Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1860.

I have not inquired whether there are any cases of difficulty between brethren or differences in doctrine that should be presented before the Conference. I have heard of none; consequently I have not given an opportunity to present any. I do not expect there is any such business requiring our attention.

We will first present the authorities of the Church; and I sincerely request the members to act freely and independently in voting—also in speaking, if it be necessary. There has been no instance in this Church of a person’s being in the least curtailed in the privilege of speaking his honest sentiments. It cannot be shown in the history of this people that a man has ever been injured, either in person, property, or character, for openly expressing, in the proper time and place, his objections to any man holding authority in this Church, or for assigning his reasons for such objections. Persons have frequently ruined their own characters by making false accusations. Some say they dare not tell their feelings, and feel obliged to remain silent. They, no doubt, tell the truth. Why do they feel so? This, probably, arises from some vindictive feelings against a certain man or men whom they would injure, if they could; and they conclude that their brethren are like them and would seek their injury, if they should avail themselves of the privilege of speaking or acting according to their wicked sentiments and thoughts: therefore they dare not develop the evil that is within them, lest judgment should be meted out to them. They know that they have evil designs; they know that they would bring evil on their brethren, if they had the power; and fear seizes them: they skulk off, and in the midst of the enemies of this people they say they are conscience bound—that they are tied by the influence, power, or authorities of this people. What is it which thus binds them? It is the power of evil which is in their own breasts: that is all that in the least abridges them in their privileges.

When I present the authorities of this Church for the Conference to vote upon, if there is a member here who honestly and sincerely thinks that any person whose name is presented should not hold the office he is appointed to fill, let him speak. I will give full liberty, not to preach sermons, nor to degrade character, but to briefly state objections; and at the proper time I will hear the reasons for any objections that may be advanced. I do not know that I can make a fairer proffer. I certainly would, if it were reasonable to do so. I would not permit contention; I would not permit long argument here: I would appoint another time, and have a day set apart for such things. But I am perfectly willing to hear a person’s objections briefly stated.

The first name I shall present to you is that of Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If any person can say that he should not be sustained in this office, say so. If there is no objection, as it is usual in the marriage ceremony of the Church of England, “Let them forever afterwards hold their peace,” and not go sniveling around, saying that you would like to have a better man, and one who is more capable of leading the Church.

[The names of the authorities and the votes thereon were printed in the Conference minutes.]

The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve have made choice of George Q. Cannon to fill the vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve. He is pretty generally known by the people. He has been raised in the Church, and was one of our prominent Elders in the Sandwich Islands. He went upon that mission when he was quite young. He is also known by many as the Editor of a paper which he published in California, called The Western Standard. He is now East, assisting in the transaction of business and taking charge of this year’s emigration. I will present his name to the congregation to become a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Parley P. Pratt. If this is pleasing to you, you will be so kind as to vote accordingly.

[The vote was unanimous.]

As to evil-speaking, I will say that if men will do the will of God and keep his commandments and do good, they may say what they please about me.

[The names of persons selected to go on missions were read, and the President continued his remarks.]

We have at times sent men on missions to get rid of them; but they have generally come back. Some think it is an imposition upon the world to send such men among them. But which is best—to keep them here to pollute others, or to send them where pollution is more prevalent? Ten filthy sheep in a flock of a thousand will so besmear the whole, that, to the eye of a stranger, they all appear to be worthless, when nine hundred and ninety of them are as good as can be, but for the outside smearing by the ten filthy ones. We have tried to turn the filthy ones out of the flock, but they will not always stay out. A few such defile, to outward appearance, the whole flock; and we have it to bear.

I wish the Elders to go and preach the Gospel, instead of begging from the poor their last picayune. I could say a good many things with regard to this subject, but I dislike doing so. My feelings are keen upon this matter. I wish the Elders to go and preach the Gospel, to bind up the brokenhearted, to hunt up the lame, the halt, the blind, and the poor among men, and bring them home to Zion. Do they do this? Not always. My feelings have been sufficiently hurt by a different course; and if the Elders do not stop it, I do not intend to bear it much longer. Perhaps some of them may say—“Brother Brigham, I think our lives and preaching and general deportment will compare very well with yours.” Yes, about as well as white will compare with black, blue, or red. I ask the people of this Church, Who of you have helped me in the days of my poverty? Sometimes a brother or a sister has given me a shilling or a few coppers. The second time I went to Canada, which was after I was baptized, myself and my brother Joseph traveled two hundred and fifty miles in snow a foot and a half deep, with a foot of mud under it. We traveled, preached, and baptized forty-five in the dead of winter. When we left there, the Saints gave us five York shillings with which to bear our expenses two hundred and fifty miles on foot, and one sister gave me a pair of woolen mittens, two-thirds worn out. I worked with my own hands and supported myself.

I have borrowed money, but where is the man I have refused to pay what I borrowed of him? If such a man can be found, let him come forward. I have supported myself and my family, by the help of the Lord and my good brethren. Some of the brethren have helped me very liberally, for which I thank them. After I was ordained into the Quorum of the Twelve, no summer passed in which I did not travel during the summer. I also traveled during much of each winter. Who supported my family? God and I. Who found me clothing? The Lord and myself. I had a large family, and in the States have paid as high as eleven dollars a barrel for flour.

My business is to save the people, not to oppress, plunder, and destroy them. It is also the duty of all the Elders to labor to save the people. Who supported me when I was in England? I was sick and destitute when I started for England, with not a member of my family able to bring me a drink of water. When I was able to walk ten or fifteen yards to a boat, I started. For an overcoat I had a little bed quilt my wife used to put on a trundle bed. When I landed in England, I had six shillings. Who administered to me? The Lord, through good men. The brethren were good and kind to me; but they did not gather me five pounds in this, and a hundred pounds in that Conference, and twenty pounds in another Branch. Have our Elders gathered money in this way? Yes, too often, if not all the time; and I am sick and tired of it; and if they do not stop it, I will expose them.

My practice in England, when I went from my office, was to put a handful of coppers in my pocket to give to the poor. Did I feed anybody there? Yes, scores. Did I help anybody to America? Yes, to the last farthing I possessed. By keeping the office and doing business myself, I had money enough to come home; but brother Heber and brother Willard borrowed money and helped others. When we arrived home, were we flush with means? No; we were nearly destitute. I had a little clothing, and the most of that I gave away to poor brethren. I also had one sovereign, and, by obtaining fifteen cents more, was able to buy a barrel of flour. Brother Joseph asked me what I was going to do. I told him that I did not know, but intended to rest with my family and friends until we ate it up, and then I would be ready to walk in the way the Lord should open before me. Joseph would often ask me how I lived. I told him I did not know—that I did my best, and the Lord did the rest.

Do men get rich by this everlasting begging? No. Those who do it will be poor in spirit and in purse. If you desire to be rich, go and preach the Gospel with a liberal heart, and trust in God to sustain you. If you cannot by such a course come home with shoes, come with moccasins; and if you are obliged to come barefooted, tar the bottoms of your feet: the sand sticking in the tar will form a sole; and thank God that you have arrived here in that way rather than in carriages. But no; many of our Elders must come in carriages: they must have gold, and silver, and fine clothing to enable them to flirt around with their wives.

Let my wives take care of themselves. “But,” says one, “I have gratified and pampered my wives so long, were I to go away, what would become of them?” Leave them to plan and provide for themselves.

Will those Elders I am talking to today take the hint? Or will they follow the practice of too many, and beg, and make that their chief joy and occupation? If you take the hint, go from here without purse or scrip, unless the brethren give you something: leave all you can with your families, and do not beg creation dry. Preach the Gospel, gather the poor, and bring them home to Zion. Return naked and barefoot rather than come in carriages procured with money obtained from the poor and destitute. If the rich give to you, receive it thankfully. Return with a wheelbarrow or handcart, and bring some of the honest poor with you. If you do not pursue this course, I shall conclude that we have made a selection of groveling, worldly-minded men, whose brains, at least in my estimation, are not as they should be.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1860.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of attending a meeting here, which, to me, was filled with riches—with treasures of good. Today we have met in the capacity of a General Conference—the Thirty-first Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thirty years ago today, the Church was organized with six members. And we will occupy this day in serving the Lord by instructing and encouraging each other, and by testifying of the things the Lord has revealed to us.

Some may suppose that I have the business of the Conference prearranged, but such is not the case. I seldom take thought for tomorrow upon such subjects. When morning comes, I try and be prepared for the business the Lord manifests should be done. I came here in that mind this morning, and knew no more about the manner in which this Conference will be conducted, with regard to its details, than you do, until I came here. Since I came into the house, my feelings and the circumstances have prompted me to say that we will hear further testimony from the brethren. Yesterday, several in the body of the house had the privilege of speaking; and this forenoon I wish to have the Twelve, the Seventies, and the High Priests give us five or ten minutes’ sermons from the stand.

I can testify to you, as I have to many congregations of Saints and sinners, that the Lord has revealed his will from the heavens, bestowed the holy Priesthood upon the children of men, and made us the happy partakers thereof. Most, if not all, assembled here this morning have felt the Divine influence of the Holy Ghost shed forth in their hearts: it has awakened them out of their sleep and out of their ignorance, and begun to teach them eternal things. This work is true. The Lord has bestowed the holy Priesthood upon the children of men, by which alone they can be prepared to enter into the celestial kingdom of our God.

How many Gods there are, and how many places there are in their kingdoms, 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 those alone who have the privilege of the first principles of the celestial law, but to save all. It is a universal salvation—a universal redemption. Do not conclude that I am a Universalist, as the term is generally understood, although that doctrine is true in part, like the doctrines or professions of all professing Christians. As was stated yesterday by one of those who spoke, when he was a Methodist, he enjoyed a portion of the Spirit of the Lord. Hundreds of those now present have had a like experience in a greater or less degree, before they joined this Church. Then, when we inquire who will be saved, I answer, All will be saved, as Jesus said, when speaking to the Apostles, except the sons of perdition. They will be saved through the atonement and their own good works, according to the law that is given to them. Will the heathen be saved? Yes, so far as they have lived according to the best light and intelligence they had; but not in the celestial kingdom. Who will not be saved? Those who have received the truth, or had the privilege of receiving it, and then re– jected it. They are the only ones who will become the sons of perdition, go into everlasting punishment, and become angels to the Devil.

The Priesthood the Lord has again bestowed upon those who will receive it, is for the express purpose of preparing them to become proficient in the principles pertaining to the law of the celestial kingdom. If we obey this law, preserve it inviolate, live according to it, we shall be prepared to enjoy the blessings of a celestial kingdom. Will any others? Yes, thousands and millions of the inhabitants of the earth who would have received and obeyed the law that we preach, if they had had the privilege. When the Lord shall bring again Zion, and the watchmen shall see eye to eye, and Zion shall be established, saviors will come upon Mount Zion and save all the sons and daughters of Adam that are capable of being saved, by administering for them. Is not this pleasing? Is it not gratifying? Is it not a consoling feeling and influence upon the mind of every intelligent being? Our former views were that the majority of the inhabitants of the earth would not be saved in any kind of a kingdom of glory, but would inherit a kingdom of damnation. Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am ye may be also.” In other words, “I go to prepare a place for you who have received and obeyed the celestial law, which I have committed to you.” 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.

One of the brethren, yesterday, felt so rejoiced, under like reflections, that he said he could pray for the devils in hell, if it would do any good. It is not for us to pray for them, because they have become sons of perdition. You may pray for your persecutors—for those who hate you, and revile you, and speak all manner of evil of you, if they do it ignorantly; but if they do it understandingly, justice must take its course in regard to them; and except they repent, they will become sons of perdition. This is my testimony.

The vision given to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon is the greatest vision I ever knew given to the children of men, incorporating more in a few pages than any other revelation I have any knowledge of. “This is the gospel, the glad tidings, which the voice out of the heavens bore record unto us,” state Joseph and Sidney, “That he came into the world, even Jesus, to be crucified for the world, and to bear the sins of the world, and to sanctify the world, and to cleanse it from all unrighteousness; That through him all might be saved whom the Father had put into his power and made by him; Who glorifies the Father, and saves all the works of his hands, except those sons of perdition who deny the Son after the Father has revealed him. Wherefore he saves all except them—they shall go away into everlasting punishment.”

Will the Methodists be saved? Yes. Will other sects? Yes. I think you could not now find an Elder in this Church who would rise up in a congregation and tell you that John Wesley is weltering in hell. Have the Elders ever preached such a doctrine? Yes, some of them have preached that all the Reformers, from the days of Christ and the Apostles until Joseph Smith received the Priesthood, must be damned. I do not think that you could now hear such doctrine from any of them.

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.

My heart is comforted. I behold the people of God, that they have been hunted, cast out, driven from the face of men. The powers of earth and hell have striven to destroy this kingdom from the earth. The wicked have succeeded in doing so in former ages; but this kingdom they cannot destroy, because it is the last dispensation—because it is the fulness of times. It is the dispensation of all dispensations, and will excel in magnificence and glory every dispensation that has ever been committed to the children of men upon this earth. The Lord will bring again Zion, redeem his Israel, plant his standard upon the earth, and establish the laws of his kingdom, and those laws will prevail. No law can issue from man or from any body of men to govern and control in eternal things; consequently, those laws must come from heaven to govern and control both Saint and sinner, believer and unbeliever, and every character upon the earth; and they will be issued according to the capacity, knowledge, and mode of life of the people to whom they are promulgated.

I will now call upon the brethren in the stand to speak, and let you have our testimony, strength, and faith, as we have received yours yesterday.

God bless you! Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 6, 1860.

I feel very well satisfied with our thirty-first anniversary. The brethren testify to the goodness of our God, and we have had much excellent instruction.

There is one principle I wish to urge upon the Saints in a way that it may remain with them—that is, to understand men and women as they are, and not understand them as you are. You see the variety of mind, dispositions, judgment, and talent, and variety in explaining and communicating thoughts. There is an endless variety, and I wish you to understand men and women as they are, and not to judge your brother, your sister, your family, or anyone, only from the intention. When you know the intention of the act performed, you will then know how to judge the act.

Some may wish to know whether my religion is as good to me now as it was twenty-eight years ago. It is far better. Twenty-eight years ago last February I went to Canada after my brother Joseph. He was a very spiritual-minded man. You have heard him say today that he did not laugh for a period of two years. I did not know of his smiling during some four or five years. I well remember his calling upon me, after he had been away preaching more than two years. Would he sit and chat with me? No, because of his serious reflections. I knew that he was solemn and praying all the time. I had more confidence in his judgment and discretion, and in the manifestations of God to him, than I had in myself, though I then believed the Book of Mormon to be true. Previous to this I had thoroughly examined the Book of Mormon. In about eight days it will be twenty-eight years since I was baptized. I brought brother Joseph home from Canada, and told him what I had experienced of the power of God, and what I had observed of the folly and nonsense so prevalent in the Christian world.

You have heard the brethren state their experience before they received this Gospel. I was not disposed to attach myself to any Church, nor to make a profession of religion, though brought up from my youth amid those flaming, fiery revivals so customary with the Methodists, until I was twenty-three years of age, when I joined the Methodists. Priests had urged me to pray before I was eight years old. On this subject I had but one prevailing feeling in my mind—Lord, preserve me until I am old enough to have sound judgment and a discreet mind ripened upon a good solid foundation of common sense. I patiently waited until I was twenty-three years old. I do not know that I had ever committed any crime, except it were in giving way to anger, and that I had not done more than two or three times. I never stole, lied, gambled, got drunk, or disobeyed my parents. I used to go to meetings—was well acquainted with the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, New Lights, Baptists, Freewill Baptists, Wesleyan and Reformed Methodists—lived from my youth where I was acquainted with the Quakers as well as the other denominations, and was more or less acquainted with almost every other religious ism.

Upon the first opportunity I read the Book of Mormon, and then sought to become acquainted with the people who professed to believe it. Brother Pulsipher said that he watched to see if he could find fault with the Elder who preached the Gospel to him. I did not take that course, but I watched to see whether good common sense was manifest; and if they had that I wanted them to present it in accordance with the Scriptures.

When “Mormonism” came, I was not under the necessity of hunting Scripture arguments to contradict them, for I had all my life been more or less familiar with the Scriptures. And I do not remember that I ever saw a day when I attacked a sectarian priest with the Bible, for I was well satisfied that they were in water too deep for them to fathom. I understood the Scriptures tolerably well, and my whole mind and reflections were to seek for every particle of truth with regard to doctrine.

I always admired morality, and never saw a day in which I did not respect a good, moral, sensible man far more than I could respect a wicked man. I embraced the Gospel. I then had not the Priesthood, but my mind was susceptible of the Spirit of Truth, and that truth I imparted to my brother Joseph. He caught its influence, came home with me, and was baptized. I was not baptized on hearing the first sermon, nor the second, nor during the first year of my acquaintance with this work. I waited two years and a few days after this Church was organized before I embraced the Gospel by baptism.

Up to the time that “Mormonism” came to me, I did earnestly pray, if there was God (and I believed there was), “Lord God, thou who gavest the Scriptures, who spake to Abraham, and revealed thyself to Moses and the ancients, keep my feet that they may not be entangled in the snares of folly.” So far as the Spirit went, its application and enjoyment were all right with me; but with regard to doctrine, I did not then see any that altogether suited me. I said, Let me pray about this matter, the Gospel, and feel right about it before I embrace it. I could not more honestly and earnestly have prepared myself to go into eternity than I did to come into this Church; and when I had ripened everything in my mind, I drank it in, and not till then. From that day to this, it is all right with me. I am more and more encouraged, because I can see the hand of the Lord more clearly and distinctly than I did no longer than two years ago.

As I frequently tell you, we can rise up, sit down, go here or there, act in this or that way, trade here or there; but we cannot bring out the results of our acts. God does that. I can see the results which he brings to pass by his handiwork. I can discern his footsteps among the people, and his going forth among the nations. His footprints are clearly discovered by his faithful Saints.

Brother John Young says there are some complainers. Who cares for that? I have nothing to do with them at present. Some are afraid there will be a good many apostates. That we expect, for many receive the truth who do not receive the love of it. Do not be afraid, but take fresh courage and persevere.

Some inquire, “Is this community going to be destroyed by thieves?” No. But they have their agency, and their course affords us an excellent opportunity to see the operation of the benign influences of so-called “civilization.” Do you suppose that I am now looking upon thieves? No: they do not come to meeting.

Those who are for right are more than those who are against us. 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.

Do not worry. All is right, for God reigns. Trust in him, keep your hearts clean, and faithfully observe your prayers, that should the angel Gabriel appear in this stand, you could calmly meet his gaze, and say “All is right with me, Gabriel.” That you may be able to look an angel in the eye and say, “All is right,” you require a clean heart. How many of this congregation could do this? How many could look at an angel and say, “What is wanting? I am ready.” If you can do this, you can enjoy the spirit of the Gospel and be Saints. This is the bread of eternal life.

I bless you all in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 5, 1860.

I have been happy in hearing the brethren bear their testimonies today, and I have a word of consolation and comfort for you.

I hope to live to see the day when the Lord will bring again Zion in its fulness, when the watchman will see eye to eye. This period of time is very desirable to every good and faithful person, and I hope to see it before I lay down this tabernacle to rest.

I can say to the brethren, I do not think that I have ever heard a more satisfactory testimony from them than I have today. An observation made by brother George Halliday is true—that if a person suffers his feelings to rise above the natural level of his capacity, they will sink in the same ratio. He wished us not to consider him an enthusiast. I do not know that I have heard a person today that I thought to be enthusiastic. A firm, unchangeable course of righteousness through life is what secures to a person true intelligence. The brethren today have advanced a great many ideas which are true, manifesting an interesting and instructive variety. I am highly gratified with the remarks I have heard.

We have very scanty ideas concerning the great plan called the plan of salvation—the system of doctrine, ideas, and practices that pertain to all the intelligence that exists in eternity. Very small, minute, and abstract ideas and principles are given to the children of men in relation to it, because they can bear but little—a little here and a little there, as it is written by the Prophet, “line upon line, and precept upon precept.” If you can receive one line today, it may prepare you to receive another tomorrow pertaining to the things of God. I am very happy and rejoice much, because I believe that I am now looking upon men and women who are steadily increasing in knowledge, firm in their integrity, truthful, and lovers of virtue in their hearts; though some, as has been observed, give way to temptation, are overcome by the enemy, and are led away. This we expect. As many as will be faithful to their calling, and manifest their faith by their good works, will find that they belong to the elect; and every one that forsakes his covenants and his God, and turns away from the holy commandments delivered to him, will find that he belongs to that class who are reprobates. God has given us ability to do good or evil. According to certain principles inherent in the organization of the people, they can believe the truth, or disbelieve it and believe a lie. They can falsify, or cling to the truth. They can continue to do good, or forsake it and commence to do evil. Every man is capable of doing either good or evil: he has his own choice, and will be judged by his works.

We will see the time when it will be said to us, as written in the New Testament, “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.” I partly judged a man who spoke here today from his own mouth. I have not much to say about him. Let God be his judge, and yours, and mine. If you wish to receive and enjoy the favor of our heavenly Father, do his will. If you wish the fellowship of his Saints, hurt not the wine and the oil, nor seek to destroy them, as many do. The man I have alluded to has sought diligently to destroy the oil and the wine—to destroy the virtue, truth, and holiness of this Gospel. 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.

It is thirty years tomorrow since Joseph Smith organized this Church with six members. What is it now? Almost every nation, kindred, tongue, and people that would receive the Gospel have had the privilege; it has been proffered to them, and thousands and hundreds of thousands have been baptized into the Church; and the Lord will call his own out of this people, and will prepare the Zion that is spoken of for them to dwell in. If we wish to enjoy the Spirit of Zion, we must live for it. Our religion is not merely theory; it is a practical religion, to bring present enjoyment to every heart.

A brother on my right told you his experience, that there is no necessity for taking any man’s word for the truth of your religion; for it is the privilege of all to have the testimony of Jesus—to have the Spirit of prophecy. I have no greater privilege to enjoy the Spirit of prophecy than you have. I have no better right to the Holy Ghost than you. If you will live as you are taught, you will walk in darkness no more, but will walk in the light of life. I pray that we may constantly do this: it is my continual prayer. I pray for all whom I ought to pray for, and as I ought to pray for them. Captain Gibson says that he would pray for everybody in heaven, earth, and hell. I love to see men manifest that good feeling; but I will insure that, if I was in heaven when Satan rebelled, I prayed that Satan might be cast out. Cast out the dogs and wolves that will feed on the sheep. Cast all bitterness out of your own hearts—all anger, wrath, strife, covetousness, and lust, and sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, that you may enjoy the Holy Ghost, and have that Spirit to be your constant companion day by day, to lead you into all truth, and then you will have good doctrine, good feelings, good wives, good children, a good community; and, finally, you will be Saints in the fullest sense of the word, but not yet. I believe we shall be Saints, through the grace of God.

I feel to bless you, to praise you, my brethren, although we are continually afflicted with more or less foul, mean, low, groveling, contemptible spirits in our midst. I do not mention names; but I know where some are now sitting in this house. The Latter-day Saints are improving. Tomorrow the Church is thirty years old. We have enjoyed ourselves today; tomorrow let us have much more enjoyment than we have had today. The constitution of man is such as to be liable to be driven to extremes. He may be compared to a bark on the ocean, tossed to and fro by the influences around. Keep your eye on the compass and steer straightforward, and you cannot sail too fast; but if you get among the breakers and rocks, your bark may upset. Keep your bark straight for the port, and there is no danger of your having too much of the Holy Ghost.

I have hardly heard an incorrect idea advanced today, and I consider myself a judge in these things. I judge Israel in their doctrines and conduct, and know whether they are right or wrong. I can say, to my joy and satisfaction, we are improving. I know that I am, when I compare my present power of mind to scope in truth and my power of discrimination with what I possessed twenty, ten, or five years ago. I am almost astonished at myself, and to see the im– provement there is in the people. But we are yet children, although we are almost as old as was Jesus when he began to preach. It is our privilege to continue to grow, and the Lord will protect his people and save Israel, and all hell cannot help it.

May the Lord God of Israel bless every one of you and his humble servant who is speaking to you. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 1, 1860.

The Elders who have addressed you have imparted much excellent instruction, many great and glorious principles have been advanced, the audience have been put in possession of them, and there are a great many more in store for us.

We constantly behold an endless variety in the appearance of the human family, and in their dispositions. No two persons are exactly alike in form, appearance, expression, disposition, and quality of character. We have seen a talent exercised before us today that is new to many of us. I have been acquainted with brother Mace more than twenty years, and never heard him speak in a meeting until today. I am pleased with his discourse; his ideas are bright and active: yet he will learn more; and we shall learn many things that have not yet entered into our hearts to conceive, and know better how to correct one thing with another, and more clearly understand these seeming discrepancies in doctrine, &c., that so often cause persons to differ.

The subject presented to you this morning I explained two weeks ago in a manner to be satisfactory to persons of good understanding: it is the subject of faith and belief. 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. This pecu– liarity has been observable today. It has often been told you that all people, sects, and denominations have more or less truth. None of the religious sects have a perfect system of salvation, though all of them have a portion of true doctrine, and suppose they have a perfect plan. 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. Faith and belief, for instance, should not be separated.

Belief is inherent in the creature—implanted within him for his use and benefit—to believe or disbelieve. Your own experience may satisfy you that faith is not brought into requisition by the presentation of either facts or falsehoods to the external senses, or to the inward perceptions of the mind. If we speak of faith in the abstract, it is the power of God by which the worlds are and were made, and is a gift of God to those who believe and obey his commandments. On the other hand, no living, intelligent being, whether serving God or not, acts without belief. He might as well undertake to live without breathing as to live without the principle of belief. But he must believe the truth, obey the truth, and practice the truth, to obtain the power of God called faith. Belief and faith continue in the person who is in possession of faith. It is thought by some that the time will come when we shall no longer believe. So far as I now know, I shall have to live a few hundred thousand years before I come to that conclusion. I am satisfied that belief will eternally exist with me, whether it will with others or not. When I am in full possession of faith and the power of God, if I should say to that mountain, “Be plucked up and placed in the sea,” it would be done; or to a tree, “Be rooted up,” it would be done. I expect that objects will come within the scope of my belief to act upon before I have faith to act upon them; but I never expect to see the time when there will not be room and opportunity for belief, and to advance.

I am pleased with the remarks made by brother Mace and brother Pratt. Brother Mace is right and wrong in his ideas upon the birth of the water and the spirit, as he is with regard to faith in the abstract. There is such a thing as the birth of the spirit while we live in the flesh. And when we understand more perfectly our own independent organization which God has given us, and the spirit world, and the principles and powers that act on this organism, we shall learn that a person can be so fully and solely devoted to the spirit of truth and to God, and be so wrapped up in that spirit, that it may be called, with propriety, a new birth. I read in the Scripture that a man must be born of the spirit before he can see the kingdom of God. And yet I have seen hundreds of people, in my experience and travels, who, after hearing the Elders preach, and the spirit of truth has found way to their hearts, have yielded to it and testified that this is the kingdom of God, and, after all, have never come into it. The love of the truth was so far lacking in them, or they were so far wanting in moral courage, that they did not embrace the truth. The writers of the New Testament were disposed to call it a birth, and I have no objection to their use of the term.

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. The resurrection from the dead may also, with propriety, be called a birth. All we can do in these matters is to exclaim, O the poverty of our language!—the poverty of our ideas!—of the power of our conception! But we shall learn more, and come to a better understanding.

It is for brother Mace and all others to understand that, because we believe in the ordinance of baptism, the ordinance of the sacrament is not to be done away. To learn that, if you believe in the laying on of hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost, you are not to deny the laying on of hands for the healing of the sick. It is not for people to take only part of the religion of Christ, and say, “It is all we require;” but take the whole truth wherever you find it. It is good; claim it, take it to yourself, and cleave to it, for it will do you good. Cease to separate truth from truth. Heaven is full of truth; earth is full of truth and falsehood. The power of God, the power of angels, and the power of the Devil are all more or less exhibited before the children of men. Let us yield ourselves to the Lord our Savior, that we may truly be his servants, and it will be well with us, and there will be no danger but that we shall be right. Let us learn to see the harmony of truth, and love and practice it, until we are made perfect and fully prepared to be received into the kingdom of our Father and God.

May the Lord God Almighty bless the Saints, and everyone who will permit his blessings to come upon them. I am under the same obligations to bless sinners as I am to bless Saints, if they will receive my blessings. I pray for the blessings of Heaven upon the work of his hands, for we are all his children—the sons and daughters of our Parent who dwells in the heavens. Let us do honor to his character and to our own being, and so live that we may have knowledge of the light of eternity, that we may be prepared to dwell eternally with him. This is the greatest gift that can be conferred on intelligent beings, to live forever and never be destroyed. May the Lord help us in so living as to enjoy his society, through the merits of his Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, March 25, 1860.

I will make a few remarks upon the portion of Scripture quoted by brother Hyde in the discourse he has just delivered as follows—“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”

In all such sayings, and in every part and portion of the revelations of God as given to the children of men, or to any individual in heaven or on earth, to properly understand them, a man needs the Spirit by which they were given—the Spirit that reveals such matters to the understanding, and makes them familiar to the mind.

In the Scripture above quoted, the death spoken of is a death that the intelligent being undergoes, and never recovers from: it is an eternal death. For the body to decay, like a kernel of wheat that is cast into the ground, is not considered a death. Brother Hyde observed—“If the germ of corn is not good, it all dies.” That is true: but if it is good, the corn does not die; it is placed in the ground to yield an increase. It is commonly termed death to have the spirit and body separated; but literally that is not death only to those who are sons of perdition.

This earth is brought together and organized from native elements as we now behold it, our tabernacles in– cluded. The matter of which all animate and inanimate existence is formed is from all eternity, and it must remain to all eternity, without beginning and without end. There are certain portions of this native element that will be refined and prepared to enter into the celestial kingdom—into the celestial family of the celestial world. If the spirit honors the body and the body honors the spirit while they are here united, the particles of matter that compose the mortal tabernacle will be resurrected and brought forth to immortality and eternal life; but it cannot be brought forth and made immortal, except it undergoes a change, for “dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” What for? To prepare the body to be made immortal and fitted to dwell in the presence of the Gods.

The death that Jesus referred to had no reference to these bodies going into the grave. He is the life and the light. He is the resurrection; he is the power; and “if you believe in me,” says Jesus, “you shall live forever—you shall be prepared to dwell with me in my Father’s kingdom.” If the question had then been asked him, “Will not this body be placed in the grave and return to its mother earth?” his answer would have been, “Yes, for otherwise you cannot be prepared for that eternal life of which I have been speaking—to live forever.”

Had the question been asked the Savior, when he uttered those words, “Do you say that the decree that the Lord gave to Adam is now removed?” he would have told them, “No;” for they could not be quickened, made immortal, and prepared for life everlasting, without going through these ordeals.

What can you know, except by its opposite? Who could number the days, if there were no nights to divide the day from the night? Angels could not enjoy the blessings of light eternal, were there no darkness. All that are exalted and all that will be exalted, will be exalted upon this principle. If I do not taste the pangs of death in my mortal body, I never shall know the enjoyment of eternal life. If I do not know pain, I cannot enjoy ease. If I am not acquainted with the dark, the gloomy, the sorrowful, I cannot enjoy the light, the joyous, the felicitous that are ordained for man. No person, either in heaven or upon earth, can enjoy and understand these things upon any other principle.

“Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power.” The death that is spoken of here is the death that is opposite to the eternal life the Savior spoke of. If you dishonor that body—transgress the natural laws pertaining to it, you are not worthy, in your sphere, to possess this body in an immortal state. What will become of it? It will return to its native element. That is the death that never dies. That is endless death. In this Jesus had no allusion to the changing or putting off of this mortality.

The very particles that compose our bodies will be brought forth in the morning of the resurrection, and our spirits will then have tabernacles to be clothed with, as they have now, only they will be immortal tabernacles—spiritual tabernacles.

When death is spoken of as in the words quoted, it is spoken of as death in reality. In many places in the Scriptures, the separation of the body and spirit is called death; but that is not death in the strict sense of the term; that is only a change. We are naturally inclined to cling to our mother earth; our bodies love to live here, to see, to hear, to breathe, and to enjoy themselves, because we are of the earth, earthy. But probably, in most cases, the change from mortal to immortality is no greater, comparatively speaking, than when a child emerges into this world. 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.

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 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, who 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. To me all these things are plain and easy. All we want is to understand the very subject Jesus was talking about, the nature of our organizations, the world we occupy, the laws by which we are, and by which we continue to exist.

Brother Hyde says, “Take the world, and what do they know pertaining to the things of God?” Do they know their right hands from their left, figuratively speaking? No. All that brother Hyde has said concerning our important position is true. It is beyond the power of man to fully unfold it, though a portion has been beautifully portrayed, and it seems that the people should see things that are so plain. Were it possible for the nations to gain power to destroy this kingdom on the earth, by so doing they would seal their eternal damnation. That is as true as it is that Jesus died for the sins of the world; as true as it is that there is a heaven, a God, and that the world exists, and the children of men dwell upon it.

When the wicked seek to destroy this kingdom, I can endure it tolerably well; but when I see those who profess to be Latter-day Saints taking a course to destroy themselves, and to prove themselves children of folly, children of darkness, it is a great source of grief and regret to me.

All mankind have the principles of eternal life implanted within them. Much has been taught in regard to this and to the agency of the children of men. God has organized the spirit and placed it in a tabernacle—has given it certain capacity and certain laws, and it is as independent in its sphere of action as are the angels and the Gods in the heavenly worlds. It is for us to act upon that intelligence that is ours in every sense of the word; and if we do honor to our tabernacles and to the spirits God has given us, we have the promise of eternal life, which is the gift of God. This promise is made to every son and daughter of Adam, if they obey the conditions laid down; and their names have been written in the Lamb’s book of life from the beginning, before we came into the world, and they will remain there to all eternity, unless we blot them out through a wicked course.

Try to understand the position you occupy, and then you will understand the sayings of the Apostles and Prophets. Thanks be to the Lord our God for the understanding he has already given us, for the spirit of revelation he has bestowed upon us, and for the holy Priesthood and the keys thereof, by which the heavens are opened, and by which men are enabled to understand things as they are. God be thanked for the intelligence there is with this people.

A week from next Friday it will be thirty years since this Church was organized with six members. The kingdom of God has thirty years growth on the earth, and does it not seem that we should be far advanced in the things of God? It does. At a glance we should know and understand many things that some are still in more or less dubiety about. One Elder will say that he knows nothing about God. “I believe in the Father and the Son, and in the revelations given through Joseph Smith; but to really say that I positively know anything of the true character of God, our Father in heaven, I do not know that I can.” A few moments’ reflection and the Spirit upon the vision of the mind, and that same Elder would say that he does know. Such statements arise from a want of the vision of the mind being opened to see things as they are for a few minutes.

The whole Scriptures plainly teach us that we are the children of that God who framed the world. Let us look round and see whether we can find a father and son in this congregation. Do we see one an elephant, and the other a hen? No. Does a father that looks like a human being have a son like an ape, going on all fours? No; the son looks like his father. There is an endless variety of distinction in the few features that compose the human face, yet children have in their countenances and general expression of figure and temperament a greater or less likeness of their parents. You do not see brutes spring from human beings. Every species is true to its kind. The children of men are featured alike and walk erect.

The Bible clearly teaches us that we are the children of the very Being who framed this earth and peopled it. Such teachings may be found in hundreds of places in the Scriptures, and yet we do not know anything about our Father! Is it not astonishing? I frequently think that truly the things of God are spiritually discerned, when man, in his reflections, thoughts, words, and acts, as a finite being, knows nothing of God. But when he meditates and acts from the intelligence of the spirit God has placed within him, the visions of eternity are opened to him; heaven and eternity are before him.

Brother Hyde compared the departure of the spirit from the body to going into another room, and referred to a statement made by Andrew Jackson Davis. He placed himself in a clairvoyant state beside the bed of a sick person and observed the spirit of a lady leave her body. He saw the spirit ascend from the head of the mortal tenement—saw it walk out into the open air in company with another spirit that came to escort her away. They appeared to him to ascend an inclined plane, and continued to walk away until they were out of his sight. Do you not believe that your spirit will be in existence after it leaves the body? I care not whether it goes out from the head or from some other portion. Mr. Davis says that after the spirit was fully out of the body, he saw as it were an umbilical cord that yet retained the spirit to the body; and that when that was separated, the spirit was free, and the body was consigned to dissolution. Whether this be true or not, it is as certain that the spirit leaves the body as it is that it enters it. When it leaves the body, it dwells in the spirit world until the body is raised up by the power of God; and when it is raised up, do you not think that we shall look like our Father? If any of us could now see the God we are striving to serve—if we could see our Father who dwells in the heavens, we should learn that we are as well acquainted with him as we are with our earthly father; and he would be as familiar to us in the expression of his countenance, and we should be ready to embrace him and fall upon his neck and kiss him, if we had the privilege. And still we, unless the vision of the Spirit is opened to us, know nothing about God. You know much about him, if you did but realize it. And there is no other one item that will so much astound you, when your eyes are opened in eternity, as to think that you were so stupid in the body.

Be very careful that you do not so conduct yourselves that when your bodies die, you will not receive them in an immortal state. Be careful that your lives are such that you be not deprived entirely of these bodies which have borne so much affliction and pain. There is a great design in the formation of the body.

The people cannot comprehend the deep mystery of the design of the Almighty in bringing so many people into this human world, shall I say? This is a world of pain, of darkness, sorrow, affliction, and death. The Almighty has his objects and plans all laid, and we are to pass through all these afflictions and to endure all that he calls us to endure, to give us knowledge, wisdom, and experience; for we cannot receive them upon any other principle. His design is to exalt the human family, and to bring them back to the presence of the Father and the Son. The heir of the family died to take away our sins. He has suffered, that we may live. He has offered himself up for the sins of the world. Why? Because he is the heir of the family. The Father and the Son are now doing all they can to save his children, and all the heavenly hosts are exerting their powers to accomplish the same great end. “But,” says the Father, “do not infringe on the agency of mankind; for my children, to be brought into my presence to enjoy with me the fulness of my glory, must pass through the same ordeals I have passed through. They cannot inherit eternal life upon any other principle.”

How far does our agency extend? There are certain bounds to it. What we have witnessed in thirty years’ experience teaches us that man can appoint but God can disappoint. Man can load his gun to shoot his neighbor, but he cannot make the ball hit him, if the Lord Almighty sees fit to turn it away. He can draw the sword to hew down his fellow man; but instead of that, he may fall upon it himself. Paul says, “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.” You may plead with the people and beseech them to embrace the truth; but unless God touches the heart your labors are vain. The Lord will bring about the results, and mankind cannot pre– vent it. The wicked may design an evil against the righteous, and he causes it to result in good. That is making the wrath of man praise him. He has not granted to man to bring out the result of his works, but he has given him the ability to work as he pleases—to go here or there—to do this or that—to obey the Gospel or disobey it. He has not committed the keys of the results of the acts of the nations of the earth to any man on the earth; but that power he retains to himself.

I can discern the hand of the Lord in preserving and leading this people. A great many do not discern this, because they have not eyes to see, nor ears to hear; for, if they had, they would discern the footprints of the Almighty and hear his voice, and would understand that he leads this people by the right hand of his wisdom and power, and that no power can prevent it. Anoint your eyes and pour oil in your ears, and pray that your hearts may be softened and your minds quickened to understand.

God will overrule the acts of the children of men in this kingdom as well as among the nations. After the children of Israel had traveled thirty years in the wilderness, they thought that they had prospered tolerably well, though they were still traveling. In their travels they crossed their tracks many times, whereas we, in our travels, have done so but a few times. How many times we may have to do so, I do not know.

Strive to prepare your hearts as fully as possible to enjoy a great portion of the Spirit of the Lord at our Conference; strive to enjoy that Spirit above all things. Let us prepare our hearts to receive the Holy Ghost to be our constant companion.

May the Lord God of Israel bless you! Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, March 10, 1860.

I wish to bring before your minds what brother Hyde began to state in a portion of his remarks, that he was sorry to see certain conduct, and yet he does see it; that if a person is overtaken in a fault, he is very much inclined to hide it, if he can. I think this trait to be very natural. Brother Hyde is sorry for the same things that I am. If I have injured any person, I ought to confess to that person and make right what I did wrong. But suppose that I have sinned against God, and no being on earth but myself knows anything about it, should I conceal that sin, or reveal it to the public?

It is just as natural for us to dissemble as it is for us to breathe. This is what brother Hyde had on his mind. Where brethren, though they be in high standing or low, are in fault and have injured their brethren, they should make full restitution. There are a few who will frankly acknowledge their faults, though only a few will do so. Is not this our experience? It is mine. If I am faulty towards my God, I will keep my faults from the people as long as I can. Is there any good reason for this? There is. Were I to relate here to you my private faults from day to day, it would not only do you no good, but it would injure you. If you were to relate your private faults to one another, it would tend to injure you; it would weaken and not strengthen either the speaker or the hearer, and would give the enemy more power. Thus far, I would say, we are justified in what some call dissembling. I will also say, so far as I am concerned, that I pray the Lord Almighty to so preserve me that you cannot find fault with me righteously. Do you not desire the same?

I have my weakness, and you have yours; but if I am inclined to do that which is wrong, I will not make my wrong a means of leading others astray. Many of the brethren chew tobacco, and I have advised them to be modest about it. Do not take out a whole plug of tobacco in meeting before the eyes of the congregation, and cut off a long slice and put it in your mouth, to the annoyance of everybody around. Do not glory in this disgraceful practice. If you must use tobacco, put a small portion in your mouth when no person sees you, and be careful that no one sees you chew it. I do not charge you with sin. You have the “Word of Wisdom.” Read it. Some say, “Oh, as I do in private, so I do in public, and I am not ashamed of it.” It is, at least, disgraceful to you to expose your absurdities. Some men will go into a clean and beautifully furnished parlor with tobacco in their mouths, and feel, “I ask no odds.” I would advise such men to be more modest, and not spit upon the carpets and furniture, but step to the door, and be careful not to let any person see you spit; or, what is better, omit chewing until you have an opportunity to do so without offending.

But if you have stolen your neighbor’s cattle, own it, and restore the property, with fourfold if it is requested. If you have taken your neighbor’s spade, own it, and return it, with fourfold if he requires it. I believe in coming out and being plain and honest with that which should be made public, and in keeping to yourselves that which should be kept. If you have your weaknesses, keep them hid from your brethren as much as you can. You never hear me ask the people to tell their follies. But when we ask the brethren, as we frequently do, to speak in sacrament meetings, we wish them, if they have injured their neighbors, to confess their wrongs; but do not tell about your nonsensical conduct that nobody knows of but yourselves. Tell to the public that which belongs to the public. If you have sinned against the people, confess to them. If you have sinned against a family or a neighborhood, go to them and confess. If you have sinned against your Ward, confess to your Ward. If you have sinned against one individual, take that person by yourselves and make your confession to him. And if you have sinned against your God, or against yourselves, confess to God, and keep the matter to yourselves, for I do not want to know anything about it.

It has been the doctrine of some Elders in this Church (whence they got it I do not know, without they got it from the Devil), that all the sin you can hide from your brethren and sisters, no matter what its nature and magnitude, will not be brought against you in the day of judgment. Such persons are greatly mistaken. For the sins you commit against yourselves and your God, unless repented of and forgiven, the Lord will hold his private council and judge you according to the degree of guilt that is upon you; and if you sin against others, he will make that public, and you will have to hear it. You need not think that you can hide your sins. Confess your secret sins to your God, and forsake them, and he will forgive them; confess to your brethren your sins against them, and make all right, and they will forgive, and all will be right. The doctrine of hiding sin is a false doctrine. If such doctrine be true, how will any be brought into judgment? And how is it that their secret words and thoughts and idle words will be brought into judgment? The Scripture saith—“But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Be careful not to have evil words and evil thoughts, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Keep your follies that do not concern others to yourselves, and keep your private wickedness as still as possible; hide it from the eyes of the public gaze as far as you can, and make the people believe that you are filled with the wisdom of God. I wish to say this upon this particular point in regard to people’s confessing. We wish to see people honestly confess as they should and what they should.

I can say, as far as my knowledge extends, that there is a decided improvement among this people. When the Elders go forth and preach to the world, they see the weaknesses of the people and the improvement that is required at their hands. Though we see many weaknesses in this people, yet we can see that the kingdom of God is rolling and increasing; and it is no matter what becomes of the world, if they will not repent of their wickedness.

Brother Hyde has remarked that State after State is leaving the Union, but there is no Union to leave; it is all disunion. Our Government is shivered to pieces—it is in fragments, as will still more be made manifest. But the kingdom of God will increase. Then let every person that desires truth and righteousness increase in all the wisdom and knowledge they can gather from every source in the heavens and on the earth, from one another, from the angels, and also from the wicked. Gather the wisdom they have, and treasure it up in good and honest hearts, and increase continually. And let us righteously guide our own minds and feelings, and guide the people in the ways of all righteousness. Take people in every capacity of life, and their wills are first and foremost. You can gain and lead the affections of the people, but you cannot scare them, nor whip them, nor burn them to do right against their wills. The human family will die to gratify their wills. Then learn to rightly direct those wills, and you can direct the influence and power of the people.

I have frequently thought, looking at the inhabitants of the earth, matters would be different, were it not fashionable to be sinful—were it, as it was in the beginning, a disgrace for a man to be sinful, and a credit to do good. I expect to see the time when the inhabitants of the earth will pride themselves in doing good. But now goodness, truth, and virtue are publicly frowned upon. The time will come when we shall be proud to have it said of us that we are good persons. Even now the wicked world, in their sober reflective moments, honor a just, righteous, and truthful person a great deal more than they do a person who falsifies his word; but they generally keep that secret. The time will come when the people will be proud to be Saints; it will be an honor to them. Will that be their feeling in regard to this Church? Yes. But the Lord will suffer this people to be afflicted until they are made pure and holy, so that when people feel a pride in being virtuous, truthful, and Godlike, it will be a holy pride, an angelic pride, a delightful, heavenly pride, to exalt and praise the name of our God and acknowledge him wherever they are.

Suppose the eyes of the inhabitants of the earth were opened to see the heavenly things and the earthly—to understand the evil that is attached to the earth and to the children of men—which do you think they would choose? Do you not think the whole world would choose the good? Yes, as readily as a hungry person would choose to go into a dining room and eat a good dinner. Would he not rather do this than go naked on the ice in the dark and wander hungry all night? Every person would delight in doing good, if his eyes were opened to see. This people are increasing in knowledge and heavenly wisdom; they are willing to do whatever we require of them. Only let them know what is required of them, and they will perform it with alacrity.

May the Lord bless you! Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, March 5, 1860.

I rejoice in the privilege of speaking to you this morning, and hope I shall have your prayers and faith, in connection with my own, that my remarks may be beneficial to those who hear.

Brother Spencer, in his remarks, indicated that there are some faultfinders here—some who take exceptions to the acts and doings of the Saints, especially to those of their leaders. Some of these persons profess to be Saints, some have been cut off from the Church, and some have never been in the Church.

I have no part with such men, neither have I any contention or argument with them. I am sent to preach the Gospel of life and salvation. If men are not pleased with my ways, they have as good a right to dislike them as I have to dislike theirs. If they do not believe in my advice, teachings, and counsel, they are at perfect liberty to disbelieve them, and I will not find one word of fault with them for so doing. They have full liberty to think and say what they please with regard to my acts; but, as I have often said, they must keep their “hands off.” The slander and lying of tongues set in motion by wicked hearts I have always met, and they do not affect my character before my God, nor in the eyes of just men.

Take the evildoers, in this commu– nity, those who have once tasted of the good word of God, who have received the Spirit of truth, and then turned again to the allurements of the enemy, have forsaken their God in their feelings, and connected themselves with those who are not in the Church; they know my character, and have much more confidence in me than I have in them. They believe what I say to be the truth; but they deceive, and I know it. I tell the truth; and, so far as I have power, I always act the truth; but they are disposed to refuse and neglect the truth, and to prefer error and falsehood instead.

I have very little to say to men who are dissatisfied with my course, or with the course of my brethren. Some have wished me to explain why we built an adobe wall around this city. Are there any Saints who stumble at such things? Oh, slow of heart to understand and believe. I build walls, dig ditches, make bridges, and do a great amount and variety of labor that is of but little consequence only to provide ways and means for sustaining and preserving the destitute. I annually expend hundreds and thousands of dollars almost solely to furnish employment to those in want of labor. Why? I have potatoes, flour, beef, and other articles of food, which I wish my brethren to have; and it is better for them to labor for those articles, so far as they are able and have opportunity, than to have them given to them. They work, and I deal out provisions, often when the work does not profit me.

I say to all grunters, grumblers, whiners, hypocrites, and sycophants, who snivel, crouch, and crawl around the most contemptible of all creatures for a slight favor, Should it enter my mind to dig down the Twin Peaks, and I set men to work to do so, it is none of your business, neither is it the business of all earth and hell, provided I pay the laborers their wages. I am not to be called in question as to what I do with my funds, whether I build high walls or low walls, garden walls or city walls; and if I please, it is my right to pull down my walls tomorrow. If anyone wishes to apostatize upon such grounds, the quicker he does so the better; and if he wishes to leave the Territory, but is too poor to do so, I will assist him to go. We are much better off without such characters.

I preach to the people and reason with them with regard to the dealings of God with the children of men. Many have apostatized because we were driven by our enemies from Missouri, notwithstanding they were taught that we never should be driven, if the people would sanctify themselves and be prepared for the blessings in store for them. But no, they did not sanctify themselves, and all the subsequent schooling was necessary to prepare the Latter-day Saints to receive the blessings of the Almighty. We are not prepared to receive his choicest gifts, unless we also have experience to know what to do with them. How many years have the Saints been taught upon these principles, to give them an understanding of the dealings of the Lord with the children of men?

When a man begins to find fault, inquiring in regard to this, that, and the other, saying, “Does this or that look as though the Lord dictated it?” you may know that that person has more or less of the spirit of apostasy. Every man in this kingdom, or upon the face of the earth, who is seeking with all his heart to save himself, has as much to do as he can conveniently attend to, without calling in question that which does not belong to him. If he succeeds in saving himself, it has well occupied his time and attention. See to it that you are right yourselves; see that sins and folly do not manifest themselves with the rising sun. I repeat that it is as much as anyone can well do to take care of himself by performing every duty that pertains to his temporal and eternal welfare.

Suppose that in this community there are ten beggars who beg from door to door for something to eat, and that nine of them are impostors who beg to escape work, and with an evil heart practice imposition upon the generous and sympathetic, and that only one of the ten who visit your doors is worthy of your bounty; which is best, to give food to the ten, to make sure of helping the truly needy one, or to repulse the ten because you do not know which is the worthy one? You will all say, Administer charitable gifts to the ten, rather than turn away the only truly worthy and truly needy person among them. If you do this, it will make no difference in your blessings, whether you administer to worthy or unworthy persons, inasmuch as you give alms with a single eye to assist the truly needy.

Again: Suppose that you are required to do ten pieces of work, but of the ten only one is necessary for the promotion of the kingdom of God; which had you better do—perform the ten pieces of labor, to be sure of doing the right piece, or neglect the whole ten because you do not know which the right one is? Had you not better do the whole ten pieces, that you may be sure of performing that which the Lord does really require at your hands?

First, believe in the Lord God Almighty, in his Son Jesus Christ, and in his Prophets that he sent in days of old; then believe in Joseph Smith, and do the works of the Father, before you question what I dictate to this people.

The Lord says, by one of the ancient prophets, “Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their hearts far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precepts of men; Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.”

The sound of the Gospel of life and salvation, to gather the house of Israel and redeem the children of men, is a terror to all nations. The fulfillment of this prophecy is plainly manifest, as is also that of revelations given in our day in connection with the great latter-day work; and yet all modern Christian communities disbelieve in new revelation. Are they hunted and cast out? No: they are received in the first society of the land as gentlemen. They are associates for Presidents and governors—for the chief rulers of the nation, who receive them with all the courtesy and generous kindness of which they are capable. But let men come, as Peter, James, and John, with words of eternal truth in their mouths, and they are despised and looked upon with withering scorn, as I and others of my brethren have been, and as Joseph Smith was, who was slain by the hands of wicked men.

Why do men hate me? Why do they hate you? Why did they hate Joseph Smith, Jesus Christ, and his ancient Apostles? Jesus they nailed to a cross, and Peter they crucified with his head downwards. John the Evangelist they banished to one of the islands of the Mediterranean, to be a slave in the lead mines, and tried to destroy him by putting him into a cauldron of boiling oil. Had he declared that Jesus and Moses were impostors, and that revelations from heaven were a humbug, would they have treated him as they did? They would not, but would have hailed him as one of their bosom friends. 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 hate and 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.

If people will believe the Gospel, and live by the principles thereof, they will be saved. They will not be faultfinders, they will not be discontented, they will not be workers of iniquity, they will not seek to falsify and change the truth into a lie, nor a lie into the truth; they will not seek to make white black, and black white. The Spirit of God has no place in persons who do such things. What have I to do with them? I am willing to preach the Gospel to all, and to seek the eternal good of all people. I have examined myself very closely; I have been trying to learn myself, to govern myself, and purify my own heart. The worst evil I can imagine or wish to come upon the enemies of truth is, that they be obliged to live by holy principles, and to deal by their fellow creatures as they would wish to be dealt by. This is the worst wish I can possibly wish upon my worst enemies who thirst for my life. There is no question but what this would be a great punishment to them. I would not wish them to be punished any more, nor to suffer any more. But I also could wish them to forsake the evil influence within them, which they constantly yield to, and partake of good and holy influences, that they may rejoice in the truth.

I shall see the day when every son and daughter of Adam will bow the knee, and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world—that to him we owe our lives, and that we are indebted to him, and through him to the Father, for every blessing we enjoy. They will acknowledge his right to rule and govern, King of nations, as he does King of Saints. This they must do, notwithstanding all their hatred. Can people receive this? Yes, every son and daughter of Adam can; though I once in a while meet with an individual who says that he cannot believe in religion of any kind. I will venture to say that there are men in this Church who would tell you so, were you to converse with them privately. They will tell you that they cannot in the least degree comprehend angels, spirits, God, and the kingdoms and thrones of the eternal worlds, nor anything of that character.

What do I say to such persons? Live that moral religion you believe in; for they believe in the same moral religion that you and I do. Let them deal justly with their fellow men, be truthful, honest, and charitable, full of good works to the day of their death, and I will insure them that the kingdom of God is theirs. And when their spirits leave their bodies, their eyes will be opened to see those heavenly and eternal realities which they could not comprehend while in the flesh. Now, I do not admit that good, active, bright, intelligent hearts and brains, or, in other words, good spirits put in mortal tabernacles are quite so ignorant as some imagine, although they may feel that they are, and may think that they cannot conceive of anything but what they hear with their ears, see with their eyes, &c. This is a mistake: they can see and understand more, but they do not know how to classify it. Let this be as it may, as I have said already, all who will correctly live an external religion are entitled to a degree of salvation.

Man is a mystery to himself. You see some who at once believe the truth when they hear the Gospel of salvation declared by the servants of God. Truth fastens upon their understandings, they yield to it at once and openly acknowledge it, and yet they live for years and years without receiving a love of that truth. Is not this a great mystery? It partially is. In their outward faith and lives they believe the Gospel of salvation as much as any person can; and, after all, darkness will come upon them; they will forget the love and communion they had with the Spirit of the Lord, and turn away from the holy commandments, and tell you that they never knew that the Gospel was true. How many are there of this class, year by year, who will say, “We never knew the truth of ‘Mormonism?’” I will relate an incident by way of illustration. A brother now here and working for us had a brother in Nauvoo, in the days of Joseph, who was sent to England on a mission. He went and preached to his brother that is now here, and bore testimony to him that he knew Joseph Smith to be a Prophet of God, that the New Testament is true, that the Book of Mormon is true, that the Book of Doctrine and Covenants contains true revelations from God, that God had sent an angel from heaven revealing the everlasting Priesthood, and had bestowed the Holy Ghost upon his servants, which he would give to all who believed in their words. Thus he preached to his brother and to the people, and returned to his house in Nauvoo. In a few years his brother came to Nauvoo, and the brother previously there began to tell him that “Mormonism” was not true, and that if Joseph Smith was ever a Prophet, he must have been a fallen Prophet. His brother then asked about the Book of Mormon. “Why,” said he, “I do not think it is true, though I do not really know.” “How about the Bible?” “I do not know much about it; but I think you had better stop here: here are houses and lands unoccupied, for the Mormons have gone west, and left their gardens, farms, and the furniture in their houses, and you can make money here.” “But is not ‘Mormonism’ true?” “I do not think it is, for the Mormons are now clearing out to go into the wilderness.” “But,” said his brother, “That has nothing to do with it. It is no matter where they go. Is the doctrine you preached to me in England true?” “Well, I do not hardly think it is.” Finally he said, “It is not true,” “Well,” said the young man, “I will ask you a single question: Did you tell the truth when you came to England to preach the Gospel? Or did you lie then, and now tell the truth? You either lied then or now, and I want you to tell me which time you lied.” He did not reply. “Now brother, I have a few words to say to you: You came to England and preached the Gospel, and told me not to trust in man, but to seek unto the Lord my God, in the name of Jesus Christ, and receive a witness for myself and know for myself that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God, that the Book of Mormon is true, and that God has set to his hand to gather the house of Israel and build up Zion. You said, Do not rely upon my word; for if you believe and embrace the Gospel, you have the promise of receiving the Holy Ghost. Now, I have to say to you that I did not merely take your word, for I did not consider I was under any obligation to believe and embrace what you called the Gospel, unless the Lord revealed it to me. You were to me a fingerboard to point the right way: I walked in it, and received a testimony that Joseph Smith is a true Prophet, that the Book of Mormon is true, and that this work is the work of the Almighty. You have apostatized. I am going to the camp of the Saints, and you may go where you please.” He left his brother, and is here in good standing with us. That illustrates a principle I wished to have you understand.

I recollect that while on my way to Ohio, to see brother Joseph the first time, I took dinner with a Mr. Gillmore—I think a Methodist priest. He began to tell me the character of Joseph Smith, what he had been guilty of, how long he had been a money digger, how long a horse jockey, and how many horses he had stolen; and his statement made Joseph to be some seventy or eighty years of age. I said to him, “Joseph Smith I never saw.” He says that he has received revelations from God, and declared that an angel visited him. He has declared that he found plates, and other witnesses have seen and handled them, from which the Book of Mormon was translated. I know nothing about these witnesses, neither do I care. I went to my Father in heaven and asked him with regard to the truth of the doctrines taught by Joseph Smith, and I know they will save all that will hearken to them, and that those who do not will miss salvation in the celestial kingdom of God; and though Joseph Smith should steal horses every day, or gamble every night, or deny his Savior from the crowing of the cock in the morning until sunset in the evening, I know that the doctrine he preaches is the power of God to my salvation, if I live it. I did not make him a revelator; I have no business to dictate him. I never called him in question, even in my feelings, for an act of his, except once. I did not like his policy in a matter, and a feeling came into my heart that would have led me to complain; but it was much shorter lived than Jonah’s gourd, for it did not last half a minute.

Much of Joseph’s policy in temporal things was different from my ideas of the way to manage them. He did the best he could, and I do the best I can. Joseph’s hands were continually tied. Who dared to trust him with their money? Very few. He had to defend lawsuit upon lawsuit. He passed through forty-seven lawsuits, and in the most of them I was with him. He was obliged to employ lawyers, and devise ways and means to shield himself from oppression. He had to struggle through poverty and distress, being driven from pillar to post. I wondered many a time that he could endure what he did. The Lord gave him strength in all these afflictions.

I do not employ lawyers, unless they are my brethren; and I seldom have occasion for employing them. Lawyers would come to Joseph, professing to have been his friends, and palaver around him, to get a fee. I could see through them and read their evil intentions.

The worst wish I have for such characters is that they had been obliged to tell Joseph Smith the truth when they came to him. Then they would have said, “Joseph, we have been laying our plans to get you into a lawsuit, and we want you to employ us, that we may receive a fat fee from you for defending your case.” Or, “there is an election coming off, and we take this course to turn your vote.” Bennett told the truth once when he said, “There is not much to be made in political traffic with the ‘Mormons.’” It never did any of them any good. We are not to be bought or sold.

I will now make a few more remarks upon belief and disbelief, understanding and not understanding. I am satisfied that persons are sometimes not so ignorant as they think they are. Faith is an eternal principle; belief is an admission of the fact. Faith, to us, is the gift of God; belief is inherent in the children of men, and is the foundation for the reception of faith. The principle of love within us is an attribute of the Deity, and it is placed within us to be dispensed independently according to our own will. Hatred is another attribute inherent in our organization. These and other inherent principles were planted in man when he was organized in the spirit, and when the spirit took the body they were not destroyed. Belief and unbelief are independent in man, the same as other attributes. Men can acknowledge or reject, turn to the right or to the left, rise up or remain seated: you can say that the Lord and his Gospel are not worthy of your notice, or you can bow to them. When the Elders went into your neighborhoods to preach the Gospel, you had the privilege of believing or disbelieving. You believed it; your neighbors disbelieve it. It is free and at your own option to dispose of at your pleasure. Could not your neighbors have believed the truth as well as you? Yes.

Now, follow out this idea to the last days in which we live, the time spoken of by the Prophets, and by the Savior, and his ancient Apostles, when the unbelief and hardness of the hearts of the children of men would cause them to be overcome by the power of Satan, to yield themselves to be servants to that wicked one. God has borne and foreborne with them, until he has begun to send them strong delusions, as he long foretold that he would, that they might believe a lie and be damned, for they have pleasure in unrighteousness, and have no pleasure in truthfulness, nor in the salvation of the Lord Jesus. They have pleasure in rioting, fighting, warring, killing, contentions, and every crime that can be enumerated. What will become of their belief? Will it not perish? Yes. When you believe the principles of the Gospel and attain unto faith, which is a gift of God, he adds more faith, adding faith to faith. He bestows faith upon his creatures as a gift; but his creatures inherently possess the privilege of believing the Gospel to be true or false. Is the belief they possess, to believe a lie expressly that they may be damned, faith? No. You may say it is a portion of faith. It is immaterial to me what you call it. It is the belief, the ability, the power that God has organized in the organization of man, and which he can do with as he pleases. If he uses it to believe a lie that he may be damned, both himself and his belief will perish and fall, to rise no more, while God will bestow faith on those who believe the truth.

Forsake the Spirit of the Lord—the Holy Ghost—the influence that comes from above, and partake of an earthly, dark, unbelieving influence or spirit, and your faith is gone; you have no faith. Is there a person who can possess faith without belief? No. Can men possess belief without faith? Yes, every son and daughter of Adam. Belief is an inherent principle in the organism of man to lay the foundation for faith.

I will sum it up again: Faith is an eternal principle—one of the attributes of the Deity by which the worlds are and were created. Belief is the admission of either truth or falsehood.

It has been stated that I teach the doctrine that the Gods continue to increase in all their attributes to all eternity. Have you ever heard me teach such a doctrine? I have taught doctrine; but have I called in question any of the Gods? It has been stated that God our Father comprehends eternity, from eternity to eternity, all there is, all there was, all there ever can be about eternity, in and through it. When a person undertakes to establish such a doctrine, what does he do? He gives bounds to that eternity which he at the same time admits to be boundless. Admit such doctrine, and eternity flees away like the shadow of morning; and that is as much as I ever teach about it. Do I say that heavenly beings improve? I am not yet there; I do not know.

Understand eternity? There is not and never was a man in finite flesh who understands it. Enoch has been referred to in this matter. How many of the Gods and kingdoms he saw when the vision of his mind was opened, matters not. If he had seen more than he could have enumerated throughout his long life, and more than all the men on earth could multiply from the time his vision opened until now, he would not have attained to the comprehension of eternity. How much Enoch saw, how many worlds he saw, has nothing to do with the case. This is a matter that wise men know nothing about. I do not know, though I know as much about it as any man in this house or in this generation. I can comprehend, by the words of eternal life, that there is an eternity before me. Has it bounds? Whether it has or not, neither we nor any other finite beings can comprehend it.

I will leave this subject, because I am not capable of understanding it. You leave it, and do not contend about things that are beyond our reach—that are too great for you to know at present. And when you go into the spirit world you will not understand it; and when you have lived in the spirit world until you again receive your bodies, you still cannot understand it; but you can continue to learn more and more about it, in the same manner as we learn here. I can teach many things about the future existence of man; but it is more directly our business to pay attention to those duties that more immediately concern us while we are here.

Brother Spencer says that we can tell a little about God the Father by his handiwork. It is very little. What does the world know? A wicked man may pray from this time to all eternity, and he will not be able to discern the print of his footsteps. It takes a spiritually-minded wise man to discern the hand of God in all things, and to be ready to acknowledge it, to discern that he rules among the armies of heaven, and that he is dictating, ruling, managing, and turning the hearts of the people on the earth to the right and to the left. He grants this and takes away that at his pleasure, but the people do not know it; they cannot discern it. One may here say, “What am I to do? If God dictates and guides the hearts of the people, they cease then to be responsible?” He gives to all men their agency to act, reserving to himself the right to control the results of their acts. The Lord does not dictate to do wrong; but when men are disposed to do wrong, he brings out the results in accordance with his own pleasure. You may plant and water, but can you make a kernel of grain or a spear of grass? This is not in the power of man to do; but God in his providences produces this. Let the Lord send an angel through this valley to cause certain properties in the air and water to depart, and your grain crops fall, or your fruit is cut off. He says to you, “Go and do a piece of work.” You do it, and by means of this he causes your enemies to stumble. Say that you are tilling the soil, and the Lord says to an angel, Do thus and so. What do you receive for your labor? Perhaps fifty, sixty, or a hundred bushels of wheat to an acre, when another year, perhaps, in the same place and with like labor, you do not receive more than five, ten, or fifteen bushels. Do you know the cause of this? No. No man can know, unless he enjoys the revelations of the Almighty. I make these remarks that you may understand that our Father controls the results of our acts at his own pleasure, and we cannot prevent it. Man can produce and control his own acts, but he has no control over their results. God causes even the wrath of man to praise him, to resound to his glory and the salvation of his children.

Israel were slaves in Egypt four hundred years; they were treated harshly and cruelly, and their children were slain. Then the Lord took them out from Egypt to wander in the wilderness forty years, traveling about as far as from here to Nauvoo—a distance that we can travel and back again in a season. This was to produce a result. They could not understand why they wandered thus in the wilderness; but God knew. They could not understand why he said to Jacob that they should wander in a strange land four hundred years; but the result was for the salvation of the children of men. God had promised to save that seed; but their wicked– ness would not let him save them without giving them the punishment they received. God took them into the spirit world and raised up their children to do a better work. If the Lord has promised to save a son of a man or woman that is full of faith—has promised that he shall come into his kingdom, though that son be froward and disposed to be wicked, yet he will receive his punishment in the flesh. Now, on the other hand, do not become Universalists and say that every man and woman receives punishment only in this world, for that is not true.

There are a number of other things that I might speak about; but I have spoken long enough.

God bless you! Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, March 4, 1860.

In detailing the different grades of people, of which we have known but little, and in discoursing upon their character and habits, I think that Captain Gibson, in his lecture, has been both amusing, instructive, and interesting.

When Captain Gibson first came to this city, he proposed addressing the people, and wished to know whether the subject possessed sufficient interest to warrant an audience. I think he is now well satisfied that he can have all the hearers he wishes.

The religion embraced by the Latter-day Saints, if only slightly understood, prompts them to search dili– gently after knowledge. There is no other people in existence more eager to see, hear, learn, and understand truth.

In a quotation read by Captain Gibson I noticed the word civilization; and I wish to know whether there is a person present who understands the term as I do. What is meant by “civilization?” We readily answer, “the state of being civilized”—refinement of manners, in contradistinction to the grossness of savage life. According to my definition of the word, there is not a strictly and fully civilized community now upon the earth. Is there murder by wholesale to be found in a strictly civilized community? Will a community of civilized nations rise up one against another, nation against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, using against each other every destructive invention that can be brought to bear in their wars?

When will they be civilized? When the Lord shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither learn war any more. When the world is in a state of true civilization, man will have ceased to contend against his fellow man, either as individuals, parties, communities, sects, or nations. This state of civilization will be brought about by the holy Priesthood of the Son of God; and men, with full purpose of heart, will seek unto Him who is pure and holy, even our Great Creator—our Father and God; and he will give them a law that is pure—a government and plan of society possessed by holy beings in heaven. Then there will be no more war, no more bloodshed, no more evil speaking and evil doing; but all will be contented to follow in the path of truth, which alone is calculated to exalt and dignify the whole man, mentally and physically, in all his operations, labors, and purposes. Short of this, mankind cannot be said to be truly civilized.

God forbid that modern civilization should make that simple, unsophisticated people, whom Captain Gibson has portrayed tonight, as are the Christian nations of Europe and America! God forbid that such a civilization should ever be introduced among them! But bestow upon them the principles of eternal truth; teach them how to live so as to do honor to their existence; teach them how to preserve themselves—how to preserve their companions, their associates, friends, and relatives; teach them how to preserve themselves as communities and nations, and how to secure and preserve to every person his equal and legal rights, seeking to preserve them in the truth, in light, in intelligence, in honor, and in every principle and act calculated to make a happy, Godlike, heavenly, social community. These are my views of civilization.

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.

I am trying to civilize myself. Are you trying to do the same? If we have succeeded in this, then we have control over our words and over our actions, and also, so far as our influence goes, over our associates. If we are civilized ourselves, we shall be partially prepared to receive the things that our Father and God has in store for all such as prepare themselves to become recipients of his choice gifts—for enlightenment, for intelligence, for glory, for power, and for every qualification he wishes to bestow upon his children here upon the earth, to prepare them to dwell in mansions of eternal light.

It is written that the greatest gift God can bestow upon man is the gift of eternal life. The greatest attainment that we can reach is to preserve our identity to an eternal duration in the midst of the heavenly hosts. We have the words of eternal life given to us through the Gospel, which, if we obey, will secure unto us that precious gift. The greatest blessing that can be bestowed on the children of men is power to civilize themselves after the order of the civilization of the heavens—to prepare themselves to dwell with heavenly beings who are capable of enduring the presence of the Gods.

It has been supposed by many writers that there is a regular gradation from the vegetable kingdom to the highest intelligence that has been bestowed upon man, gradually rising from one degree of intelligence to another. We learn that great intelligence has been bestowed upon certain persons among the children of men. We discern degrees of intelligence in our own society. There are also degrees of intelligence in a national capacity. There are degrees of intelligence in one family: you see its variations in communities, and you may mark its gradations from the highest and most refined intelligence of man down to the brute creation.

God has given this great variety of intelligence. He has also given this great variety of forms—that eternal variety which we see upon this earth, not only among human beings, but in every class of all the creations of God; and they are all designed to be preserved to all eternity. None of them were made to be destroyed, except those that do not abide the law given them.

The earth will abide its creation, and will be counted worthy of receiving the blessings designed for it, and will ultimately roll back into the presence of God who formed it and established its mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. These will all be retained upon the earth, come forth in the resurrection, and abide forever and forever.

Who will be destroyed? Those who have the words of eternal life offered to them and reject those words. They will remain uncivilized and in their heathenish darkness. There are others who will become civilized, purified, and prepared to dwell to all eternity in the kingdoms God has prepared for them.

The last time I spoke to you here I told you that I found my religion just as sweet to me in my private capacity, in my secret meditations upon my bed, and in my closet, in my office, or with my family, as it is when I am in this stand. I love it as well—esteem it as highly; it is as precious to my understanding, and it invigorates, buoys up, strengthens, and fills every power of my capacity with unspeakable joy, just as much at home as it does here. I hope this is the case with you all. If you live your religion, it is as dear to you when you are out of this Tabernacle as when you are here. Live your religion, walk humbly before your God, and secure to yourselves eternal life. That is what I desire; it is what I pray for.

The kingdom of God will roll, and no power can stop the work that the Almighty has commenced. Kings, rulers, governors, presidents, peoples, and all the armies of hell joined with them will never be able to impede the steady, onward, accelerated progress of this glorious latter-day work. If we should deny the faith of the holy Gospel, and go out of this Church, still it will roll on the same. This kingdom will stand forever. This religion will abide the day of the coming of the Lord Jesus, and will prepare us to meet him in peace.

Live your religion, walk uprightly, deal justly, love mercy, eschew evil of every kind, and sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and purify and sanctify your affections with the principles of eternal life, that Jesus may fulfil his own words—that he, by his Spirit, may be in you a well of water springing up to everlasting life.

The world is before us, eternity is before us, and an inexhaustible fountain of intelligence for us to obtain. Every man, and more particularly my immediate associates who are with me daily, know how I regret the ignorance of this people—how it floods my heart with sorrow to see so many Elders of Israel who wish everybody to come to their standard and be measured by their measure. Every man must be just so long, to fit their iron bedstead, or be cut off to the right length: if too short, he must be stretched, to fill the requirement.

If they see an erring brother or sister, whose course does not comport with their particular ideas of things, they conclude at once that he or she cannot be a Saint, and withdraw their fellowship, concluding that, if they are in the path of truth, others must have precisely their weight and dimensions.

The ignorance I see, in this particular, among this great people is lamentable. Let us not narrow ourselves up; for the world, with all its variety of useful information and its rich hoard of hidden treasure, is before us; and eternity, with all its sparkling intelligence, lofty aspirations, and unspeakable glories, is before us, and ready to aid us in the scale of advancement and every useful improvement.

See that your children are properly educated in the rudiments of their mother tongue, and then let them proceed to higher branches of learning; let them become more informed in every department of true and useful learning than their fathers are. When they have become well acquainted with their language, let them study other languages, and make themselves fully acquainted with the manners, customs, laws, governments, and literature of other nations, peoples, and tongues. Let them also learn all the truth pertaining to the arts and sciences, and how to apply the same to their temporal wants. Let them study things that are upon the earth, that are in the earth, and that are in the heavens.

There are hundreds in this community who are more eager to become rich in the perishable things of this world than to adorn their minds with the power of self-government, and with a knowledge of things as they were, as they are, and as they are to come. I will say to such, Get rich in gold and silver, in horses and lands, in goods and chattels, in flocks and herds, until you possess all you can possibly gain; but let me caution you not to get one cent, unless you get it honestly. And when you have amassed your millions, never allow yourselves to possess one dollar with the belief that you are capable of disposing of it judiciously without wisdom from our God. In all things inquire of the Lord, that you may wisely direct your earthly substance, as well as the energies of your minds, to the building up of his kingdom and the consummation of his purposes pertaining to this world and our salvation.

We are not yet half civilized, though we are more civilized than any nation upon the earth. Our neighbors say we are barbarians, sunk in heathenish ignorance. I will acknowledge my lack of memory to retain scientific phrases, and the names of places, and of men who have figured in the history of the world. With these exceptions, I am not a whit behind them as to a knowledge of things as they are, though I confess that my knowledge is limited. If they understand the Hebrew language, I understand its roots, and how it originated. If they understand the Greek tongue, I know whence it came, and how it was introduced among men.

I know the cause of the various languages and customs among the people, and the reason of the variation in our appearance, and the difference in the intelligence given to the children of men; and after all, I feel very ignorant, when I scan the wide field there is for improvement; and I know that this community are ignorant, and are not what they should be. I also know that if the enemies of truth will let us alone, as barbarous as we are, we will soon show them the most peaceable, right-loving, and law-abiding community in the wide world. We will show them the most civil community—a community farther advanced in the arts of refinement than any other upon the earth. We will show them men and women the most profound in learning, and mechanics the most expert and ingenious. We will show them men endowed with the most brilliant natural talent and the most wisdom that can be found in the world. We will do this, if they will cease driving us from our homes, and robbing us of our homesteads to the music of the rifle and cannon, and the horrible oaths and fiendish hilarity of civilized mobs who mock at our sufferings, and laugh to scorn our sorrows. If they will not let us alone, we will take the musket and the sword in one hand, the trowel and the hammer in the other, and build up the Zion of our God; and they cannot prevent it.

I am very thankful for the knowledge I have received from Captain Gibson’s book, from the little I have conversed with him, and from the lectures I have heard him deliver. I shall not cease learning while I live, nor when I arrive in the spirit world; but shall there learn with greater facility; and when I again receive my body, I shall learn a thousand times more in a thousand times less time; and then I do not mean to cease learning, but shall still continue my researches.

Let us be patient with one another. I do not altogether look at things as you do. My judgment is not in all things like yours; nor yours like mine. When you judge a man or woman, judge the intentions of the heart. It is not by words, particularly, nor by actions, that men will be judged in the great day of the Lord; but, in connection with words and actions, the sentiments and intentions of the heart will be taken, and by these will men be judged.

There are men in this community who make blunders; but they would not do an intentional wrong. They are weak; they do not fully understand themselves, and are sometimes overtaken in fault. Am I to condemn them? No; but to take them by the hand, and lift them up, and instruct them—give them a little intelligence as they can receive it. If they can receive but a little, give them only a little, exercising patience with them.

Ye mighty men of God, make sure the path for your own feet to walk to eternal life, and take as many with you as you can. Take them as they are, understand them as they are, and deal with them as they are; look at them as God looks at them, and then you can judge them as he would judge them.

May the Lord bless you! Amen.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, January 5, 1860.

Referring to the ideas advanced by our brother who has just sat down, in regard to the suffering of the children of men upon the earth, I will say it is a subject worthy of reflection. Have the enemies of the kingdom of God on the earth the power to bring more suffering upon the people who love and serve him, than they have to bring suffering upon themselves? I answer, They have not. We cannot find, in all the history extant, that mankind have ever exerted themselves more to destroy the kingdom of God from the earth than they have to destroy themselves. All their endeavors to overthrow the holy Priesthood of heaven and its righteous rule among men have always tended a hundredfold more to their own overthrow and utter destruction. Like the leaves of autumn, they have fallen to the ground and are forgotten. It was prophesied by Joseph the Prophet that the bones of those who drove the Church from Missouri, and killed men, women, and children, should bleach upon the Plains. This has been fulfilled. Did they suffer more than the people of God whom they drove from their homes—from their firesides in winter—from their fathers and mothers and friends, and the land of their nativity? Yes, there is scarcely a comparison. Their sufferings in crossing the Plains to the gold regions of California have been greater by far than ever the sufferings of the Saints have been in crossing the Plains to Utah. These are facts that are present with us. The bones of those who drove the Saints from Independence, from Jackson County, then from Clay and Davis Counties, and last of all from Caldwell County, from whence they fled into Illinois, have been scattered over the Plains—gnawed and broken by wild beasts, and are there bleaching to this day, while the Saints who have died on the Plains have, without an exception, had a decent burial where they have died—have had friends to condole with and comfort them in their dying moments, and to mourn for a season with their bereaved relatives. These comforts and blessings were denied the murderers of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and of scores of the Saints, and they were left in the bitterness of death without a friend and without mercy. They suffered immensely more than did the Saints whom they persecuted; they received that which they sought to bring upon the Saints, and that too in good measure, pressed down, and running over.

I have said and will say that there never was a colony settled on this continent, since its discovery by Columbus, with so little suffering as have had the Latter-day Saints who settled these valleys.

I will now leave these ideas, and turn my attention on to the remarks made by brother Lorenzo Snow in the forenoon. The principles and doctrine couched in those remarks are of great interest to the human family. I will take the liberty to treat upon the same principles, but shall carry the ideas still further, though in my own language and style of delivery. I will use a few words of Scripture concerning the evil that now exists and has existed upon the earth, referring to certain characters who have always been upon the earth and are still upon it, who are actually, to a great extent, “lording over God’s heritage.” I would plant my remarks here; and then for the context, I will use another saying—“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” I have but little time to expound and explain minutely, but will start at the beginning. God has created man in his own image, upright. Man in his creation is but a very little lower than the angels. In what degree and capacity is he lower than the angels? Angels are those beings who have been on an earth like this, and have passed through the same ordeals that we are now passing through. They have kept their first estate far enough to preserve themselves in the Priesthood. They did not so violate the law of the Priesthood and condemn themselves to the sin against the Holy Ghost as to be finally lost. They are not crowned with the celestial ones. They are persons who have lived upon an earth, but did not magnify the Priesthood in that high degree that many others have done who have become Gods, even the sons of God. Human beings that pertain to this world, who do not magnify or are not capable of magnifying their high calling in the Priesthood and receive crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives, will also, when they again receive their bodies, become angels and will receive a glory. They are single, without families or kingdoms to reign over. All the difference between men and angels is, men are passing through the day of trial that angels have already passed through. They belong to the same family that we do; but they have proven themselves worthy only of an exaltation to the state of angels, whereas we have the privilege of obtaining not only the same exaltation they enjoy, but of going further until we become Gods, even the sons of God.

My next reflections are upon the state of mankind, their position before God in their creation and being upon the earth in the connection of the spirit and tabernacle, and the influences that surround them. There are certain influences that we have no control over: man is controlled by surrounding influences in a greater or less degree. For instance, we cannot avert the consequences of the fall as it is called, of Adam, which came through his transgressing certain words or laws given to him by his Father and God. In consequence of this, sin came into the world, and death by sin. We are more or less controlled by the influences that have been introduced into the world by the power of Satan upon the children of men, and will be so long as we live in the flesh.

Permit me to diverge a moment from the legitimate chain of the subject before us. I do not myself wish, nor do I ask any man in the world to create a spirit of reformation to sing and shout ourselves “away to everlasting bliss.” There never was any such reformation desired by me. All I have ever asked for or contended for is a reformation in the life of this people; that the thief should stop his stealing, the swearer his swearing, the liar his lying, the deceiver his deceiving, and the man who loves the world more than his God and his religion wean his affections from those objects and place them where they of right belong. I do not wish anybody to cherish a wild enthusiasm, so common in the world, which is produced by the excitement of animal passions, and makes people weep and cry out in an insane manner. I wish the people to make themselves acquainted with facts pertaining to God, to heaven, to mankind upon the earth, their errand here, for what they are created, the nature of their organization, who has power over them, who controls them, how much they can control themselves, &c., &c.; and then let us see whether we can be men and conduct ourselves like Saints, or live and act like the wicked.

My reflections led me to inquire who it is that has influence over us. Can you inform me why people do wrong when they know the path of right and can walk in it as easily as we can walk home in broad daylight? Is the cause of this to be found in the heavens? No. Is it to be found in the spirit God has placed in our tabernacles? No. Where is it to be found? In the power of the Enemy of all righteousness, who holds dominion over our flesh, which flesh is intimately connected with the spirit God has placed within it. Herein is a warfare.

Brother Lorenzo was striving to lay before the people the necessity of their letting good overcome evil, instead of letting evil overcome good. His remarks supplied to me a number of texts, showing the precise situation of mankind before the Father and his angels, and before all the heavens. Men try to lord it over God’s heritage. I understand that saying in this wise: The spirits that are in men are as pure as the Gods are; then why do they consent to do evil? Because of the influences of evil that are in the flesh. Over it the Enemy of all righteousness has held dominion, has exercised a right, and has apparently triumphed. When mankind give way to evil and suffer the flesh to rule and contaminate the pure spirit tabernacled within it, they lord it over God’s heritage. When men consent to evil, the spirit within them does not answer approvingly. Though the inhabitants of the earth are in darkness and blindness, yet they are not so ignorant as they represent themselves to be. There is a spirit in them that reproves them continually when they do wrong, until they have sinned away the day of grace, and a mantle of darkness is thrown around them to shut out forever the light of God. Until then, they are checked continually, are taught, and chastened or justified as the case may be.

When people do right, they rest upon their beds, sleep sweetly, and rejoice in righteousness in their secret moments. When they do evil, it brings sorrow and deep pain to them in their private reflections. “But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” In every man there is a candle of the Lord which burns with a clear light; and if by the wickedness of a man it is extinguished, then farewell forever to that individual. The people say they do as well as they know how. This may be true. It is also true that there is a great amount of ignorance. But who among this people does an evil without knowing it? Is there a man in this kingdom who betrays his God and his brethren, without being perfectly conscious that he does an evil? I think not. Is there one who treats the name of the Deity with lightness, using his name in vain, that believes himself justified? I think not. Is there one who takes advantage of his neighbor or a fellow being, deceiving and wronging him, that believes he does right? I think not. When men do wrong, they know that they do wrong. Is there a person in this community that can lie, and feel justified in the belief that he is telling the truth? Does the thief feel justified in doing right when he steals his neighbor’s goods? No. The blackest vagabond, and renegade that walks the streets of this city or Territory is conscious when he does right and when he does wrong. Notwithstanding all this, there is a great deal of ignorance.

Just as long as we live within the purview of the reconciliation of the Spirit of God, that visits us from time to time, revealing the truth and the righteousness of our God, and yield to that and never cast it from us, whether we live or die, there is a salvation for us. There is a salvation for all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, no matter where they have lived or when, nor whether Christian, Mussulman, Jew, barbarian, or Gentile, that do not deny the power of God and sin against the Holy Ghost. You may discover that I am a Universalist. I am; and I am also a Calvinist, for the Almighty decreed all this before the worlds were. As I progress in my remarks you can see plainly that a widely extended field opens to our minds.

Is every man and woman capable of receiving the highest glory of God? No. We are surrounded with circumstances that control us to a certain degree. My father and mother moved into the State of Vermont, and it happened that I was born there. I cannot help that. They might have stayed in Massachusetts, close to Boston. If they had, I should have been born there, and I could not have helped that. My father’s name was John Young, and my mother’s maiden name was Nabby How. I cannot help that. My father was a poor, honest, hardworking man; and his mind seemingly stretched from east to west, from north to south; and to the day of his death he wanted to command worlds; but the Lord would never permit him to get rich. He wanted to command all, and that too in righteousness. I cannot help all this; I have no power to control such circumstances. When I was about twenty months old, my father moved from Vermont into the State of New York, where I lived with him until I became a man. I cannot help that. There are a thousand circumstances I cannot help or control that are thrown around me without any action of my choice.

I cannot help being here. We might have gone to Vancouver’s Island; and if we had, we should probably have been driven away or used up before this time. But here we are in the valleys of the mountains, where the Lord directed me to lead the people. The brethren who are in foreign countries desire to gather to the gathering place of the Saints, and they have for the present to come to Great Salt Lake City. They cannot help that. Why did we not go to San Francisco? Because the Lord told me not: “For there are lions in the way, and they will devour the lambs, if you take them there.” What now can we do? Why, instead of being merchants, instead of going to St. Louis to buy goods, we can go down to our Dixie land, the southern part of our Territory, and raise cotton and manufacture goods for ourselves. These are circumstances we are creating with which to surround our children, and to form the foundation of the future prosperity of this community. They will be more or less governed by the circumstances we create for them. They will make their own bonnets, ribbons, hats, coats, and dresses of every kind. While we are governed and controlled by circumstances over which we have no power, still we possess ability and power in our different spheres of action to call into existence circumstances to surround ourselves and our children, which will more or less control them; and, if they are planned in righteousness, will tend to lead us and our children to heaven. I have power to call upon the brethren to go south and raise cotton and indigo, the olive, and the grape. I have done it. In doing this, it throws them under the influence of new surroundings and new circumstances. They in their turn can, by perseverance and faithfulness, under the dictations of the Spirit of truth, bring forth a train of happy circumstances to bless them, to bless their wives, to bless their children, and to bless the kingdom of God.

I have power to send brethren to the east or to the west to buy our goods. I have power to say, John, William, or Thomas, Go and find a gold mine; but I am not disposed to exercise this power in that way. God has given this power to me. Let the brethren who have been called to go south go willingly, with their heads up and glory, hallelujah! in their hearts; for they are pioneers of future greatness, power, and independence to Israel. They possess power to do this. When the husbandman goes into his field, he has power to plough up the soil. When it is ready, he has power to plant corn in rows or otherwise; he has power to sow wheat or oats in drills or broadcast, and harrow in or cover the seeds, that they may grow. What we sow we shall also reap. We have great power committed unto us, and yet we are confined by certain laws that we cannot avert or control.

The power of choice all intelligent beings inherit from the Gods of eternity; it is innate. This statement might even be applied to the brute creation; but it is not my purpose to extend my remarks in that channel today. The Latter-day Saints can take the road that leads to life everlasting, if they choose; or, if they choose, they can take the road that leads to apostasy. As individuals, we must guard our affections from becoming contaminated with the love of earthly riches, or anything that is of earth, whether animate or inanimate. Uncertainty is strewed around us, and disappointment is the constant companion of those who worship at the shrine of the god of this world. If we center our affections upon any earthly object, whether within our reach or out of our reach, should we be bereaved of that object, we are left to mourn and lament in darkness because of our ignorance and folly. Let our love be for God and truth, righteousness and peace, being contented and happy with present endowments; and as the way opens to further progression, greater possessions, walk forward in the light of God and hold what we obtain for him and his cause, coveting not what we possess, and not with an avaricious desire reaching after what we cannot possess. If we do opposite to this, our whole existence will be creped with disappointment and mourning. Then let us keep the world and its allurements aloof from our affections. We may have the ability to build for ourselves beautiful houses, to plant choice orchards and vineyards, to adorn our grounds with flowers and sweet scented shrubs, and have lovely families, and possess horses and chariots, silver and gold, this, that, and the other, in abundance. But if our affections are placed upon these things, we shall either go out of the kingdom of Christ and miss being exalted sons of God, or will see our error, repent of our folly, learn to control our affections, desires, and passions, and willingly let “God rule within us to will and to do of his good pleasure,” having no mind only that which is of heaven.

Have we a will? Yes. It is an endowment, a trait of the character of the Gods, with which all intelligence is endowed, in heaven and on earth—the power to accept or reject.

Then, wherever the wisdom of God directs, let our affections and the labor of our lives be centered to that point, and not set our hearts on going east or west, north or south, on living here or there, on possessing this or that; but let our will be swallowed up in the will of God, allowing him to rule supremely within us until the spirit overcomes the flesh, and the world, Satan, and the flesh are vanquished and lie under our feet. Then and not till then will the righteousness of God reign triumphantly. It may be asked whether I have any idols? Yes, I have most darling idols—my God and my religion, and they are all the idols I wish to have. “Have you no wife that you idolize?” If I have, let the Lord take her and give her to somebody else. “Have you no children that you idolize?” If I have, let the Lord have them. I possess that which is apparently mine; but why should I call them mine, until I have passed the ordeals mortals must pass, and they are sealed to me by the authorities of the Gods in a way that they cannot be taken from me? They are now in my possession, and I hold them by the undisputed right of that possession. Anything we have upon this earth we only seem to have, for in reality we own nothing. No person on the earth can truly call anything his own, and never will until he has passed the ordeals we are all now passing, and has received his body again in a glorious resurrection, to be crowned by him who will be ordained and set apart to set a crown upon our heads. Then will be given to us that which we now only seem to own, and we will be forever one with the Father and the Son, and not until then.

There is a great difference in the individual capacity of people. Some can receive much more than others can: hence we read of different degrees of glory. How many kingdoms glory of there are, I know not; and how many degrees of glory there are in these kingdoms, I know not; but there are multitudes of them. Paul speaks of three, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon saw three, and multitudes more have we seen by the Spirit of revelation, according to the capacity of our understandings. Can we so live and direct ourselves as to receive glory, immortality, and eternal lives? We can. Then love not the world, nor the things of the world. Desire not that which is not for us, but desire only that which God has ordained for our benefit and advancement in the science of eternal life; then can we advance with accelerated speed in the things of God.

But is it not visibly manifest that the great majority want to lord it over God’s heritage. Wicked kings lord it over the consciences of their subjects, priests over their people, and masters over their servants; and wicked dispositions tell us to do this and to desire that which pertains to folly: they prompt almost constantly to lord it over God’s heritage. Where is God’s heritage? It is in our affections, our love, delight, glory, and happiness. Let us honor God’s heritage, sanctify it, and bring all into subjection that surrounds it and is connected with it, sanctifying the Lord in our affections. We see all the world trying to lord it over God’s heritage. It is in the spirit that the evil principle and power is trying to overcome and rule over the divine principle planted there. This constantly leads the children of men astray.

What power is legally ours? That which was given to Adam and the human family in former days. Power? Yes. Dominion? Yes. Glory? Yes. Honor? Yes. That which pertains to this world? Yes. That which pertains to the next? Yes. Let us understand this power and this privilege that God has guaranteed to the human family. He has first imparted power to mankind to control the elements; and when this is employed faithfully to magnify righteousness, then excellence, magnificence, splendor, beauty, honor, glory, and Godlike power will follow as the results. This power must be guided by the Almighty. Let the people be led by the revelations of Jesus Christ, and the finger of God will be made manifest before them day by day in their progress to eternal happiness; for this is the privilege of the faithful.

Shall we not choose for ourselves? Yes. Have we not rights? Yes. Have we not power? Yes. Have we not authority bequeathed to us from the heavens—a legacy from God to hold dominion over the elements? Yes. Then go to like men, like angels, like Him we read of, whom we love and serve and worship, who in his former capacity organized the elements as we are taught to do for our own benefit, beauty, comfort, excellency, and glory, and beautify the earth and make it like the garden of Eden, so that the angels will delight to come and dwell here, and Jesus Christ will delight to dwell with his brethren on the earth. This is our right. We are not destitute of rights and privileges. We have the right of choice. We have the right to dictate, to plough, plant, sow, reap, gather, mow, clothe ourselves and families, and gather around us in abundance all the comforts and blessings of life. Have we a right to inflict evil upon our neighbor, upon the divinity within him, or upon the divinity within ourselves? No. God should rule in the way and manner he pleases by the revelations of the Lord Jesus Christ, which will lead the Saints to victory and glory. By-and-by we will possess more rights than we now possess, but not until they are given to us. God has decreed from all eternity that we should have rights, power, and authority over the elements to organize and bring them into use and make them beneficial and subserve the wants of the human family.

I wish to see this people manufacture their own clothing, and make as good cloth as is in the coat I now have on, and as good silk as is in the handkerchief around my neck, and as good linen as is in the bosom and wristbands of my shirt. When we administer the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, I wish as good wine as can be made in any country, and that too made by ourselves from grapes grown in our own mountain valleys. I want to see the people wear hats, boots, coats, etc., made by ourselves, as good as ever was made in any country.

If you will obey my counsel, you will constantly increase in the riches and the comforts of life; though every time I speak upon this subject I wish to keep in view that if we cannot handle the things of this world without unduly placing our affections upon them, I pray God to keep them out of our possession. I would rather have this people clad with sheepskins and goatskins than to have them possess the wealth of this world without feeling that they could trample it all under their feet at any moment. Earthly wealth and greatness should only be used to subserve the purposes of God upon the earth. This is what brother Snow was speaking upon this morning. I have briefly noticed the same subject, using my own style and language. Let the divinity within the people overcome that wicked, corrupt, hellish influence the Devil has power to introduce.

Do not imagine that I am in the least finding fault with the Devil. I would not bring a railing accusation against him, for he is fulfilling his office and calling manfully; he is more faithful in his calling than are many of the people. God is not yet going to destroy wickedness from the earth. How frequently we hear it reiterated from the pulpit that he is going to destroy all wickedness. No such thing. He will destroy the power of sin. When we have lived to see millions of worlds created—yea, more in number than the particles of matter that compose this earth and millions of earths like this, if so many could be numerated by man, and people live on them to pass through the ordeals we are passing through, you will never see one of them without a devil. The work the Savior has on hand is to reduce the power of the Devil to perfect subjection; and when he has destroyed death and him that has the power of it, pertaining to this world, then he will deliver up the kingdom spotless to the Father.

I have not told the Saints my feelings, but I will here say that it is my daily prayer that God will change the power and authority of our political Government into the hands of the just. Amen.