wars would cease. We expect to see the day when swords shall be turned into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, and when men shall learn war no more. This is what we want. We are for peace, plenty and happiness to all the human family. 13:149.

Our traditions have been such that we are not apt to look upon war between two nations as murder; but suppose that one family should rise up against another and begin to slay them, would they not be taken up and tried for murder? Then why not nations that rise up and slay each other in a scientific way be equally guilty of murder? "But observe the martial array, how splendid! See the furious war horses, with their glittering trappings. Then the honor and glory and pride of the reigning king must be sustained, and the strength and power {563} and wealth of the nation must be displayed in some way; and what better way than to make war upon neighboring nations, under some slight pretext?" Does it justify the slaying of men, women, and children that otherwise would have remained at home in peace, because a great army is doing the work? No: the guilty will be damned for it. 7:137.

The very Indians who massacre men, women, and children on the plains, have their religious ceremonies and pray to their God for success in killing men, women, and children. The French and Austrians meet and slay one another by hundreds and thousands; and thousands of women and children who were not engaged in battle are also sacrificed by the folly of those Christian wars. The instigators of those wars are just as guilty of murder, before God, as the Indians are for killing the men, women, and children who are passing through their country. What is the difference in the eyes of our Father and God? It is just as much murder to kill, unjustly, a million at a blow as it is to kill one, though Dr. Young has stated that "One murder makes a villain; millions make a hero." Were I to make war upon an innocent people, because I had the power, to possess myself of their territory, their silver, gold, and other property, and be the cause of slaying, say fifty thousand strong, hale, hearty men, and devolving consequent suffering upon one hundred thousand women and children, who would suffer through privation and want, I am very much more guilty of murder than is the man who kills only one person to obtain his pocket-book. 7:137.

Woman Suffrage--Now, sisters, I want you to vote also, because women are the characters that rule the ballot box. 1:218. {564}

Chapter XXXII

DEATH AND RESURRECTION

The Body Must Return to Mother Earth--Every person possessing the principle of eternal life should look upon his body as of the earth earthy. Our bodies must return to their mother earth. True, to most people it is a wretched thought that our spirits must, for a longer or shorter period, be separated from our bodies, and thousands and millions have been subject to this affliction throughout their lives. If they understood the design of this probation and the true principles of eternal life, it is but a small matter for the body to suffer and die. 7:240.

The Lord has pleased to organize tabernacles here, and put spirits into them, and they then become intelligent beings. By and by, sooner or later, the body, this that is tangible to you, that you can feel, see, handle, etc., returns to its mother dust. Is the spirit dead? No. You believe the spirit still exists, when this body has crumbled to the earth again, and the spirit that God puts into the tabernacle goes into the world of spirits. What is their situation? Is there any opportunity for them whatever? Yes, there is. 2:138.

"Well," says Mr. B.: "If you have got this great power, and can heal the sick by the laying on of hands, come with me and heal the sick in our neighborhood; or how is it that any of you 'Mormons' die at all?" Take your time, Mr. B. The Bible teaches me I am dust, and to dust I must return. It is not for me to thwart the plans of Jehovah, or do away with any item of doctrine the Lord has taught me. From dust I am, and to dust I must return. So it is with the rest of us, we shall all die and be buried in the silent grave. 1:240. {565}

We shall suffer no more in putting off this flesh and leaving the spirit houseless than the child, in its capacity, does in its first efforts to breathe the breath of this mortal life. 8:28.

Our bodies are composed of visible, tangible matter, as you all understand; you also know that they are born into this world. They then begin to partake of the elements adapted to their organization and growth, increase to manhood, become old, decay, and pass again into the dust. Now in the first place, though I have explained this many times, what we call death is the operation of life, inherent in the matter of which the body is composed, and which causes the decomposition after the spirit has left the body. Were that not the fact, the body, from which has fled the spirit, would remain to all eternity, just as it was when the spirit left it, and would not decay.

What is commonly called death does not destroy the body, it only causes a separation of spirit and body, but the principle of life, inherent in the native elements, of which the body is composed, still continues with the particles of that body and causes it to decay, to dissolve itself into the elements of which it was composed, and all of which continues to have life. When the spirit given to man leaves the body, the tabernacle begins to decompose. Is that death? No, death only separates the spirit and body, and a principle of life still operates in the untenanted tabernacle, but in a different way, and producing different effects from those observed while it was tenanted by the spirit. There is not a particle of element which is not filled with life, and all space is filled with element; there is no such thing as empty space, though some philosophers contend that there is.

Life in various proportions, combinations, conditions, etc., fills all matter. Is there life in a tree when it ceases to put forth leaves? You see it standing upright, and when it ceases {566} to bear leaves and fruit you say it is dead, but that is a mistake. It still has life, but that life operates upon the tree in another way, and continues to operate until it resolves it to the native elements. It is life in another condition that begins to operate upon man, upon animal, upon vegetation, and upon minerals when we see the change termed dissolution. There is life in the material of the fleshly tabernacle, independent of the spirit given of God to undergo this probation. There is life in all matter, throughout the vast extent of all the eternities; it is in the rock, the sand, the dust, in water, air, the gases, and in short, in every description and organization of matter, whether it be solid, liquid, or gaseous, particle operating with particle.

I have heard some philosophers argue that because no body could move without displacing other matter, therefore there must be empty space. That reasoning is nonsense to me, because eternity is, was, and will continue to be full of matter and life. We put a ship in motion on the water, and have we created an empty space? No, we have only changed the position of matter. Men and animals move upon the earth, birds and fishes cleave the elements they are organized to operate in, but do they leave a track of empty space? No, for all eternity is full of matter and life. True, element is capable of contraction and expansion, but that does not by any means imply empty space. You see life in human beings and in the growing vegetation, and when that spirit of life departs, another condition of life at once begins to operate upon the organization which remains. By way of illustration I will quote one passage from the Book of Job, who in his afflictions was visited by several friends, and after he had concluded that they were all miserable comforters, he exclaimed, "Though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." To make this passage clearer {567} to your comprehension, I will paraphrase it, Though my spirit leave my body, and though worms destroy its present organization, yet in the morning of the resurrection I shall behold the face of my Savior, in this same tabernacle; that is my understanding of the idea so briefly expressed by Job. 3:276-7.

Man Should Live Out His Days--It is not the design of the Father that the earthly career of any should terminate until they have lived out their days; and the reason that so few do live out their days is because of the force of sin in the world and the power of death over the human family. To these causes, and not to the design of the Creator, may be attributed the fact that disease stalks abroad, laying low the aged, middle-aged, youth, and infants, and the human family generally by millions. 14:230.

So live that when you wake in the spirit-world you can truthfully say, "I could not better my mortal life, were I to live it over again." I exhort you, for the sake of the House of Israel, for the sake of Zion which we are to build up, to so live, from this time, henceforth, and forever, that your characters may with pleasure be scrutinized by holy beings. Live godly lives, which you cannot do without living moral lives. 8:164.

We Should Not Mourn for the Righteous Dead--Those who have honored their calling and Priesthood to the end die in the Lord, and their works do follow them. 13:75.

It is a great cause of joy and rejoicing and comfort to his friends to know that a person has passed away in peace from this life, and has secured to himself a glorious resurrection. The earth and the fulness of the earth and all that pertains to this earth in an earthly capacity is no comparison with the glory, joy and peace and happiness of the soul that departs in peace. 12:186.

Mourning for the righteous dead springs from the ignorance {568} and weakness that are planted within the mortal tabernacle, the organization of this house for the spirit to dwell in. No matter what pain we suffer, no matter what we pass through, we cling to our mother earth, and dislike to have any of her children leave us. We love to keep together the social family relation that we bear one to another, and do not like to part with each other; but could we have knowledge and see into eternity, if we were perfectly free from the weakness, blindness, and lethargy with which we are clothed in the flesh, we should have no disposition to weep or mourn. 4:131.

Nothing remains here for us but to pay our last respects to that which came from mother earth. It was formed and fashioned and the spirit was put into it, and it has grown and become what it is, and the spirit having departed, the body lies ready to return to the bosom of its mother, there to rest until the morning of the resurrection. But the life and intelligence which once dwelt in that body still live, and Sister Aurelia moves, talks, walks, enjoys and beholds that which we cannot enjoy and behold while we are in these tabernacles of clay. She is in glory; she has passed the ordeals and has reached a position in which the power of Satan has no influence upon her. The advantage of this Priesthood is that when persons yield obedience to it, they secure to themselves the sanction of him who is its author, and who has bestowed it upon the children of men. His power is around them and defends them; and when they pass into the spirit world they are out of the reach of the power of Satan. Where the pure in heart are the wicked cannot come. This is the state of the spirit world. 14:229.

When death is past, the power of Satan has no more influence over a faithful individual; that spirit is free, and can command the power of Satan. The penalty demanded by the {569} fall has been fully paid; all is accomplished pertaining to it, when the tabernacle of a faithful person is returned to the earth. All that was lost is passed away, and that person will again receive his body. When he is in the spirit world, he is free from those contaminating and condemning influences of Satan that we are now subject to. Here our bodies are subject to being killed by our enemies--our names to being cast out as evil. We are persecuted, hated, not beloved: though I presume that we are as much beloved here as the spirits of the Saints are in the spirit world by those spirits who hate righteousness. It is the same warfare, but we will have power over them. Those who have passed through the veil have power over the evil spirits to command, and they must obey. 7:240-241.

Shall we rejoice that we have the opportunity of paying the last respects due to this lifeless clay, which a few days ago was alive and active, full of spirit, attending the High Council, giving decisions full of knowledge? Yes, we will rejoice. It is a matter of rejoicing more than the day of his birth. It is true it is grievous to part with our friends. We are creatures of passion, of sympathy, of love, and it is painful for us to part with our friends. We would keep them in the mortal house, though they should suffer pain. Are we not selfish in this? Should we not rather rejoice at the departure of those whose lives have been devoted to doing good, to a good old age? Brother Spencer has lived beyond what is counted to be the common age of man some four or five years; his judgment was as active as it was twenty-five years ago. He has been faithful in this holy war. He instructed all with whom he met in the way of life. He never gave counsel but what marked the way to life everlasting. 13:75.

Our Identity Will Be Preserved--And the thought of {570} being annihilated--of being blotted out of existence--is most horrid, even to that class called infidels. 5:53.

This intelligence must endure. We must preserve our identity before the Lord, who has sent his Son and angels, and is sending the Holy Ghost, and his ministers, and revelations, to comfort, cheer, guide, and direct the affairs of his Kingdom on the earth. 8:155.

I am after life; I want to preserve my identity, so that you can see Brigham in the eternal worlds just as you see him now. I want to see that eternal principle of life dwelling within us which will exalt us eternally in the presence of our Father and God. 7:57.

The Gospel of life and salvation reveals to each individual who receives it that this world is only a place of temporary duration, existence, trials, etc. Its present fashion and uses are but for a few days, while we were created to exist eternally. The wicked can see no further than this world is concerned. We understand that when we are unclothed in this present state, then we are prepared to be clothed upon with immortality--that when we put off these bodies we put on immortality. These bodies will return to dust, but our hope and faith are that we will receive these bodies again from the elements--that we will receive the very organization that we have here, and that, if we are faithful to the principles of freedom, we shall then be prepared to endure eternally. 5:53.

Our Bodies Will be Resurrected--After the spirit leaves the body, it remains without a tabernacle in the spirit world until the Lord, by his law that he has ordained, brings to pass the resurrection of the dead. When the angel who holds the keys of the resurrection shall sound his trumpet, then the peculiar fundamental particles that organized our bodies here, if we do honor to them, though they be deposited in the depths of the {571} sea, and though one particle is in the north, another in the south, another in the east, and another in the west, will be brought together again in the twinkling of an eye, and our spirits will take possession of them. We shall then be prepared to dwell with the Father and the Son, and we never can be prepared to dwell with them until then. Spirits, when they leave their bodies, do not dwell with the Father and the Son, but live in the Spirit world, where there are places prepared for them. Those who do honor to their tabernacles, and love and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, must put off this mortality, or they cannot put on immortality. This body must be changed, else it cannot be prepared to dwell in the glory of the Father. 8:28.

The only true riches in existence are for you and me to secure for ourselves a holy resurrection. 1:272.

After the body and spirit are separated by death, what, pertaining to this earth, shall we receive first? The body; that is the first object of a divine affection beyond the grave. We first come in possession of the body. The spirit has overcome the body, and the body is made subject in every respect to that divine principle God has planted in the person. The spirit within is pure and holy, and goes back pure and holy to God, dwells in the spirit world pure and holy, and, by and by, will have the privilege of coming and taking the body again. Some person holding the keys of the resurrection, having previously passed through that ordeal, will be delegated to resurrect our bodies, and our spirits will be there and prepared to enter into their bodies. Then, when we are prepared to receive our bodies, they are the first earthly objects that bear divinity personified in the capacity of the man. Only the body dies; the spirit is looking forth. 9:139.

But this our place of abode is only temporary; we are on a {572} journey; we have only to winter and summer, as it were. Brother Grant has got through here, and has gone to his spiritual place of abode for a season. Not that he has reached his journey's end, nor will he, until he has again received this body that now lies before me. Every material part and portion pertaining to his body, to the temporal organization that constitutes the man, will clothe his spirit again, before he is prepared to receive the place and habitation that is prepared for him; yet he has gone to his spiritual home for a season. 4:129.

Yes, we will lay down these bodies in the grave. What for? That the dust, our mother earth, that composes the house of the spirit, may be purified by passing through this ordeal, and be prepared to be called up and united with the intelligent heavenly body that God has prepared. This is nothing but a change. It is not the dissolution of the creature; it is merely putting off the flesh that pertains to this world.

The particles of this earth that now compose this body will be rearranged, and the spirit will be clothed with an immortal tabernacle. Let the spirit reign predominant over the flesh, and bring into subjection the whole man, every feeling and every desire of his heart, and let him be devoted wholly, body and spirit, to the end for which the has been created. When the flesh is brought into subjection, it is made worthy through that means. 8:43.

We are here in circumstances to bury our dead according to the order of the Priesthood. But some of our brethren die upon the ocean; they cannot be buried in a burying ground, but they are sewed up in canvas and cast into the sea, and perhaps in two minutes after they are in the bowels of the shark, yet those persons will come forth in the resurrection, and receive all the glory of which they are worthy, and be clothed upon with all the beauty of resurrected Saints, as much so as if they had {573} been laid away in a gold or silver coffin, and in a place expressly for burying the dead. 9:193.

The resurrection from the dead may also, with propriety, be called a birth. 8:260.

The blood he spilled upon Mount Calvary he did not receive again into his veins. That was poured out, and when he was resurrected, another element took the place of the blood. It will be so with every person who receives a resurrection; the blood will not be resurrected with the body, being designed only to sustain the life of the present organization. When that is dissolved, and we again obtain our bodies by the power of the resurrection, that which we now call the life of the body, and which is formed from the food we eat and the water we drink will be supplanted by another element; for flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. 7:163.

Jesus, the First Fruits of the Resurrection--Jesus is the first begotten from the dead, as you will understand. Neither Enoch, Elijah, Moses, nor any other man that ever lived on earth, no matter how strictly he lived, ever obtained a resurrection until after Jesus Christ's body was called from the tomb by the angel. He was the first begotten from the dead. He is the Master of the resurrection--the first flesh that lived here after receiving the glory of the resurrection. 8:260.

You read about a first resurrection. If there is a first, there is a second. And if a second, may there not be a third, and a fourth, and so on? Yes; and happy are they who have a part in the first resurrection. Yes, more blessed are they than any others. But blessed also are they that will have part in the second resurrection, for they will be brought forth to enjoy a kingdom that is more glorious than the sectarian world ever dreamed of. 7:287.

The Resurrected Body--We bear the image of our {574} earthly parents in their fallen state, but by obedience to the Gospel of salvation, and the renovating influences of the Holy Ghost, and the holy resurrection, we shall put on the image of the heavenly, in beauty, glory, power and goodness. Jesus Christ was so like his Father that on one occasion in answer to a request, "Show us the Father," he said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 11:123.

In the resurrection everything that is necessary will be brought from the elements to clothe and to beautify the resurrected Saints, who will receive their reward. I do not trouble myself about my dead. If they are stripped of their clothing, I do not want to know it. 9:192.

When the body comes forth again, it will be divine, Godlike according to the capacity and ordinations of the Lord. Some are fore-ordained to one station, and some to another. We want a house, and when we get it and our spirits enter into it, then we can begin to look forth--for what? For our friends. We want them resurrected. Here is this friend and that friend, until by and by all are resurrected. And the earth is resurrected? Yes, and every living thing on the earth that has abided the law by which it was made. Then that which you and I respect, are fond of, and love with an earthly love, will become divine, and we can then love it with that affection which it is not now worthy of. 9:140.

Our bodies are now mortal. In the resurrection there will be a reunion of the spirits and bodies, and they will walk, talk, eat, drink, and enjoy. Those who have passed these ordeals are society for angels--for the Gods, and are the ones who will come into the Temple of the Lord that is to be built in the latter days, when saviors shall come up upon Mount Zion, and will say, "Here, my children, I want this and this done. Here are the names of such and such ones, of our fathers, and {575} mothers--our ancestors; we will bring them up. Go forth, you who have not passed the ordeals of death and the resurrection--you who live in the flesh, and attend to the ordinances for those who have died without the law." Those who are resurrected will thus dictate in the temple. When the Saints pass through death, they cannot officiate in this sinful world, but they will dictate those who are here. "Go, now, and be baptized for the honorable--for those who would have received the law of God and the true religion, if they had lived; be baptized for the heathen--for all who were honest; officiate for them, and save them, and bring them up. Be baptized for them, anointed for them, washed and sealed for them, and fulfil all the ordinances which cannot be dispensed with." They will all be performed for the living and the dead upon Mount Zion. 8:225.

Resurrection Necessary to Full Salvation--No man can enter the celestial kingdom and be crowned with a celestial glory, until he gets his resurrected body; but Joseph and the faithful who have died have gained a victory over the power of the Devil, which you and I have not yet gained. So long as we live in these tabernacles, so long we will be subject to the temptations and power of the Devil; but when we lay them down, if we have been faithful, we have gained the victory so far; but even then we are not so far advanced at once as to be beyond the neighborhood of evil spirits. 3:371. {576}

Chapter XXXIII

THE SPIRIT WORLD

All Go to the Spirit World--When we get through this state of being, to the next room, I may call it, we are not going to stop there. We shall still go on, doing all the good we can, administering and officiating for all whom we are permitted to administer and officiate for, and then go on to the next, and to the next, until the Lord shall crown all who have been faithful on this earth, and the work pertaining to the earth is finished, and the Savior, whom we have been helping, has completed his task, and the earth, with all things pertaining to it, is presented to the Father. Then these faithful ones will receive their blessings and crowns, and their inheritances will be set off to them and be given to them, and they will then go on, worlds upon worlds, increasing for ever and ever. 16:70.

No spirit of Saint or sinner, of the Prophet or him that kills the Prophet, is prepared for their final state; all pass through the veil from this state and go into the world of spirits; and there they dwell waiting for their final destiny. 6:294.

Where Is the Spirit World--Is the spirit world here? It is not beyond the sun, but is on this earth that was organized for the people that have lived and that do and will live upon it. No other people can have it, and we can have no other kingdom until we are prepared to inhabit this eternally. 3:372.

When you lay down this tabernacle, where are you going? Into the spiritual world. Are you going into Abraham's bosom? No, not anywhere nigh there but {577} into the spirit world. Where is the spirit world? It is right here. Do the good and evil spirits go together? Yes, they do. Do they both inhabit one kingdom? Yes, they do. Do they go to the sun? No. Do they go beyond the boundaries of the organized earth? No, they do not. They are brought forth upon this earth, for the express purpose of inhabiting it to all eternity. Where else are you going? Nowhere else, only as you may be permitted. 3:369.

You are in the presence of God, and when your eyes are opened you will understand it. Brother Grant's spirit is in the presence of God; and he is with Joseph, when he is not required to be somewhere else. He is at work for the benefit of Zion, for that is all the business that Joseph and the Elders of this Church have on hand. 4:133.

It reads that the spirit goes to God who gave it. Let me render this scripture a little plainer; when the spirits leave their bodies they are in the presence of our Father and God, they are prepared then to see, hear and understand spiritual things. But where is the spirit world? It is incorporated within this celestial system. Can you see it with your natural eyes? No. Can you see spirits in this room? No. Suppose the Lord should touch your eyes that you might see, could you then see the spirits? Yes, as plainly as you now see bodies, as did the servant of Elijah. If the Lord would permit it, and it was his will that it should be done, you could see the spirits that have departed from this world, as plainly as you now see bodies with your natural eyes. 3:368.

The Prophet lays down his body, he lays down his life, and his spirit goes to the world of spirits; the persecutor of the Prophet dies, and he goes to Hades; they both go to {578} one place, and they are not to be separated yet. Now understand, that this is part of the great sermon the Lord is preaching in his providence, the righteous and the wicked are together in Hades.

If we go back to our mother country, the States, we find there the righteous, and we there find the wicked; if we go to California, we there find the righteous and the wicked; all dwelling together; and when we go beyond this veil, and leave our bodies which were taken from mother earth, and which must return, our spirits will pass beyond the veil; we go where both Saints and sinners go; they all go to one place. 3:94.

If the wicked wish to escape from his presence, they must go where he is not, where he does not live, where his influence does not preside. To find such a place is impossible, except they go beyond the bounds of time and space. 2:94.

Labors in the Spirit World--They must go into prison, both Saints and sinners. The good and bad, the righteous and the unrighteous must go to the house of prison, or Paradise, and Jesus went and opened the doors of salvation to them. And unless they lost the keys of salvation on account of transgression, as has been the case on this earth, spirits clothed with the Priesthood have ministered to them from that day to this. And if they lost the keys by transgression, some one who had been in the flesh, Joseph, for instance, had to take those keys to them. And he is calling one after another to his aid, as the Lord sees he wants help. 4:285.

Compare those inhabitants on the earth who have heard the Gospel in our day, with the millions who have never heard it, or had the keys of salvation presented to them, and {579} you will conclude at once as I do, that there is an almighty work to perform in the spirit world. Joseph has not yet got through there. When he finishes his mission in the spirit world, he will be resurrected, but he has not yet done there. Reflect upon the millions and millions and millions of people that have lived and died without hearing the Gospel on the earth, without the keys of the Kingdom. They were not prepared for celestial glory, and there was no power that could prepare them without the keys of this Priesthood. 4:285.

Jesus was the first man that ever went to preach to the spirits in prison, holding the keys of the Gospel of salvation to them. Those keys were delivered to him in the day and hour that he went into the spirit world, and with them he opened the door of salvation to the spirits in prison. 3:370.

Father Smith and Carlos and Brother Partridge, yes, and every other good Saint, are just as busy in the spirit world as you and I are here. They can see us, but we cannot see them unless our eyes were opened. What are they doing there? They are preaching, preaching all the time, and preparing the way for us to hasten our work in building temples here and elsewhere, and to go back to Jackson County and build the great temple of the Lord. They are hurrying to get ready by the time we are ready, and we are all hurrying to get ready by the time our Elder Brother is ready. 3:369-370.

When men overcome as our faithful brethren have, and go where they see Joseph, who will dictate them and be their head and Prophet all the time, they have power over all disembodied evil spirits, for they have overcome them. Those evil spirits are under the command and control of every man that has had the Priesthood on him, and has {580} honored it in the flesh, just as much as my hand is under my control. 4:132.

Every faithful man's labor will continue as long as the labor of Jesus, until all things are redeemed that can be redeemed, and presented to the Father. There is a great work before us. 13:77.

The spirits that dwell in these tabernacles on this earth, when they leave them go directly into this world of spirits. What! A congregated mass of inhabitants there in spirit, mingling with each other, as they do here? Yes, brethren, they are there together, and if they associate together, and collect together, in clans and in societies as they do here, it is their privilege. No doubt they yet, more or less, see, hear, converse and have to do with each other, both good and bad. If the Elders of Israel in these latter times go and preach to the spirits in prison, they associate with them, precisely as our Elders associate with the wicked in the flesh, when they go to preach to them. 2:137.

If a person is baptized for the remission of sins, and dies a short time thereafter, he is not prepared at once to enjoy a fulness of the glory promised to the faithful in the Gospel; for he must be schooled, while in the spirit, in the other departments of the house of God, passing on from truth to truth, from intelligence to intelligence, until he is prepared to again receive his body and to enter into the presence of the Father and the Son. We cannot enter into celestial glory in our present state of ignorance and mental darkness. 7:332.

Suppose, then, that a man is evil in his heart--wholly given up to wickedness, and in that condition dies, his spirit will enter the spirit world intent upon evil. On the other hand, if we are striving with all the powers and faculties {581} God has given us to improve upon our talents, to prepare ourselves to dwell in eternal life, and the grave receives our bodies while we are thus engaged, with what disposition will our spirits enter their next state? They will be still striving to do the things of God, only in a much greater degree--learning, increasing, growing in grace and in the knowledge of the truth. 7:333.

If we are faithful to our religion, when we go into the spirit world, the fallen spirits--Lucifer and the third part of the heavenly hosts that came with him, and the spirits of wicked men who have dwelt upon this earth, the whole of them combined will have no influence over our spirits. Is not that an advantage? Yes. All the rest of the children of men are more or less subject to them, and they are subject to them as they were while here in the flesh. 7:240.

Spirits are just as familiar with spirits as bodies are with bodies, though spirits are composed of matter so refined as not to be tangible to this coarser organization. They walk, converse, and have their meetings; and the spirits of good men like Joseph and the Elders, who have left this Church on earth for a season to operate in another sphere, are rallying all their powers and going from place to place preaching the Gospel, and Joseph is directing them, saying, go ahead, my brethren, and if they hedge up your way, walk up and command them to disperse. You have the Priesthood and can disperse them, but if any of them wish to hear the Gospel, preach to them.

Can they baptize them? No. What can they do? They can preach the Gospel, and when we have the privilege of building up Zion, the time will come for saviors to come up on Mount Zion. Some of those who are not in mortality will come along and say, "Here are a thousand names I wish you {582} to attend to in this temple, and when you have got through with them I will give you another thousand;" and the Elders of Israel and their wives will go forth to officiate for their forefathers, the men for the men, and the women for the women. 3:371-372.

Life in the Spirit World--We have more friends behind the veil than on this side, and they will hail us more joyfully than you were ever welcomed by your parents and friends in this world; and you will rejoice more when you meet them than you ever rejoiced to see a friend in this life; and then we shall go on from step to step, from rejoicing to rejoicing, and from one intelligence and power to another, our happiness becoming more and more exquisite and sensible as we proceed in the words and powers of life. 6:349.

When the breath leaves the body, your life has not become extinct; your life is still in existence. And when you are in the spirit world, everything there will appear as natural as things now do. Spirits will be familiar with spirits in the spirit world--will converse, behold, and exercise every variety of communication with one another as familiarly and naturally as while here in tabernacles. There, as here, all things will be natural, and you will understand them as you now understand natural things. You will there see that those spirits we are speaking of are active; they sleep not. And you will learn that they are striving with all their might--laboring and toiling diligently as any individual would to accomplish an act in this world--to destroy the children of men. 7:239.

I can say with regard to parting with our friends, and going ourselves, that I have been near enough to understand eternity so that I have had to exercise a great deal {583} more faith to desire to live than I ever exercised in my whole life to live. The brightness and glory of the next apartment is inexpressible. It is not encumbered so that when we advance in years we have to be stubbing along and be careful lest we fall down. We see our youth, even, frequently stubbing their toes and falling down. But yonder, how different! They move with ease and like lightning. If we want to visit Jerusalem, or this, that, or the other place--and I presume we will be permitted if we desire--there we are, looking at its streets. If we want to behold Jerusalem as it was in the days of the Savior; or if we want to see the Garden of Eden as it was when created, there we are, and we see it as it existed spiritually, for it was created first spiritually and then temporally, and spiritually it still remains. And when there we may behold the earth as at the dawn of creation, or we may visit any city we please that exists upon its surface. If we wish to understand how they are living here on these western islands, or in China, we are there; in fact, we are like the light of the morning, or, I will not say the electric fluid, but its operations on the wires. God has revealed some little things, with regard to his movements and power, and the operation and motion of the lightning furnish a fine illustration of the ability of the Almighty.

When we pass into the spirit world we shall possess a measure of this power. Here, we are continually troubled with ills and ailments of various kinds. In the spirit world we are free from all this and enjoy life, glory, and intelligence; and we have the Father to speak to us, Jesus to speak to us, and angels to speak to us, and we shall enjoy the society of the just and the pure who are in the spirit world until the resurrection. 14:231. {584}

Chapter XXXIV

ETERNAL JUDGMENT

Judgment According to Works--This is a subject I have reflected upon a great deal, and I have come to the conclusion that we shall be judged according to the deeds done in the body and according to the thoughts and intents of the heart. 14:99.

There are none ticketed for the pit, unless they fill up that ticket themselves through their own misconduct. 4:268.

I do know that the trying day will soon come to you and to me; and ere long we will have to lay down these tabernacles and go into the spirit world. And I do know that as we lie down, so judgment will find us, and that is scriptural; "as the tree falls so it shall lie," or in other words, as death leaves us so judgment will find us. 4:52.

The sectarian doctrine of final rewards and punishments is as strange to me as their bodyless, partless, and passionless God. Every man will receive according to the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad. All men, excepting those who sin against the Holy Ghost, who shed innocent blood or who consent thereto, will be saved in some kingdom; for in my Father's house, says Jesus, are many mansions. 11:125.

How many kingdoms there are has not been told to us; they are innumerable. The disciples of Jesus were to dwell with him. Where will the rest go? Into kingdoms prepared for them, where they will live and endure. Jesus will bring forth, by his own redemption, every son and daughter of Adam, except the sons of perdition, who will be cast into hell. Others will suffer the wrath of God--will suffer {585} all the Lord can demand at their hands, or justice can require of them; and when they have suffered the wrath of God till the utmost farthing is paid, they will be brought out of prison. Is this dangerous doctrine to preach? Some consider it dangerous; but it is true that every person who does not sin away the day of grace, and become an angel to the Devil, will be brought forth to inherit a kingdom of glory. 8:154.

How many glories and kingdoms will there be in eternity? You will see the same variety in eternity as you see in the world. 6:293.

We read in the Bible, that there is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. In the book of Doctrine and Covenants, these glories are called telestial, terrestrial, and celestial, which is the highest. These are worlds, different departments, or mansions, in our Father's house. Now those men, or those women, who know no more about the power of God, and the influences of the Holy Spirit, than to be led entirely by another person, suspending their own understanding, and pinning their faith upon another's sleeve, will never be capable of entering into the celestial glory, to be crowned as they anticipate; they will never be capable of becoming Gods. They cannot rule themselves, to say nothing of ruling others, but they must be dictated to in every trifle, like a child. They cannot control themselves in the least, but James, Peter, or somebody else must control them. They never can become Gods, nor be crowned as rulers with glory, immortality, and eternal lives. They never can hold sceptres of glory, majesty, and power in the celestial kingdom. Who will? Those who are valiant and inspired with the true independence of heaven, who will go forth boldly {586} in the service of their God, leaving others to do as they please, determined to do right, though all mankind besides should take the opposite course. 1:312.

More will prove faithful than will apostatize. A certain class of this people will go into the celestial kingdom, while others cannot enter there, because they cannot abide a celestial law; but they will attain to as good a kingdom as they desire and live for. 8:39.

The punishment of God is God-like. It endures forever, because there never will be a time when people ought not to be damned, and there must always be a hell to send them to. How long the damned remain in hell, I know not, nor what degree of suffering they endure. If we could by any means compute how much wickedness they are guilty of, it might be possible to ascertain the amount of suffering they will receive. They will receive according as their deeds have been while in the body. God's punishment is eternal, but that does not prove that a wicked person will remain eternally in a state of punishment. 9:147.

You hear some of them preach and teach that which I never taught; you hear them preach people into hell. Such doctrine never entered into my heart; but you hear others preach, that people will go there to dwell throughout the endless ages of eternity. Such persons know no more about eternity, and are no more capable of instructing others upon the subject, than a little child. 1:352.

But when the light of the knowledge of God comes to a man, and he rejects it, that is his condemnation. 2:140.

All who believe, have honest hearts, and bring forth fruits of righteousness, are the elect of God and heirs to all things. All who refuse to obey the holy commandments of the Lord and the ordinances of his house will be judged out {587} of their own mouths, will condemn themselves as they do now, will be accounted unworthy and will have no part or lot with the righteous. 8:83.

"Well," says one, "if I am pretty sure to get a state of glory better than this, I guess I will not take the trouble to inherit anything more." Well, run the risk of it, every man on the earth has the privilege. The Gospel is preached, sin revives, some die and some contend against it--some receive it and some do not; but this is the sin of the people--truth is told them and they reject it. This is the sin of the world. "Light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." So said Jesus in his day. We say, here is the Gospel of life and salvation, and everyone that will receive it, glory, honor, immortality and eternal life are theirs; if they reject it, they take their chance. 15:128.

Honesty in Action Will Temper Judgment--A man or woman must know the ways of God before they can become ungodly. Persons may be sinners, may be unrighteous, may be wicked, who have never heard the plan of salvation, who are even unacquainted with the history of the Son of Man, or who have heard of the name of the Savior, and, perhaps, the history of his life while on the earth, but have been taught unbelief through their tradition and education; but to be ungodly, in the strict sense of the word, they must measurably understand godliness. 4:58.

Don't cast them down to hell for their honest belief. 2:140.

If you do evil ignorantly and in good faith, I promise you it shall result in good. 7:139.

It has appeared to me, from my childhood to this day, as a piece of complete nonsense, to talk about the inhabitants {588} of the earth being thus irretrievably lost--to talk of my father and mother, and yours, or our ancestors, who have lived faithfully according to the best light they had; but because they had not the everlasting covenant and the holy Priesthood in their midst, that they should go to hell and roast there to all eternity. It is nonsense to me; it always was, and is yet. 6:291.

So far as morality is concerned, millions of the inhabitants of the earth live according to the best light they have--according to the best knowledge they possess. I have told you frequently that they will receive according to their works; and all, who live according to the best principles in their possession, or that they can understand, will receive peace, glory, comfort, joy and a crown that will be far beyond what they are anticipating. They will not be lost. 6:332.

I say to every priest on the face of the earth, I do not care whether they be Christian, Pagan or Mohammedan, you should live according to the best light you have; and if you do you will receive all the glory you ever anticipated. We should not be prejudiced against you in the least; even if you are against us and declare falsehoods about us we should not retaliate. But how prone we are to rebuke if we are rebuked, or if we receive a sharp word to return one. The Latter-day Saints have to overcome this; and the world may cry out and say all manner of evil against us, but, my brethren and sisters, let us so live that it will be said falsely. 14:151.

The very heathen we were talking about; if they have a law, no matter who made it, and do the best they know how, they will have a glory which is beyond your imagination, by any description I might give; you cannot conceive {589} of the least portion of the glory of God prepared for his beings, the workmanship of his hands. 3:93.

None will become angels to the Devil except those who have sinned against the Holy Ghost. 11:271.

Hell Defined--Any person knowing and understanding the Scriptures as they are, and understanding the mind and will of God, can understand at once that when he is shut out from the presence of the Lord, when he does not hear his voice, sees not his face, receives not the ministering of his angels or ministering spirits, and has no messenger from the heavens to visit him, he must surely be in hell. 2:137.

Were the wicked, in their sins, under the necessity of walking into the presence of the Father and Son, hand-in-hand with those who believe that all will be saved--that Jesus will leave none, their condition would be more excruciating and unendurable than to dwell in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. The fatalist's doctrine consigns to hell the infant not a span long, while the adulterer, whoremonger, thief, liar, false swearer, murderer, and every other abominable character, if they but repent on the gallows or their death-beds, are, by the same doctrine, forced into the presence of the Father and the Son, which, could they enter there, would be a hell to them. 8:153-4.

There is not a man or woman, who violates the covenants made with their God, that will not be required to pay the debt. The blood of Christ will never wipe that out, your own blood must atone for it; and the judgments of the Almighty will come, sooner or later, and every man and woman will have to atone for breaking their covenants. To what degree? Will they have to go to hell? They are in hell enough now. I do not wish them in a greater hell, {590} when their consciences condemn them all the time. Let compassion reign in our bosoms. Try to comprehend how weak we are, how we are organized, how the spirit and the flesh are continually at war. 3:247.

Will I prophesy evil? No. Let us prophesy good. But the justice and mercy of God must have their demands. 8:195.

The Second Death--What is that we call death, compared to the agonies of the second death? If people could see it, as Joseph and Sidney saw it, they would pray that the vision be closed up; for they could not endure the sight. Neither could they endure the sight of the Father and the Son in their glory, for it would consume them. 18:217.

It is a curious idea, but one in favor of which there is much testimony, that when people take the downward road, one that is calculated to destroy them, they will actually in every sense of the word be destroyed. Will they be what is termed annihilated? No, there is no such thing as annihilation, for you cannot destroy the elements of which things are made. 2:302.

None will be lost or turned away except those who sin against the Holy Ghost. 16:32.

Measure of Human Judgment--Every man and woman has got to have clean hands and a pure heart, to execute judgment, else they had better let the matter alone. 3:247.

I have a certain knowledge within me that the Elders of Israel will never be permitted to lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet, with regard to the wicked and ungodly, until they understand righteous principles, and live to them. 7:46.

You may judge of the truth you hear today and of that which you will hear in times to come; for we shall be judges {591} of ourselves as well as of our enemies, and we shall also judge angels. 5:258.

When the judgment is given to the Saints, it will be because of their righteousness, because they will judge even as the angels and as the Gods, and not as the wicked do. 19:7. {592}

Chapter XXXV

SALVATION

Universal Salvation--Salvation is the full existence of man, of the angels, and the Gods; it is eternal life--the life which was, which is, and which is to come. And we, as human beings, are heirs to all this life, if we apply ourselves strictly to obey the requirements of the law of God, and continue in faithfulness. 12:111.

The economy of heaven is to gather in all, and save everybody who can be saved. 11:262.

People should understand that there is no man born upon the face of the earth but what can be saved in the Kingdom of God, if he is disposed to be. 8:160.

I have heard a great many sermons, prayers and exhortations for people to go and get religion and have their names written in the "Lamb's Book of Life." I want to inform the whole world, all the sons and daughters of Adam, that their names are written there, and there they will remain to all eternity unless they by their evil acts blot them out. 13:149.

There never was any person over-saved; all who have been saved, and that ever will be in the future, are only just saved, and then it is not without a struggle to overcome, that calls into exercise every energy of the soul. 2:132.

All that have lived or will live on this earth will have the privilege of receiving the Gospel. They will have Apostles, Prophets, and ministers there, as we have here, to guide them in the ways of truth and righteousness, and lead them back to God. All will have a chance for salvation and eternal life. 6:149. {593}

If our faith is one, and we are united to gain one grand object, and I, as an individual, can possibly get into the celestial kingdom, you and every other person, by the same rule, can also enter there. 2:132.

How many shall be preserved? All who do not deny and defy the power and character of the Son of God--all who do not sin against the Holy Ghost. 6:292.

The heathen nations that now exist and that have existed on the earth will all be blessed, will see the time when they will have the privilege of receiving the blessings of the covenant established on the earth by the Son of God, and through it will be brought into glory and rest. 8:83.

The names of every son and daughter of Adam are already written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Is there ever a time when they will be taken out of it? Yes, when they become sons of perdition, and not till then. Every person has the privilege of retaining it there for ever and ever. If they neglect that privilege, then their names will be erased, and not till then. All the names of the human family are written there, and the Lord will hold them there until they come to the knowledge of the truth, that they can rebel against him, and can sin against the Holy Ghost; then they will be thrust down to hell, and their names be blotted out from the Lamb's Book of Life. 6:297.

Now, the inquiry on our minds is, are all the world going to share in these blessings? Yes, all the world. Are there none going to be lost? Are there none going to suffer the wrath of the Almighty? I can say, in the first place, as I have said all my life, where I have been preaching, I never had the spirit to preach hell and damnation to the people. I have tried a great many times--I tried last Sabbath, and I have tried today to come to that point--the sufferings of {594} the wicked. They will suffer, it seems; but I cannot get my heart upon anything else, only salvation for the people. All nations are going to share in these blessings; all are incorporated in the redemption of the Savior. He has tasted death for every man; they are all in his power, and he saves them all, as he says, except the sons of perdition; and the Father has put all the creations upon this earth in his power. The earth itself, and mankind upon it, the brute beasts, the fish of the sea, and the fowls of heaven, the insects, and every creeping thing, with all things pertaining to this earthly ball,--all are in the hands of the Savior, and he has redeemed them all. 6:296-297.

Where God and Christ dwell, that is a kingdom of itself--the celestial kingdom. 7:288.

How many Gods there are, and how many places there are in their kindgoms, is not for me to say; but I can say this, which is a source of much comfort, consolation, and gratification to me: Behold the goodness, the long-suffering, the kindness, and the strong parental feeling of our Father and God in preparing the way and providing the means to save the children of men--not alone the Latter-day Saints--not alone those who have the privilege of the first principles of the celestial law, but to save all. It is a universal salvation--a universal redemption. 8:35.

It will be a pleasure to know that we have saved all the Father gave into our power. Jesus said that he lost none except the sons of perdition. He will lose none of his brethren, except sons of perdition. Let us save all the Father puts in our power. 9:124.

All heaven is anxious that the people should be saved. The heavens weep over the people, because of their {595} hardheartedness, unbelief, and slowness to believe and act. 4:196.

Our religion is adapted to the capacity of the whole human family. It does not send a portion of the people to howl in torment for ever and ever, but it reaches after the last son and daughter of Adam and Eve, and will pluck them from the prison, unlock the doors, and burst the bonds and bring forth every soul who will receive salvation. 12:309.

The salvation that Jesus has purchased will reach the whole human family and save, in a kingdom or in some place where they will enjoy to the extent of their capacity, those who reject not the Gospel and despise not the Savior. 14:133.

There is a chance for those who have lived and for those who now live. The Gospel has come. Truth and light and righteousness are sent forth into the world, and those who receive them will be saved in the celestial kingdom of God. And many of those who, through ignorance, through tradition, superstition, and the erroneous precepts of the fathers, do not receive them, will yet inherit a good and glorious kingdom, and will enjoy more and receive more than ever entered into the heart of man to conceive, unless he has had a revelation. 8:36.

The Way to Salvation--You will be no more perfect in your sphere, when you are exalted to thrones, principalities, and powers, than you are required to be and are capable of being in your sphere today. 6:99.

No man will be saved and come into the presence of the Father, only through the Gospel of Jesus Christ--the same for one as the other. The Lord has his cause, his ways, his work; he will finish it up. Jesus is laboring with his might {596} to sanctify and redeem the earth and to bring back his brethren and sisters into the presence of the Father. We are laboring with him for the purification of the whole human family, that we and they may be prepared to dwell with God in his Kingdom. 13:150.

No matter what the outward appearance is--if I can know of a truth that the hearts of the people are fully set to do the will of their Father in Heaven, though they may falter and do a great many things through the weaknesses of human nature, yet they will be-saved. 5:256.

And if we accept salvation on the terms it is offered to us, we have got to be honest in every thought, in our reflections, in our meditations, in our private circles, in our deal, in our declarations, and in every act of our lives, fearless and regardless of every principle of error, of every principle of falsehood that may be presented. 5:124.

To look for salvation fifty years hence and do nothing for salvation at the present time is preposterous. God has placed the means of salvation within our reach, and the volition of the creature is at his own disposal. When his sons and daughters avail themselves of the means he has supplied for their salvation, doing good for themselves, it is gratifying to him. 10:221.

Salvation an Individual Work--Though our interest is one as a people, yet remember, salvation is an individual work; it is every person for himself. I mean more by this than I have time to tell you in full, but I will give you a hint. There are those in this Church who calculate to be saved by the righteousness of others. They will miss their mark. They are those who will arrive just as the gate is shut, so in that case you may be shut out; then you will call upon some one, who, by their own faithfulness, through the {597} mercy of Jesus Christ, have entered in through the celestial gate, to come and open it for you; but to do this is not their province. Such will be the fate of those persons who vainly hope to be saved upon the righteousness and through the influence of Brother Somebody. I forewarn you therefore to cultivate righteousness and faithfulness in yourselves, which is the only passport into celestial happiness. 2:132.

If Brother Brigham shall take a wrong track, and be shut out of the Kingdom of heaven, no person will be to blame but Brother Brigham. I am the only being in heaven, earth, or hell, that can be blamed.

This will equally apply to every Latter-day Saint. Salvation is an individual operation. I am the only person that can possibly save myself. When salvation is sent to me, I can reject or receive it. In receiving it, I yield implicit obedience and submission to its great Author throughout my life, and to those whom he shall appoint to instruct me; in rejecting it, I follow the dictates of my own will in preference to the will of my Creator. There are those among this people who are influenced, controlled, and biased in their thoughts, actions, and feelings by some other individual or family, on whom they place their dependence for spiritual and temporal instruction, and for salvation in the end. These persons do not depend upon themselves for salvation, but upon another of their poor, weak, fellow mortals. 1:312.

Many Degrees of Salvation--When God revealed to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon that there was a place prepared for all, according to the light they had received and their rejection of evil and practice of good, it was a great trial to many, and some apostatized because God was {598} not going to send to everlasting punishment heathens and infants, but had a place of salvation, in due time, for all, and would bless the honest and virtuous and truthful, whether they ever belonged to any church or not. It was a new doctrine to this generation, and many stumbled at it. 16:42.

These words set forth the fact to which Jesus referred when he said, "In my Father's house are many mansions." How many I am not prepared to say; but here are three distinctly spoken of: the celestial, the highest; the terrestrial, the next below it; and the telestial, the third. If we were to take the pains to read what the Lord has said to his people in the latter days we should find that he has made provision for all the inhabitants of the earth; every creature who desires, and who strives in the least, to overcome evil and subdue iniquity within himself or herself, and to live worthy of a glory, will possess one. We who have received the fulness of the Gospel of the Son of God, or the Kingdom of heaven that has come to earth, are in possession of those laws, ordinances, commandments and revelations that will prepare us, by strict obedience, to inherit the celestial kingdom, to go into the presence of the Father and the Son. 14:148.

There are millions and millions of kingdoms that the people have no conception of. The Christians of the day have no knowledge of God, of godliness, of eternity, of the worlds that are, and that have been, and that are coming forth. There are myriads of people pertaining to this earth who will come up and receive a glory according to their capacity. 6:347.

Is it not a glorious thought that there are kingdoms, mansions of glory and comfortable habitations prepared for {599} all the sons and daughters of Adam, except the sons of perdition? All will not have part in the first resurrection, and perhaps many will not appear in the second; but all will be resurrected, and, except the sons of perdition, enter kingdoms, the least of which I presume is more glorious than ever John Wesley saw in vision. 8:196-197.

Exaltation Proportioned to Capacity---The man or woman who lives worthily is now in a state of salvation. 1:6.

Is every man and woman capable of receiving the highest glory of God? No. 9:104.

Are all spirits endowed alike? No, not by any means. Will all be equal in the celestial kingdoms? No. Some spirits are more noble than others; some are capable of receiving more than others. There is the same variety in the spirit world that you behold here, yet they are of the same parentage, of one Father, one God. 4:268.

Some are not capable of the same exaltation as are others, arising from the difference in the conduct and capacities of people. There is also a difference in the spirit world. It is the design, the wish, the will, and mind of the Lord that the inhabitants of the earth should be exalted to thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, according to their capacities. In their exaltation, one may be capable of presiding over ten cities, while another may not be capable of presiding over more than five, another over only two, and another over but one. They must all first be subjected to sin and to the calamities of mortal flesh, in order to prove themselves worthy; then the Gospel is ready to take hold of them and bring them up, unite them, enlighten their understandings, and make them one in the Lord Jesus, that their faith, prayers, hopes, affections, and all their desires may ever be concentrated in one. 6:97. {600}

The Celestial Kingdom--The celestial is the highest of all. The telestial and terrestrial are also spoken of; and how many more kingdoms of glory there are, is not for me to say. I do not know that they are not innumerable. This is a source of great joy to me. 8:35.

The Kingdom that this people are in pertains to the celestial kingdom; it is a Kingdom in which we can prepare to go into the presence of the Father and the Son. 8:197.

The men and women, who desire to obtain seats in the celestial kingdom, will find that they must battle every day. 11:14.

As for a person being saved in the celestial kingdom of God without being prepared to dwell in a pure and holy place, it is all nonsense and ridiculous; and if there be any who think they can gain the presence of the Father and the Son by fighting for, instead of living, their religion, they will be mistaken, consequently the quicker we make up our minds to live our religion the better it will be for us. 14:157.

Who can define the divinity of man? Only those who understand the true principles of eternity--the principles that pertain to life and salvation. Man, by being exalted, does not lose the power and ability naturally given to him; but, on the contrary, by taking the road that leads to life, he gains more power, more influence and ability during every step he progresses therein. 7:274.

Our spirits, thousands of years ago, were first begotten; and at the consummation of all things, when the Savior has finished his work and presented it to the Father, he will be crowned. None of you will receive your crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives before he receives his. He will be crowned first, and then we shall be crowned, {601} every one in his order; for the work is finished, and the Spirit is complete in its organization with the tabernacle. The world is the first to be redeemed, and the people last to be crowned upon it. 6:282. {602}