Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, March 19, 1871.

I will read a portion of the word of God contained in the 85th Psalm:

“Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land: thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob.

“Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. Selah.

“Thou hast taken away all thy wrath: thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger.

“Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger towards us to cease.

“Wilt thou be angry with us for– ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?

“Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?

“Shew us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation.

“I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.

“Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land.

“Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

“Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.

“Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase.

“Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps.”

This was a prayer and prophecy uttered by the ancient Psalmist in relation to the house of Israel. These psalms were written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and most of them were prophetic in their nature. David was a man especially inspired of the Lord, not only to reign as king over the house of Israel, but to utter forth many predictions in the form of psalms to be sung in the congregations of Israel. He clearly spoke concerning the coming of the Messiah; his death, and the afflictions that should come upon him as the Redeemer of the world, and of many events in connection with his coming, all of which were fulfilled. He also spoke in many psalms in regard to the preaching of the servants of God in all nations, declaring the wonderful works of God. He also spoke concerning the second coming of this Messiah, the great glory that would be revealed on that grand occasion; He also spoke by the spirit of prophecy concerning the downfall of the twelve tribes of Israel and the great affliction that would come upon them; also, that the Lord would remember them in the latter times, and bring them to a knowledge of the truth.

This psalm which I have just read contains a prayer, uttered by this inspired man, for the redemption of the covenant people of the Lord. That he would not be angry with them forever, that his anger might not be drawn out towards them to all genera– tions; that he would turn himself from the fierceness of his wrath and show mercy unto his people again.

The Lord saw proper, in answer to that prayer, to inspire the Psalmist to utter these words—“Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good and our land shall yield her increase. Righteousness shall go before him and shall set us in the way of his steps.”

The Lord did not leave David in uncertainty about the blessings that should come upon his covenant people; he was informed, in the words which I have repeated, that the Lord intended again to bestow his blessings after he had sufficiently punished Israel; that he intended to bring them back to their own land; that he intended to bless that land which was given to them as an inheritance, and, that that land should again yield its increase to his people. But before he would do this he promised that truth should spring out of the earth, and that at the same time righteousness should look down from heaven; that truth should go before his face and set his people in the way of his steps.

We live, Latter-day Saints, in the age when this prophecy is being fulfilled. We have lived to behold the glorious period dawn upon this creation when God has condescended to bring forth truth out of the earth, and at the same time has manifested his righteousness from heaven—that is his law. I need not tell the Latter-day Saints that are now before me how this prophecy was fulfilled, for they already understand it. There may be strangers, however, in our midst who do not understand these things, as we understand them; and it may be well to briefly notice the fulfillment of this prophecy as manifested in the rise and progress of this Church. This Church has an existence this day in consequence of the fulfillment of their words. There never would have been any such people as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, unless God had again manifested himself in fulfillment of this prophecy. He has seen proper after so many generations have passed, to again reveal himself to the children of men, although it was contrary to their opinions and ideas that God would ever again speak to the inhabitants of the earth. They concluded that all communication from the eternal worlds was shut off, that, although there was a God and plenty of angels and messengers in his presence, he would never send them again to the inhabitants of our globe to reveal anything new.

These have been the ideas of our fathers for many generations that are past.

The whole Christian world were deluded with these ideas for some seventeen or eighteen centuries.

The idea took its rise in the apostate church that sprang up in the days of the Apostles; a church which denied the spirit of revelation and had the wickedness and audacity to proclaim in the face and eyes of the Bible that it needed no new revelation; that it had sufficient. The councils that were called towards the close of the third and fourth centuries of the Christian era concluded to introduce laws and rules among the church. The Greek and Catholic churches excommunicated all persons that would believe in the God of revelation.

They collected together various manuscripts which they had picked up in various parts of the earth, which they called the fullness of the canon of Scripture; then they passed a decree that if any person should be found believing anything except that which was contained in their canon, that he should not be permitted full fellowship in the church; that he should be disfellowshipped and anathematized. This wicked and abominable doctrine was handed down for a great many generations in the Greek and Roman Catholic churches, and will be found throughout all their writings—the writings of their most noted archbishops. They declare that they neither received nor believed in any new revelation; that their rule of faith and practice was ancient Scripture; that the church must be guided by those ancient laws, and by the traditions of their fathers—traditions handed down from the days of the Apostles to their day. Thus you see all communication from the heavens was cut off by their own decree; they were worse than the heathen. Nebuchadnezzar, a great heathen king accustomed to worship idols all his days, had not apostatized from the true God as those professed Christians had, for he believed in the God that gave revelation. We have an account in the Book of Daniel how the Lord did reveal himself to that heathen king in a dream. But he forgot the dream and sent a proclamation to all the wise men of Babylon to see if he could find out an interpreter. He, at length, found one in the person of Daniel the Prophet, who gave the king the dream that the God of heaven had given him; also the interpretation, and we have many instances on record where ancient heathen kings had not so far strayed from the God of heaven but what they could believe in new revelation; but we have the example before us for many generations where people who have assumed the name of Christ disbelieved in new revelation, and persecuted those who believe in receiving any new communication.

Some two or three centuries ago there was a great reformation in Europe—a protestation against this wicked, corrupt and abominable power that had held sway under the name of Christian.

They did reform from many of their corrupt practices, and they had power given to them, although perhaps they did not understand it fully, and the God of heaven did give power to these reformers to bring about more liberal principles; but they had to do it through great persecution. They succeeded, however, in building up denominations which they called Christian, that had forsaken, in some measure the corruption of the mother church. These reformers followed the mother church in regard to limiting their faith to ancient Scripture; they would tell the people that there was to be no more revelation. John Calvin and Martin Luther held the view, that there was to be no more revelation from heaven; that the canon of Scripture was full. They received this false dogma from the mother church; they could not find it in the New Testament; but it was a tradition handed down by the mother church that such was the fact.

Now, the devil did not particularly care how many good principles people retained, so long as they should deny one of the most important principles of heaven. Cut off communication from the Lord, shut up the heavens, keep angels out of the question concerning any more new communication to be given to the children of men, and the devil has accomplished his object. These falsehoods were handed down, after the reformers came out, in all the various denominations until the present day, until the time when the Lord, by the mouth of his holy angels, called Joseph Smith and gave unto him a knowledge by vision of the place where the ancient records of a portion of the Israelitish nation were deposited. At that period of time there was scarcely a people on the face of the whole earth but what were more or less under the delusion of this apostate doctrine. Mr. Smith, however, was uncontaminated by these traditions, as he was not a member of any church; this is manifest in the prayer offered by this young man at the time when the Lord first revealed himself to him.

He went out to pray, being then a little over fourteen years of age, in a little grove not far from his father’s house. The great object which he had in praying was to learn some few principles, which he saw were absolutely necessary to know, according to his understanding, in order to serve the true and living God. He desired to know which, among all the denominations with which he was surrounded, was the true church.

It is not often that boys of this age would be so exercised, but this was the fact in regard to Joseph Smith. He was uneducated; he had not been to college; he was not trained in the vices of all large cities; but merely a country boy accustomed to hard work with his father. Probably one reason why his mind was thus exercised was in consequence of the religious excitement existing in that neighborhood at the time; some of his own relatives had joined the Presbyterian Church, and he was earnestly sought after to join himself with some church, and his mind being somewhat wrought upon, seeing many of his young acquaintances turn to the Lord, he greatly desired to know which was the true church. It was a great question; he knew not how to satisfy his mind, for he had not read the Bible much. He heard a great many different doctrines advocated by ministers respecting the different denominations, which caused him to read the Bible. He happened to fall upon a certain passage contained in the Book of James, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth liberally and upbraideth not.” This passage, when he read it, seemed to sink with great weight upon his mind. He thought it was his privilege to go to the Lord and ask him respecting the desired information. As I told you before, he had not been trained up in any of the creeds of the existing denominations, and therefore he was confiding enough to believe what was here written, “If any man lack wisdom,” &c. He thought to himself that he did lack wisdom, for he did desire to know which was the true church. He went into the grove with a determination to claim this promise. When he was thus praying he saw a light which appeared to be approaching him from the heavens. As it came nearer it seemed to grow brighter until it settled upon the tops of the trees. He thought it would consume the leaves of the trees; but it gradually descended and rested upon him. His mind was immediately caught away. He saw in this light two glorious personages, one of whom spoke to him, pointing to the other, saying, “This is my beloved Son, hear ye him.” This was a glorious vision given to this boy. When these persons interrogated him to know what he desired, he answered and said, “Lord show me which is the true church.” He was then informed by one of these personages that there was no true church upon the face of the whole earth; that the whole Christian world, for many generations, had been in apostasy; that they had denied communication and revelation from heaven; denied the administration of angels; denied the power that was in the ancient church that comes through the gift of the Holy Ghost, and gave him much instruction upon this point, but did not see proper upon that occasion to give him a full knowledge of the Gospel, and what was necessary to constitute a true church, and gave him some few commandments to govern him in future time, with a promise that if he would abide the same and call upon his name, that the day would come when the Lord would reveal to him still further, making manifest what was necessary to the constitution of the true church. The vision withdrew; the personages attending and the light withdrew. He returned to his father’s house, and told the vision, not only to his parents and neighbors, but to some of the preachers of the religious denominations in that place. He was expressly commanded in the vision to unite himself to none of these churches. When he related that which he had received in this vision, the ministers immediately made light of it, and said to him, “God does not reveal anything in our days; he revealed all that was necessary in ancient times; he has not spoken for 1,800 years to anyone.” From that time forth he was persecuted, not only by ministers, but all denominations in that region persecuted him. “There goes that visionary boy.” This seemed to be the feeling manifested, not only by professors, but by all; but yet he knew that God had manifested himself to him; he could not be persuaded to the contrary, any more than Paul could when he heard Jesus in his first vision.

When about four years had elapsed, he retired to his bed one Sunday evening, reflecting upon the former vision, praying to the Lord that he might receive a fulfillment of the promise—namely, that if he was faithful, the true order of the Church of the Son of God should be revealed to him. While he lay thus praying, all at once the chamber was lighted up; this light continued to grow brighter and brighter until he saw a glorious personage, and this personage revealed to him the condition of the world, the apostasy of the Christian nations, and the darkness that reigned; also revealed to him what the Lord intended to accomplish upon the face of the whole earth preparatory to his coming. He informed him that this continent had once been occupied by a religious people, who understood the law of Moses and the Gospel; that they kept sacred records among them, and wrote them upon plates of gold, which were deposited in a certain hill about three miles from his father’s house. At the same time this angel was telling him about these plates, the vision of his mind was opened so that he could see the place of their deposit. After the angel had given many instructions he withdrew. Joseph Smith continued to pray; the angel came a second time, related the same things over again, and gave him the same view of the plates, and still further information concerning the work of the last days, and then withdrew a second time. He continued to pray; the angel came the third time, gave him some further knowledge and information, opening still further the prophecies concerning the grand events that must be fulfilled in the latter days. When the angel withdrew from him the third time, instead of going to sleep, he arose and it was daybreak. He had been conversing with this angel nearly the whole night.

He went out in the morning, as usual, with his father to labor in the field, and his father, observing that he looked pale, asked him if he was ill. He replied that he did not feel very well. His father advised him to go to the house. He started to go home, and after going a certain distance from his father, and before he reached the house, the angel again appeared to him—this was in daylight—and told him to turn back and tell his father what he had seen. He did so; he was also commanded by the angel in this fourth vision that he should go to the place where these plates were deposited. After relating to his father what he had seen, his father declared that it was a heavenly vision, and told him to be faithful to what had been revealed to him. He, therefore, on the morning of the 22nd of September, 1823, repaired to, and saw the place where these plates were deposited, just as he had seen in the night vision. They were deposited in a stone box not far from the summit of the hill Cumorah. The crowning stone that covered the box was oval; by taking away the turf from its edges he succeeded, by the use of a lever, in raising it from the box. When he saw the plates, he also saw an instrument that was called by the ancient prophets a Urim and Thummim. While he was thus gazing upon the plates, the angel came again to him, and as he was about to put forth his hand to take them, forbade him, saying that he needed further experience; that they could not be entrusted with anyone only with those having an eye single to the glory of God; that they were sacred records, and that no person could have them for speculative purposes; and gave him certain commandments to keep, and told him to visit that place again one year from that time when he would again meet with him. He did so at the expiration of the year, and did so until four years had passed away; and on the morning of the 22nd of September, 1827, the angel permitted him to take the plates, and also the Urim and Thummim.

Thus I have shown you how Truth sprang out of the earth; according to the words of our text. Mr. Smith being uneducated, except in the elementary branches as taught in our common schools in the East, therefore felt himself incapable, by his own learning, to perform so great a work. He was commanded of the Lord to draw off some of these characters from the plates and send them to the learned, which he did; they were sent to the city of New York by the hands of Martin Harris, the old gentleman whom you saw here last Conference. That old gentleman being then a middle-aged man, went to New York to see if he could find any person among the learned that could translate the characters. He went to Professors Mitchell and Anthon, and they were exhibited to them; and Mr. Harris received a certificate, stating that to them the translation of Joseph Smith seemed to be very correct. Martin Harris had not told Mr. Anthon how Mr. Smith came in possession of these characters. The Professor asked Mr. Harris how Mr. Smith obtained the plates from which the characters were taken; he said that he obtained them by the administration of an holy angel by obedience to the commandments of God. Mr. Anthon requested him to let him see the certificate, he did so; and without any further consultation tore it up before his eyes, and then said, if he would bring the plates to him he thought he could assist him in the translation. We all know that some of the characters and hieroglyphics that have been discovered in some parts of America cannot be deciphered by the most learned men of our day. The Professor wrote an article some time afterwards against the Latter-day Saints, in which he corroborates that which I have just told you concerning a plain countryman coming to him with characters.

Thus we have the testimony of Professor Anthon that such a circumstance did transpire, and that such characters were handed to him. After Martin Harris returned to Joseph Smith and told him the conversation that had taken place, how that Professor Anthon could not decipher the records, Joseph inquired of the Lord, and the Lord commanded him that he should translate the records, and that he should do it through the medium of the Urim and Thummim. He commenced translating, but being a poor scribe, he employed Martin Harris to write some for him; he also employed other scribes to write from his mouth, and at intervals continued to work upon the farm. Being persecuted, however, he had to leave his father’s house and went down to Pennsylvania, where he was also persecuted. He continued the work of translation until it was completed, and this is the book (Book of Mormon) which is the translation from these plates, a book which contains some five or six hundred closely written pages. After Mr. Smith had almost completed the translation, he found that there was a prediction contained in the book that the Lord would show to three witnesses, by his power from heaven, the truth of the divinity of this work. The query immediately arose who these three should be. Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer were very anxious that they might be the favored individuals. They were told to humble themselves before the Lord and pray unto him, and that if they would do this the same should be shown to them. They did so. Mr. Smith went with them; this was in Fayette, Seneca Co., New York, in the year 1829. While they were praying the angel descended from the heavens in the presence of these four men, and took the plates and exhibited the pages and engravings of that portion that was unsealed—for the whole of them were not permitted to be translated; and thus the engravings were shown to three other witnesses. The angel at the same time placed his hands upon the head of David Whitmer and said, “Blessed be the Lord and they that keep his commandments.” At the time that the angel was showing the records, they heard a voice out of the heavens saying, that the records had been translated correctly by the gift and power of God, and they were commanded to bear witness of the same to all people to whom the work should be sent. They have therefore given their solemn testimony in this book in connection with Joseph Smith, concerning the appearing of the angel, and the exhibition of the plates; their testimony has gone forth wherever this book has been published. Mr. Smith was also permitted to show the plates to eight other witnesses whose names are also given in testimony of these things, that they saw the plates and handled them.

Thus you have the testimony of twelve men, eleven witnesses besides the one who found the plates, three of whom saw the angel of God; and all this before there was any latter-day church in existence. There was a circumstance, however, that took place, before the organization of this Church, on the 15th day of May, 1829. Two men, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, being exercised before the Lord in regard to the ordinance of baptism; how and in what way they should receive this ordinance acceptably before him they did not know. They understood the mode of baptism, for in the translation of this record they found that the ancient inhabitants of Israel baptized by im– mersion, and that the words used in connection with it were also given. The question arose, Who could baptize them? The Lord had already told them that there was no true church on the earth, and that there was no authorized minister to administer baptism; and, of course, this was a question that would arise in the mind of any individuals under similar circumstances; they would naturally want to know how they could be baptized, so as to have their baptism recognized in the heavens. They understood that they might just as well jump into the water themselves, as to be baptized by a man having no authority on him. They did not understand how it could be done, and they therefore were troubled in their minds with regard to it, and went and humbled themselves before the Lord, who, on the 15th day of May, 1829, sent an angel to them. This angel informed them that he was John the Baptist, who was beheaded, and who baptized their Savior, and that he held the priesthood of his fathers, the priesthood of Levi. He laid his hands upon their heads and ordained them unto the priesthood that he himself had, which priesthood had authority to baptize for the remission of sins, but had no authority to lay hands upon the people for the gift of the Holy Ghost. John, who baptized our Savior, himself declared:

I can baptize you with water, and that is the extent of my authority, but there cometh one after me who is mightier than I, he has greater authority, he can baptize you with fire and with the Holy Ghost; but I have the right to baptize you with water. This was in substance what John said to the Jews in his day. He conferred this same priesthood upon these two men, and commanded them to baptize one another, giving them a promise that that priesthood should never be taken from the earth, but should remain forever; consequently the priesthood conferred by the angel is never again to be banished from the earth, as it has been throughout the dark ages.

They went and baptized each other, for the Lord did not permit them to organize the Church until the fullness of time had arrived. He appointed the day by new revelation, the very day on which they should commence the organization of the Church—namely, the 6th of April, 1830; also gave a commandment on the day of its organization, how the Church should be organized, with what offices, or those necessary to constitute a true Church of God here on the earth. Previous, however, to this organization of the Church they received higher authority than that which John the Baptist gave them.

For when they found they only had authority to baptize by water, but could not minister the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, the question arose immediately: How shall we obtain that authority? They again prayed; they again called upon the name of the Lord, and the Lord sent messengers from heaven with a higher priesthood than that which John the Baptist held, whose names were Peter, James and John, three ancient Apostles, and they conferred upon them the priesthood and Apostleship that they themselves had, which gave them authority not only to baptize, but to administer in the ordinance of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands in the name of Jesus, precisely the same as the Apostles did when on the earth.

Thus they received, not only the lesser priesthood, but also the Apostleship, and having authority granted unto them from heaven they were fully qualified to organize the Church; but still they could not do it by their own wisdom. There was nothing to be done in this Church by the wisdom of man. The Lord, as I heretofore stated, had already told them what the necessary offices were, and what the duties of these several offices should be in the Church.

The Church was organized, and we might give you a relation of its history from that day down to the present, but I see that the time allotted for our forenoon meeting has already passed.

I wish before I close to cite one or two testimonies from the prophecies in relation to this great work of the latter days. If you will turn to the 29th chapter of Isaiah and read the prediction contained therein you will find that nearly the whole chapter pertains to the events of the latter days, one of the predictions is the destruction of the nations of the wicked, which has never been fulfilled. It reads thus—That all nations that fight against Mount Zion shall become as a dream of a night vision, etc., etc.

The Lord intends, in the last days, to build up a people called Zion, or, in other words, his Church. It matters not how numerous the people of the nations may be, this is their destiny; they will become as the dream of a night vision; or as the Prophet Daniel expresses it—all kingdoms and governments organized by human authority shall become like the chaff of the summer threshingfloor; the winds of heaven shall blow them away, and no place shall be left for them; and that the stone cut out of the mountain should become a great mountain and fill the whole earth; and the kingdom and the greatness of the kingdom should be given into the hands of the Saints of the Most High—this is what Daniel has predicted. Isaiah has predicted the same; but, before this destruction of the wicked, certain events are to happen; among which he speaks of a book. He says, “And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this I pray thee, and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee. And he saith, I am not learned. Wherefore the Lord said, For as much as this people draw near me with their mouths, and with their lips do honor me, and their fear toward me is taught by 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.” “In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and darkness.”

These words of the Prophet Isaiah were fulfilled so far as the coming forth of this book was concerned. It was not the book itself that was to be sent to the learned; if that had been the case the prophecy would not have been fulfilled; but it was “the words of the book,” and not the book itself. “And the book was given to him that is not learned, saying, read this I pray thee. He says I am not learned.” Then comes in the declaration of the Lord—Because of the wickedness of the people, etc., that he would “proceed to do a marvelous work and a wonder,” and in that event he would cause the wisdom of the wise men to perish, etc., all of which has been fulfilled. “And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness.” Now, I would ask, are there not many in this congregation of Latter-day Saints who can testify that they have seen this literally fulfilled? Have you not seen those who have been literally deaf, in the enjoyment of their hearing, and this by the power of God in this dispensation? Yes, there are scores of witnesses that can testify that this has been literally fulfilled. Have you not seen those who have been afflicted with blindness restored immediately to their sight? Yes, and all this in fulfillment of this prophesy. The meek shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.” Who, I would ask again, is the most benefited by this prophecy? In ancient days, while the learned and the chief priests rejected the Gospel of the Son of God, was it not the poor among men that were benefited by the Gospel preached to them? Yes, and so it has been in these days.

How many scores of thousands have been taken from the oppressions of the old world, and brought some six or seven thousand miles here, into the interior of this glorious land of America, a land of promise? Although we have come into a very poor portion of it, yet you have been benefited; you now own houses and lands, cattle, horses and property that you never would have possessed had you not participated in the literal fulfillment of this prophecy. The poor among men are literally, as well as spiritually, blessed. Then comes in another prediction concerning the destruction of the nations of the wicked. “For the terrible one is brought to nought, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off, and all nations that fight against Mount Zion, will perish and vanish away.” When this marvelous work and a wonder is commenced, and its truths preached and fully declared to the nations, and they reject them, the desolation and destruction that were brought upon the ancient Jews for the rejection of the Gospel will, according to this prophecy, be visited upon the wicked of this generation. How about Israel? According to the words of our text, “Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven, yea, the Lord shall give that which is good, and our land shall yield her increase; righteousness shall go before him, and shall set us in the way of his steps.” Thus you see, in that day, when the wicked will be so sorely afflicted the God of heaven will signally favor Israel. These things will transpire when we get through with the Gentiles, because the direct commandment of the Lord is, first to the Gentiles, and then to the house of Israel. And when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, then the Lord will restore the blessings he promised to Israel; he will then fulfill literally that which was uttered by the Psalmist David, “Turn us again, O God of our salvation; how long will thou be angry with us? how long shall we have to suffer in consequence of our wickedness and the wickedness of our fathers?” Until truth shall spring out of the earth; until then your captivity must remain; until then your sufferings and great afflictions must continue. But when the Lord brings truth out of the earth and sends righteousness down from heaven he will again remember Israel; then the Gentile nations will be punished, and Israel be saved.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Feb. 19, 1871.

I will call the attention of the congregation to a portion of the word of the Lord contained in the 33rd chapter of Deuteronomy, commencing at the 13th verse. What I am about to read is the word of the Lord through Moses. “And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, And for the precious things of the earth and the fullness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren. His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.”

These words occurred to me after rising to my feet, as the blessing of Moses upon one of the tribes of Israel. The Latter-day Saints are aware that in ancient times men of God were led by the spirit of inspiration to bless with prophetic blessings. Such was the case in the days of Noah, such was the case in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and such was the case in the days of Moses. Being prophets, the Lord inspired them to know and understand the future, to know what he intended to perform and accomplish on the earth. They understood by the spirit of prophecy the blessings that would come upon the righteous and the curses that would come upon the wicked. They understood that the Lord would bestow blessings bountifully upon those who would serve him and keep his commandments. Hence they predicted blessings upon them, not only of a spiritual nature but of a temporal nature, among which farms were given to them, kingdoms, thrones, and a great variety of blessings of a temporal nature were oftentimes conferred by the spirit of prophecy upon the descendants of those whom the Lord delighted in. Many prophecies are recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy, pertaining to the twelve tribes, among which were certain cursings if they did not keep the commandments of the Lord, and certain blessings inasmuch as they would keep his commandments. Indeed, six of the tribes of Israel, or men out of six tribes, representing six of the tribes, were commanded to go upon a certain mountain, and representatives out of the other six tribes were commanded to get upon another mountain. The representatives on one of these mountains were to pronounce blessings on conditions, while the others were to pronounce curses also on conditions. Israel were to be blessed in their basket and in their store; in their goings out and in their comings in; blessed with all the blessings of the earth in the land of Palestine; blessed with the comforts and consolations of the Spirit; with revelations, with prophets, with all the blessings that had been enjoyed by their forefathers in the days of their righteousness; but if they would not do this, the others upon the other hill were to curse them; they were to be cursed in their basket and in their store; in the increase of their fields and in their flocks; cursed with all the plagues of Egypt. Their enemies, though few in number, should come against them, and they, though many, should flee before them. They should be dispersed until the latter days. In the latter days the Lord would again stretch forth his hand and would bring them from all the nations of the earth, where they have been scattered, to their own land of Canaan.

Almost the last thing that Moses did among the children of Israel was to pronounce separate blessings upon each tribe, commencing with the firstborn, Reuben, taking them according to their ages, pronouncing a variety of blessings, spiritual and temporal, upon the twelve tribes, until he comes down to Joseph. The words which I have read were the blessings upon that tribe: “Blessed of the Lord be his land.” It was a temporal blessing then; it did not particularly have reference to those spiritual blessings that pertain to eternity, but it was a temporal blessing. “Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of the earth, the precious things of heaven, for the dew and for the deep that coucheth beneath. For the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon; and the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the everlasting hills, and for the precious things of the earth and the fullness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush; let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren.” You perceive, then, that this blessing was of a temporal nature.

Now when Joseph entered the land of Palestine he received an inheritance with the rest of the tribes. Both Ephraim and Manasseh received their inheritances; one of them received an inheritance on the east side of Jordan; the other, Ephraim, received an inheritance on the west of Jordan in connection with the rest of the tribes. “Blessed of the Lord be his land;” and among the precious things that were to be given were the precious things of the earth and the fullness thereof. What are we to understand by the fullness of the earth? I understand it to mean the products of all climates. Palestine is in the temperate zone, and therefore produces fruits that are adapted to a temperate climate. Let me refer you to the blessing of Jacob, the father of Joseph, upon Ephraim and Manasseh. In the 48th chapter of Genesis we read that Joseph brought up his two sons to Jacob to receive his last blessing. Jacob was blind, and when Ephraim and Manasseh were brought before him, Manasseh being the oldest was brought before the old Patriarch in such a way that the old man would place his right hand upon the firstborn, and his left hand upon the younger, that the firstborn might receive the prophetic blessing. Being guided by the spirit of inspiration, the old Patriarch crossed his hands and laid his right hand upon the head of the younger and his left hand upon the head of Manasseh and pronounced his blessing. He said that these two sons of Joseph should become a great people and a multitude of nations in the midst of the earth. Now it would be very difficult for us to find the descendants of Joseph—a multitude of nations—anywhere on the eastern continent. If we go among the nations of Asia, the Chinese, the Hindoos, &c., we can trace back their history to early ages, and there is no evidence that they are the descendants of Joseph. If we go into the northern portions of Europe, to Russia and other countries, we find no evidence that they are his descendants. If we go among the various eastern nations, we have no evidence that they are the descendants of him. I don’t know any portion of the eastern continent, in Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia, where we can find a multitude of nations. When we come to America, we have a large country, with every variety of climate, temperate, torrid and arctic, and every variety of temperature. Jacob not only predicted that his tribe should become a great people—a multitude of nations—but that they should be blest in a variety of ways.

The great Prophet Jacob also pronounced these remarkable words uttered by inspiration: “Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, for his branches shall run over the wall.” What a great prediction about the tribe of Joseph!

There are several things to be understood in the prophecy. First, he should become a multitude of nations. We understand what this means. In the second place, his branches should run over the wall. Now what does this mean? The Lord in ancient times had a meaning for everything. It means that his tribe should become so numerous that they would take up more room than one small inheritance in Canaan, that they would spread out and go to some land at a great distance. You recollect that the Lord told Abraham to get upon a hill and look forth to the east and then to the west, then to the north and to the south. For, saith the Lord, “All the land thou seest I will give to thee and thy seed for an inheritance, for an everlasting possession.” That was the blessing conferred upon one of Jacob’s progenitors. Isaac had also the same blessing. Here Jacob wrestled with God or the angel near to the brook Jabbok. It will be recollected how Jacob sent his wives over the brook and stayed behind to wrestle with the angel, and they wrestled all night just as two men would wrestle. The angel not being able to overpower him by physical strength alone, but by miracle, touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh and it was withered, and in this way he was able to overpower him. The Lord pronounced great blessings upon his head, greater than those of his progenitors. This is the time that some say that Jacob received his conversion; but he did not repent of having more wives than one. What! Was he a holy man of God and had more wives than one? Yes; and instead of turning them off, he arranged them to go and meet his brother Esau; the first wife and her children, then the second with hers, and so on, and when Esau saw them, he inquired who they were? Jacob replied, “These are they whom God hath graciously given to thy servant.” We have deviated a little from our subject, but we will return to it.

Joseph’s peculiar blessing, which I have just read to you, was that he should enjoy possessions above Jacob’s progenitors to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills. This would seem to indicate a very distant land, from Palestine. The old patriarch said, “I bestow this blessing upon the head of him that was separated from his brethren.” Of course such a land must be large to contain a multitude of nations. It was to be adapted to the fruits, vegetables and grains of all climates; the precious things of the earth and the fullness thereof. We may learn then, from these facts, that the land was at a great distance from the land of Palestine. Where can we find a people who fulfil the terms of this prophecy as well as the American Indians? Here are a great number of nations. Go into the arctic regions and you find nations; in British America you find them scattered over a vast area of country; in the United States there is a multitude of nations, being driven west by the white men. Go farther south into the provinces of Mexico; go through the isthmus into South America and you will find still numerous nations of Indians. They have different languages, but the roots of each language indicate that they have all sprung from the same origin. How do you know that they have sprung from one race of people, or are of the same origin? Because learned men have studied into the antiquities of our country. Societies have been formed, among which is the Antiquarian Society, afterwards called the Etymological Society, which discovered that the roots of all the different languages have a very close resemblance to the Hebrew. But there is another thing that will prove still further their origin. When our fathers first settled the New England States and penetrated into the country they discovered that the Indians had certain rites and ceremonies which they observed, such as the new moon sacrifices, &c. From these proofs we conclude that they must have been descendants of the Israelitish nation. Lord Kingsbury, a man who was once very wealthy, expended about 80,000 pounds sterling in getting up nine large volumes giving accounts of these antiquities. He had agents searching in all the large libraries of Europe. Imagine the immense amount of manuscript writing, so voluminous as to fill nine large volumes! In these volumes he brought forth all the testimony in his power to prove that the American Indians were Israelites. But there was one thing that he could not understand; he found that the ancient Indians understood something about the Lord Jesus Christ. If he had consulted the Book of Mormon, he would have known why they knew about Jesus.

Let me here observe that the Book of Mormon, which has been published for forty-one years, gives an account of the first settlement of this country by these inhabitants, showing that they are not the ten tribes, but they are the descendants of one tribe, and they came to this country about six hundred years before Christ. The people when they first landed consisted of only two or three families; and instead of landing on the northwest coast of North America, they landed on the southwest coast of South America. A history of the escape of these few families from Jerusalem is contained in the Book of Mormon. How they traveled on the eastern borders of the Red Sea, and how they built a vessel or ship to cross the Indian and Pacific oceans; they were instructed how to build this vessel, and when they had embarked on it, they were brought by the special direction of the Lord to this land. He guided their vessel, or instructed them how to guide it, until they landed on the west coast of South America. One portion had become wicked and had apostatized from the religion of their fathers and sought the destruction of the righteous portion. The righteous portion of these families left the first settlement and traveled several hundred miles to the north, and formed settlements, and became a powerful nation. The others—the wicked portion—became a powerful nation. About fifty years before Christ the Nephites, as the righteous portion was called, sent forth numerous colonies into North America. Among these colonies there was one that came and settled on the southern borders of our great lakes. Both nations became very wicked, notwithstanding their prophets foretold great destruction if they would not repent. They predicted that at the time of the crucifixion darkness, earthquakes and great destruction of cities should transpire. While they were standing near their temple, conversing about this sign which had been given them of the crucifixion, they heard a voice in the heavens, and they looked up and beheld their Messiah descending. He came down and stood in their midst, and showed them the scars in his hands and feet, and in his side; and after visiting them for several days successively, he told them that he was going to the ten tribes of Israel. He also chose twelve disciples to administer his Gospel on this land and for the ministration of the Holy Ghost. The twelve disciples went forth and preached the Gospel, commencing in South America, and then went into North America, until all the people both in North and South America were converted, receiving the principles of the Gospel—namely, baptism, and the laying on of hands, and all the other principles as preached in our day. About two centuries after this, the Nephites fell into wickedness: the Lamanites, who dwelt in the southern portion of South America, also apostatized; and they began to wage war with the Nephites, who were their enemies; and being exceedingly strong they drove all the Nephites out of South America and followed them with their armies up into the north country, and finally overpowered them. They were gathered together south of the great lakes in the country which we term New York. The Lord ordered that the plates on which the records were kept should be hid, and one of the prophets knowing that it was the last struggle of his nation, hid them in the hill Cumorah, in Ontario county, in the State of New York, with the exception of those which his son Moroni, who was also a prophet, had. The last account that we have is furnished to us by Moroni, who states that, after keeping himself hid for several years, and being commanded of the Lord, he hid away the records, about 420 years after Christ. Thus, I have given you a very brief history of the settlement of our country.

In the year 1827 Joseph Smith, then a young man, took these records from their place of concealment, and, by the aid of the Urim and Thummim, translated them. In the presence of three witnesses, the angel took the plates and turned them over, leaf after leaf, showing them the characters thereon, and told them that they had been translated correctly. They were also seen by eight other men, making twelve men in all, including himself. Joseph Smith being inspired from on high, was commanded to organize a Church, which he did on the 6th day of April, 1830. It was composed at first of six members. Witnesses and preachers went forth into the States of this Union to preach the Gospel, and many were led to join the Church. It has steadily progressed since the time of its first organization until the present. The Saints were driven from State to State until they finally crossed the Missouri River and came to these valleys. Thus I have endeavored to give you a very brief sketch of the organization of this Church, and it has been very brief indeed.

I see the time is up; much more might be said from the holy Bible in relation to this great Latter-day work, but time will not permit. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, December 18, 1870.

I will read a few passages of Scripture, which will be found in the 50th Psalm—

“The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof.

“Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.

“Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.

“He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.

“Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”

This congregation, the members of which are generally speaking Bible believers, have no doubt in their minds but the ancient servants of God were inspired by the gift of the Holy Ghost to utter many things concerning the future, to deliver many predictions concerning events which should take place among mankind down to the latest generations. David, in a peculiar manner, was inspired, and composed his psalms by the spirit of prophecy; he foresaw, by that spirit that knows all things, some of the grand events of the future, pertaining to the inhabitants of this world, and the purposes of God in relation to this creation. These passages which I have read have reference to some of these great events, a portion of which have already, in a measure, been fulfilled; but the greater portion remains yet to be accomplished. “The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken,” has literally been fulfilled so far as this present generation is concerned. It has been fulfilled also in relation to past generations; but it is very evident from the meaning of the context, that the speaking of the Lord here referred to was a work of latter times when God should again speak to the inhabitants of the earth; when he should again call upon all people, far and near, “from the rising of the sun,” as he expresses here, “to the going down thereof.” To show more fully that this was a latter-day work, he speaks or predicts that the “Lord our God shall come and not keep silence.” This had no reference to his first coming; for though he did then come and utter forth his doctrine and did not keep silence, yet you will see by reading a little further, that the Psalmist had reference to another coming of the Son of God, very different in its character from his first advent. “Our God shall come and shall not keep silence.” Now mark, in an especial manner, the following sentence, and you will see that it has no reference to his first coming—“A fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.” This was not a characteristic of his first coming; there was nothing specially connected with that event that would excite the attention of mankind generally. He came in a very meek and humble manner; his birth and advent into this world were in the most humble position. Born, as it were, in a stable, laid down in a manger. Not born in king’s palace—not born among the great and noble, but in a very obscure manner. He grew up from infancy to manhood engaged in the carpenter’s business. Some thirty years of his life were spent at home with his reputed father, and with his mother Mary, dwelling comparatively in obscurity, occasionally breaking forth and arguing with the wise and the great. Nothing characterizing him as the Great Creator of this world, or as its Redeemer, only to those who were well acquainted with the predictions of the Prophets. But this last coming, or the coming here spoken of by the Psalmist, represents him as coming with power—“A fire shall devour before him and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above,” says the next passage, “and to the earth from beneath.” What object had he in view, in calling upon the heavens above and upon the earth beneath? What end had he in view in again speaking and breaking the silence of ages, and in giving a revelation to the heavens and then to the earth? It was in order to bring about a preparatory work before the face of his coming the second time, when he should come in flaming fire. A preparation was needed, and this preparation is mentioned in part in the last verse which I read, which declares that he should call to the heavens from above and to the earth from beneath.

He gives us some insight into the nature of that call. His call to his servants was, “Gather ye my Saints together unto me, they that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”

This seems, then, to be a work preparatory to the coming of the Lord in flaming fire. The nature of the fire that will be exhibited at his second coming in the clouds of heaven will be such that it will consume the wicked and ungodly, and those who repent not and who do not sanctify themselves before the Lord. Our God in that day will be a consuming fire; the intensity of this fire will be so great that the very hills, the Psalmist David informs us in another place, “will melt like wax before his presence.” The Prophet Isaiah, in speaking of the fire or heat that would accompany the second advent of the Son of God, declares that the mountains shall flow down at his presence. The elements that now constitute these rugged mountains which we see here on this continent and in all parts of the earth where we travel will melt with fervent heat, and will flow down before the presence of the Lord. The brightness of this fire will be greater than that of the sun in its glory. I mean our temporal, literal sun, from which we receive light and heat, as you will find recorded in the last verse of the 24th chapter of Isaiah, which says that “when the Lord of Hosts shall come to reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously, the sun shall hide his face in shame and the moon shall be confounded.” With all the brightness of that luminary which lights this creation it will hide its face in shame; and the bright luminaries of heaven will be confounded as it were, so great will be the glory of his presence—a fire devouring before him, and all nature feeling the power of the Almighty, which will be exerted on that grand occasion.

Will the wicked be able to endure this intense heat and not be consumed? I now have reference to their physical tabernacles, their temporal bodies. Hear what prophecy has declared in relation to this. Read the last chapter contained in the Old Testament; that will answer the question.

“For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.”

Notice, now, how completely it will sweep the proud and those who do wickedly from the face of this creation. The fire that proceeds forth from the presence of God at his second coming shall burn as an oven, and shall not only affect the mountains and the elements so as to melt them, but it will also consume the proud and them that do wickedly from the face of the globe. What effect will this intense heat have upon the righteous? No more than the heated furnace of Nebuchadnezzar had upon the Hebrews who were cast therein; and though it was heated seven times hotter than it was wont to be heated and slew those who cast their fellows into it, yet they who were thrown into it received no harm, not even the smell of fire on their garments. They were protected by a miracle, and the fire that slew their enemies was their preservation. So likewise when the Son of God shall burn up the wicked and consume their bodies to ashes, both root and branch, leaving no remnants of them among all people, nations and tongues, the righteous will be prepared to enter into the midst of this flaming fire without receiving any harm; indeed they will be caught up into the very presence of God, and they will be surrounded with a pillar of fire as Moses was when he came down from Mount Sinai, only to a far greater extent; but it will have no power over them, in fact it will be their protection and salvation, their glory, happiness and joy.

To prepare the people for that great day it is necessary that the Saints should be gathered together, as predicted in the 5th verse, when he should give this great and grand revelation in the last days, when the mighty God, even the Lord, shall speak. He will call to the heavens to assist in the great latter-day work; and all the angels and the heavenly hosts, who do his bidding, will go forth as swift messengers to execute his decrees and fulfil his purposes in bringing about this grand gathering of his elect from the four quarters of the earth. Who will they be? Those who have made a covenant with him by sacrifice. What kind of a sacrifice? The sacrifice of every earthly thing required, their native countries, their fathers and mothers, for in many instances these who obey the Gospel are compelled to sever the nearest earthly ties—parents from their children, children from their parents and kindred from their kin, in order that they may come forth and be gathered into one grand body preparatory to the coming of the Son of God in flaming fire.

There are many people who have believed that the coming of our Lord was near at hand. We might refer to many persons by name who have even set times for his coming—certain particular days, months and years in which the Lord would be revealed from heaven. But they have entirely overlooked the prophecies of the great preparatory work for his coming. If they had read closely, and instead of studying for dates had carefully looked for the great purposes to be fulfilled before he comes they would have known that their predictions were false. There is to be a grand gathering of all his people from the four quarters of the earth into one body, one family as it were; one people consolidated in one region of country, before he shall come.

Let me refer to this great gathering of the Saints from every land and nation; we find it predicted in various portions of the prophetic writings. I will first refer you to the prediction recorded, if I recollect aright, in the 43rd chapter of Isaiah. There is a prediction that before the great day of rest the Lord will again speak and will say to the north give up, to the south keep not back! Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth—the same thing that David has reference to.

This is not a work to be accomplished by the wisdom of man or by a combination of the wisest men that are uninspired, among the nations; but the Lord is to speak, and will say to the north give up. A new revelation is to be given: he will say to the south keep not back, and he will command that his sons and his daughters be brought from the ends of the earth.

Has any such thing happened in our days? Has the mighty God, even the Lord, spoken in our days? Yes, and connected with this proclamation we are informed that the elect of God are to be gathered from the four winds of heaven; and we have been called upon to perform this work. How much have we accomplished during the forty years that have intervened since the Lord spoke? In the year 1827, ’28, ’29 and ’30 the Lord spoke and gave many revelations, among which was this record called the Book of Mormon, unfolding to us not only the everlasting Gospel in all its plainness, simplicity and ancient purity, as it was taught to the inhabitants of this continent eighteen hundred years ago; but also many sacred predictions relating to the great work which God would accomplish when he should bring this record forth in the latter days. This book was translated by a mighty Prophet who was inspired of God for the purpose; and since it came forth—in the short space of forty years—it has been published in many of the languages of the earth. It has gone forth in the German, Italian, French, Welsh and Scandinavian languages, and also in the tongue spoken by the Sandwich Islanders; and it has been proclaimed, as it were, on the housetops, in the streets and highways, upon the hills and mountains and in all public places, so far as the Missionaries and Elders of this Church could find access and liberty to proclaim it; and wherever the people have repented and turned from their sins and have desired to receive the everlasting Gospel, they have continued to gather together in one. This gathering has been going on for nearly forty years, until the effects can now be seen in this Territory, by any person who will travel through it in the towns and cities which have been built, the settlements which have been formed, the meetinghouses and schoolhouses and public halls that have been erected; and in the fencing of farms, and the opening of water canals and ditches for irrigating the soil. I say those who will travel through this Territory may see some of the effects of the gathering out of the Saints who have made a covenant with the Lord by sacrifice. If we had gathered together into a country that was well timbered, where we could go out and get a load of fence poles or firewood before breakfast; if we had settled in a country that was not, comparatively a desert, and that was blessed with the rains of heaven, we could no doubt have accomplished far more than we now see. But the Lord purposely led us into this desert to fulfil prophecy. A great many people, perhaps, reflect upon and wonder at our coming into a sterile, barren district of country, inhabited by hostile savages, and which, to all natural appearance, would not sustain a farming or agricultural population. But the Lord brought us into a country of this description in order that he might fulfil prophecies that must come to pass before “our God shall come in flaming fire.”

In proof of this let me refer you to the nature of the country, the redemption of the desert and so forth, that is to take place before the Lord comes. I will refer you now to some of the sayings of the Prophet Isaiah. In the last two verses of his 34th chapter he says:

“Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.

“And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it unto them by line: they shall possess it forever, from generation to generation shall they dwell therein.”

In the 35th chapter, first and second verses, you will find these words:

“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

“It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God.”

Notice now that the Lord, by his Spirit, is to have a great gathering in the latter days of his people, and we are advised to seek out of the book of the Lord and learn of this gathering, and how his Saints should inhabit the land. It should be divided unto them by lot, the same as many people received their inheritances when they came into this desert. They cast lots, and drew their lots and inheritances. “And the wilderness and the solitary places shall be glad for them.” If you can find a country that answers better the description here given anywhere in the four quarters of the earth, I should like to know it. When we came here, the country to all natural appearance was so barren that it seemed impossible to locate a people upon it. But you see what we have accomplished. Not by our own wisdom nor by our own strength, but by being gathered by the voice of the Lord and by his commandment, and being guided and directed by the spirit of inspiration.

After we are gathered, the desert is to rejoice and blossom as the rose. How often I have thought of this in the spring time, when all of this city, covering some four, or perhaps five square miles with orchards and gardens, is in bloom! Then is the time to realize how literally this prophecy has been fulfilled. Everyone knows that fruitful as it now is, when we came here it was called a desert. If you do not believe me, go to the old maps, and you will find this section of the country laid down as “The Great American Desert.” That is the name that was given to it then. People, when banded together in a numerous company, and well armed would hardly venture to pass through this desert country, it was so unpropitious and forbidding, the rains of heaven never having been, apparently, shed forth upon it. When we came we could dig down some eighteen inches or two feet, and in other places there was no moisture at all, and it looked as though there never had been any rain here. But “the wilderness and the solitary place shall be made glad for them, and the desert shall blossom abundantly, ever with joy and singing.”

“But,” says one, “perhaps this had reference to some other period and not to the preparatory work for the coming of the Lord.” Let us read a few verses further in this 35th chapter of Isaiah’s prophecies. The third and fourth verses read:

“Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.

“Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you.”

Now notice, this is not the first coming. He did not come with vengeance then; he came to be spit upon, to be meek and lowly, to be ridiculed by the mob if they felt disposed, and finally to be lifted up upon the cross and crucified for the sins of the world. But the people who are to be gathered together, and for whom the desert is to rejoice, are called upon not to fear—“Don’t be fainthearted, don’t be discouraged.” Says the Prophet, “Be strong, fear not, for behold your God will come with vengeance; he will come with a recompence and he will save you,” that is, you who are in the desert. Then there will be splendid miracles wrought again, as in ancient days. Then the eyes of the blind are to be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped; then “shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing, for in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert.”

Latter-day Saints, and what I ask of you I might ask of the whole people of the Territory, have you seen a fulfilment of this saying of the Prophet Isaiah since you have been located here in the desert? Has there been any such things as springs breaking out in the wilderness and rivulets of water in the desert? Yes, not in one or two isolated instances, but in almost every settlement throughout this Territory. Many places in which, in early days, there was not water enough for a settlement, of twenty individuals, now support their hundreds. In what way? By the great increase of water. How was Salt Lake when we first came here? We, that is, a few of the Pioneers, went over in July 1847, to the banks of Salt Lake, to what is called the Black Rock. Some of us went in bathing, and we could walk out to Black Rock, and look down on the water on each side. But how is it now? The waters are some ten feet above that land that we trod upon then. What is the matter? Ought not the waters of the Lake to have decreased, seeing that the waters of the various streams that, before our arrival, emptied their contents into it, are turned broadcast over thousands and tens of thousands of acres of land? Certainly one would think so, for when all this water is turned on the land it evaporates instead of going to increase the volume of the Great Salt Lake; but instead of diminishing, the waters of the Lake have risen some ten or twelve feet above the surface as it existed in 1847, when I first saw it. Hence streams have broken out in the desert, and waters in the wilderness, as it is prophesied, not only in this chapter, but also in various portions of the Psalms.

When speaking of the great day of the coming of the Lord, how often do Isaiah and David speak of the desert, and the waters, rivers and springs that should break out to water the barren, thirsty land! “The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.”

We might go on and speak about the highway that the Lord would have there, that has also been thrown up since we came here. It is even called a highway by the world, that know nothing of these prophecies. I believe I will say, as I pass along, something about the highway, for the same Prophet that predicts about this alteration in the desert, also says there shall be a highway there. Let me refer to another prophecy about this highway, by the same Prophet. It reads thus: “And the Lord shall proclaim to the ends of the world, say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.” But in the sentence preceding this the Prophet says: “Cast up, cast up a highway; gather out the stones; prepare ye the way of the people; lift up a standard for the people.” Then come in the words I have quoted. How was the great highway that crosses this continent constructed? You ought to know, for you were the ones who constructed it through these mountains; you were the ones who built some four hundred miles of this railroad, you therefore know how it was done. Did you gather out the stones? Did you prepare the level places for this great highway that the Prophet had predicted? Did you cast it up where there were hollows? Did you fill up the hollows and gather out the stones in order to make it level and convenient? O, yes. Did you make any tunnels and gateways? I don’t suppose that the ancient Prophet knew what a tunnel was, hence he says, “go through, go through the gates; cast up, cast up a highway.” No doubt he saw in vision how the railroad looked, saw the carriages driving along with almost lightning speed, darting into the mountains on one side, and by and by saw them coming out on the other side; and he did not know how to represent it any better than to speak of it as a gate—“go through, go through the gates,” &c. “Prepare ye the way of the people, cast up, cast up a highway, and lift up a standard for the people;” and then come in those notable words, showing that it was a highway to be cast up before the coming of the Son of God. “The Lord has proclaimed to the ends of the world, Say ye to the daughters of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.”

Don’t you see from these passages that this is a latter-day work? That there is a proclamation connected with the casting up of this highway? And that it is a proclamation which has reference to every nation, kindred, tongue and people? God was to speak, deliver a message, send forth his servants as missionaries; they were to publish that message to the ends of the world, and to declare to all people that the Lord was to come, “Behold, thy salvation cometh, and his reward is with him, and his work is before him.” The Prophet further says “They shall call them,” for whom this highway was built that their way might be prepared, and for whom a standard should be raised, “the redeemed of the Lord, a holy people; they shall be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.” Oh, how different from old Jerusalem, a city that has been forsaken! It is almost two thousand years since the Lord forsook it, and the Jews have been forsaken, and scattered among all people.

But when the Lord lifts up this highway, gathers out the stones, sends forth his proclamation and gathers out his Saints who have made a covenant by sacrifice, they will build a city, one that shall be sought out. Old Jerusalem was not sought out; it was built before the Jews went to inhabit it. It was one of the early cities of the ancient nations of Canaan. But this latter-day city, that is called Zion, is to be sought out, and the people that were to search it out were to be a very good people. “They shall call them the Redeemed of the Lord; they shall be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.”

Now, with all the difficulties we have encountered here, and with all the imaginations of our enemies in regard to us, I humbly trust and hope that the time has come for this prophecy to be literally fulfilled; when this city of the Lord, which is built up according to this prophecy will not be forsaken. I hope that the Lord our God will protect his people and guarantee to them the rights already guaranteed by the Constitution of our Country to every religious denomination in the land.

There are some other prophecies about the gathering of the Saints. I think I will read one that has reference to our coming to this place. You will find it in the 107th Psalm, and it is very applicable to the journey which we performed when we came here.

“O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever.

“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy;

“And gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south.

“They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.

“Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.

“Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.

“And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.

“Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!”

This has been fulfilled since the day that David uttered it. “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!” What redeemed of the Lord? Not those who were gathered out of the land of Egypt before the days of David, but those who are gathered out of all lands, says the Prophet, “’from the East and from the West, and from the North and from the South.” From the four points of the compass, from every nation and every clime. “Let them praise the Lord and give thanks to his holy name, because of his mercy and his goodness to them.” They were not to find it at first all to their satisfaction; their journey was to be in a solitary way; they were to find no city to dwell in. I can bear testimony to this, for I was among the pioneers, and when we came here we didn’t find any great city, with houses already built to go into. We had to live in our wagons, and had to build a little fort to defend ourselves against the half-naked Indians. And thus we located in the midst of a dried-up and thirsty land—a desert; and here in this region, where the solitude was so great that it was only broken by the yells of savages and the howling of wild beasts, we had to go to work to prepare a city for habitation. We had some afflictions—hunger and thirst; “and their souls fainted within them,” says David, “but they cried unto the Lord in their afflictions, and he had mercy upon them and delivered them out of their distresses.”

In the 31st and 32nd verses the Psalmist says—

“Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!”

“Let them exalt him also in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders.”

Why should they be so glad to praise him? He tells us in the next verses—

“He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the watersprings into dry ground.”

“A fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.”

This has reference to what will take place in the fruitful lands of the Gentiles by and by; but he is going to reverse this so far as his people in the desert are concerned, for he turns the wilderness into standing water, and the dry ground into watersprings; and “there he makes the hungry to dwell, that they may prepare a city for habitations.” Just as you did, brethren and sisters. “’And sow the fields and plant vineyards, which may yield fruits of increase. He blesseth them also, so that they are multiplied greatly; and suffereth not their cattle to decrease.”

Has this been fulfilled? I have been away a great many years, and I do not know so much about it as some of these old farmers; but I think if we will traverse this Territory, we will find that our cattle have not decreased since we came here.

There is another prophecy in this Psalm to which I will call your attention, connected with this people that was to be gathered out from all lands into a wilderness and solitary place. The Prophet says—“Yet setteth he the poor on high from affliction, and maketh him families like a flock.” Now, is that true? I would ask some of my brethren here, as I have been gone so much, Is there any man here who has families like a flock? If you have, you are fulfilling this prophecy of the Psalmist. I think I heard of and saw in my travels in the Territory quite a number of such men, quite poor men, just such men as David refers to. What wonderful things take place in the last days, in order to fulfil prophecy! “The righteous shall see it, and rejoice: and all iniquity shall stop her mouth.” This latter clause has yet to be fulfilled, it has not yet come to pass. “Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.” Amen.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, November 27, 1870.

We have assembled ourselves together this afternoon to partake of bread, and also the contents of the cup, to witness before the heavens that we remember the crucifixion, death and sufferings of our Savior; that we are willing to keep his commandments and determined to be his followers and obey him to the end of our lives. We have also assembled to speak and to listen concerning those things that pertain to our peace and welfare, not only in this world, but in that which is to come.

We, as a people, called Latter-day Saints, are a very peculiar people, not only in the eyes of one another, but in the eyes of the world and also in the eyes of God and all the heavenly host. We are a peculiar people in some respects—namely, we believe that God has spoken and sent an angel from the heavens, as we heard this forenoon, and, by new revelation has established his kingdom or Church upon the earth, according to the predictions of the ancient prophets. In this respect we are very peculiar.

We are also peculiar in another respect. Instead of remaining where we embraced this Gospel among the various nations, we have left our na– tive lands and have emigrated to the interior of North America, and have founded settlements in the Rocky Mountains under the most unfavorable circumstances. In this respect, again, we are peculiar.

There is another respect wherein this people are very peculiar. We not only believe in the Jewish Bible—the Old and New Testament—but we also believe in the ancient American Bible, called the Book of Mormon; which no other people do believe in, and hence, on this latter point, we are regarded as very peculiar.

We might point out a great many peculiarities relating to this people; but I do not know that it is necessary to mention all the differences between this people and the religious Christian denominations of the age. I think those already named are sufficient to render us a distinct people from the rest of mankind. We believe that God has fulfilled that which was spoken of this forenoon, that was predicted by the mouth of the revelator John: that he has sent an angel from heaven, and by the ministration of this angel he has revealed the everlasting Gospel in all its ancient purity and fulness to be proclaimed to every nation under heaven. And let me dwell on this subject a little while—the restoration of the everlasting Gospel by an angel, for this is a peculiar doctrine and the Latter-day Saints are the only people on earth who believe in it.

Let us now inquire, for a few moments, in what manner this Gospel was restored by an angel. Did it come to us verbally—from his mouth, or was there a revelation communicated and written containing this everlasting gospel? We testify that by the ministration of this angel, sent from heaven, in fulfillment of John, an ancient Bible, kept by ancient prophets, was brought to light—the Bible of ancient America. Of course it has a little different name—we call it the Book of Mormon. This Bible contains the everlasting Gospel. But in order to know whether it does contain this everlasting Gospel, it may not be amiss for me to state, in a very few words, what the everlasting Gospel is.

I would state that the everlasting Gospel must be the same that was published in the Eastern Continent some eighteen centuries ago, as recorded in the New Testament. We and our forefathers have had a record of that Gospel from ancient times unto the present; but a record is one thing and the power and authority to administer it is another. They are entirely distinct, as much so as the history of a good dinner enjoyed in ancient days is distinct from the partaking of that dinner in our day. The history of such an event will not satisfy a man’s hunger, any more than the mere record of what the everlasting Gospel is will confer the authority to administer its ordinances. We may read, when we are very hungry, about the three or five thousand eating the loaves and fishes; but our appetite would still remain unsatisfied. It is very good to think that somebody else was fed and had their hunger satisfied; but it does us no good, so far as satisfying the cravings of our own appetites is concerned. So with regard to the New Testament containing the everlasting Gospel. None could embrace that Gospel, from the simple fact that none were authorized to administer its ordinances. After the Apostles and righteous men of ancient days, who held this authority, were killed off, you might read the Gospel and relate over to one another its various principles and ordinances, but you could not embrace them.

That everlasting Gospel required a man to be baptized for the remission of his sins. That is very important; and everybody who believes in God, and in Jesus Christ will acknowledge that the sins of men and women should be forgiven. God ordained in the everlasting Gospel that his creatures should be baptized for the remission of their sins; but how could I or any other person be baptized for the remission of sins if no man on the earth had the authority to administer the ordinance of baptism? Would God forgive my sins through my faith and repentance, without being legally baptized in water? Is there any promise in this everlasting Gospel that we can receive forgiveness of sins unless we connect with our faith, baptism by immersion in water? No, the everlasting Gospel, as preached in ancient times, contained no such promise. Read the record of it in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, where it was first promulgated after the commission was given to the ancient apostles to preach the Gospel to every creature. They were commanded to tarry in the city of Jerusalem until they received power to preach that Gospel and administer its ordinances to the people. They did so, and on the Day of Pentecost they received this power. The Holy Ghost came upon them; the whole house, where they were sitting was filled with cloven tongues, like fire, and sat on each of them; and they rose up before a large multitude of people, many thousands in number, and proclaimed the everlasting Gospel. They informed the people that that despised being, called Jesus, whom the Jews had crucified, was both Lord and Christ. They proved it effectually by appealing to the prophetic writings. After having proved this fact and having convinced the people, by sufficient testimony exhibited before their minds, that he was really the Lord and Savior, that he was the Great Redeemer, and had come in fulfillment of the law of Moses to be offered as a sacrifice, the people were pricked to their hearts; they were convicted, or in other words, faith had come by hearing the evidence presented before them, and they were convinced that Jesus was really and truly both Lord and Christ; and seeing the importance and necessity of repenting of their sins, they cried out in the anguish of their hearts: “Men and brethren what shall we do?” As much as to say: “We see, by the testimony which you have presented before us that we have crucified the Savior, that he was that being that the law of Moses typified; we see that we have committed a great sin, that our nation has transgressed, and that we are under great condemnation. Now, how shall we be saved, can you inform us how we can receive the remission of our sins?” The answer was ready. Peter said unto them: “Repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the Holy Ghost; for the promise is to you, and to your children and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” These were the first principles of the Gospel of the Son of God; these constituted in part, so far as its elements were concerned, the everlasting Gospel that was to be brought by the angel in the latter days and committed to the inhabitants of the earth.

You will notice that, on the Day of Pentecost, faith was not sufficient for the remission of sins; neither were faith and repentance; neither were faith, repentance and prayer sufficient to obtain the great blessing of the remission of sins. There was a sacred ordinance connected with these principles by which only the remission of sins was promised—namely, baptism by immersion in water.

After having been born of the water and justified from all their sins they had the promise of the Holy Ghost—that is, the birth of the spirit, as well as the birth of the water. And this baptism of the Holy Ghost, like all other blessings that the Lord has promised unto the people, came through the administration of an holy ordinance. What was that ordinance? The hands of the servants of God had to be laid on the baptized believer—the penitent soul who had received the first principles of the Gospel; for God committed to his servants whom he called to preach in ancient days, the power not only to administer the Gospel in word, but also its ordinances and spirit.

I know that there are many at the present day, in Christendom, who will ask “What is the use of these outward ordinances? What particular benefit is it for me to go and be immersed in water, or to have hands laid upon me for the gift of the Holy Ghost? They are only outward ordinances.” In explanation, let me say to the congregation that the blessings which God has promised in his word, generally come through some act required of the creature. When the man with the withered hand was healed, the Lord did not say I command you to be healed, without any act on his part; but he commanded him to stretch forth his hand. That, apparently, was an impossibility, for his arm was withered, powerless; and he might have thought that it was impossible for him to perform the act required of him. But an exercise of faith was required on the part of that man—something connected with the mental faculties, by which the blessing of healing might be secured.

So it is in regard to the blessing of the remission of sins. God, in order to prove that we have faith, requires us to be baptized for the remission of our sins. If we do this he stands ready to impart forgiveness to us. So in regard to the baptism of the Holy Ghost. He is willing to grant this spirit to those who are willing to be obedient; but if they are unwilling to receive this simple act of the laying on of hands, considering it nonessential, God will not be willing to pour out his spirit; if they will not obey so simple an ordinance he will withhold his spirit. This, then, was the everlasting Gospel, so far as its first principles are concerned, as preached in ancient days.

Now, then, let us consider this Gospel, so far as the power of it is concerned. We have shown you how to obtain the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Now, what are the powers of this Holy Ghost, as promised to the believer? For we have seen that the promise is not a limited one. When the apostle made the promise on the Day of Pentecost he said, “the promise is to you,”—a large multitude; and it is not only to you, but “to your children,” meaning the then rising generation; and not only to “you and your children” but “to all afar off”—meaning the distant nations of the earth, and to all that “the Lord our God shall call,” every human creature on the face of the earth that has the Gospel preached to him has the promise of the Holy Ghost, if he or she will yield obedience.

Now what are the powers of the Holy Ghost? What are its gifts and blessings? How are we to know when we receive the Holy Ghost? I will mention the Scriptural account of the blessings and gifts that pertain to the Holy Spirit. You read the 12th chapter of 1st Corinthians and you will have a description of the various powers and gifts of the Holy Ghost. We there learn that God gave to every man, that is, every man in the Church, the demonstration of the Holy Spirit to profit withal. Says Paul, “We are all baptized into the same body by the same spirit.” That is, they were not baptized into half a dozen or a hundred different bodies, or denominations of people, called Christians; but they were all baptized into the same body by the same spirit, and all made partakers of the gifts of that spirit, enjoying the blessings and powers of the same. The members constituting the body of Christ are diversified: and being filled with the Holy Ghost it operates in various ways. “To one,” says Paul, “is given through the spirit the word of wisdom; to another is given by the same spirit, the word of knowledge; to another is given faith by the same spirit; to another the gift of healing; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy, to another the discerning of spirits, to another divers kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues; but all these work after the one and the selfsame spirit, severally as he will.”

Here then we see what it is that constitutes the body of Christ, or in other words his Church. First, those principles that I have named—faith, repentance and baptism for the remission of sins; then the laying on of hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost; then, when the spirit falls upon the Church, it diversifies all these gifts that are named throughout the whole body of the Church. This agrees with the promise that Jesus made when he gave the great, last commission to his apostles to preach the Gospel in all the world to every creature. On that occasion he made certain promises to every creature that should dwell on the earth. Said he, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned; and these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils.” Now, notice, this promise was not exclusively made to the apostles, they were the ones who received the commission to go and preach the Gospel; but the promises that I am now repeating were made to all persons in the world that should believe that Gospel they preached. They who believed should not only have the gift of salvation conferred upon them, but, “these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues; and if they take up serpents, or drink any deadly thing they shall not hurt them, and they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.”

These are the gifts of that ancient Gospel—the powers that pertain to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, promised to every believer in the world. These were the powers that were remarkable in the Church of the living God, and which constituted that Church the body of Christ.

Now, we will inquire where has this body of Christ been during the last seventeen hundred years? Has it existed among the Greeks or Roman Catholics? Or has it existed among the Protestant denominations for the past two or three centuries? No; these gifts have been banished from the earth for several centuries and the universal cry in the religious world of Christendom is, that “These gifts were only intended for the first age of Christianity.” But if these gifts are part of the Gospel, you do them away and you do away with the Gospel. Let me quote a passage to prove that these gifts were to remain among the true believers so long as true believers should be on the earth. We have already quoted one passage to prove this, which is to be found in the last chapter of Mark, where all believers in the four quarters of the earth are promised that certain signs should follow them. Another passage you will find in the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, which says that when Jesus ascended up on high he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, pastors and teachers. All these various gifts that I have quoted were given unto men when Jesus ascended up on high.

What was the purpose for which they were given? Were they given, as the Christian world say, merely for the sake of establishing the Gospel, and when that was thoroughly established they were no longer necessary? Is this the language of the ancient apostle? Hear what he says—They were given for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ”—the Church. Now, if they were given for these three special purposes, let us inquire whether they are needed for these purposes at the present day? Is the work of the ministry needed now? “O, yes,” all denominations will tell you that the work of the ministry is needed now. Well, recollect that, according to the words of the apostle Paul, these gifts were given for the work of the ministry. You take away these gifts, and how can there be a ministry? There can only be a false ministry—only those who have no power of God with them—a ministry that God has nothing to do with. They may go and preach, but their preaching is as powerless as the preaching of the heathen priests.

Another purpose for which these gifts were given was for the perfecting of the Saints. Can Saints be perfected now, any more than in the days of Paul, without the gifts of prophecy, revelation, visions, the ministrations of angels, tongues, the interpretation of tongues, healing, wisdom and knowledge by the power and spirit of God? If they can be perfected without these gifts then we have a new Gospel, and not the everlasting Gospel spoken of by the ancient apostle. But it seems that mankind, at the present day, have so fallen into tradition, and have preached a Gospel without its gifts so long, that I have no doubt there are thousands of them who really believe it, and believe that God will acknowledge their Gospels to be divine, and acknowledge their Churches to be his Church. It is the greatest piece of foolishness that could possibly be conjured up in the minds of men to suppose that the Church of the living God could be here without inspired prophets and apostles in it! How could Saints be perfected? Has God altered the Gospel or changed the pattern of things that is recorded in the New Testament? Has he predicted that the time should come when the Saints should no longer need the gifts to perfect them, or that they should be perfected by the learning and wisdom of man? If he has in– troduced, or designs to introduce, any such order of things he has not told us anything about it, but has left us entirely in ignorance on the subject. If his people are to be perfected by learning, or by men studying years and years, pouring over the theology of the day, if anything of this kind is intended to perfect the children of men, then I don’t read the Scriptures aright; for I am told in the Scriptures that God gave these gifts specially, because we cannot be perfected without them. They were given, says Paul, for the edifying of the body of Christ. O, how much the Christian world seem to be edified at the present day! If they can hear a minister use very flowery language, a great deal of oratory, and bring into his subject, as it were, all the various parts and points of logic and rhetoric, their ears are tickled, and they feel that they are wonderfully edified, but it is a false edification. The edification the Scriptures speak of are those miraculous gifts that Jesus gave when he ascended up on high. Without them the world is liable to be deceived and carried away by every wind of doctrine that is incorrect; and Paul tells us that they were given for the edifying of the body of Christ until we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That is, they were never to cease, they were never to be done away until the Church arrived at that period when they should no longer look through a glass darkly, but see face to face, and become immortal and be exalted to his presence; then these gifts would no longer be necessary. The gift of healing will no longer be needed when we are all immortal; there will be no need of the gift of tongues or interpretation when all have one language.

Besides being designed to bring the Saints to this state of perfection these gifts were also intended to prevent the Church from being carried about by every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and their cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. You take a people who have not these gifts, and you will see them carried about by every wind of doctrine. One leaning to the Methodist, another after the Baptists, another after the Presbyterians, and another after this sect and another after that. They have not the gifts necessary to keep them in the unity of the faith; and not being kept in the unity of the faith, not having the power to call upon God and receive revelations from him to guide and direct them in regard to doctrine and principle, they are overcome by the power and persuasion of the children of men, by their sleight and cunning craftiness until they are overpowered and dragged away, as it were, into every species of wild enthusiasm, the doctrines of men. So much for the Gospel as taught by holy and inspired men in former days. Now for another part of my subject.

I told you that God had revealed an ancient Bible—the Bible of ancient America, by the ministration of an angel, sent forth from heaven. What does it contain? A record of this same Gospel that I have already named. “But,” says one, “we have a record of that already, in the New Testament: what is the use of another record of it?” In answering that question, I will ask another. When Matthew had written his Gospel, what was the use of Mark writing one afterwards; and when Matthew and Mark had each written the Gospel what was the use of Luke writing it; and when these three had written it what was the use of John the Revelator writing another record of it? And so we might go on and say, after Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had written, why should God reveal to us another Bible containing the same Gospel? I will tell you—It is because God intends to give just as many witnesses to the children of men as seems him good. If we have the testimony and witness of the Jewish nation on the eastern continent to that everlasting Gospel, is it not reasonable that God should also give us the testimony of the inhabitants who formerly lived on the great western world. Let us reason together on this subject. The infidel says, “Why was the Lord so narrow in his feelings that he confined his operations to that little spot of ground called Palestine? Why didn’t he reveal his will, requirements and laws to other nations?” This is one of the arguments of the infidel, and it is very good so far as it goes. The infidel sometimes happens to hit upon some truth. I would say the same. God had a people here in ancient America, there is no mistake about this, and all who want to know for certain in regard to this Continent being settled, just read the history of its antiquities—read the works of Stevens and Catherwood and many others, on the great and mighty ancient cities whose ruins are seen on various parts of this Continent, especially in Central America and the northern part of South America. Ruins, too, that not only speak of a former civilization of the inhabitants who dwelt there, but which show that they were a people who understood the arts—understood building magnificent cities, temples and great palaces. They were a very different people from the present aboriginal inhabitants of the Continent.

Now if God had a people living on this Continent ages and ages ago, would it not be reasonable that he should speak to them as well as to the people of Asia? Reflect upon it for a few moments! Why should God leave the great western world out of the plan of salvation? Has he not declared himself to be an impartial being? And if he is impartial would he not remember those who are of the same blood? We are all created by the same Creator; the inhabitants of the four quarters of the earth descended from the same parentage; they are all of the same blood, and consequently they are immortal beings, and have souls to be saved. Then was it not needful, in order to be saved, that the fulness of the Gospel should be revealed to the people of the West as well as to the people of the East? Now, reason, independent of anything else, would say that it would be perfectly Godlike for him to reveal himself to the people of ancient America as well as to the people of the eastern world; that they might know about Jesus, and the atonement that he wrought out, and be made partakers of the same gifts and blessings as the children of God in the eastern lands. This is a reasonable conclusion to come to.

And, again, if God did reveal to the people of this continent the plan of salvation, showing that he is an impartial being, why should it be thought incredible by the learned or by any reflecting person that he should bring these revelations to light, especially when he had promised, according to what you heard this forenoon, to send an angel with the everlasting Gospel to be preached to every people, nation and kindred under the whole heaven? Why not bring to light, by the ministration of an angel, the record of the Gospel that was preached here on this western hemisphere?

Perhaps some may say that we have neither witness nor testimony, save it be the Book of Mormon, and the living witnesses whose names are attached to that book, that the people of this continent know anything about God or about revelation. But let me inform such persons that they are mistaken. Only a few years ago—in 1835, thirty-eight years after the plates of the Book of Mormon were taken out of the earth by Joseph Smith, one of the great mounds in the State of Ohio was opened, near Newark, in Licking County. It was a very large mound: it measured, before they began to cart away the stones and dirt, 580 feet in circumference, and was from forty to fifty feet in height. After they had carted away from this mound several thousand loads of dirt and stones, for the purpose of canalling or fixing a canal, they found on the outer edge near the circumference of the base of this mound, just within the circle, several smaller mounds, built entirely of fire clay, that had the appearance of putty. When digging into one of these smaller mounds they came to something that had the appearance of wood, and after having removed the upper surface of it, they found a trough, and in that trough several metallic rings, probably the ancient coins of the country. They also found that the interior trough had been lined with some kind of cloth, but it was in such a state of decomposition that only the least bit of it would hold together, not even a piece as large as your thumb nail. There was also some human bones in this trough and a lock of fine black hair. Underneath this trough, still further down in the fire clay, they found a stone, and when it was taken out they found that it was hollow and that there was something inside of it. They found by inspection that it had been cemented together with hard cement. With considerable exertion they broke the stone in two. It was oval, or elliptical in form. They separated it where it was cemented together, and in the inside they found another kind of stone on which was engraven the Ten Commandments in the ancient Hebrew. This stone was immediately sent to Cincinnati, where many learned men saw it and they declared the inscriptions were in ancient Hebrew, and translated the Ten Commandments. The stone was nearly seven inches long, nearly three inches wide, and almost two in thickness. On one side of it there was a depression, and in this depression was a raised profile, the likeness of a man clothed with a robe—that is, carved out of the stone, with his left side partly facing the beholder, and the robe and girdle upon his left shoulder; he had also a turban on. Over his head was written in Hebrew, Moshe, which is the Hebrew name for Moses. They therefore represented this person, thus carved out, as Moses. Around about him, that is on the various sides of the stone, were written the Ten Commandments in ancient Hebrew.

Now what does this prove? It proves that the inhabitants of this country were acquainted with the revelations of heaven—those given to Moses; and if they understood these would they not naturally look forward to the coming of the Messiah? Would they not look for the Lord to raise up such a being, which their law indicated by types? And when that being came is it to be supposed that he would leave the inhabitants of America ignorant concerning that event? By no means. He would not forget them. And this record—the Book of Mormon, gives us an account of that very people.

Let me here state that I have seen this stone; with my own eyes I have seen the Hebrew engravings upon it; and though many of the characters were altered in shape from the present Hebrew, yet I had sufficient knowledge of them to understand and know how to translate the inscription. This stone was sent to the New York Ethnological Society, and while there, by the politeness of the Secretary of the Society, I had the pleasure of seeing it. Another mound was opened in the same county, in Ohio, and out of it were taken stones with other Hebrew inscriptions; and in 1860 and 1865 there were several of these antiquities exhumed with Hebrew characters on, and one with characters that were not Hebrew, and which the learned could not translate, showing that the people of this continent not only understood the Hebrew, but some other kind of an alphabet. This book—the Book of Mormon, informs us that the Lord brought the colony to this country six hundred years before Christ, and that he brought them from Jerusalem. Was there anything connected with these ancient characters that would indicate such a great antiquity? Yes. The Hebrew, since six hundred years before Christ, every learned scholar knows, has been greatly altered in the shape of its characters. It now has square characters, with vowel points; that is, the form of the Hebrew characters now is entirely different in many respects from the ancient characters, such as are found on coins and engravings lately exhumed in Palestine. Moreover since the period that colony was brought to America, not only have the forms of the Hebrew characters been changed, but some fourteen different new characters have been introduced. Now, the stones taken from these mounds, on which the Ten Commandments were engraved, had none of these new characters, which shows that the inscriptions were of a more ancient date than the modern Hebrew. Still further. The Hebrew as it now stands, has a great many of what are termed final characters that it did not have six hundred years before Christ. You do not find these characters on these stones that were taken out of the Ohio mounds. All these circumstances prove, pointedly, the great antiquity of the people who formed these mounds and wrote the characters on these stones.

The Book of Mormon informs us that they understood the Egyptian as well as the Hebrew. They kept many of their records in the Egyptian character as well as the Hebrew character. That book also informs us that Jesus, after he was crucified in Jerusalem, appeared on this American continent, and commanded the people to do away with the law of Moses which their fathers were in possession of and kept; and he introduced the everlasting Gospel in their midst; and he commanded them to write it on the plates, from which this book was translated. Thus you see that this is a record of the everlasting Gospel, as Jesus, himself, administered it to the people of this continent eighteen hundred years ago, that is, after his resurrection from the dead, and after he had finished his ministry in Jerusalem.

On what part of this continent did Jesus appear? He appeared in what is now termed the northern part of South America, where they had a temple built, at which place the people were gathered together, some twenty-five hundred in number, marveling and wondering at the great earthquake that had taken place on this land, which had destroyed so many cities, &c., and the great darkness that had overshadowed the land, which was a sign given them by prophecy concerning the crucifixion of Christ. They were marveling and wondering about it, and while they were talking over it, nearly a year after the resurrection of Jesus, they heard a voice in the heavens, and casting their eyes heavenward they saw a man descend out of heaven, clothed in a white robe; and he came down and stood in the midst of them, and told them he was Christ, about whom their prophets had written; and that he had been crucified for the sins of the world. He then choose twelve disciples from amongst them, and administered his Gospel unto them.

Thus you see that when we testify that God has fulfilled that saying in the 14th chapter of Revelation, that he would send an angel having the everlasting Gospel to preach to all people, nations and tongues on the earth, we have something tangible, something contained in the form of a revelation; it is not a mere verbal message by the voice of an angel, but an entire record, a sacred history of the western world, of one half of our globe, detailing the wars of the people of this continent, the same as the Jewish record contains the history of the wars and doings of the Jews on the eastern continent. God has brought this forth and confirmed it to others by the ministration of holy angels. Joseph Smith was not the only one, but there were three men besides him to whom the Lord sent his angel, clothed in glory, who exhibited the plates before their eyes after they had been translated, and commanded them to bear record of it to all people, nations and tongues. They have given their testimony in this book. These witnesses I am well acquainted with, as well as with Joseph Smith. He also exhibited the plates to eight other men. Thus we have twelve witnesses in all, four of whom saw the angel, and the others saw the plates and the engravings thereon and handled them; and their testimony is also recorded in the book to go to all people, nations and tongues under the whole heavens.

And having revealed this book, and it having been translated by the gift and power of the Holy Ghost—the same gift and spirit which enabled Joseph Smith to interpret the language of this record by the use of the Urim and Thummim; I say, having done this, the Lord commanded his servants to organize his Church, and in obedience to this commandment they gathered together on the 6th of April, 1830; and while thus gathered together the Lord God spake unto them, and commanded them after what order his Church and kingdom should be organized. It was then organized, and it has continued to receive acquisitions from that day until this, and has rolled forth among many nations and kingdoms; and the people have been gathered out from those nations here into the midst of these mountains in fulfillment of ancient prophecy.

God Almighty has spoken, he has given commandment in relation to the organization of this kingdom. He has sent his angel and restored the Gospel; he has given commandment for his servants to gather out his elect from the four quarters of the earth unto one place. He has given commandment to prepare his people for the great day of the coming of the Son of God in the clouds of heaven. And we have gone forth and labored diligently from that day to this to establish the kingdom of our God. We have succeeded, so far as time will permit, in gathering up a great people to these mountains. Here they must become acquainted with the Lord more fully; here they must become sanctified before the Lord of Hosts; here they must learn to be more obedient in keeping the commands and counsels of God, or he may withhold from them the sacred blessings and gifts which he heretofore bestowed so bountifully upon them. Here the Saints must became acquainted with those celestial laws which are calculated to exalt them into the presence of God, and into the fulness of his glory. Here, you Latter-day Saints must be prepared to carry out and fulfill his purposes in the last days pertaining to the redemption of the desert, that joy and thanksgiving may be offered up in all parts of it in fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, which has often been sung by the Christian world—“The Lord shall comfort Zion, he shall comfort all her waste places, make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.” You here see the beginning of the fulfillment of this ancient prophecy. Isaiah in his 40th chapter also says, “Zion shall go up into the high mountains.” Zion in the high mountains! Zion in the midst of the great American desert is beginning to redeem it and make it blossom as the rose, making it like the garden of Eden, that joy and thanksgiving and songs of praise and prayer and gladness may ascend up from all her habitations and settlements throughout the length and breadth of this desert, and thus the prophecies will be fulfilled. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, May 5, 1870.

It is with great pleasure and satisfaction that I arise before so large an assembly of people this afternoon, in the capacity of a General Conference. It is truly wonderful to me that God has begun so great and important a work in the day in which I am permitted to live. I do not read in history of any other work of a similar character since the creation of the world. We behold before us, in these interior wilds of North America, a great people called the Latter-day Saints—a people whose faith and doctrine are one, who believe in the same God, and in the same great plan of salvation; who believe that God has established His kingdom on the earth for the last time. It has been a manifestation of faith on the part of this people to gather here; they have exhibited to one another and before all mankind that they have faith in the doctrines which they have received. What other purpose could have gathered out so great a people? If we had gathered into a healthy, rich country where there was an expectation of bettering our condition, temporarily; where there were prospects of our becoming exceedingly rich in the goods of this world, it might have been supposed that we had some selfish motive in view in thus assembling ourselves together. But there were no such prospects before us. We came here, some 1,200 miles, from the Eastern settlements to this isolated region, almost naked and barefoot, having been despoiled by our enemies—having suffered the loss of property to the extent of millions—having been reduced to the last degree of poverty. We came here—not into the midst of a land of cities and villages, not into the midst of a country where all was prepared for us beforehand; but we came into the heart of a desert, since, in some measure, reclaimed from its barrenness and sterility. We came because we had faith in our religion, because we not only believed, but most of us knew with a certainty, that God had spoken from on high and had commanded us to gather together. In this we have manifested a sincerity that ought to be convincing to all the world that we have embraced a religion in all of the depths of the sincerity of our hearts. We did not care for the riches and honors of the world; we did not care for the pleasures of our native countries, nor for the luxuries with which those countries abounded; but we came because we verily believed in our hearts that it was our duty to do so in obedience to the voice of the Lord through His servants. It is true that some of this people came to this land because they were forced hither by persecution; but whether obliged to come or not we, many of us, clearly understood from the spirit of prophecy and revelation, as manifested through our prophet and leader before his martyrdom, that we should be required to locate ourselves in the heart of this continent. We came here then to fulfil the commandments of the Lord our God, and to be free, in a measure, from the persecutions of our enemies, that we might have none to mob or molest us as they had done from the time of the rise of the Church until our flight to these mountains. We came here because we loved God, because we loved His laws—we loved the plan of salvation, we loved the principles that He had revealed, and because we knew that in process of time, in fulfillment of ancient prophecy respecting the Latter-day Zion and the Church of the Most High God, we should become a great and powerful people.

We are taught in the Jewish record, the Bible, that a little one shall become a thousand and a small one a strong nation. We believe these prophecies, we know this to be the kingdom of God. We well understood by the spirit of revelation that God intended to fulfil all that was spoken by the mouths of His ancient prophets, as well as that which had been delivered in our day in regard to the future glory and prosperity of Zion, or the Church of the living God. We understood that Zion was to be located in the mountains; we understood, as I have often repeated, from the 40th chapter of Isaiah, that the time would come when the Lord would command His people, saying unto Zion, “Get up into the high mountains.” These things had not been fulfilled in former ages, consequently we know that they were yet in the future. We knew that the Zion of the latter days must be located in the mountains. We could read the ancient prophecies of that great prophet—Isaiah, in the 18th chapter, that a great work should be performed in the mountains, a work that should attract the attention of all the nations of the earth, so much so that the prophet, when gazing upon the work as shown to him by the spirit of prophecy, calls upon all the inhabitants of the world and the dwellers on the earth to see when the Lord should lift up an ensign upon the mountains. That ensign we knew must be reared, that great work must be accomplished, and all people—not only those on the American continent but all dwelling in the four quarters of the globe, however obscure, and however distant they might be from the place where the ensign was to be reared, would be required by the power of the Lord, and by the marvelous work that He should perform, to open their eyes and contemplate that ensign, understand its nature and comprehend, in some measure, its purpose.

We came here to fulfil these ancient prophecies. God has lifted up this Church—this kingdom, as a standard—as an ensign to which the nations are invited, and the ambassadors of the Most High are sent forth from these mountains carrying the glad tidings of salvation in their mouths—carrying forth the great and glorious principles that God has revealed in establishing his latter-day kingdom on the earth. Beautiful indeed are the feet of those who are sent forth from the mountains of Zion to publish glad tidings of great joy among the various nations and kingdoms of the earth; God is with them in very deed. His power is over them, and His arm encircles them round about. Their voice is lifted up to the nations; their hands are pointed to the West, to the heart of the American continent—to the everlasting hills, saying to mankind, “Yonder, in those mountains, is a kingdom that is never to be destroyed, a kingdom that must exist forever; while all earthly kingdoms and governments will crumble to the dust and will be blown away, like the chaff of the summer threshing floor, to the four winds of heaven.”

Jesus said on a certain occasion to his disciples, and to the multitudes, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” There are tens of thousands, yes, hundreds of thousands, of people now upon our globe who profess to love Jesus Christ. Do they keep his commandments? Some of them no doubt strive to do so. But there are many things to be taken into consideration in connection with the keeping of the commandments of Jesus. In the first place it is very essential and necessary that we should know what his commandments are before we can keep them. In the second place it is very important and essential that we should give heed to all those commandments, whether they appear great or small in our estimation.

Do this people, called Latter-day Saints, really love the Lord their God, or is it a mere profession? When God raised up His servant Joseph Smith and inspired him from on high to give commandments and revelations and to organize His Church, forty years ago, we were but few in number. I well recollect when I was but a boy of nineteen visiting the place where this Church was organized, and visiting the Prophet Joseph, who resided at that time in Fayette, Seneca County, New York, at the house where the Church was organized. I became acquainted more fully with that man and with the revelations and commandments that God had given to him; also with the few people who had been organized into a Church capacity. I saw the spirit of the people, that is, I saw there was a desire to do good, to love the Lord, and to be obedient to the commandments which the Prophet Joseph had delivered unto them.

On the 2nd day of January, 1831, a Conference was held in the same house where this Church was organized, and the various Branches in the State of New York were there gathered together. By the solicitations of the Conference the Prophet Joseph enquired of the Lord to know what was His will concerning the few Latter-day Saints that were then in existence. The Lord hearkened to him, and gave on that occasion a revelation contained in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, in which certain commandments were given, one being that all the Elders, Priests, Teachers, and Deacons of the various Branches of the Church, instead of going out to preach, should go to with all their might and labor for the gathering up of the people from the State of New York to the State of Ohio; that is, they were to assist those in the various Branches who had property to dispose of the same, and in regulating all their affairs, and to arrange business in such a manner that they might be able to keep this commandment to gather together.

Now, suppose the people had refused to comply with this commandment; suppose that the Elders, Priests, Teachers and Deacons had considered the physical labor which the carrying out of this command entailed upon them beneath their notice, and had refused to make preparations to flee from the State of New York and to gather up some six hundred miles to the State of Ohio, what would have been the result? Would the love of God have dwelt in their hearts? No. Would they have manifested before the heavens that they loved God with all their hearts? No. Would they have manifested to the Prophet, to the Priesthood and to one another that they really were sincere in their religion? No. There was no possible way for these Latter-day Saints to show their love to God, only by obeying His command that was given and written for their instruction on that occasion. If there were any who refused to do that, I will venture to say that they are not members of the Church today. If there were any who had so much means or property that they did not feel disposed to leave their pleasant homes and make a sacrifice of their wealth, in some measure, in order to fulfil the commandment of Jehovah, I will venture to say that they are not in the Church today. Why? Because God would withdraw His Holy Spirit from them. They might make great profession, and say how much they loved the Lord and His ways; how much they loved Jesus, who was crucified for the sins of the world, yet all this would be foolish and vain if they refused to keep his commandments, for, “If ye love me, keep my commandments,” saith the Savior. Again, it is written, “This is the love of God, that ye do keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous.” His commandments to most of the people of the Latter-day Saints were not grievous in the winter and spring of 1831. They rejoiced in having the privilege of obeying the Lord’s commandments, through His servant, the Prophet. Hence they gathered up all the various Branches of the Church, with some few exceptions, to Kirtland, in the State of Ohio.

This is the right way to keep the Lord’s commandments; but it is, in the first place, necessary to find what His commandments are. You might have taken this big book, the Jewish record, or Bible, and searched it from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation to find out your duties as Saints, and you never could have found within it what the Lord required of His Saints at that time—namely, to remove from the State of New York to the State of Ohio. No such Scripture as that was given. That was the duty required of individuals in the nineteenth century. No other people were ever required to do that; it cannot be found within the lids of the Bible. That commandment was specially adapted to the circumstances of the few Latter-day Saints then existing, and they were the ones required to keep it. The ancients were not required to do that, neither are we; it was a commandment having relation to the time then being, and it was fulfilled. With that commandment we have nothing further to do, provided that we, or as many of us as were included among those to whom it was given, kept it. If we have not kept it we have something further to do with it—we shall have to meet it in the great judgment day.

When we came to Kirtland the Lord gave us further commandments, and He revealed a great many things through His servant Joseph. Among others, He gave one that the Latter-day Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, should go to with their might and build a house to His name, wherein He promised to bestow great and choice blessings upon His people. He revealed the pattern according to which that house should be built, pointing out the various courts and apartments, telling the size of the house, the order of the pulpits, and in fact everything pertaining to it was clearly pointed out by revelation. God gave a vision of these things, not only to Joseph, but to several others, and they were strictly commanded to build according to the pattern revealed from the heavens.

Now, then, no other people was ever commanded to do that work in Kirt– land, Ohio, but the people then living there, called Latter-day Saints. It was not a work required of Noah, Abraham, Moses, Solomon, nor of any other man that ever existed on the earth, nor of any people but those to whom it was given, then living in the State of Ohio. Supposing they had said, “We will not build the house; we can meet in a common meetinghouse, after the order of the Gentiles, and we will take their forms of building, it does not matter, we do not think it necessary to be at all this expense, and we can hire a house.” Would that have been sufficient? No, the only way we could witness to one another and before the Lord of hosts that we loved Him with all our hearts was to go to and build a house just according to the pattern.

Well, when we did build it, did the Lord accept it, according to promise? He did, and He revealed great and important things in that house through His servant, Joseph the Prophet; and not only did Joseph have the privilege of seeing and understanding the mind and will of the Lord, but after the house was built many others had this great privilege given to them. For instance, the Lord had promised to reveal Himself unto many of His people and His Priesthood in that house. He did so. Among other great revelations and visions given there, was the revelation, which you will find recorded in our Church history, of Elijah, the Prophet, of him who was translated to heaven in a chariot of fire. That same personage came and stood in that temple and manifested certain keys, gave these keys to the servant of the Lord, the Prophet Joseph, and said unto him that that was the fulfillment of that which was spoken by the Prophet Malachi. What has Malachi said? He has told us of the great day of the Lord that should come, when it should burn as an oven, and when all the proud and they that do wickedly shall become as stubble and shall be burned up, leaving them neither root nor branch. He has told us that before that great and terrible day the Lord would send Elijah the Prophet. Or, to quote the words of Scripture, “Behold I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord shall come.” What great object had the Lord in view in sending His ancient prophet as a ministering angel to His people on the earth? It is expressed in one sentence—“He shall turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children and the hearts of the children unto the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” In other words, there will be no flesh prepared to escape the day appointed—no flesh but what will become as stubble, no flesh will be able to abide the presence of the Lord until Elijah comes. He did come in that Kirtland Temple; he appeared in his glorious majesty, and there revealed the keys unto the servants of the Lord which should restore this union between the fathers and the children—something that we did not understand anything about, until the angel Elijah revealed it unto us. This was a great work to be accomplished in the latter days, in order that the fathers, from the days of the ancient Priesthood, or those who were in the spirit world—millions and millions of them, might be redeemed through the ordinance of baptism for the dead, turning the minds and thoughts and affections of the children, living on the earth, to search after their ancient fathers and to be baptized for them according to that which is contained in the New Testament about baptism for the dead. Moreover it turned the hearts of those ancient fathers to their children, for they looked to us, their children, to accomplish a work that is needful to be accomplished in their behalf, for God’s house is a house of order; God’s kingdom is a kingdom of order; and His ordinances were instituted from before the foundation of the world, and they are adapted to the condition of the living and the dead; and God revealed these things that our fathers, in all past generations, might rejoice with their children in the latter days, by being united in the same bonds, in the same New and Everlasting Covenants. They died without the Gospel, without understanding the plan of salvation. They were brought up in the midst of the sectarian world, where all was confusion and darkness; where no voice of God was heard; no voice of living prophets or Apostles to direct them, or to teach them in the mysteries of the kingdom of God. They went down to their graves as sincere, many of them, as you and I are. Must they be forever cast off? Must they always remain in prison and be forever deprived of the society of their children that should live on the earth in the latter days, when God should again open the heavens and send His angels to minister to His people? No; they without us cannot be made perfect; for there is no way for them to receive the Gospel only through their children. We have the work to do for them, and that work we could not commence until Elijah the Prophet was sent from heaven, holding the keys that were to be committed to the children in behalf of the fathers, in the last dispensation, before the great day of the Lord should come.

Then you see that even this one revelation, which God gave in that Temple, paid the people for the toil they had endured in erecting it. What a satisfaction it was to them to know that angels administered in that Temple! What a satisfaction it was for them to go into that Temple and have the heavens opened to them so that they could gaze on the glory of God! What a satisfaction it was for them to know that the Lord accepted, as His own, the house which they had built according to the pattern which He had given! And what a satisfaction it was for them to know that they loved God by keeping His commandments!

Elijah was not the only angel that administered in that house. Others holding keys pertaining to the last dispensation of the fullness of times came forth and manifested those keys and bestowed the authority upon the servants of God living in the flesh to carry out certain great and important purposes pertaining to this dispensation. These keys are still on the earth. Here are the servants of the living God, sitting on my right hand and on my left, who have had these keys committed into their hands by authority from the proper source, from those who received them from the heavenly messengers. These keys, being now in the hands of the Priesthood, never will be taken from them while the earth shall stand or eternal duration shall roll on. There may be apostates, those who fight against the anointed of the Lord and lift up their heel against those holding these keys; yet be it known to the Latter-day Saints and to all the ends of the earth that the almighty hand of the Great Jehovah is stretched out and He will accomplish the purposes ordained by Him in regard to this great and important work of the latter days.

Are these the only commandments that God has given for us to keep wherein we have manifested our love towards Him? No. God gave commandment to His people in the summer of 1831 that they should gather up from the Eastern lands, New York, the New England States, Pennsylvania and the Middle States, from Ohio and various parts of the United States, upon the western frontiers of Missouri; that is, that they should continue to gather, but not let their flight be in haste, and let all things be prepared before them. God led forth the Prophet that He had raised up to the western part of Missouri, and pointed out, by His own finger, where the great city of Zion should stand in the latter days, the great city of the New Jerusalem that should be built up on the American continent. I say He pointed out these things and gave direction to His people to gather to that land, and commanded them to lay the corner stone of a great and magnificent temple that was to be built during the generation in which the people then lived. The corner stone was laid in the summer of 1831, in Jackson County, State of Missouri. All these things were done by the people of God by commandment and revelation, and in this way they still further showed, one to another and to all people as well as to the heavens, that they did love the Lord their God.

Many commandments were given to the people about affairs there in Jackson County—how they should regulate their property and how they should become one—revelations that were intended to produce the greatest possible union that could exist among the people of God, if they had been complied with. The people complied with them in part, but yet, through inexperience, for the want of understanding, because of the weakness of mortality, and because of the wicked and corrupt traditions that they had imbibed in regard to property, they did not fully carry out the mind and will of God in relation to their con– secrations and inheritances. It is true that they purchased the land from the American Government, or much of it, and paid their money into the land office in that county; but yet, not carrying out the command of God to the very letter, the Lord was not pleased, and before they had been located there fourteen months He threatened them very severely. Said He, “If you do not remember my commandments to keep them, and not only my commandments, but the Book of Mormon, which I have caused to come forth and to be written for your edification, as the New and Everlasting Covenant; if you do not give heed to the words of instruction and counsel, and the commandments written in that book, behold, saith the Lord, there remains a scourge and judgment to be poured out upon the inhabitants of Zion.”

We did not know what the judgment or scourging was. We had only been about fourteen months on the land, and we did not understand the nature of it. The Lord told us in another revelation, which is published in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, that, inasmuch as we did not do just precisely as He told us to do in regard to obtaining our lands, we should be driven by our enemies—“Behold and lo, your enemies shall be upon you; you shall be persecuted and driven from city to city, and but few of you shall stand to receive an inheritance.” We could not comprehend all this. We thought perhaps we should be faithful enough that this prophecy might not be fulfilled upon our heads. Although they were the very best people on the earth, yet there was a lack among them, through want of experience or through the former traditions of the Gentiles which they had imbibed from their childhood; but the Lord required us to be very good and to give heed to every word that proceeded out of His mouth, and never disobey the least thing; and consequently when He found that we lacked in some of these things, He told us He would not suffer that land to be polluted by those who were called by His name; for it was a choice land—a holy land, and those who were called by His name, and professed to be His disciples, should not pollute it, and if they did they should be scourged and driven away and persecuted, and there would be few left who would receive their inheritance there.

In the year 1833, in the month of November, we began to feel this scourge that the Lord had forewarned us of. Yet so anxious was the Prophet Joseph that the scourge might be averted that he took a journey, in connection with some of the prominent Elders of the Church, from the State of Ohio, about one thousand miles, to the western frontiers of Missouri, to warn the people of the terrible judgment that would overtake them, if they were not more obedient. But, alas! their repentance was not sufficient, though they were such a good people—far better than any other people or Church on the face of the earth; but yet they did not come up to the letter of the law which God had revealed, consequently they did not manifest before Him that they loved Him with all their hearts, souls, might, mind and strength, and judgment came upon them and they were driven. Two hundred houses were burned, our haystacks were burned, our cattle were shot down by the mob, our merchandise were strewn in the streets, our household furniture broken up and scattered, and the people were driven forth on the bleak prairies in the cold month of November. Then they remembered the prophecies which the Lord had delivered by His servant Joseph; they remembered what had been written and published, which they had been warned of time and time again, both by letter and by the personal ministry of the servants of God in their midst.

They fled to Clay County and were driven thence in a few months, when they fled still further north into other unsettled portions of the State of Missouri, and again purchased lands of the Government, and entered them and continued there a few years; but by and by we were again driven, thus fulfilling the word of the Lord through His servant Joseph—that we should be persecuted and driven from place to place and from city to city unless we did as He told us. Finally, we were driven into the State of Illinois, where we purchased a beautiful spot of ground on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, called Commerce, which we afterwards called Nauvoo, a Hebrew word which means beautiful for location.

After we had worked in Nauvoo for a few years, and had gathered together our people from various parts of the United States and some from Great Britain, to the number of some fifteen or twenty thousand souls, in Nauvoo and the regions round about, behold the mob was again upon us and we were driven again, thus fulfilling more fully the prophecies that had been made, and we were driven here to these mountains. We came here by the direction of the servant of God, being led by him on whom the Lord had placed the great responsibility of leading this people. He brought us here, and established us in the heart of this country. Here we have extended our settlements south, north, east and west, until the country is now populated with, as I suppose, some hundred thousand inhabitants. I do not know how many, it may be a hundred and fifty thousand for aught I know. Suffice it to say, we have over a hundred towns, cities and villages built up in the various portions of this great Basin, this desert country. We have beautified our inheritances; we have planted fruit trees in abundance and ornamental shade trees, so as to make our residences cheering and beautiful in the midst of a desert. God has been with us from the time that we came to this land, and I hope that the days of our tribulation are past. I hope this, because God promised in the year 1832 that we should, before the generation then living had passed away, return and build up the City of Zion in Jackson County; that we should return and build up the temple of the Most High where we formerly laid the corner stone. He promised us that He would manifest Himself on that temple, that the glory of God should be upon it; and not only upon the temple, but within it, even a cloud by day and a flaming fire by night.

We believe in these promises as much as we believe in any promise ever uttered by the mouth of Jehovah. The Latter-day Saints just as much expect to receive a fulfillment of that promise during the generation that was in existence in 1832 as they expect that the sun will rise and set tomorrow. Why? Because God cannot lie. He will fulfil all His promises. He has spoken, it must come to pass. This is our faith. It will depend upon the conduct of the Latter-day Saints whether we suffer more tribulation. We may suffer tribulation although we are righteous in every respect, though there were no sin found in the midst of the people. Why? Because the wicked always did persecute the righteous, they always did hate the principles and plan of salvation; still we have greater claim upon the arm of Jehovah for protection and assistance when we keep His commandments and love and serve Him.

Did you ever hear of the Elders of this Church getting up like the sectarian world and speaking about the love of God dwelling in their bosoms, and saying how much they loved Jesus, and at the same time transgressing his laws? No, we have no right to make any such declaration as this; hence we show to the heavens that we are determined to do the will of God. Then we may say that we love God; then we can say that we love His ways, and His Priesthood, and His Church, and His kingdom, and His Gospel which He has sent forth by His angels in the latter day.

I feel truly grateful to the Most High God that such a great improvement has been made among the Latter-day Saints in these mountains. I think I am able to judge. I have been with this people from my youth up. Forty years have almost expired since I was baptized into this Church and kingdom. I have known the former history of the Saints; and I know and understand, in some measure, their present condition, and I can contrast the two, and I see a decided improvement. Is there more union amongst them? Yes; far more than there was in the lifetime of Joseph; and all that the great mass of the people want is to know what God requires, and, with one heart and mind, they will do it. If God requires them to be baptized for their dead, as far as they can search and find out their ancestors’ names, they will do it with all their hearts and souls. If He requires them to receive the sacred ordinance of the endowments, by which they may attain to greater blessings and glory in His presence, they will go to with one heart and mind to receive those ordinances. If God requires His people to take a plurality of wives and have them sealed to them for time and eternity, behold they will do these things. If God requires the young, middle-aged, or even the aged, Elders to start from their farms or from their various occupations and leave this Territory on a journey across the Plains or across the great ocean and to the different nations of the earth and study their language and preach to the people, behold they will do it. If God calls upon this people to go forth into the South country, which is still more barren and desolate than the northern portion of the Territory, behold they are willing to go and do it. If God requires anything at their hands there is a union, oneness and willingness to go forward and carry out His great designs and purposes in regard to the rolling forth of His kingdom in the last days. By all these acts, by all these manifestations, by the good feeling that exists in the bosoms of this people, we know that they have made great improvement and advancement in the things of the kingdom of God since our Prophet was called upon to offer his great and last testimony by the shedding of his blood.

This union will increase and become stronger and stronger; it will continue until this people shall be prepared and sanctified before the heavens, and be permitted to return and build up the waste places of Zion in the western frontiers of the United States. This people will wax stronger in faith, in love towards God, in the power of the Priesthood and in the demonstration of the Spirit, until they are able to build the city wherein God shall reveal Himself, as He did in ancient times before the flood, among the people of ancient Zion—the Zion built up by Enoch. This people will increase in union, faith, greatness and glory, until the heavens shall come down and embrace us, and we shall embrace them, and all the heavenly host shall be united together in one with the hosts of the Saints of God here on earth, and a union will be created such as exists nowhere but in the celestial kingdom of our God, for the Saints themselves will ere long become celestial. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in The Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, April 10, 1870.

It has fallen to my lot to speak to the congregation this afternoon, and I humbly hope and trust that, through your faith and prayers, I may be assisted by the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, in speaking to your edification; and I ask my Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, that He will pour out upon me that Spirit which giveth utterance and enlighteneth the understanding, that I may be able to edify all who hear me.

Forty years have passed away since the Church was organized. We held Conference here on Wednesday last, in commemoration of that eventful period in the history of our race, for it is a period that we consider very eventful in our history and in the history of the world; and we have no doubt in our own minds that the Lord looks upon it in the same light, for He is interested more than any other person possibly can be in the salvation of the human family. And as He has set times in His own mind for the performance of His own purposes, He no doubt chose the 6th day of April, 1830, as the set time for the organization, or the beginning of an organization or kingdom that should have no end.

All the governments which have hitherto had a place on our earth, excepting those now in existence, have had an end. Human governments have been very changeable in their nature. The Lord has raised up a nation here and a nation there, a kingdom here and a kingdom there, and He has suffered them to live and flourish for a few centuries, and some, perhaps, even for one or two thousand years; then He has caused them to pass away. But He spoke to His ancient servant, who is called Daniel, whose prophecy is written in this book (the Bible), and said that in the latter days He would set up a government or kingdom which should have no end. This government will differ from all preceding governments set up from the Creation down to the period of its establishment. Daniel says it shall become universal and shall cover the whole earth. He calls the citizens of that government Saints. He beheld that the stone cut out of the mountain without hands should roll forth and become a great mountain and fill the whole earth, and that all earthly governments, kingdoms and empires should become like the chaff of the summer threshingfloor, and no place should be found for them; while the stone that was cut out of the mountains should have dominion over the whole earth, and the Saints of the Most High should have dominion under the whole heaven.

Now there will have to be a beginning to that work. The Lord will not make such a wonderful revolution as the one I have named, all in one day, or in one year. Jesus made his appearance on the earth in the meridian of time, and he established his kingdom on the earth. But to fulfill ancient prophecies the Lord suffered that kingdom to be uprooted; in other words, the kingdoms of this world made war against the kingdom of God, established eighteen centuries ago, and they prevailed against it, and the kingdom ceased to exist. The great beast that John saw made war with it and prevailed against it, and human institutions, without prophets or inspired men, usurped the place of the ancient kingdom of God. But God has promised that the latter-day kingdom shall stand forever. Though the heavens and earth be wrapped together as a scroll and pass away, yet the kingdom that was to be set up in the latter days will have no end, but will prevail among all people under the heavens and will have dominion for one thousand years. After that, when the earth passes away, the kingdom will be caught up; it will not perish, be annihilated or overcome, but be caught up into the heavens while the earth is undergoing its last change; and when the Lord shall resurrect the earth, the same as He will our bodies, and make it a new earth, wherein shall dwell righteousness, He will then bring down out of Heaven to the new earth this latter-day kingdom, with all the former kingdoms that He has built up in other dispensations, and they will stand forever, for the new earth will never pass away.

The destiny of all governments established by human wisdom is to pass away. The great nation of the United States, one of the best governments ever organized by human authority on the earth, so far as our knowledge goes, must pass away in many of its features. The only way for safety to the people of the government of the United States is to repent of their sins, turn away from all their iniquities, receive the Gospel of the Son of God and become citizens of that kingdom which is to endure forever; then all the great and glorious principles incorporated in this great republic will be incorporated in the kingdom of God and be preserved. I mean the principles of civil and religious liberty, especially, and all other good principles that are contained in that great instrument framed by our forefathers will be incorporated in the kingdom of God; and only in this manner can all that is good in this and in foreign governments be preserved.

The time will shortly come when thrones will be cast down and empires will fall; and all republics and empires will eventually fall and become like the dream of a night vision—they will vanish away; but the kingdom of God will grow, flourish, spread abroad and become stronger and more powerful, until its King shall come in the clouds of Heaven, crowned in all the glory and power of his Father, bringing the celestial hosts with him, to sit upon his throne in Jerusalem and also in Zion, to reign over his people here on the earth for the space of a thousand years, before the destruction of the earth.

This is what we believe; and it is the sincere belief and faith of the Latter-day Saints that we are in that kingdom. It is true that our King is now absent: he is in the heavens. But we expect him again; we look for him and he will come in his own due time. The day when he will come he has not revealed to any of the inhabitants of the earth, neither will he do so, for the Lord has told us in a certain revelation, recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants, that no one should have it revealed to them; but this much God has revealed—that this kingdom which He has organized on the earth has been organized preparatory to the day of the coming of our Lord from the heavens. Hence in organizing this kingdom He has restored all the essential characteristics of His kingdom in its embryo, or its beginning: such as inspired men, inspired prophets, inspired leaders, called by revelation to act in different positions.

Now there is something very peculiar indeed in setting up the kingdom of God in regard to the time. I told you in the commencement of my remarks that the Lord generally had set times to accomplish His purposes. It can be reasonably inferred, according to the revelations that we have in the Book of Mormon, that God organized His kingdom, precisely to a day, 1,800 years after the crucifixion. Of course we do not learn this directly from the Book of Mormon; but we learn enough there of data on which to found a calculation. We learn not only from this book, but also from the antiquities of the Jews, from the New Testament, from historians and from some of the Mosaic rites that Jesus was crucified about the time of the Passover, and that happened some time after the vernal equinox; and that 1833 years had passed from the time of the birth of our Savior before the organization of this latter-day kingdom.

The way we come at this is by the account given in the Book of Mormon. We find that the ancient Israelites on this continent had a sign given of the exact time of the crucifixion and a revelation of the exact time of the Savior’s birth, and according to their reckoning, they made him thirty-three years and a little over three days old from the time of his birth to the time that he hung upon the cross. There is no doubt that the year of the ancient Israelites, who inhabited this continent, differed a little in length from our years; for they probably reckoned their’s somewhat after the manner of the Jews, at Jerusalem, and the Jews had formed their reckoning from the Egyptians, among whom they dwelt some four hundred years. The Egyptians reckoned three hundred and sixty-five days to the year; but the ancient Israelites on this continent, according to the records of the early Spanish historians, did not consider that three hundred and sixty-five days made up a full year, and hence at the end of every fifty-two years they added thirteen days, which is equivalent to adding one day every four years, the same as we do. If such were the reckoning of the ancient Nephites, then thirty-three years and three days of their time had passed away between the time of the Savior’s birth and crucifixion. Now these thirty-three years and three days would, according to our reckoning, lack five days of thirty-three years. When we come to trace back all these authorities, we find that this very day, on which I am speaking, would be the close of the year, and that tomorrow, the 11th day of April, would be the anniversary of the very day on which Jesus was born; and the 6th day of April the very day on which he was crucified precisely eighteen hundred years prior to the organization of this Church.

I have made mention of this, not bringing all the evidences and proofs that might be advanced, but merely to show, in a very brief manner, that God has a set time to perform and accomplish His work, and that the commencement of the organization of His kingdom took place eighteen centuries after the time that the Savior groaned and suffered on the cross.

There are a great many, of course, in the world, who disbelieve this record which is received as divine by the Latter-day Saints. A great many do not believe that the Book of Mormon is true, and the reason they do not believe it is because they never have examined the evidences. I consider that there are some evidences, that never have been sufficiently put forth before the public, to prove the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon, quite as strong as those which have been adduced. We have often referred to the Old Testament to prove that a work of this nature was to come forth in the latter days. The ancient prophets have spoken of it in many places, sometimes under the term of a book. Speaking of the manner in which it should be translated, you will find it referred to in the twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah. It is referred to in other places as sticks, written upon, one for Judah and one for Joseph, that should be united together by the power of the Lord in the latter days preparatory to His coming. In other places it is referred to as truth which, in the latter days, should come out of the ground, and that, at the same time, righteousness should come down out of Heaven, and that this should be a preparatory work for the salvation of Israel and for the coming of the Lord.

But we will pass over all these Scriptural evidences, and name one which, perhaps, our Elders themselves have not dwelt upon to any very great extent to prove the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

This book, the Book of Mormon, informs us that the time of day at which Jesus was crucified, I mean the time of day here in America, was in the morning; the New Testament tells us that Jesus was crucified in Asia in the afternoon, between the sixth and ninth hour according to the Jews’ reckoning. They commenced their reckoning at six o’clock in the morning, and consequently the sixth hour would be twelve o’clock at noon, and the ninth hour three o’clock in the afternoon. Jesus, from the sixth to the ninth hour, in other words from twelve o’clock to three, was hanging on the cross. Now the Book of Mormon, or the historians whose records it contains, when relating the incidents that transpired at the time of the crucifixion—the darkness that was spread over the face of the land, the earthquakes, the rending of rocks, the sinking of cities and the whirlwinds—say these events occurred in the morning; they also say that darkness was spread over the face of the land for the space of three days. In Jerusalem it was only three hours. But the Lord gave them a special sign in this country, and the darkness lasted three days, and at the expiration of three days and three nights of darkness, it cleared off, and it was in the morning. That shows that, according to the time in this country, the crucifixion must have taken place in the morning.

Says one, “Is not this a contradiction between the Book of Mormon and the New Testament?” To an unlearned person it would really be a contradiction, for the four Evangelists place it from twelve to three in the afternoon, while the Book of Mormon says in the morning. An unlearned person, seeing this discrepancy, would say, of course, that both books cannot be true. If the Book of Mormon be true the Bible cannot be; and if the Bible be true the Book of Mormon cannot be.

I do not know that anybody ever brought up this objection, for I do not think they ever thought of it. I do not think that the Prophet Joseph, who translated the book, ever thought of this apparent discrepancy. “But,” says one, “how do you account for it being in the morning in America and in the afternoon in Jerusalem?” Simply by the difference in longitude. This would make a difference of time of several hours; for when it would be twelve at noon in Jerusalem it would only be half-past four in the morning in the northwest part of South America, where the Book of Mormon was then being written. Seven and a half hours difference in longitude would account for this apparent discrepancy; and if the Book of Mormon had said the crucifixion took place in the afternoon we should have known at once that it could not be true. This is incidental proof to learned or scientific men that they cannot very well reason away, and especially when the instrument who brought forth the Book of Mormon is considered. It must be remembered that he was but a youth, and unlearned; and, when he translated this work, I presume that he was unaware that there was any difference in the time of day, according to the longitude, in different parts of the earth. I do not suppose that Joseph ever thought about it to the day of his death. I never heard him or any other person bring forth this as confirmatory evidence of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon; I never thought of it myself until years after Joseph’s death; but when I did reflect upon it, I could see the reason why the Lord, through His servants, has said in the Book of Mormon, that the crucifixion took place in the morning.

But we will pass over this and will say a few words in regard to the object of this great work. The Lord has brought forth the Book of Mormon in order that all the nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples on the face of the earth may be warned of the great events which are about to take place. This book contains prophecies which affect every nation under Heaven, prophecies that will be fulfilled on their heads. Can we read the future of this great American nation—or great republic? Yes, we can learn a great many features within its pages concerning this nation and government that we never should have learned without its aid or the spirit of revelation. From it we learn that two great and powerful nations formerly dwelt on this continent. One nation, or rather the colony which founded it, came from the Tower of Babel soon after the days of the Flood. They colonized what we call North America, landing on the western coast, a little south of the Gulf of California, in the southwestern part of this north wing of our continent. They flourished some sixteen hundred years. When they first colonized this continent from the Tower of Babel, the Lord told them if they would not serve Him faithfully, but became ripe in iniquity, they should be cut off from the face of the land. That was fulfilled about six hundred years before Christ, when they were entirely swept off, and in their stead the Lord brought a remnant of Israel, a few families, not the ten tribes, but a small portion of the tribe of Joseph. He brought them from Jerusalem first down to the Red Sea. They traveled along the eastern borders of the Red Sea for many days, and then bore off in an eastern direction which brought them to the Arabian Gulf. There they were commanded of the Lord to build a vessel. They went aboard of this vessel and were brought by the special providence of God across the great Indian and Pacific Oceans, and landed on the western coast of South America. This was about five hundred and eighty years before the coming of Christ. Eleven years after the Lord brought this first colony of Israelites from Jerusalem, He brought another small colony, headed by one of the sons of Zedekiah, a descendant of King David. They left Jerusalem the same year that the Jews were carried away captive into Babylon, were brought forth to this continent and landed somewhere north of the Isthmus. They wended their way into the northern part of South America. About four hundred years after this the two colonies amalgamated in the northern part of South America and they became one nation.

The first colony brought with them the Jewish Scriptures, on plates of brass, containing an account of the Creation and the history of their nation down to eleven years before the Captivity, or six hundred years before Christ. These brass plates were kept among them during the period of their righteousness, and were preserved by the hand of the Lord. The second colony that came from Jerusalem came without the Scriptures, and having no copy of the sacred writings they soon fell into wickedness. In four hundred years time they disbelieved in the being of a God, but uniting with the other branch of Israelites they were converted. Their language had become much corrupted, but through their conversion their language was restored in a partial measure by means of the records which were possessed by the other colony.

About forty-five years before Christ a very large colony of five thousand four hundred men, with wives and children, united themselves together in the northern part of South America, and came forth by land into North America, and traveled an exceedingly great distance until they came to large bodies of water and many rivers, very probably in the great Mississippi Valley. In the next ten years numerous other colonies came forth and spread themselves on the northern portion of the continent and became exceedingly numerous.

You may inquire, “Did all these different colonies have the Scriptures?” Yes. “How did they get them?” They had a great many scribes in their midst. The Book of Mormon informs us that they had not only the Scriptures which they brought from Jerusalem, but those given by the living prophets among them; and that a great many copies were written and sent forth into all of these colonies, so that the people in all their colonies were well acquainted with the law of Moses and with the prophecies of the prophets in relation to the first coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.

“But,” some may inquire, “have you any external evidence to prove what you are now saying?” I think we have. Thirty years after the Book of Mormon was put in print, giving the history of the settlement of this country, one of the great mounds south of the great lakes near Newark, in Ohio, was opened. What was found in it? A great many curiosities, among which were some copper pieces, supposed to be money. After digging down many feet, and carrying off many thousand loads of stone, they at length found a coffin in the midst of a hard kind of fire clay. Underneath this they found a large stone that appeared to be hollow; something seemed to rattle inside of it. The stone was cemented together in the middle, but with some little exertion they broke it open, when another stone was found inside of it, of a different nature entirely from its covering. On the stone taken from the inside was carved the figure of a man with a priestly robe flowing from his shoulders; and over the head of this man were the Hebrew characters for Moshe, the ancient name of Moses; while on each side of this likeness, and on different sides of the stone, above, beneath, and around about were the Ten Commandments that were received on Mount Sinai, written in the ancient Hebrew characters. Now recollect that the Book of Mormon had been in print thirty years before this discovery. And what does this discovery prove? It proves that the builders of these mounds, south of the great lakes in the great Mississippi Valley in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, New York, etc., must have understood the Hebrew characters; and not only that, but they must also have understood the law of Moses. Otherwise how happened it that they should write on this stone the Ten Commandments almost verbatim as they are now contained in King James’ translation of the Bible. It proves that the builders of these mounds were Israelites, and that their illustrious dead, buried in these mounds, had these commandments buried with them, in accordance with the custom of many of the ancient nations, especially the Egyptians, who were in the habit of consigning their written sacred papyrus to their great tombs. In Egypt many of these ancient manuscripts have been exhumed and, in many instances, pretended to be translated. So the Israelites followed the customs of these Eastern nations, and buried that which they considered most sacred, namely, the Ten Commandments, thundered by the voice of the Almighty in the midst of flaming fire on Mount Sinai in the ears of all the congregation of Israel.

I have seen that sacred stone. It is not a hatched up story. I heard tell of it as being in the Antiquarian Society, or rather, as it is now called, the Ethnological Society, in the City of New York. I went to the Secretary of that Society, and he kindly showed me this stone, of which I have been speaking, and being acquainted with modern Hebrew, I could form some kind of an estimate of the ancient Hebrew, for some of the modern Hebrew characters do not vary much in form from the ancient Hebrew. At any rate we have enough of ancient Hebrew, that has been dug up in Palestine and taken from among the ruins of the Israelites east of the Mediterranean Sea, to form some kind of an estimate of the characters that were in use among them; and having these characters and comparing them, I could see and understand the nature of the writing upon these records. They were also taken to the most learned men of our country, who, as soon as they looked at them, were able to pronounce them to be not only ancient Hebrew, but they were also able to translate them and pronounced them to be the Ten Commandments. This, then, is external proof, independent of the Scriptural proofs to which I have alluded, in testimony of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

Now, our modern Hebrew has many points; it has also many additional characters not found in the ancient Hebrew. These additional characters have been made since these colonies left Jerusalem. Do you find on these ancient writings any of these modern characters that have been introduced during the last two thousand four hundred years? Not one. Do you find any Hebrew points representing vowels? Not one; and all the new consonants that have been introduced during the last two thousand four hundred years were not found upon this stone to which I have referred, showing plainly that it must have been of very ancient date.

Five years after the discovery of this remarkable memento of the ancient Israelites on the American continent, and thirty-five years after the Book of Mormon was in print, several other mounds in the same vicinity of Newark were opened, in several of which Hebrew characters were found. Among them was this beautiful expression, buried with one of their ancient dead, “May the Lord have mercy on me a Nephite.” It was translated a little different—“Nephel.” Now we well know that Nephi, who came out of Jerusalem six hundred years before Christ, was the leader of the first Jewish colony across to this land, and the people, ever afterwards, were called “Nephites,” after their inspired prophet and leader. The Nephites were a righteous people and had many prophets among them; and when they were burying one of their brethren in these ancient mounds, they introduced the Hebrew characters signifying “May the Lord have mercy on me a Nephite.” This is another direct evidence of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon, which was brought forth and translated by inspiration some thirty-five years before this inscription was found.

But I said I would tell you some of the objects that the Lord had in view in bringing forth this sacred record. It is in order to prepare the people for the day of His coming, in order to establish the true Church and kingdom of God upon the earth, with all its ordinances, gifts, powers and blessings, that the people might have the old, ancient religion, even the fulness of the blessings of that Gospel that was preached eighteen hundred years ago.

Another object that the Lord had in view was to gather His people out from all nations before the coming of the great and terrible judgments which are pronounced in this ancient record of the Nephites. God has said, concerning the nation which should inherit this land in the latter days, when this work should be brought forth, if they would not repent of their sins and hearken to the servants of God who should be sent forth among them, if they would reject this divine record which He should bring forth by His power, if they would fight against His Church and His Zion, that when they were fully ripened in iniquity they should be cut off from the face of this land. And for this reason He would gather out from their midst His people and assemble them in one.

This is all predicted in the Book of Mormon. And remember this was in print before the organization of the Church took place. The Church was organized on the 6th of April, 1830, and consisted of six members only; but the Book of Mormon was in print before that. How did Joseph Smith, if an impostor, as he is represented to be by a great many of the world, foretell events that have been taking place during the past forty years? How could he know that this book would be received beyond his own neighborhood, or ever extend beyond the limits of the State of New York? How did he know it would go beyond the limits of this continent and across the ocean and spread forth among many nations? “Well,” says one, “he might have guessed it.” Yes, but guesses are very uncertain indeed. Many people may conjecture, and think that such and such things will be the case; but when it comes to enumerating particulars in regard to the future, if a man is not inspired of God, how liable he is to fall into ten thousand errors!

Now this book predicted, not only the spread of this work among this people or nation, but also that it would go forth to all people, nations and tongues under the whole heavens. Forty years only have passed away, and how much of this has been fulfilled already! This book has been translated into eight different languages and spread forth upon the islands of the sea—the Sandwich Islands, the Society Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Hindostan, and has gone forth to the nations of Europe and has penetrated to almost every nation under heaven in the course, only, of forty years.

Has there been any gathering, according to the predictions of this book? For it not only predicts the organization and rising up of the kingdom of God in the latter days when it should go forth, but it also speaks of the great gathering together of His people. Has this been fulfilled? What do I now see before me? Several thousand people listening to me in the midst of one of the most frightful deserts of the North American continent; that is, it was frightful, so much so that Fremont and others could not traverse it, with any degree of safety, unless a large company was with them; and even, with all the means he had at his command, Fremont could not travel through these deserts without losing a great many of his men. It was a parched up, dry and sterile country, and it looked as though an agricultural people never could possess it with any degree of advantage. This was the description given by those who explored a small portion of this country before the Latter-day Saints settled it. But what do I now see? Not only this large congregation now before me, but as I travel to and fro in the Territory I see four hundred miles of desert reclaimed, and over one hundred towns, cities and villages incorporated and organized, cultivating the earth, and numerous flocks and herds being raised by peaceable settlers. Who are these settlers? Those who believe in the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon; those who believe that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and thus have fulfilled his predictions. Is it not another testimony in favor of the divine authenticity of this record when we see things transpiring that, to all natural appearance, never could have transpired? What did our enemies say when this book was first printed? “O, it is only destined for a year or two; two years at longest will see the end of ‘Mormonism.’” By and by, when two years had passed away, and they began to see that their prophecies were failing, they concluded to extend the time for the extinction of “Mormonism,” and they would say, “Watch five years more, and ‘Mormonism’ will have an end.” Why it was so inconsistent in their opinion that God should again speak from the heavens, and have inspired men on the earth; that He should restore all the gifts of the ancient Gospel; that He should send an angel with the everlasting Gospel in fulfillment of the predictions of John the Revelator and the testimony of many of the ancient prophets. It was so foreign to their minds that any such prophecies should be fulfilled in their day, that they predicted that this work would have an end in five years. That was the way the natural man viewed the matter.

But God, who can foresee all events among the children of men, had His eye fixed on the gathering of His children before the Church was organized, and He predicted that they should come out of every nation under Heaven. Not only from the settled portions of the Gentile nation, but they should be brought forth out of the midst of that Gentile nation, just as we have been.

If you want to learn particularly concerning that prophecy, read the saying of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon, when he descended in the northern part of South America, soon after his resurrection, and ascension to heaven. He descended in the sight of a large congregation of two thousand five hundred men, women and children, a little south of the Isthmus, at a place where they had built a temple. After making his appearance in their midst, he taught them many things, and showed them the wounds in his hands, in his feet and in his side. In his instructions on that occasion he commanded them to do away with the law of Moses, so far as the ordinances, sacrifices and burnt offerings were concerned, and he commanded them to receive the Gospel which he taught them. After he had done all this, he commenced to prophesy to them, and his prophecies are in this record; and one of them has been fulfilled during the last forty years. He said he would bring forth their gold plates, which they then had in their midst. He declared that the Father should bring them forth unto the Gentiles in the latter days. The prophecy says, “If the Gentiles will not receive the fulness of my Gospel which shall be contained in that book, behold, saith the Father, I will bring the fulness of my Gospel from among them.” These are the words of Jesus, as recorded in this book.

Has this prophecy been fulfilled? How could the Lord have brought the Saints from among the inhabitants of the great nation of Gentiles, called the United States, any more effectually than He did twenty-three years ago when He located us in these mountains? Was there any other part of this continent on which this prophecy could have been so effectually fulfilled? Nowhere. We did not come here altogether of our own accord, that is, all of us did not; some few did, because they understood the mind and will of the Lord in regard to the gathering of the Saints from among the Gentiles; but a great many were so attached to their farms and homes in the East that they had to be driven away before they would come. It was not indeed a pleasurable thing to any of us, only to these who understood the mind and will of God in relation to the matter. The Lord brought us some twelve hundred miles from the settled portions of the United States, and planted us in one of the most wild and isolated regions on the face of the whole continent.

How completely were the words of Jesus fulfilled! “If the Gentiles in that day do not receive the fulness of my Gospel, which shall be translated from the Record, beheld, saith the Father, I will bring my people, my Priesthood, my Gospel, and my Saints from their midst.” Twenty-three years that prophecy has been fulfilling, and I think it has been accomplished to the very letter.

What next has the Lord predicted? He has predicted that if the Gentiles do not repent in that day, “Behold, saith the Father, I will sweep them from the face of the land, as I did the nation that I brought from the Tower of Babel. So shall they be swept off from the face of the land, when they are fully ripened in iniquity.”

I do not know when this will be fulfilled; but we are all the time in expectation. The Lord does not generally do things in a hurry. He gives the people plenty of time to ripen themselves in iniquity, if they will not repent. It does not take some people a very great time to ripen, for you know this is a fast age, and things are done in a great hurry now-a-days, and when they get on the downward course, into all manner of wickedness, they seem to rush with lightning speed into all the corruption that can be named. What a difference between our fathers, who lived forty years ago, and the present generation! Everyone can see it. The rising generation are proud, haughty, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; fighting against His people; given to whoredom and prostitution and all manner of iniquity and abominations; guilty of all the abominations named by the apostle that should characterize the false churches of the latter days, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. That is, denying the gifts of healing, miracles, prophecy, revelation, the ministering and discerning of spirits. All these things were denied when the Book of Mormon came forth. Of course the devil saw that it was not policy, with all the Scriptures staring them in the face, and all the Latter-day Saint Elders quoting these Scriptures to show the necessity of the gifts, to keep them denying these gifts; hence he introduced them under the name of Spiritualism. As soon as the Book of Mormon came forth, the counterfeit then spread like the counterfeit gifts exercised by the old magicians of Egypt. When Moses went down with the power and authority of Heaven, the counterfeit sprang up in order to delude the Egyptians, and make them think the power of Moses was the same in character as that exercised by the magicians. When Moses threw down his rod it became a serpent; the rods of the magicians did the same. When Moses brought up frogs on the land, they did the same; when he turned the rivers of water into blood, they did the same; and thus they deluded the Egyptian nation, and made them believe that if the power of Moses was superior to theirs, it was only because he had learned the magic art more thoroughly than they had.

Well, it seems as if the Lord our God is giving the nation a pretty thorough warning. He told this nation by revelation, twenty-eight years before it commenced, of the great American war. He told all about how the Southern States should be divided against the Northern States, and that in the course of the war many souls should be cut off. This has been fulfilled.

I went forth before my beard was gray, before my hair began to turn white, when I was a youth of nineteen, now I am fifty-eight, and from that time on I published these tidings among the inhabitants of the earth. I carried forth the written revelation, foretelling this great contest, some twenty-eight years before the war commenced. This prophecy has been printed and circulated extensively in this and other nations and languages. It pointed out the place where it should commence in South Carolina. That which I declared over the New England States, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and many other parts in the East, when but a boy, came to pass twenty-eight years after the revelation was given.

When they were talking about a war commencing down here in Kansas, I told them that was not the place; I also told them that the revelation had designated South Carolina, “and,” said I, “you have no need to think that the Kansas war is going to be the war that is to be so terribly destructive in its character and nature. No, it must commence at the place the Lord has designated by revelation.”

What did they have to say to me? They thought it was a Mormon humbug, and laughed me to scorn, and they looked upon that revelation as they do upon all others that God has given in these latter days—as without divine authority. But behold and lo! In process of time it came to pass, again establishing the divinity of this work, and giving another proof that God is in this work, and is performing that which He spoke by the mouths of the ancient prophets, as recorded in the Book of Mormon before any Church of Latter-day Saints was in existence.

This same book says, “In that day the blood of the Saints shall cry from the ground for vengeance on the heads of the wicked.” What! In a free and enlightened nation and government like the United States, which holds forth, in the first amendment to the Constitution, liberty, and freedom of conscience! A Constitution that protects religious societies in their belief! A Constitution that guarantees to all the right of having whatever kind of religion they choose! A Constitution that guarantees liberty of the press, and liberty to all to serve God according to the dictates of their own consciences! Can it be that such a prophecy will be fulfilled in the midst of such an enlightened nation? The Book of Mormon declared it, and that, too, before the existence of the Latter-day Saints’ Church. It has been printed and sent to all the world, that in that day, when that book should come forth, the blood of the Saints should cry to the Lord from the ground of these United States for vengeance upon the heads of their persecutors and murderers. Has this been fulfilled? In the history of this people and Church during the last forty years I read concerning our drivings from Jackson County, Missouri; from Kirtland, Ohio; of our drivings from Clay County, Missouri, and from Caldwell County to Ray, and out of many counties in the western part of Missouri into Illinois.

The word concerning the driving of the people from Illinois, westward to the Rocky Mountains, in the article of the treaty got up by the mobocrats, was that “we must not stop short of the Rocky Mountains, but that we must go beyond them.” Were any lives lost in those terrible persecutions, or was it merely property taken away from the Saints, without paying them a cent, in the shape of thousands of acres of land which they had paid the Government for, and comfortable houses? If it had been only our houses and lands it would have been bad enough; but lives were taken—innocent men, women and children were shot down. I might go on and relate some of the circumstances, but I dislike to dwell on the subject; it is apt to kindle up old nature in one’s heart, therefore I will leave that topic. Suffice it to say that the blood of hundreds, and I might almost say thousands, will be required at the hands of this nation unless the people repent.

Where is our prophet who translated this book, that noble youth whom God raised up when only between fourteen and fifteen years of age? Where is that noble boy to whom God sent His angel, and to whom He gave the Urim and Thummim, and to whom He entrusted the original golden plates from which this book was translated? He fell a martyr to his religion under this free Government of the United States. Where is the Patriarch of our Church, the brother of our Prophet? He, too, was shot down at the same time. By whom? By people who were painted black for the occasion, and who boasted of their bloody deeds in Hancock County, Illinois. Some of them are still alive in that county, and to this day boast of their bloody deeds in persecuting the Latter-day Saints.

Many scores of our people were wasted away, and their blood soaks the soil of this great government, crying aloud to the heavens for vengeance on those who shed the blood of the martyrs, and who persecuted God’s people and sent them forth, as they supposed, to perish in the heart of the Great American Desert.

Not only will they who committed these deeds be brought to judgment, but those also who stood back behind the screen and said, “How glad I am, Joe Smith is now dead, the Mormon Patriarch Hyrum Smith is shot down, and we have killed many of their followers, men, women and children. They have been driven five times from their locations and settlements and been robbed of millions of dollars’ worth of property and we are enjoying it, and it is all right. Joe Smith ought to have been killed before, long ago.”

This seemed to be the feeling of a great many people in the American nation. They sanctioned the shedding of innocent blood, if they did not actually shed it themselves and God will require it at their hands. Will He require anything at the hands of our nation, in a national capacity, in regard to this matter? Was it not within their power to protect us on the lands which we purchased from the General Government? We did not purchase, to any extent, land from the Missourians, but we took up land that belonged to the General Government. We paid our money into that Government Land Office. Did they protect us in the possession of that land which they guaranteed by their deeds to us and our seed or heirs forever? They did not. Did they protect us in our citizenship? No, they did not. Did we appeal to them for protection? Yes, we laid our case before them. What was their reply? Martin Van Buren, who sat at the head of the Government at that time, said, “Gentlemen, your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you.” He saw the testimony; there was no getting away from it. His reply indicated that he thought we had been persecuted so many years that they had the right to persecute us; and when we asked, “Can you protect us according to the Constitution, in our just rights? Can you not restore us our property—our houses and lands?” The reply was, “No, we can do nothing for you.”

Then, according to our ideas of the justice that dwells in the bosom of the Almighty, who is the Judge of all the earth, we must suppose that He will not only hold the actual murderers of the Saints responsible, but all who sanctioned the deed, and the nation for not punishing those murderers and for not protecting us in our rights, and suffering us to be exiled unjustly to a foreign territory, for Utah then belonged to Mexico. When we could not find safety in the United States we fled to Mexico for protection; but we ultimately assisted in redeeming the land we now occupy from the Mexican Government and securing it to the United States Government. After sending five hundred of our men to redeem this country, the United States formed a treaty with Mexico, and this became United States territory.

By and by, after having secured this soil to our Government by the Mormon Battalion, and having redeemed it from its sterility, and built upwards of a hundred towns and settlements, it was sold to us. Did we find fault at having to pay for it? No. When the land office was opened in this Territory two or three years ago, we considered it all right, and we were willing to pay our money for it. But what now? A bill is before Congress the object of which is to deprive us of the lands which we have paid for. The Government has got our money in its Treasury for lands we have bought and paid for, and for which it bargained to give us a deed and entered into a compact that we and our children after us should possess this land forever, and now Congress has got up a law to deprive every man in this Territory, whose religious faith happens to differ from Congress, of these lands. Because we happen to differ on certain religious points with the General Government, we are to be deprived of our homestead rights, guaranteed to us and to the people of all the Territories of the United States, by the laws of Congress.

Does this look like justice? Is this evenhanded justice? It does not seem to agree with my ideas of justice any more than the proceedings of the mobocrats in Missouri, Ohio or Illinois. When, therefore, the American nation, as a nation, by the voice of her Representatives, Senators and President, sanctions a law to deprive American citizens of their citizenship, to rob them of their houses and lands, and then deprive them of their liberty, because of a difference of religious belief and practice, I think the nation is pretty well ripened, and that it will not take much more to prepare them for the fulfillment of the prophecies which I have been repeating. I do not know how long-suffering the Lord is. It is a good thing that He has wisdom, knowledge and understanding, that He is not a human being, or He would get wrathy and swallow up the people in a moment. It is a good thing that you and I do not have people to deal with according to our feelings. God is a long-suffering being. He has fulfilled a great many things pertaining to this people during forty years past. There are a great many more to be fulfilled in relation to us, and in relation to the nation which is persecuting us; but whatever the final result may be, whether the American Congress pass laws to persecute us or not; whether they rob us of our houses and lands or not; whether they imprison us and send us for five years to a Penitentiary or a military camp or not, there is one thing sure—as sure as the sun shines forth in yonder heavens, so sure will the Lord fulfil one thing with regard to this people. What is that? He will return them to Jackson County, and in the westerns part of the State of Missouri they will build up a city which shall be called Zion, which will be the headquarters of this Latter-day Saint Church; and that will be the place where the prophets, apostles and inspired men of God will have their headquarters. It will be the place where the Lord God will manifest Himself to His people, as He has promised in the Scriptures, as well as in modern revelation.

“Do you believe that?” says one. Just as much as we believed, long before it came to pass, what has taken place. The world can believe what has taken place, because it has been fulfilled. The Latter-day Saints believe in prophecies before they take place. We have just as much confidence in returning to Jackson County and the building of a great central city that will remain there a thousand years before the earth passes away, as the Jews have in returning to Jerusalem and rebuilding the waste places of Palestine. In fact we have more faith than they have; for they have been so many generations cast out of their land that their descendants have almost lost their faith in returning. But the Latter-day Saints are fresh, as it were. There are many of the old stock, who passed through all those tribulations I have named, still living, whose faith in returning to Jackson County, and the things that are coming, is as firm and fixed as the throne of the Almighty. We know the future destiny of this kingdom as well as we know its past history, that is concerning the general events which are to transpire.

I am taking up too much of your time. May the Lord bless us as a people; bless us with wisdom, with understanding, with power with the heavens, with union, with peace among ourselves; bless us with righteousness, and joy in the Holy Ghost; bless us with the spiritual gifts of His kingdom, multiply His favors upon us and upon our generations after us, forever and ever, is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, December 19, 1869.

There is a passage which will be found in one of the epistles of John, the substance of which I will repeat: “Every spirit that confesses not that Jesus is the Christ is not of God.” I may not have given you this passage word for word, as it is recorded, but I have given you the substance of it as laid down in the Scriptures. It is well known by all readers of the Scriptures, that in every age of our world mankind have had to contend against a power which is in opposition to the Almighty. It seems that our world is infested with those spirits of darkness which were, in the beginning, cast down from the Almighty, in consequence of their rebellion against Him; and in every age of the world these wicked spirits have manifested themselves, and especially when the Priesthood has been upon the earth and a dispensation has been committed from Heaven to man; then all hell has seemed to be in an uproar, and the power of all the fallen angels made manifest. Hence, it is written, somewhere in the New Testament, that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood merely, but against spiritual wickedness in high places.” We not only have to meet with wicked men, and the power of the devil manifested in them, but the Saints of God have always had to meet with manifestations of power from beneath—powers not ordained of God, and which are calculated, if possible, to deceive the very elect.

Now there are in existence two great powers: one is of God, including all the heavenly host—the angels and celestial beings who dwell in the presence of God and partake of His glory, holding power and authority from Him to go forth and minister according to His command. The other power is an enemy to God; it is the power of that being who rebelled against Him in Heaven, and sought to take possession of the throne of the Almighty. According to the history that is given of this event, a general council was held in Heaven about the time of the creation of this earth. In that council there was a personage called an angel, who stood in authority in the presence of God; and when the question was asked, “Who shall go forth and redeem mankind?” Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, this angel who stood in the presence of God, answered and said, “Here am I, send me; I will go forth and redeem all mankind, that not one soul shall be lost.” But the only begotten Son of the Father, who was with the Father from the beginning, replied and said, “Father, Thy will be done, and the glory be Thine forever.” And here a rebellion rose up between Satan, the Son of the Morning, and the Son of the living God, as to the redemption of mankind. One sought to destroy the plan of God and the agency that the Lord intended to give to intelligent beings, and to redeem them whether they would be redeemed or not; and because he considered that his plan was so good before the heavens, and so much superior to the plan that God had devised, said he, “Surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor, which is the power of God.” That is, he sought to obtain the throne of the Almighty, and to carry out his own purposes in preference to yielding to the purposes and power of the Almighty. This rebellion became so great, and the influence of it spread so rapidly among the heavenly host, that one-third part of the heavenly throng, I mean the spirits, rebelled against God and followed the evil design and purpose of this angel. No doubt some of them thought that they could accomplish their design; for they had not a knowledge of the future designs and purposes of God only in a small degree, and consequently they supposed that their plan was better than that of the Almighty; and in this great rebellion the Lord caused Satan, or Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, and those who followed him, to be cast out of Heaven.

We may form some little calculation of the vast numbers thus thrown out of Heaven, when we consider that they were one-third of all the spirits that were born, intended for this creation. Only two-thirds kept their first estate, and they have the great privilege of coming here to this creation and taking bodies of flesh and bones, tabernacles wherein their spirits may dwell, to prepare themselves for a more glorious state of existence hereafter. If, then, only two-thirds of the hosts of Heaven are to come to our earth to tabernacle in the flesh, we may form some idea of the vast number who fell. Already our earth has teemed for six thousand years with numberless millions of human beings whose spirits existed before the foundation of the world. Those who now exist probably number one thousand or twelve hundred millions. Twelve hundred millions of spirits now dwelling in mortal flesh! Think of the immense numbers who must have preceded us and the myriads who are to come! These are the two-thirds who kept their first estate. Their numbers, probably, cannot be less than two hundred thousand millions, leaving, as an approximate estimate, one hundred thousand millions of rebellious spirits or devils who were cast out from Heaven and banished to this creation, having no privilege of fleshly tabernacles.

It was in the Garden of Eden that the devil, or one of those foul spirits, entered into a certain animal or beast, called a serpent, and came before our first parents and beguiled them, and they suffered themselves to partake of the forbidden fruit. If, then, they were in the earth as early as the Garden of Eden, no doubt, they have been here from that day to this, and that the earth is the place of their habitation. They wander to and fro in the earth seeking whom they may devour! Only think of a hundred devils to every being that now exists on the earth.

Though these spirits had not the full knowledge of the Almighty; though they had not that superior knowledge that reigns in the bosom of the Son of God, and of many that stood in His presence, yet they had great information before their fall. They had stood in the presence of God, and had, no doubt, learned many things from His own mouth. How long they had been in His presence it is not for us to say, God has not revealed it. But they had great experience. I am speaking of the knowledge and the cunning that these enemies of God possessed when they were cast down here to the earth. They have cunning beyond what you have ever seen manifested by the children of men. They can, at times, apparently, be perfect gentlemen when they enter the tabernacles of the children of men. They can become, apparently, very pious, and, if you could not discern spirits, you would think, from the manifestations of devils, when in the tabernacles of many individuals, that they were perfect angels on earth.

The devil operates in every conceivable form, and this is what the apostle meant when he said, “We do not merely wrestle against flesh and blood, but also against principalities and powers.” We have enemies far more powerful than men to contend against. The devil has not the power to take full possession of the tabernacles of human creatures, unless they give way to him and his influence to that degree that he gets power over them. But we have not time now to trace the history of the powers of darkness in early ages; but will briefly state, that they did show forth their power in ancient times.

Moses was called of God and ordained to the holy Priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, by the hands of his father-in-law, Jethro, and sent forth with power and authority into Egypt to seek after the welfare of the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in bondage there. Just as soon as the Almighty began to manifest Himself through the power of the legal Priesthood, so soon these opposite powers began to work whenever they could find a chance; and the individuals through whom they worked were the principal men of Egypt, the most popular men they had in their midst—the priests, magicians, and astrologers were the ones through whom Satan manifested this opposite power. His design, no doubt, was to frustrate or destroy the influence of the miracles, signs and wonders that were made manifest by Moses among the people of God for their redemption. Hence when Moses came before Pharaoh he cast down his staff and it was turned into a serpent, or into something having the appearance of a serpent, and was full of life and animation. That was a great miracle that the Lord saw proper, on that occasion, to manifest before this wicked king, that he might have what he had desired, for he had asked for a sign, and the Lord granted it. But immediately others were called by the king—the magicians, soothsayers and those whom Satan had gained power and influence over—and they were commanded to show what they could do. They cast down their rods and they likewise became serpents.

Now, here was a manifestation of similar power—Moses’ rod became a serpent and the rods of the magicians also became serpents; but by and by Moses’ rod swallowed up the rods of the magicians. What did that prove? In the estimation of wicked men like the King of Egypt and his subjects, it was nothing more than the extending of this power had in possession by the magicians. They did not look upon it as a distinct and separate power, because they had not the spirit to discern, the Spirit of the Lord was not with them, and they could not discern the difference. But there were manifested on that occasion two distinct and separate powers, so similar in their effects, that none but those who lived near unto God and understood the workings of the Holy Spirit, could detect the difference between them.

A succession of wonderful manifestations of the power of God was made through Moses, and in all, save two or three instances, the magicians did likewise. What would naturally be the conclusion at which wicked men would arrive under such circumstances? They would naturally say, “Here is Moses, who has been brought up in all the learning of the Egyptians and he is more advanced than our magicians; he has learned lessons that they have not yet acquired,” consequently men of that stamp would decide that it was all by the same spirit, and they would not acknowledge the finger of God in it.

That may be a sample to all people in future generations in the manifestations of these powers. The wicked cannot discern and comprehend the difference between these two powers. If we believe that there is a God and a heavenly host standing in His presence, ready to do His behests, we must believe in the manifestations of divine power; and if we believe that there are fallen spirits who have been cast down to this earth, we must also believe that they will manifest their power just as far as they are suffered or permitted. But we do not wish to dwell too long upon the history of past ages, we want to come down more immediately to our own time.

I now appeal to the aged and to the middle-aged in this assembly, and I will ask them this one question, “What was the condition of the world forty years ago in regard to miraculous manifestations of power, and to new revelation?” I am now speaking of the Christian world at large. Did they believe that God would perform any miracles in our day? The old and the middle-aged know that the whole world had come to the conclusion that there was no such thing as supernatural power to be made manifest in our times. That was the almost universal belief among the children of men. When you talked to them about new revelation, they considered the very idea of such a thing a folly. Tradition had taught them and their fathers for many generations, that the book called the Old and New Testaments contained all that God ever did reveal or ever would reveal to the human family. This notion was not peculiar to some few classes of Christian society, but it was almost universal throughout Christendom. Such a thing as new revelation was discarded by them, all over the world. Said they, “The canon of Scripture is full, it is complete, and it is the very height of blasphemy to suppose that God would give any more!”

This was the condition of mankind before this Church arose, forty years ago. By and by an obscure individual, a young man, rose up, and, in the midst of all Christendom, proclaimed the startling news that God had sent an angel to him; that through his faith, prayers, and sincere repentance he had beheld a supernatural vision, that he had seen a pillar of fire descend from Heaven, and saw two glorious personages clothed upon with this pillar of fire, whose countenance shone like the sun at noonday; that he heard one of these personages say, pointing to the other, “This is my beloved Son, hear ye him.” This occurred before this young man was fifteen years of age; and it was a startling announcement to make in the midst of a generation so completely given up to the traditions of their fathers; and when this was proclaimed by this young, unlettered boy to the priests and the religious societies in the State of New York, they laughed him to scorn. “What!” said they, “visions and revelations in our day! God speaking to men in our day!” They looked upon him as deluded; they pointed the finger of scorn at him and warned their congregations against him. “The canon of Scripture is closed up; no more communications are to be expected from Heaven. The ancients saw heavenly visions and personages; they heard the voice of the Lord; they were inspired by the Holy Ghost to receive revelations, but behold no such thing is to be given to man in our day, neither has there been for many generations past.” This was the style of the remarks made by religionists forty years ago.

This young man, some four years afterwards, was visited again by a holy angel. It was not merely something speaking in the dark; it was not something wrapped up in mystery, with no glory attending it, but a glorious angel whose countenance shone like a vivid flash of lightning, and who was arrayed in a white robe, and stood before him. This young man saw the countenance of the angel; he saw his person and his glory and rejoiced therein. This angel revealed to him some great realities; not mysterious or dark sayings, covered up without any particular information, light or knowledge, but certain realities were made manifest to him concerning the ancient inhabitants of this land. This angel told him that they were a branch of the House of Israel; that they kept sacred and holy records; that those records were kept by prophets and inspired men; that they were deposited, some fourteen centuries ago, after the nation had fallen into wickedness, by one of their last prophets, and that the time was at hand for this record to be brought forth by the gift and power of God.

Here, then, was a reality—something great and glorious, and after having received from time to time, visits from these glorious personages, and talking with them, as one man would talk with another, face to face, beholding their glory, he was permitted to go and take these plates from the place of their deposit—plates of gold—records, some of which were made nearly six hundred years before Christ. And then, to show still further a reality, something tangible, the Urim and Thummim, a glorious instrument, used by ancient seers, was also obtained with the record, through which, by the gift and power of the Holy Ghost and by the commandment of Almighty God, he translated that record into our language, and the book was published in the fore part of the year 1830.

During the translation, before the book was published, when the prophet came towards the latter part of the record, he discovered that the ancient inhabitants of this continent were baptized in a certain way, by those having authority from Almighty God. He felt anxious to know how he, in connection with his scribe, Oliver Cowdery, might participate in the blessings of this holy ordinance. They very well knew, from what God had revealed to them, and from what they had understood by translating the main portion of the record, that there was no man in all Christendom that had authority to baptize them. They were anxious to know how they might be baptized, and how the authority might be restored. They went out into a grove, and joined in secret prayer, and the Lord sent a holy angel to them, a man who once dwelt on the earth, and held the Priesthood of his fathers, according to the promise of God to the lineage of Aaron. John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, who was beheaded by Herod—John who preached repentance and baptism for the remission of sins, came to Joseph and Oliver Cowdery, as a ministering angel.

Perhaps you may inquire here: Was John without a tabernacle? Was he a spirit or was he a personage of tabernacle, of flesh and bones? We all know that he was beheaded before the crucifixion of Christ; and if you wish to know the condition of John when he came to Joseph and Oliver, read the appendix to the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and you will find that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and many others, who are named there, among whom was John the Baptist, were with Christ in his resurrection; that is, they came forth in the first resurrection, at the time that Jesus received his body. About that period the graves of the Saints were opened and many of them came forth. John was amongst them; and he held, legally, the power, keys and Priesthood, bestowed upon the lineage of his father, Aaron.

What did John do, when he appeared to brothers Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery? He did not go forth into the water to baptize them, as he did anciently in the Jordan; but he gave the authority to them to baptize—he laid his hands upon their heads and ordained them. Thus the hands of an immortal being—a man sent from Heaven—were laid upon their heads! They were ordained to that same Priesthood that John himself held, with the promise and prediction that that Priesthood should not be taken from the earth while the earth should stand.

They were commanded to be baptized, and having received the authority to administer the ordinance, they went forth and baptized each other, on the 15th of May, 1829, nearly one year before the rise of this Church, which took place on the 6th of April, 1830. Prior to the last mentioned date the Lord bestowed authority upon His servants to officiate in still higher ordinances than those pertaining to the Aaronic Priesthood. That Priesthood could administer baptism for the remission of sins, but it had no power or authority to administer the Spirit. But there was a Priesthood that had that power and authority. John speaks of another Priesthood greater than that which he held. Said he, “There is one coming after me mightier than I. He holds a Priesthood greater than that which has been bestowed upon me, namely, the Priesthood of Melchizedek. He shall baptize you with fire and the Holy Ghost. I can only administer in the outward ordinance; I have not the right to administer to you this higher ordinance.” It was so with Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery: they could only baptize with water until they received a Priesthood greater than that which John the Baptist held. And when the Lord was about to organize His Church, He prepared them by sending men who had once been here on the earth—namely, Peter, James and John, to bestow upon them this higher Priesthood.

How did these celestial personages come? Did they come manifesting themselves by a mere voice, or behind some screen as it were? No, they came personally, in their glory. They not only manifested their persons and their glory, but they also spoke and gave them the Melchizedek Priesthood, and the holy apostleship, which is equivalent to that Priesthood, and commanded them to organize and build up the Church of God on the earth, and to administer by the laying on of hands to those who were sincerely baptized in water, that they might be baptized with the greater baptism—of fire and the Holy Ghost.

Here, then, was a succession of manifestations of power from the celestial abode. God did not suffer, in those days, Satan to make manifestations of his power in a very great degree. No such things as spirit rappings in those days! No such thing as planchette—a little heart-shaped wooden thing that the devil makes use of in giving revelations, in those days. No such thing as tables dancing about the room by the power of Satan in those days! No such thing as a power seizing upon the hands of a man and using them independent of his control to write out what were termed revelations, in those days! But why didn’t the devil manifest these powers long before that time? Because God would not suffer him: the devil is under the control of the Almighty in some respects. He has fallen, and the Lord will not suffer him to go any further than He permits; and when the people have not the Gospel and Priesthood in their midst, and light and knowledge from the heavens, He will not suffer the devil to show forth his power to deceive and lead them astray; therefore He determined that the preliminary manifestations should come from the celestial world, and that the Priesthood with its power and authority should be given from on high, before He would suffer the devil to come in and manifest his strong delusions!

Suffice it to say, the Church was organized, individuals were baptized by water and with the Holy Ghost, and when they were filled with the Holy Ghost they were oftentimes, in those early stages of the Church, covered with a pillar of fire. They were immersed in and clothed upon with fire, and the Holy Ghost entered their hearts and they were filled with the spirit of prophecy, and with the gift of tongues, and in process of time with the gift of visions, and had power to heal the sick and cast out devils in the name of Jesus Christ, to build up the kingdom of God and establish righteousness upon the face of the earth, so far as they could gain influence over the hearts of the children of men. But wherever these servants of the Most High went persecution followed them. There was a howl from the pulpit from Maine to Texas and from one extremity of the Union to the other, crying out against new revelation. All the papers and periodicals of the day, far and near, published articles against the idea of receiving new revelation; there seemed to be a perfect flood coming from all quarters of the land testifying to the supposed absurdity of receiving new communication from the Almighty. By and by persecution became so great that scores and scores of the Saints were put to death in Missouri; and this was followed up until the Prophet and Patriarch of the Church were martyred and the people driven from their homes, their property destroyed, and every means in the power of the enemy used to uproot and destroy the fullness of the Gospel and the Priesthood out of the earth.

What was the matter in those days, and why were they so embittered against this people? “You have,” said they, “brought us something so strange! You pretend to visions! You pretend to new revelations! You pretend that God has spoken! You pretend that angels have come! You pretend that God has revealed another record, another Bible! You pretend that you have received the Priesthood and the apostleship, and for these things you are not worthy to dwell in our midst! You must be persecuted from city to city, you must be driven from your houses and lands, your property must be confiscated and destroyed, and there is no power in this country of ours that can protect you in those views which you have so strangely advanced in the midst of this Christian country.”

Was there any polygamy in those days among the Latter-day Saints? No; God had not revealed and established this practice among them in those days; they were not persecuted for any such thing, it was not named; but we were persecuted because we believed in the same principles that the ancient apostles and Christians believed in. But by and by, after having shed the blood of the prophets, and the Saints had been driven from their lands and from one city to another, and their property destroyed, when the wicked had ripened themselves in iniquity, and prepared themselves in a great degree for the overwhelming judgments of the Almighty, and when they found that the people were not to be put down by persecution, and that we would continue publishing these new tidings, far and wide, the devil took another turn. What was it? Said he, “I see they cannot be put down with persecution, they go forth and the people will believe them more or less; we cannot destroy them, and if we destroy their property and drive them from place to place it makes no difference, so I will show them that the world can have revelation enough,” and he commenced. But instead of calling upon men and beginning something great and good, in a godlike manner, he called upon certain females, residing not far from where the plates of the Book of Mormon were found, where the people had been warned, perhaps, longer than in any other portion of the United States. These ladies, Misses Fox by name, began bringing forth supernatural manifestations. Others did the same in a short time, and they have continued until the present day and have spread over the whole United States and many other parts of the world. If you go forth and make inquiries in regard to these manifestations, you will find that there are several millions of people in this country that believe in them. What a change between now and forty years ago! Then you could scarcely find one in the whole Christian world that would admit the probability of new revelation or supernatural manifestations; now there are millions in the United States alone!

Do these manifestations affect, for good, those who believe in them? Do they cause them to repent of their sins? No; they who blaspheme the name of God almost with every breath, and that will cheat and take every advantage possible of their brethren; they who will lie and steal and do every species of wickedness and abominations are the very ones that the devil works through; still the whole Christian world, apparently, are now willing to admit new revelation. Oh, yes! They have forgotten how they persecuted the Latter-day Saints because they believed in new revelation, and they can now believe in revelation by wholesale! They will not believe in records given through the medium of the prophets; but they are ready enough to believe if a wicked man who will blaspheme the name of Jesus is the medium and is made a participant in this great power. Such characters do not need any organization from God, they do not need any baptism, ordinances or Priesthood.

The devil has invented various names for his manifestations in order to get the people to swallow them down; the same as the doctors. When they wish to administer some nauseous kind of medicine, they sweeten it up a little. So the devil has sweetened up these things in such a way that he has got almost all these manifestations under the name of science. If you want to see a species of devilism made manifest, it comes out under a scientific phraseology, under the specious name of electrobiology, animal magnetism, or some such popular name—names that have been given to real sciences, which have their laws, founded in nature, are now given to these supernatural manifestations. Why does Satan use these artifices? Because the people at the present day have become naturally scientific, or a great many of them have; and the devil thinks if he can only invent a real, nice, beautiful name, with some resemblance to a scientific name, a great many of these persons will swallow it down, and think it all right.

Several years ago, about the time of the commencement of the war, Brother Erastus Snow and myself were down in New York City. Spiritualism, at that time, was all the order of the day. Almost all those old members of the Church that had been in Nauvoo and Kirtland and had apostatized, had fled into New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and throughout the Eastern cities; and in going through any of these cities, if you heard anything about these apostates, you would hear about them being great mediums: there was scarcely a case but what they were spiritual mediums. Some of the worst kind of apostates—apostates who had turned away from everything good, from every principle of righteousness, had become great mediums. Some of them were writing mediums; some of them would work with a table; some would have manifestations in one way and some in another.

While brother Snow and I were in New York, a very learned judge, a man very noted for his great attainments and who had been a judge in the City of New York, I think his name was Edmunds, gave us an interview. We promised to meet him early in the evening. I think we stayed until nearly twelve at night and talked with that man. He had written a great many works in relation to spiritualism, and had lectured at New York and other places to very large assemblies in regard to its truth. We were very glad to have an opportunity of hearing from his own mouth something about these supernatural manifestations. We did not expect to gain any particular light, any further than this—while traveling on a mission abroad we wished to know how to detect the devil on his own ground, in relation to those things we had continually to meet with. Mr. Edmunds told us about the mediums speaking in Greek and in Latin; about persons who had never learned to write and had never written a word in their lives, whose arms had been taken possession of, and their writing a great variety of writing; also about bells being carried about the room and rung. He also informed us that many persons had not only seen and heard these manifestations, but they had actually seen the personages, by whom they were made, especially their faces, arms and hands.

We inquired of him, if they believed in any Priesthood? Oh, no. “Do they generally believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world?” “Oh no, he was a very good man, no doubt, and wrote a good many good precepts; he was not much better than other good men, only he happened to have some precepts beyond the age in which he lived. But this age is far superior to that, and consequently all those things that Jesus and his apostles revealed are thrown in the shade. They belonged to a semi-barbarous age, but we have a system and dispensation far superior to that.” This was the tenor of this gentleman’s conversation in regard to these things. He also told about different spheres of glory, and different orders of angels, the latter, we were told, being personages from different spheres. They required no Priesthood, no authority, no ordinances, no such thing as baptism or organization.

When we heard these things we saw, truly, that as the devil did manifest his power in ancient times among the Egyptians, because they had persecuted the people of God, put to death their young infants, and shed innocent blood, even so, directly in the midst of our nation, his evil power was again manifested in strong delusion. Having persecuted the Saints of God, and having shed the blood of His prophets and Saints and driven them from place to place, and banished them beyond the Rocky Mountains, thinking that they had certainly got rid of them, and that they would perish there. Having become so exceedingly wicked, we saw that the devil was showing forth his power on the right hand and on the left, for their delusion and destruction.

Now let us again speak of the apostates. Apostates seem to be the greatest mediums in Spiritualism, where they have neither order, church, nor Priesthood. These apostates, generally, had fallen into the idea that Jesus, and the apostles and prophets of ancient times, were living in barbarous ages, far behind the civilization of our day, but that they were called upon to open up a wonderful dispensation, and to reveal light far superior to that which had ever been revealed by any prophet who ever lived on the earth. This seems to have been the general idea of those apostates called mediums. I do not know but I am taking up too much time, but I must now come a little nearer home.

You have no doubt heard and reflected upon what is termed a very great and wonderful “movement”—something that is going to build up Zion in purity, taking place in our midst. The “movement” was commenced by a few individuals who had been cut off by the highest authority of the Church and kingdom of God, and expelled because of teaching and publishing things contrary to the order of this Church. Now what do you suppose is the real foundation on which these few individuals are working? I will tell you, and what I tell you, I will tell you as a person that has heard from their own mouths; I would much rather have it from their own mouths than from a secondhand source. I have seen Messrs. W. S. Godbe and E. L. T. Harrison once since they were cut off from the Church. I went to see Mr. Godbe, but he was not at home. I was invited to take a seat in the presence of Mr. E. L. T. Harrison, and heard him, for an hour or two, relate his spiritual manifestations. Mr. Godbe, hearing that I had been to see him, sent me a letter requesting me to meet again with them. I met with him in a private room, separate from any of the rest, and I had a long conversation with him. My object in meeting with these gentlemen was to see if it were possible to point out to them their foolishness and the foolishness of their conduct and the course they were taking, what it would lead to and how much misery it would make them in time to come if they did not repent. I did not know, before going to see them, that they were so fully wrapt up in Spiritualism, or what I term Spiritualism, for it is a species of this same kind of Spiritualism of which I have been speaking. They both, separately, one on one evening, the other on another, related to me their supernatural manifestations, commencing some fifteen months before. They told me they had had interviews, by hearing a voice without seeing any person, with Heber C. Kimball, who taught them a great many things which, according to my ideas, conflicted with the instructions contained in the Doctrine and Covenants, such as sending men on missions, etc. The tenor of the instructions he received on this subject was that no person, when called on a mission need go unless he got the light of the Spirit thereon in his own heart, to tell him whether it was right that he should go; in other words they need not go because of being appointed by the voice of the Priesthood or the general Conference of the Latter-day Saints. Now, who does not know, except those who are infatuated and overcome by false spirits, that that is directly in opposition to the Book of Doctrine and Covenants? The Lord says there, “Whomsoever you shall lay your hands upon and ordain and send forth, I will be with them and bless them; I will go before their faces and will be on their rearward, and my Spirit shall be in their hearts.” It is not, therefore, for every man, when he is commanded by the voice of the Priesthood, to think he is to be his own judge whether he is to go forth on that calling or not and still remain in fellowship. That is not the way of Heaven, for the Lord says in the same book that “all things”—remember this is very broad in its nature—“all things shall be done by the voice of my people and by the voice of my servants whom I have appointed, pertaining to the calling and missions of the Priesthood;” and all things pertaining to the building up of the kingdom of God are to be done in this way. Now these spirits have taught them directly to the contrary of this. They named over to me other individuals who came to them. They said that Joseph Smith came to them; that Peter, James and John came to them; they also said that Jesus, himself, came to them, and that Solomon came to them, and he was rather against the idea, recorded in the Book of Mormon, about his concubines; he said he never had any concubines, but that all his women, so far as he understood the subject, were wives. This repudiates not only the Book of Mormon but the Scriptures also, for in the latter we are told that he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. The Book of Mormon does not number the concubines and wives that he had; but the record, contained there, seemed to touch the feelings of the old gentleman, and he desired to get out of it and to explain the matter. He said the things contained in the Book of Mormon and Scriptures were not to be received just as they were spoken, and that he felt himself justified in contradicting that saying of Jacob in the Book of Mormon. So much for Solomon’s visit.

They also said that James, in connection with Peter and John, gave them many instructions, which Mr. Godbe read to me; he also read to me many instructions purporting to have come from Heber C. Kimball and Joseph Smith, and he told me there was a great deal more that they did not let me see. Probably I was not strong enough in the faith to see it. These statements were made to me in the most perfect plainness. I told them, “I do not believe in the truthfulness of your manifestations. I believe you have had manifestations, just as you say, but I do not believe that Peter, James, John, Solomon, Joseph Smith, Heber Kimball or Jesus has been to you. I do not believe one of them has been to you, it is the devil, just the same as he has manifested himself in the world.” “Oh,” said they, “here is the difference between us and them: we believe in the Priesthood; we believe in plurality of wives; we believe in the order of the Church,” and so on. Said I, “Don’t you know that the devil would be very foolish, if he wished to lead astray men who had been in this Church, who had been taught for years to believe the principles you believe in, if he should undertake to lead them astray by telling them there was no truth in all these things? The devil can adapt himself to the belief of any person. If you believed in plurality he would make you think it was all right. If he could get you to swallow down one or two great lies that would effect your destruction, and which you would preach and destroy many others, he would not mind how many truths you might believe. He would be willing that you should believe a great many things absolutely true if he could only deceive you and lead you astray and get you to reject some of the fundamental principles of your salvation, and the salvation of the people.” “But O,” said they, “how happy we feel! We do not feel any animosity to anyone; no anger in our bosoms. We love the President and his council; we love the Twelve and the whole Church.”

“Now,” said I, “supposing, for argument’s sake, that you really believe these manifestations were from God, but that the personages calling themselves Peter, James, John, Joseph, Jesus, Heber C. Kimball were not those personages at all, so long as your faith was fixed that they were what they represented themselves to be, what would be your feelings about it? You would die for it, just the same as the Pagans will do for their idol worship; just the same as thousands have done among the false sects of Christendom in ages past. They were sincere, they had joy in their works, but by and by, as the Book of Mormon says, ‘the end comes and they are hewn down and cast into the fire.’”

So those men have joy in their works; they are as happy as happy can be, apparently, because they believe in these simple, foolish, vain, false spirits that have taken advantage of them to lead them astray. Said I, “The true reason that I do not believe in any of your manifestations is, that your ‘manifesto,’ that you have published and sent forth among the people, contains things so absolutely in opposition to the Book of Doctrine and Covenants that I know no good angel or spirit ever revealed them to you.” Mr. Godbe wanted to know in what respects. I pointed out a number of things where they come out in opposition to that book. In order to get around this he told me that the spirits had manifested that it (the Book of Doctrine and Covenants) was not to be relied upon in the fullest sense of the word, in our present state of light and knowledge; that those revelations and commandments were given in our weakness; but that God had greater light to give us now, hence we must not take them exactly as they are.

I referred to the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, in opposition to their “manifesto,” to show how the Lord and His Priesthood were to govern and control in temporal as well as in spiritual things; “but,” said I, “your spirits teach that they must only teach the spiritual things, and have no business to assume control in temporal concerns, but let every man follow the bent of his own mind.” “This,” said I, “proves to me that your spirits never came from God.” I was very gentle with them; did not express myself harshly, but in a plain and pointed manner.

I have taken up this subject, of false and true spiritual manifestations, and laid it before this congregation on the spur of the moment. I inquired of brother Brigham, as I came on the stand, on what subject I should speak, and he said, “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus is the Christ is of God, and every spirit that does not confess this is not of God.” The nature of these spirits, in their manifestations, is to lessen the power and authority of the great Redeemer, as our God and the Lord of this creation. You go among the Spiritualists abroad and you can scarcely find one individual that will acknowledge the power, glory and greatness of our Redeemer. So it is with those who manifest themselves here. They dare not come out all at once; but, as I told them, “You are so infatuated, so led astray by these false manifestations, and you believe them so firmly, I see no possible hope for your recovery, until, perhaps, at some future time the revelations that you will get may be so absurd as to stagger your own faith; then you may go into infidelity.”

I expect this. I find that this is the case with these manifestations abroad. The mediums will work at them for a season, but they find so many absurdities and contradictions, that they finally relinquish them, and turn to infidelity, and say, “There is no truth in anything.”

Pardon me for speaking so plain. I did not pledge myself when Messrs. Harrison and Godbe spoke to me about their manifestations that I would hold my peace. I told them I had spoken very pointedly against their principles, and I intended to do so in the future, believing, with all my heart, and knowing that they were not from Heaven.

Did they see any of these personages? Both of them say they saw none of them; it was merely a voice that they heard. They pretended to have seen a light when Jesus came; after he had talked a little while they say they saw a little light, but no personage.

How very different were the manifestations I have laid before you, when Jesus ministered to Joseph Smith, and when the angels came to him! He not only heard their voices but saw their persons and their glory, and how they were dressed; and he was inspired to build up the kingdom of God and bring forth the records of the Book of Mormon. How very different from this is this covering themselves up in the dark to deceive! The whole spirit world in the lower orders is full of deception, and unless you have something to detect and understand the true from the false you are liable to be led astray and destroyed.

I do not know that I need say anything further about these two powers, only that all evil powers will go to their own place; and, unless these men repent, the same being that has power over them here in the flesh will hold them in captivity in the next world; unless they repent, the same being who gives them revelation here will hold the mastery over them there, and will control them; and if they do not find a dictating and controlling power in the Priesthood, they will find it among those beings to whom they have yielded themselves subject to obey; and so will every other person that yields to false influences: they will be overcome and Satan will destroy them, unless they repent. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, October 7, 1869.

It was announced at the close of the forenoon meeting that I would address the congregation this afternoon upon the subject of Celestial Marriage; I do so with the greatest pleasure.

In the first place, let us inquire whether it is lawful and right, according to the Constitution of our country, to examine and practice this Bible doctrine? Our fathers, who framed the Constitution of our country devised it so as to give freedom of religious worship of the Almighty God; so that all people under our Government should have the inalienable right—a right by virtue of the Constitution—to believe in any Bible principle which the Almighty has revealed in any age of the world to the human family. I do not think, however, that our forefathers, in framing that instrument, intended to embrace all the religions of the world. I mean the idolatrous and Pagan religions. They say nothing about those religions in the Constitution; but they give the express privilege in that instrument to all people dwelling under this Government and under the institutions of our country, to believe in all things which the Almighty has revealed to the human family. There is no restriction nor limitation so far as Bible religion is concerned, or any principle or form of religion believed to have emanated from the Almighty; yet they would not admit idolatrous nations to come here and practice their religion, because it is not included in the Bible; it is not the religion of the Almighty. Those people worship idols, the work of their own hands, they have instituted rights and ceremonies pertaining to those idols, in the observance of which they, no doubt, suppose they are worshipping correctly and sincerely, yet some of them are of the most revolting and barbarous character. Such, for instance, as the offering up of a widow on a funeral pile, as a burnt sacrifice, in order to follow her husband into the eternal worlds. That is no part of the religion mentioned in the Constitution of our country, it is no part of the religion of Almighty God.

But confining ourselves within the limits of the Constitution, and coming back to the religion of the Bible, we have the privilege to believe in the Patriarchal, in the Mosaic, or in the Christian order of things; for the God of the patriarchs, and the God of Moses is also the Christians’ God.

It is true that many laws were given under the Patriarchal or Mosaic dispensations, against certain crimes, the penalties for violating which, religious bodies, under our Constitution, have not the right to inflict. The Government has reserved, in its own hands, the power, so far as affixing the penalties of certain crimes is concerned.

In ancient times there was a law strictly enforcing the observance of the Sabbath day, and the man or woman who violated that law was subjected to the punishment of death. Ecclesiastical bodies have the right, under our Government and Constitution, to observe the Sabbath day or to disregard it, but they have not the right to inflict corporeal punishment for its nonobservance.

The subject proposed to be investigated this afternoon is that of Celestial Marriage, as believed in by the Latter-day Saints, and which they claim is strictly a Bible doctrine and part of the revealed religion of the Almighty. It is well known by all the Latter-day Saints that we have not derived all our knowledge concerning God, heaven, angels, this life and the life to come entirely from the books of the Bible; yet we believe that all of our religious principles and notions are in accordance with and are sustained by the Bible; consequently, though we believe in new revelation, and believe that God has revealed many things pertaining to our religion, we also believe that He has revealed none that are inconsistent with the worship of Almighty God, a sacred right guaranteed to all religious denominations by the Constitution of our country.

God created man, male and female. He is the Author of our existence He placed us on this creation. He ordained laws to govern us. He gave to man, whom He created, a helpmeet—a woman, a wife to be one with him, to be a joy and a comfort to him; and also for another very great and wise purpose—namely, that the human species might be propagated on this creation, that the earth might teem with population according to the decree of God before the foundation of the world, that the intelligent spirits whom He had formed and created, before this world was rolled into existence, might have their probation, might have an existence in fleshly bodies on this planet, and be governed by laws emanating from their great Creator. In the breast of male and female He established certain qualities and attributes that never will be eradicated—namely, love towards each other. Love comes from God. The love which man possesses for the opposite sex came from God. The same God who created the two sexes implanted in the hearts of each love towards the other. What was the object of placing this passion or affection within the hearts of male and female? It was in order to carry out, so far as this world was concerned, His great and eternal purposes pertaining to the future. But He not only did establish this principle in the heart of man and woman, but gave divine laws to regulate them in relation to this passion or affection, that they might be limited and prescribed in the exercise of it towards each other. He therefore ordained the Marriage Institution. The marriage that was instituted in the first place was between two immortal beings, hence it was marriage for eternity in the very first case which we have recorded for an example. Marriage for eternity was the order God instituted on our globe; as early as the Garden of Eden; as early as the day when our first parents were placed in the garden to keep it and till it, they, as two immortal beings, were united in the bonds of the new and everlasting covenant. This was before man fell, before the forbidden fruit was eaten, and before the penalty of death was pronounced upon the heads of our first parents and all their posterity, hence, when God gave to Adam his wife Eve, He gave her to him as an immortal wife, and there was no end contemplated of the relation they held to each other as husband and wife.

By and by, after this marriage had taken place, they transgressed the law of God, and by reason of that transgression the penalty of death came, not only upon them, but also upon all their posterity. Death, in its operations, tore asunder, as it were, these two beings who had hitherto been immortal, and if God had not, before the foundation of the world, provided a plan of redemption, they would, perhaps, have been torn asunder forever; but inasmuch as a plan of redemption had been provided, by which man could be rescued from the effects of the fall, Adam and Eve were restored to that condition of union, in respect to immortality, from which they had been separated for a short season of time by death. The Atonement reached after them and brought forth their bodies from the dust, and restored them as husband and wife, to all the privileges that were pronounced upon them before the Fall.

That was eternal marriage; that was lawful marriage ordained by God. That was the divine institution which was revealed and practiced in the early period of our globe. How has it been since that day? Mankind have strayed from that order of things, or, at least, they have done so in latter times. We hear nothing among the religious societies of the world which profess to believe in the Bible about this marriage for eternity. It is among the things that are obsolete. Now all marriages are consummated until death only; they do not believe in that great pattern and prototype established in the beginning; hence we never hear of their official characters, whether civil or religious, uniting men and women in the capacity of husband and wife as immortal beings. No, they marry as mortal beings only, and until death does them part.

What is to become of them after death? What will take place among all those nations who have been marrying for centuries for time only? Do both men and women receive a resurrection? Do they come forth with all the various affections, attributes and passions that God gave them in the beginning? Does the male come forth from the grave with all the attributes of a man? Does the female come forth from her grave with all the attributes of a woman? If so, what is their future destiny? Is there no object or purpose in this new creation, save to give them life, a state of existence? Or is there a more important object in view, in the mind of God, in thus creating them anew? Will that principle of love which exists now, and which has existed from the beginning, exist after the resurrection? I mean this sexual love. If that existed before the Fall, and if it has existed since then, will it exist in the eternal worlds after the resurrection? This is a very important question to be decided.

We read in the revelations of God that there are various classes of beings in the eternal worlds. There are some who are kings, priests, and Gods, others that are angels; and also among them are the orders denominated celestial, terrestrial, and telestial. God, however, according to the faith of the Latter-day Saints, has ordained that the highest order and class of beings that should exist in the eternal worlds should exist in the capacity of husbands and wives, and that they alone should have the privilege of propagating their species—intelligent immortal beings. Now it is wise, no doubt, in the Great Creator to thus limit this great and heavenly principle to those who have arrived or come to the highest state of exaltation, excellency, wisdom, knowledge, power, glory, and faithfulness, to dwell in His presence, that they by this means shall be prepared to bring up their spirit offspring in all pure and holy principles in the eternal worlds, in order that they may be made happy. Consequently, He does not entrust this privilege of multiplying spirits with the terrestrial or telestial, or the lower order of beings there, nor with angels. But why not? Because they have not proved themselves worthy of this great privilege. We might reason, of the eternal worlds, as some of the enemies of polygamy may reason of this state of existence, and say that there are just as many males as females there, some celestial, some terrestrial, and some telestial; and why not have all these paired off, two by two? Because God administers His gifts and His blessings to those who are most faithful, giving them more bountifully to the faithful, and taking away from the unfaithful that with which they had been entrusted, and which they had not improved upon. That is the order of God in the eternal worlds, and if such an order exists there, it may in a degree exist here.

When the sons and daughters of the Most High God come forth in the morning of the resurrection, this principle of love will exist in their bosoms just as it exists here, only intensified according to the increased knowledge and understanding which they possess; hence they will be capacitated to enjoy the relationships of husband and wife, of parents and children, in a hundred fold degree greater than they could in mortality. We are not capable, while surrounded with the weaknesses of our flesh, to enjoy these eternal principles in the same degree that will then exist. Shall these principles of conjugal and parental love and affection be thwarted in the eternal worlds? Shall they be rooted out and overcome? No, most decidedly not. According to the religious notions of the world these principles will not exist after the resurrection; but our religion teaches the fallacy of such notions. It is true that we read in the New Testament that in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven. These are the words of our Savior when he was addressing himself to a very wicked class of people, the Sadducees, a portion of the Jewish nation, who rejected Jesus, and the counsel of God against their own souls. They had not attained to the blessings and privileges of their fathers, but had apostatized; and Jesus, in speaking to them, says that in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God.

Now, how are the angels of God after the resurrection? According to the revelations which God has given, there are different classes of angels. Some angels are Gods, and still possess the lower office called angels. Adam is called an Archangel, yet he is a God. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, no doubt, have the right to officiate in the capacity of angels if they choose, but still they have ascended to their exaltation, to a higher state than that of angels—namely, to thrones, kingdoms, principalities and powers, to reign over kingdoms and to hold the everlasting Priesthood. Then there is another order of angels who never have ascended to these powers and dignities, to this greatness and exaltation in the presence of God. Who are they? Those who never received the everlasting covenant of marriage for eternity; those who have not continued in nor received that law with all their hearts, or who, perhaps, have fought against it. They become angels. They have no power to increase and extend forth to kingdoms. They have no wives, no husbands, and they are servants to those that sit upon thrones and rule over kingdoms, and are counted worthy of a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. These, no doubt, were the kind of angels Jesus had reference to when speaking to those ungodly classes of beings called Sadducees and Pharisees, one of which denied the doctrine of the resurrection altogether.

There is a difference between the classes of angels called celestial, terrestrial and telestial. The celestial angels have not attained to all of the power and greatness and exaltation of kings and priests in the presence of God; they are blessed with glory, happiness, peace and joy; but they are not blessed with the privilege of increasing their posterity to all ages of eternity, neither have they thrones and kingdoms, but they are servants to those of the highest order. The angels of the terrestrial and telestial orders, while possessing a degree of happiness and glory, are lower than those of the celestial order. We might inquire, have angels not also these affections which belong to the higher class of beings, inasmuch as they are resurrected beings? Yes, but herein they have lost, through disobedience, the privilege of attaining to the higher glory and exaltation. They have affections and desires that never can be gratified, and in this respect their glory is not full.

I am talking, today, to Latter-day Saints; I am not reasoning with unbelievers. If I were, I should appeal more fully to the Old Testament Scriptures to bring in arguments and testimonies to prove the divine authenticity of polygamic marriages. Perhaps I may touch upon this for a few moments, for the benefit of strangers, should there be any in our midst. Let me say, then, that God’s people, under every dispensation since the creation of the world, have, generally, been polygamists. I say this for the benefit of strangers. According to the good old book called the Bible, when God saw proper to call out Abraham from all the heathen nations, and made him a great man in the world, He saw proper, also, to make him a polygamist, and approbated him in taking unto himself more wives than one. Was it wrong in Abraham to do this thing? If it were, when did God reprove him for so doing? When did He ever reproach Jacob for doing the same thing? Who can find the record in the lids of the Bible of God reproving Abraham, as being a sinner, and having committed a crime, in taking to himself two living wives? No such thing is recorded. He was just as much blessed after doing this thing as before, and more so, for God promised blessings upon the issue of Abraham by his second wife the same as that of the first wife, providing he was equally faithful. This was a proviso in every case.

When we come down to Jacob, the Lord permitted him to take four wives. They are so called in Holy Writ. They are not denominated prostitutes, neither are they called concubines, but they are called wives, legal wives; and to show that God approved of the course of Jacob in taking these wives, He blessed them abundantly, and hearkened to the prayer of the second wife just the same as the first. Rachel was the second wife of Jacob, and our great mother; for you know that many of the Latter-day Saints by revelation know themselves to be the descendants of Joseph, and he was the son of Rachel, the second wife of Jacob. God in a peculiar manner blessed the posterity of this second wife. Instead of condemning the old patriarch, He ordained that Joseph, the firstborn of this second wife, should be considered the firstborn of all the twelve tribes, and into his hands was given the double birthright, according to the laws of the ancients. And yet he was the offspring of plurality—of the second wife of Jacob. Of course, if Reuben, who was indeed the firstborn unto Jacob, had conducted himself properly, he might have retained the birthright and the greater inheritance; but he lost that through his transgression, and it was given to a polygamic child, who had the privilege of inheriting the blessing to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills—the great continent of North and South America was conferred upon him. Another proof that God did not disapprove of a man having more wives than one, is to be found in the fact that Rachel, after she had been a long time barren, prayed to the Lord to give her seed. The Lord hearkened to her cry and granted her prayer; and when she received seed from the Lord by her polygamic husband, she exclaimed, “The Lord hath hearkened unto me and hath answered my prayer.” Now do you think the Lord would have done this if he had considered polygamy a crime? Would He have hearkened to the prayer of this woman if Jacob had been living with her in adultery? And he certainly was doing so if the ideas of this generation are correct.

Again, what says the Lord in the days of Moses, under another dispensation? We have seen that in the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He approved of polygamy and blessed His servants who practiced it, and also their wives and children. Now, let us come down to the days of Moses. We read that, on a certain occasion the sister of Moses, Miriam, and certain others in the great congregation of Israel, got very jealous. What were they jealous about? About the Ethiopian woman that Moses had taken to wife, in addition to the daughter of Jethro, whom he had taken before in the land of Midian. How dare the great lawgiver, after having committed, according to the ideas of the present generation, a great crime, show his face on Mount Sinai when it was clothed with the glory of the God of Israel? But what did the Lord do in the case of Miriam, for finding fault with her brother Moses? Instead of saying, “You are right, Miriam, he has committed a great crime, and no matter how much you speak against him,” He smote her with a leprosy the very moment she began to complain, and she was considered unclean for a certain number of days. Here the Lord manifested by the display of a signal judgment, that He disapproved of anyone speaking against His servants for taking more wives than one, because it may not happen to suit their notions of things.

I make these remarks and wish to apply them to faultfinders against plural marriages in our day. Are there any Miriams in our congregation today, any of those who, professing to belong to the Israel of the latter days, sometimes find fault with the man of God standing at their head, because he not only believes in but practices this divine institution of the ancients? If there be such in our midst, I say, remember Miriam the very next time you begin to talk with your neighboring women, or anybody else against this holy principle. Remember the awful curse and judgment that fell on the sister of Moses when she did the same thing, and then fear and tremble before God, lest He, in His wrath, may swear that you shall not enjoy the blessings ordained for those who inherit the highest degree of glory.

Let us pass along to another instance under the dispensation of Moses. The Lord says, on a certain occasion, if a man have married two wives, and he should happen to hate one and love the other, is he to be punished—cast out and stoned to death as an adulterer? No; instead of the Lord denouncing him as an adulterer because of having two wives, He gave a commandment regulating the matter, so that this principle of hate in the mind of the man towards one of his wives should not control him in the important question of the division of his inheritance among his children, compelling him to give just as much to the son of the hated wife as to the son of the one beloved; and, if the son of the hated woman happened to be the firstborn, he should actually inherit the double portion.

Consequently, the Lord approved, not only the two wives, but their posterity also. Now, if the women had not been considered wives by the Lord, their children would have been bastards, and you know that He has said that bastards shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, until the tenth generation, hence you see there is a great distinction between those whom the Lord calls legitimate or legal, and those who were bastards—begotten in adultery and whoredom. The latter, with their posterity, were shut out of the congregation of the Lord until the tenth generation, while the former were exalted to all the privileges of legitimate birthright.

Again, under that same law and dispensation, we find that the law provided for another contingency among the hosts of Israel. In order that the inheritances of the families of Israel might not run into the hands of strangers, the Lord, in the book of Deuteronomy, gives a command that if a man die, leaving a wife, but no issue, his brother shall marry his widow and take possession of the inheritance; and to prevent this inheritance going out of the family a strict command was given that the widow should marry the brother or nearest living kinsman of her deceased husband. The law was in full force at the time of the introduction of Christianity—a great many centuries after it was given. The reasoning of the Sadducees on one occasion when conversing with Jesus proves that the law was then observed. Said they, “There were seven brethren who took a certain woman, each one taking her in succession after the death of the other,” and they inquired of Jesus which of the seven would have her for a wife in the resurrection. The Sadducees, no doubt, used this figure to prove, as they thought, the fallacy of the doctrine of the resurrection, but it also proves that this law, given by the Creator while Israel walked acceptably before Him, was acknowledged by their wicked descendants in the days of the Savior. I merely quote the passage to show that the law was not considered obsolete at that time. A case like this, when six of the brethren had died, leaving the widow without issue, the seventh, whether married or unmarried, must fulfill this law and take the widow to wife, or lay himself liable to a severe penalty. What was that penalty? According to the testimony of the law of Moses he would be cursed, for Moses says, “Cursed be he that doth not all things according as it is written in this book of the law, and let all the people say Amen.” There can be no doubt that many men in those days were compelled to be polygamists in the fulfillment of this law, for any man who would not take the childless wife of a deceased brother and marry her, would come under the tremendous curse recorded in the book of Deuteronomy, and all the people would be obliged to sanction the curse, because he would not obey the law of God and become a polygamist. They were not all Congressmen in those days, nor Presidents, nor Presbyterians, nor Methodists, nor Roman Catholics; but they were the people of God, governed by divine law, and were commanded to be polygamists; not merely suffered to be so, but actually commanded to be.

There are some Latter-day Saints who, perhaps, have not searched these things as they ought, hence we occasionally find some who will say that God suffered these things to be. I will go further, and say that He commanded them, and He pronounced a curse, to which all the people had to say amen, if they did not fulfill the commandment.

Coming down to the days of the prophets we find that they were polygamists; also to the days of the kings of Israel, whom God appointed Himself, and approbated and blessed. This was especially the case with one of them, named David, who, the Lord said, was a man after His own heart. David was called when yet a youth to reign over the whole twelve tribes of Israel; but Saul, the reigning king of Israel, persecuted him, and sought to take away his life. David fled from city to city throughout all the coasts of Judea in order to get beyond the reach of the relentless persecutions of Saul. While thus fleeing, the Lord was with him, hearing his prayers, answering his petitions, giving him line upon line, precept upon precept; permitting him to look into the Urim and Thummim and receive revelations, which enabled him to escape from his enemies.

In addition to all these blessings that God bestowed upon him in his youth, before he was exalted to the throne, the Lord gave him eight wives; and after exalting him to the throne, instead of denouncing him for having many wives, and pronouncing him worthy of fourteen or twenty-one years of imprisonment, the Lord was with His servant David, and, thinking he had not wives enough He gave to him all the wives of his master Saul, in addition to the eight he had previously given him. Was the Lord to be considered a criminal, and worthy of being tried in a court of justice and sent to prison for thus increasing the polygamic relations of David? No, certainly not; it was in accordance with His own righteous laws, and He was with His servant, David the King, and blessed him. By and by, when David transgressed, not in taking other wives, but in taking the wife of another man, the anger of the Lord was kindled against him and He chastened him and took away all the blessings He had given him. All the wives David had received from the hand of God were taken from him. Why? Because he had committed adultery. Here then is a great distinction between adultery and plurality of wives. One brings honor and blessing to those who engage in it, the other degradation and death.

After David had repented with all his heart of his crime with the wife of Uriah, he, notwithstanding the number of wives he had previously taken, took Bathsheba legally, and by that legal marriage Solomon was born; the child born of her unto David, begotten illegally, being a bastard, displeased the Lord and He struck it with death; but with Solomon, a legal issue from the same woman, the Lord was so pleased that He ordained Solomon and set him on the throne of his father David. This shows the difference between the two classes of posterity, the one begotten illegally, the other in the order of marriage. If Solomon had been a bastard, as this pious generation would have us suppose, instead of being blessed of the Lord and raised to the throne of his father, he would have been banished from the congregation of Israel and his seed after him for ten generations. But, notwithstanding that he was so highly blessed and honored of the Lord, there was room for him to transgress and fall, and in the end he did so. For a long time the Lord blessed Solomon, but eventually he violated that law which the Lord had given forbidding Israel to take wives from the idolatrous nations, and some of these wives succeeded in turning his heart from the Lord, and induced him to worship the heathen gods, and the Lord was angry with him and, as it is recorded in the Book of Mormon, considered the acts of Solomon an abomination in His sight.

Let us now come to the record in the Book of Mormon, when the Lord led forth Lehi and Nephi, and Ishmael and his two sons and five daughters out of the land of Jerusalem to the land of America, the males and females were about equal in number. There were Nephi, Sam, Laman and Lemuel, the four sons of Lehi, and Zoram, brought out of Jerusalem. How many daughters of Ishmael were unmarried? Just five. Would it have been just under these circumstances to ordain plurality among them? No. Why? Because the males and females were equal in number and they were all under the guidance of the Almighty, hence it would have been unjust, and the Lord gave a revelation—the only one on record I believe—in which a command was ever given to any branch of Israel to be confined to the monogamic system. In this case the Lord through His servant Lehi, gave a command that they should have but one wife. The Lord had a perfect right to vary His commands in this respect according to circumstances as He did in others, as recorded in the Bible. There we find that the domestic relations were governed according to the mind and will of God, and were varied according to circumstances, as he thought proper.

By and by, after the death of Lehi, some of his posterity began to disregard the strict law that God had given to their father, and took more wives than one, and the Lord put them in mind, through His servant Jacob, one of the sons of Lehi, of this law, and told them that they were transgressing it, and then referred to David and Solomon, as having committed abomination in His sight. The Bible also tells us that they sinned in the sight of God; not in taking wives legally, but only in those they took illegally, in doing which they brought wrath and condemnation upon their heads.

But because the Lord dealt thus with the small branch of the House of Israel that came to America, under their peculiar circumstances, there are those at the present day who will appeal to this passage in the Book of Mormon as something universally applicable in regard to man’s domestic relations. The same God that commanded one branch of the House of Israel in America, to take but one wife when the numbers of the two sexes were about equal, gave a different command to the hosts of Israel in Palestine. But let us see the qualifying clause given in the Book of Mormon on this subject. After having reminded the people of the commandment delivered by Lehi in regard to monogamy, the Lord says, “For if I will raise up seed unto me I will command my people, otherwise they shall hearken unto these things;” that is, if I will raise up seed among my people of the House of Israel, according to the law that exists among the tribes of Israel I will give them a commandment on the subject, but if I do not give this commandment they shall hearken to the law which I gave unto their father Lehi. That is the meaning of the passage, and this very passage goes to prove that plurality was a principle God did approve under circumstances when it was authorized by Him.

In the early rise of this Church, February, 1831, God gave a commandment to its members, recorded in the Book of Covenants, wherein He says, “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and to none else;” and then He gives a strict law against adultery. This you have, no doubt, all read; but let me ask whether the Lord had the privilege and the right to vary from this law. It was given in 1831, when the one-wife system alone prevailed among this people. I will tell you what the Prophet Joseph said in relation to this matter in 1831, also in 1832, the year in which the law commanding the members of this Church to cleave to one wife only was given. Joseph was then living in Portage County, in the town of Hiram, at the house of Father John Johnson. Joseph was very intimate with that family, and they were good people at that time, and enjoyed much of the Spirit of the Lord. In the forepart of the year 1832, Joseph told individuals, then in the Church, that he had inquired of the Lord concerning the principle of plurality of wives, and he received for answer that the principle of taking more wives than one is a true principle, but the time had not yet come for it to be practiced. That was before the Church was two years old. The Lord has His own time to do all things pertaining to His purposes in the last dispensation; His own time for restoring all things that have been predicted by the ancient prophets. If they have predicted that the day would come when seven women would take hold of one man, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach;” and that, in that day the branch of the Lord should be beautiful and glorious and the fruits of the earth should be excellent and comely, the Lord has the right to say when that time shall be.

Now supposing the members of this Church had undertaken to vary from that law given in 1831, to love their one wife with all their hearts and to cleave to none other, they would have come under the curse and condemnation of God’s holy law. Some twelve years after that time the revelation on Celestial Marriage was revealed. This is just republished at the Deseret News office, in a pamphlet entitled, “Answers to Questions,” by President George A. Smith, and heretofore has been published in pamphlet form and in the Millennial Star, and sent throughout the length and breadth of our country, being included in our works and published in the works of our enemies. Then came the Lord’s time for this holy and ennobling principle to be practiced again among His people.

We have not time to read the revelation this afternoon; suffice it to say that God revealed the principle through His servant Joseph in 1843. It was known by many individuals while the Church was yet in Illinois; and though it was not then printed, it was a familiar thing through all the streets of Nauvoo, and indeed throughout all Hancock County. Did I hear about it? I verily did. Did my brethren of the Twelve know about it? They certainly did. Were there any females who knew about it? There certainly were, for some received the revelation and entered into the practice of the principle. Some may say, “Why was it not printed, and made known to the people generally, if it was of such importance?” I reply by asking another question. Why did not the revelations in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants come to us in print years before they did? Why were they shut up in Joseph’s cupboard years and years without being suffered to be printed and sent broadcast throughout the land? Because the Lord had His own time again to accomplish His purposes, and He suffered the revelations to be printed just when He saw proper. He did not suffer the revelation on the great American war to be published until some time after it was given. So in regard to the revelation on plurality; it was only a short time after Joseph’s death that we published it, having a copy thereof. But what became of the original? An apostate destroyed it; you have heard her name. That same woman, in destroying the original, thought she had destroyed the revelation from the face of the earth. She was embittered against Joseph, her husband, and at times fought against him with all her heart; and then again she would break down in her feelings, and humble herself before God and call upon His holy name, and would then lead forth ladies and place their hands in the hands of Joseph, and they were married to him according to the law of God. That same woman has brought up her children to believe that no such thing as plurality of wives existed in the days of Joseph, and has instilled the bitterest principles of apostasy into their minds, to fight against the Church that has come to these mountains according to the predictions of Joseph.

In the year 1854, before his death, a large company was organized to come and search out a location, west of the Rocky Mountains. We have been fulfilling and carrying out his predictions in coming here and since our arrival. The course pursued by this woman shows what apostates can do, and how wicked they can become in their hearts. When they apostatize from the truth they can come out and swear before God and the heavens that such and such things never existed, when they know, as well as they know they exist themselves, that they are swearing falsely. Why do they do this? Because they have no fear of God before their eyes; because they have apostatized from the truth; because they have taken it upon themselves to destroy the revelations of the Most High, and to banish them from the face of the earth, and the Spirit of God withdraws from them. We have come here to these mountains, and have continued to practice the principle of Celestial Marriage from the day the revelation was given until the present time; and we are a polygamic people, and a great people, comparatively speaking, considering the difficult circumstances under which we came to this land.

Let us speak for a few moments upon another point connected with this subject—that is, the reason why God has established polygamy under the present circumstances among this people. If all the inhabitants of the earth, at the present time, were righteous before God, and both males and females were faithful in keeping His commandments, and the numbers of the sexes of a marriageable age were exactly equal, there would be no necessity for any such institution. Every righteous man could have his wife and there would be no overplus of females. But what are the facts in relation to this matter? Since old Pagan Rome and Greece—worshippers of idols—passed a law confining man to one wife, there has been a great surplus of females who have had no possible chance of getting married. You may think this a strange statement, but it is a fact that those nations were the founders of what is termed monogamy. All other nations, with few exceptions, had followed the Scriptural plan of having more wives than one. These nations, however, were very powerful and when Christianity came to them, especially the Roman nation, it had to bow to their mandates and customs, hence the Christians gradually adopted the monogamic system. The consequence was that a great many marriageable ladies of those days, and of all generations from that time to the present, have not had the privilege of husbands, as the one-wife system has been established by law among the nations descended from the great Roman empire—namely, the nations of modern Europe and the American States. This law of monogamy, or the monogamic system, laid the foundation for prostitution and the evils and diseases of the most revolting nature and character under which modern Christendom groans, for as God has implanted, for a wise purpose, certain feelings in the breasts of females as well as males, the gratification of which is necessary to health and happiness, and which can only be accomplished legitimately in the married state, myriads of those who have been deprived of the privilege of entering that state, rather than be deprived of the gratification of those feelings altogether, have, in despair, given way to wickedness and licentiousness; hence the whoredoms and prostitution among the nations of the earth, where the “Mother of Harlots” has her seat.

When the religious Reformers came out, some two or three centuries ago, they neglected to reform the marriage system—a subject demanding their urgent attention. But leaving these Reformers and their doings, let us come down to our own times and see whether, as has been often said by many, the numbers of the sexes are equal; and let us take as a basis for our investigations on this part of our subject the censuses taken by several of the States in the American Union.

Many will tell us that the number of males and the number of females born are just about equal, and because they are so it is not reasonable to suppose that God ever intended the nations to practice plurality of wives. Let me say a few words on that. Supposing we should admit, for the sake of argument, that the sexes are born in equal numbers, does that prove that the same equality exists when they come to a marriageable age? By no means. There may be about equal numbers born, but what do the statistics of our country show in regard to the deaths? Do as many females as males die during the first year of their existence? If you go to the published statistics you will find, almost without exception, that in every State a greater number of males die the first year of their existence than females. The same holds good from one year to five years, from five years to ten, from ten to fifteen, and from fifteen to twenty. This shows that the number of females is greatly in excess of the males when they come to a marriageable age. Let us elucidate still further, in proof of the position here assumed. Let us take, for instance, the census of the State of Pennsylvania in the year 1860, and we shall find that there were 17,588 more females than males between the ages of twenty and thirty years, which may strictly be termed a marriageable age. Says one, “Probably the great war made that difference.” No, this was before the war. Now let us go to the statistics of the State of New York, before the war, and we find according to the official tables of the census taken in 1860, that there were 45,104 more females than males in that one State, between the ages of twenty and thirty years—a marriageable age, recollect! Now let us go to the State of Massachusetts, and look at the statistics there. In the year 1865, there were 33,452 more females than males between the age of twenty and thirty. We might go on from State to State and then to the census taken by the United States, and a vast surplus would be shown of females over males of a marriageable age. What is to be done with them? I will tell you what Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York say. They say, virtually, “We will pass a law so strict, that if these females undertake to marry a man who has another wife, both they and the men they marry shall be subject to a term of imprisonment in the penitentiary.” Indeed! Then what are you going to do with these hundreds of thousands of females of a marriageable age? “We are going to make them either old maids or prostitutes, and we would a little rather have them prostitutes, then we men would have no need to marry.” That is the conclusion many of these marriageable males, between twenty and thirty years of age, have come to. They will not marry because the laws of the land have a tendency to make prostitutes, and they can purchase all the animal gratification they desire without being bound to any woman; hence many of them have mistresses, by whom they raise children, and, when they get tired of them, turn both mother and children into the street, with nothing to support them, the law allowing them to do so, because the women are not wives. Thus the poor creatures are plunged into the depths of misery, wretchedness and degradation, because at all risks they have followed the instincts implanted within them by their Creator, and not having the opportunity to do so legally have done so unlawfully. There are hundreds and thousands of [unmarried] females in this boasted land of liberty, through the narrow, contracted, bigoted State laws, preventing them from ever getting husbands. That is what the Lord is fighting against; we, also, are fighting against it, and for the reestablishment of the Bible religion and the celestial or patriarchal order of marriage.

It is no matter according to the Constitution whether we believe in the patriarchal part of the Bible, in the Mosaic or in the Christian part; whether we believe in one-half, two-thirds, or in the whole of it; that is nobody’s business. The Constitution never granted power to Congress to prescribe what part of the Bible any people should believe in or reject; it never intended any such thing.

Much more might be said, but the congregation is large, and a speaker, of course, will weary. Though my voice is tolerably good, I feel weary in attempting to make a congregation of from eight to ten thousand people hear me, I have tried to do so. May God bless you, and may He pour out His Spirit upon the rising generation among us, and upon the missionaries who are about to be sent to the United States and elsewhere, that the great principles, political, religious and domestic, that God has ordained and established, may be made known to all people.

In this land of liberty in religious worship, let us boldly proclaim our rights to believe in and practice any Bible precept, command or doctrine, whether in the Old or New Testament, whether relating to ceremonies, ordinances, domestic relations, or anything else, not incompatible with the rights of others, and the great revelations of Almighty God manifested in ancient and modern times. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Feb. 24th, 1869.

“Mormonism,” so-called, is a strange thing in the 19th century. It has caused among the inhabitants of the earth a great deal of reflection and conversation for the last forty years. It is a very marvelous and wondrous thing to see a numerous people assembled together in these interior wilds which, but a few years ago, were a solitary waste, where the face of a white man had been seldom seen; the abode of savages only, who wandered about nearly naked, living upon crickets, rattlesnakes and lizards, sunk into the lowest depths of degradation. To see so large a people, all of one faith, united together in their energies, occupying a Territory, which, from north to south, is several hundred miles in extent, building up towns, cities and villages, establishing common schools, sending forth their missionaries to the nations of the earth, bringing in their thousands every season by emigration, render “Mormonism,” as it is generally called by the world, a wonder in our age.

We heard this morning a discourse, delivered by Elder Cannon, upon the subject of the Gospel and the principles of our faith. We were told some of the principles that have been received by this people, not only in these mountains, but wherever the Latter-day Saints, as a people exist. Our people are taught to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, as one of the principles of our faith; we are taught to repent of all our sins and to re– frain from everything that is forbidden by the law of God. This is included in the doctrine of repentance as taught by this people among the nations which we have visited. Having taught faith in Christ, and repentance of all sins, we next require penitent believers to be baptized in water for the remission of their sins. Thus they become subjects of the Kingdom of God by being born of water. Another principle taught by this people is the doctrine of the laying on of hands for the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost, as was taught and practiced in ancient times.

We heard this forenoon concerning the effects of the Holy Ghost when bestowed upon individuals, and its diversified gifts throughout the whole Church, according to the righteousness of the individuals who receive these principles. We also heard it testified that God had sent down from heaven authority to administer in these ordinances; that He had sent His angel for this express purpose.

It is my intention, this afternoon, if the Lord will lead me by His spirit, to dwell upon some subjects connected with the organization of this Church, which has received the principle I have named. Strangers who may be present have heard for many years past of a man called Joseph Smith. Perhaps they have never heard much good respecting him. But this people, called Latter-day Saints, believe that man was a holy prophet of God; the world consider that he was an impostor. We consider that we have a sufficient amount of evidence to warrant us in believing that he was a prophet. It was he who organized and established this Church under the direction of Almighty God. According to our faith, had it not been for that man, or some other raised up in the same manner, this people called “Mormons” or Latter-day Saints, now occupying this mountain territory, would have been dwelling among the various nations of the earth, and this Territory, at this period of time, would probably have been a barren waste, and such a thing as the Pacific railroad would probably not have been started or thought about for at least half a century to come. That man, called Joseph Smith, in our estimation, was a very good man, and the Lord recognized him as His servant and called him to perform a certain work here on the earth.

When did the Lord first manifest Himself to this man? Read our history if you wish to understand all the particulars; on this occasion I shall barely refer you to the early history of this Church, in print. The Lord revealed Himself to that person, not in his manhood, but in his youth. We have heard much said, by those who know nothing of the matter, about “old Joe Smith.” How old was Joseph Smith when the Lord first manifested Himself to him? He was about fourteen years and four months old. Was that a very aged man? Look around here in this assembly and hunt up children fourteen years of age, and you will immediately admit that they do not look very aged.

What were the circumstances that enabled him to have manifestations from Heaven at that early period of his life? He was very anxious, as most of mankind are, to be saved; and he was also very anxious to understand how to be saved. But on this point he was at a loss, he did not understand the way to be saved. He was a farmer’s boy; he was not brought up and educated in high schools, academies or colleges; he was merely a poor farmer’s boy. He was not acquainted with those bad habits that are usually practiced by the youth in the great and populous cities of the United States. You know boys at the age of fourteen in those cities are apt to become contaminated with the evils with which they are surrounded; but Joseph Smith, having been reared in a secluded part of the country and laboring hard on the farm with his father, had not fallen into the pernicious habits practiced by many boys. When he was about fourteen years old there was what is called a religious revival or reformation in the neighborhood in which he lived. It was not confined to any one particular sect. The Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and the various denominations in that district or country were all engaged, more or less, in this revival. Several of the relatives of this youth had taken part in this revival, and had united themselves with the Presbyterian church. This young man was also requested to unite himself with this church. First one and then another of the different persuasions would come and converse with him and try to influence him to join his lot with them; and seeing so much confusion, each sect claiming that they were the true people of God, he became at a loss what to do. He occasionally devoted an hour, when his labors on the farm would permit, to reading the Bible, and while doing so his eyes happened to fall on a certain passage of scripture, recorded in the epistle of James, which says that if any man lack wisdom let him ask of God who giveth liberally to all men and upbraideth not. Now this youth, this “old Joe Smith,” that we have heard so much about, was just simple enough to believe that that passage really meant what it said. He went out into a little grove near his father’s house, in the town of Manchester, Ontario County, State of New York, and there he knelt down in all the simplicity of a child and prayed to the Father in the name of Jesus that He would show him which, among all the churches, was the true one. Said he, “show me, Father, who are in possession of the truth, let me know, O Lord, the right way, and I will walk therein.”

He had now come to a Person who was able to teach him. All his inquiries previously had been futile and vain, but he now applied to the right source. Did the Lord hear him? Yes. But he had to exercise faith. This young man, while thus praying, was not discouraged because he was tempted; but be continued praying until he overcame the powers of darkness which tried to prevent him from calling upon God. The Lord hearkened. Being the same God who lived in ancient times, He was able to hear and answer prayers that were offered up in this sincere manner, and He answered the prayers of this youth. The heavens, as it were, were opened to him, or in other words, a glorious pillar of light like the brightness of the sun appeared in the heavens above him, and approached the spot where he was praying; his eyes were fixed upon it and his heart was lifted up in prayer before the Most High. He saw the light gradually approaching him until it rested upon the tops of the trees. He beheld that the leaves of the trees were not consumed by it, although its brightness, apparently, was sufficient, as he at first thought, to consume everything before it. But the trees were not consumed by it, and it continued to descend until it rested upon him and enveloped him in its glorious rays. When he was thus encircled about with this pillar of fire his mind was caught away from every object that surrounded him, and he was filled with the visions of the Almighty, and he saw, in the midst of this glorious pillar of fire, two glorious personages, whose countenances shone with an exceeding great luster. One of them spoke to him, saying, while pointing to the other, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him.”

Now here was a certainty; here was something that he saw and heard; here were personages capable of instructing him, and of telling him which was the true religion. How different this from going to an uninspired man professing to be a minister! One minute’s instruction from personages clothed with the glory of God coming down from the eternal worlds is worth more than all the volumes that ever were written by uninspired men.

Mr. Smith, this young man, in the simplicity of his heart, continued saying to these personages, “which church shall I join, which is the true church?” He then and there was commanded, in the most strict manner, to go not after them, for they had all gone out of the way; he was told there was no Christian church on the face of the earth according to the ancient pattern, as recorded in the New Testament; but they had all strayed from the ancient faith and had lost the gifts and power of the Holy Ghost; they had lost the spirit of revelation and prophecy, the power to heal the sick, and every other gift and blessing possessed and enjoyed by the ancient Church. “Go not after them,” was the command given to this young man; and he was told that if he would be faithful in serving the true and living God, it should be made manifest to him, in a time to come, the true church that God intended to establish.

Now we can see the wisdom of God in not revealing everything to him on that occasion. He revealed as much as Joseph was capacitated to receive. The Lord dealt with this young man as you, parents, do when you wish to instruct your children on any subject. You do not pour out volumes of instruction on them all at once, but impart to them according to their capacity. Just so the Lord acted towards this youth. He imparted enough to let him know that the whole Christian world was without authority, as we heard this forenoon.

About, or not quite four years from that time, when Mr. Smith was between 17 and 18 years of age—and not yet old enough to be called “Old Joe Smith”—he retired to his chamber, reflecting upon his former vision, and earnestly desiring the fulfillment of the promise made to him, that he should be made acquainted with the fullness of the Gospel, and have more of the things of God revealed to him. While reflecting and praying, a light began to burst into his room, which continued to grow brighter and brighter, until the whole room seemed to be lighted up with a splendor which far exceeded the brightness of the sun at noonday. In the midst of this glorious light a personage appeared. He was dressed in a white robe, and his countenance was lighted up with the glory of God. He was not standing upon the floor of the room, but his feet appeared to be a distance from it. While looking at this personage the Spirit of God rested upon Joseph to that degree that all fear was removed from his mind; and instead of feeling alarm and terror, as would have been the case with a wicked person, he felt as though he was in the presence of a friend. This personage, on that occasion, gave him a great deal of instruction.

I shall not pretend to give you the full detail of the instructions then given, but shall merely lay before you a few of the principal items. This personage announced himself as a holy angel sent from God to communicate to him glad tidings of great joy. He was told that the day had arrived in which the Lord God was about to commence a great and marvelous work on the face of our globe, to bring about the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies in regard to the restoration to their own land of the scattered remnants of the House of Israel. He was also told that before this great work, of gathering the House of Israel, should take place, the Church of God must be built up among the Gentile nations; that the Gospel must be preached to the Gentiles first, that the sound thereof must go to all people, nations and tongues, first to the Gentiles, that their times might be fulfilled; and then that the Gospel should go to the nations of the House of Israel, and they should be gathered in.

This was something, of course, that a boy of this early age knew nothing about; he knew only what God communicated to him. He was, furthermore, told that the Indians, who were wandering over the face of North and South America, were a branch of the house of Joseph, that same Joseph who was sold into Egypt. He was informed that their fathers were brought from Jerusalem some 600 years before Christ; that they lived here in righteousness for a long period, and had many prophets, who kept records, and that these records were handed down for the space of a thousand years amongst them, and that, finally, the nation having fallen into wickedness, God commanded His servant who kept these records to hide them up in the earth in order to preserve them from being destroyed by the wicked and apostate nation who had turned away from God; a certain promise, however, was made, that in the latter days these records should be brought forth. Joseph was told that these records were hid some three miles from his father’s house. At the same time the vision of his mind was opened so that he saw the hill in which they were deposited, and he saw the stone box which contained them; he saw the surrounding objects and understood, by the vision that was unfolded to him in the presence of the angel, concerning the place where they were deposited. He was told that if he would be faithful he should be the chosen instrument in the hands of God in bringing that sacred record of the ancient prophets to light; and that it should come forth and be united with the Jewish record, which we call the Bible, that through the united testimony of these two branches of the House of Israel, all nations might have sufficient evidence and testimony to convince them concerning the Gospel of the Son of God, and the great work that was to be performed in the latter days.

This was the first visit of the angel, and it occurred on the 21st of September, 1823. After the angel withdrew, Mr. Smith continued praying. He was not asleep; it was not a dream, it was not in slumber that this remarkable vision had been given. He still continued praying, and marveling and wondering exceedingly at the great things he had seen and the great things he had heard. While praying and beseeching the Lord, the vision was renewed to him, and the angel came again and instructed him still further concerning the greatness of the work that was to be performed upon the earth in the latter days. Again the angel withdrew and the vision was closed up. Mr. Smith still continued praying and exercising faith, calling upon God; for having once tasted the good things of God, and the powers of the world to come having rested upon him, he felt a keener desire to know more concerning God and the things of the future than he had before experienced. Hence, he continued praying with much faith, and the vision was renewed the third time. On the last occasion the Lord unfolded great and marvelous things concerning the work of gathering together His people in the latter days, concerning the progress of this Church and Kingdom in the four quarters of the earth and the great judgments that were to be poured out upon the wicked nations of the earth.

Soon after the close of the third interview with the angel the light of day began to break into his room; he had been wrapt in vision through the whole night, without closing his eyes in sleep. He rose early in the morning to go to work, as usual, in the field with his father. But his father, perceiving that he looked pale and fatigued, inquired of him concerning his health, and advised him to go to the house if he did not feel well. Joseph felt, no doubt, something like we read of Daniel, who, after being wrapt in the visions of the Almighty, was sick for three days; it did not affect Mr. Smith, however, to the same extent. He started to go to the house, in compliance with the advice of his father, but had only got part of the way there when the angel again appeared to him, in the air, and commanded him to return and reveal his vision to his father. He did so, and the old man burst into tears, saying it was of God. The angel further commanded him, instead of going to work, to go to the hill that was shown him in vision and see the plates. His father told him to do as the angel had commanded him. He therefore started according to the instructions of the angel. When he had traveled about three miles in the direction indicated he came to the place and instantly recognized it by seeing objects which had been shown him the night previous in his vision. He uncovered the spot of ground, took off the crowning stone on the stone box, and there beheld the sacred record of the ancient inhabitants of this continent; by its side lay the Urim and Thummim, an instrument for its translation. Mr. Smith, not knowing but what it was his privilege to take the record, put forth his hand to do so, when the angel, who had appeared to him the previous night, stood before him and commanded him not to take it at that time, saying that he needed more experience, and that it was necessary that he should be more faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God. The angel also said, “if you will be faithful before the Lord, come to this place one year from this time and I will meet you again.” In 1824, one year from that time, he saw the angel again at the same place, but was not then permitted to take the plates. He was commanded to visit the same place in the following year, and in the fall of 1825 he again had an interview with the angel. In 1826 he had another interview, and on the night of the 21st of September, 1827, the angel again appeared to him, and on that occasion permitted him to take the plates from the place of their deposit. He was then lacking a few months of being twenty-two years old, and ever then, after having passed through all these experiences, he could not with the least propriety be denominated “Old Joe Smith.”

Having received the plates he occupied a portion of his time during the next three years in farming, and a portion of it in translating this record, for be it known he was not able to sustain himself without labor; he was not a rich or wealthy man, and therefore had to labor with his hands. The work of translation was done with the Urim and Thummim, for Mr. Smith was not a learned man, and in fact was scarcely in possession of an ordinary common school education. He could write a little, but was by no means an expert penman, and, in the work of translation, he had to employ first one and then another to write the words of the records as he translated them with the Urim and Thummim, consequently the manuscripts of the Book of Mormon were written by different scribes. Not long before the time he obtained the plates, Mr. Smith got married, and he employed his wife to write some of it. Martin Harris also wrote some portion of it; but the greater part was written by Oliver Cowdery—a still younger man than Joseph—and that the manuscript is in his handwriting, anyone can satisfy himself by appealing to the original. When about two and a half years had passed away the record was translated, and the book was in print before the spring of 1830.

Here let me give you a little fur– ther external evidence of the truth of this work beyond that which depends upon the testimony of Joseph Smith alone. The Lord would not permit the Book of Mormon to go forth to this generation without giving further evidence of its truth than that of its translation. Consequently three other men, by the names of Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris had a testimony concerning the divine authenticity of this work not by seeing the plates, merely; that would not have been sufficient. What was their testimony? They have left it on record, and it is printed and bound with the Book of Mormon to be sent forth to all nations, peoples and tongues under the whole heavens. These three men testify in words of soberness that the angel came down from Heaven in their presence, and spoke to them and took the plates and passed them before their eyes, and turned over their leaves one after another and showed them the engravings upon the plates; and while he was doing this they testify that they heard a voice from Heaven saying unto them, “these have been translated by the gift and power of God,” and commanding them to bear record of it to all nations, kindreds, tongues and people to whom the work should go. That is the reason they have given their testimony and prefixed it to the Book of Mormon.

Could they have been deceived when they saw the plates in the hands of the angel, and saw him turn them over leaf after leaf? There was no deception there; they actually did know, and have testified to that which their eyes did see. Here then are four witness to the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon—Joseph Smith, Martin Harris, David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery. Are there any living in our day and generation who can bear testimony to the divine authenticity of the Old and New Testaments? We have the testimony of persons who lived anciently, whom none, living in this generation, ever saw or heard. The “Mormons,” we were told this forenoon, believe in the Old Testament; but I will say that we not only believe in it, but we know, by the gifts of the Spirit of God, by revelations sent down from Heaven, by the visions of the Almighty and by the ministrations of holy angels, that the Bible is true; we know it to be a record from Heaven. Have you any such testimony? No, you have not. Then we present the Book of Mormon to you with a testimony such as you cannot bring in relation to the Bible, unless you appeal to the Latter-day Saints as witnesses.

I have already cited you to four witnesses to the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon; but are these all the witnesses the Lord raised concerning this work, or were there any others who saw the plates? Yes, there were eight others, making twelve in all, who have given their testimony and names, to go wherever this book goes, that they did actually handle these plates and that they did see the engravings thereon. They send forth their testimony in words of soberness to all people to this fact. Can anyone in this generation come forth and declare that he ever handled the tables of stone on which the law of Moses was written? I never have heard of any such man. You have not got the tables of stone, neither can you exhibit the original of any one of the Books of either the Old or New Testament; hence when you come to external evidence the Latter-day Saints can produce far more in proof of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon and of the scriptures than it is pos– sible for the Christian world to bring.

But we will not stop here. After the Book of Mormon was printed, in the spring of 1830, of what use would it have been to this generation if God had not sent down from heaven authority to administer in His ordinances as taught within its pages and in the scriptures? None, whatever. We could have read, it is true, a great many good principles, and we might have understood the doctrine of Christ more fully and plainly by reading the testimony of the prophets and apostles who lived on the American continent 1,800 years ago, and of those who lived here before Christ; we might also have learned a great many things, but what would all this have availed us without authority sent from Heaven to administer in the ordinances of the Gospel? It would have availed us nothing; it would have been like spreading a good, substantial meal before a hungry man and depriving him of the power to partake thereof; it would only have aggravated his appetite. This would have been the position of the people in regard to the Book of Mormon if it had been merely translated and left there. But the Lord our God, who had determined in His eternal purposes, and had revealed and foretold by the mouths of His ancient prophets that in the latter days He would establish His Kingdom on the earth, did condescend to send from heaven, angels to confer the authority to administer in the ordinances of the Gospel of His Son.

Who were sent from heaven for this purpose? Peter, James and John, some of the principal of Christ’s ancient apostles; men who held the apostleship themselves; men who were able to give the authority, because they held it themselves; and by them this authority was again restored and conferred upon men here on the earth. But I must mention that the Lord had commenced by restoring the lesser authority or priesthood. On the 15th day of May, 1829, nearly a year before the organization of this Church, while Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were engaged in translating and writing the record contained on these plates of which I have been speaking, they read that the people on the American continent, anciently, were baptized by immersion, and how important it was for every person who had come to years of accountability to be born of the water as well as of the spirit; and having learned that no man in all the Christian churches was possessed of authority to administer any ordinances of the Gospel of Christ, they were at a loss, just as Joseph was, when fourteen years old, about which church to join. Consequently, they stopped the work of translation (their anxiety to attend to the ordinance being so great), and they went out into the wilderness and inquired of God what they should do in relation to their baptism. When they had prayed a while behold a messenger was sent from the heavens, and he came and stood before them clothed in brightness and glory. What was his object in coming? Was it to teach them the mode or order of baptism? No, but it was to restore to the earth the authority to administer the ordinance. This messenger laid his hands upon the heads of these two individuals, and gave unto them the lesser or Levitical priesthood, the priesthood of Aaron, the same that was held by John the Baptist—a regular priest of the lineage of Aaron—when he baptized for the remission of sins. Who was the angel that thus restored this priesthood to the earth? He said his name was John, the same who came to prepare the way of our Savior at His first coming, and that he was sent to confer this lesser priesthood upon His servants in answer to their prayers in order that there might be authority on the earth to baptize, saying to them further, while his hands were still upon their heads, that “this authority which I now confer upon you shall not be taken from the earth until the Lord shall come.”

Let me here inquire if there is anything in the scriptures that will warrant us in believing that the priesthood of Levi is again to be restored to the earth. Hitherto I have given you a history of the rise of this Church, without appealing to many passages of scripture; but now let me for a few moments cite your minds to the nature of that priesthood which John the Baptist held, and whether or not it is to be on the earth in the latter times.

In the first place you may go to all the religious sects and societies throughout all Christendom and inquire if they have the Levitical priesthood among them, and they will tell you they have not. The Church of England, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists or any of all these societies do not even pretend to any such priesthood; neither does the Roman Catholic, or the Greek Church. You inquire, furthermore, of all these Christian societies if the Jews, themselves, have the Aaronic priesthood, and they will tell you that the Jews lost that authority by their apostasy, and that the Kingdom of God was taken from them and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. Consequently, according to the testimony of all Christendom, there is neither Jew nor Gentile now upon the face of the earth who has the priesthood after the order of Levi, or the Levitical priesthood. If that be the case, if it ever returns to the earth, it must be restored. Now the question is will it return to the earth? Is there a promise in the scriptures of the restoration of such a priesthood to the children of men? If so it must come from Heaven, for according to the testimony of all Christendom neither they nor the Jews possess it.

There is not time on the present occasion to turn particularly to the passages referring to this subject, but I think I can direct your minds to a few. In the testimony given in the 40th chapter of Exodus, verse 15, we find that this priesthood was to be confirmed upon the heads of the children of Levi unto the end, throughout all their generations. Again we find another testimony in the case of the grandson of Aaron, Phinehas. In consequence of a certain work he did in the midst of the congregation of Israel, an everlasting priesthood was confirmed upon him and his seed throughout all their generations, Numbers 25: 13; that is, they were entitled to it. They might lose it through apostasy; but they were entitled to it throughout all their generations. Again, when we refer to the last chapter of Isaiah we find a prophecy that has not yet been fulfilled only in part, where the Lord says, “I will set a sign among the people and I will gather the children of Israel from all nations upon horses, upon mules, in litters, upon swift beasts back to my holy mountain Jerusalem, and I will take of them for priests and Levites saith the Lord.” Indeed! Is the Lord going to have priests and Levites after gathering Israel from all nations? Yes. “I will take of them for priests and Levites saith the Lord.”

Here, then, is a restitution or restoration predicted in the last chapter of Isaiah that the Lord will gather the House of Israel from all lands to His holy mountain Jerusalem, and that He will then take of them for priests and Levites. Furthermore let us see what the following passage says concerning the continuation of this lesser Priesthood of Levi: “For as the new heavens and the new earth which I shall make shall remain before me, so shall your seed and your name remain;” or in other words your priesthood, the priesthood which I have conferred upon the seed of Levi, shall remain just as eternal as the new heavens and the new earth. If one comes to an end so shall the other; and if one is to be eternal and never to pass away so will the other. If then, such a priesthood is to be restored to the children of men in the last days when God raises up a people to prepare for the ingathering of the House of Israel, where will it come from? I have already proven to you that according to the testimony of all Christendom neither the Jews nor the Christians possess it. Then how will it be restored? It will be restored by the Lord God, who first established that authority on the earth. I have told you how He has restored it. I have told you that an angel, whose name was John the Baptist, on whom rested that priesthood and authority, came down from Heaven and restored it. I have told you that he laid his hands upon the heads of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and gave them authority to baptize. “But,” says one, “how about the laying on of hands? Can they who hold that priesthood lay on hands?” No, they have not authority to do that. John, who held that priesthood, said, I baptize you with water, but there cometh one after me, mightier than I, and he, holding a higher priesthood than I, will bap– tize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. That priesthood is called the Melchizedek priesthood. It was that priesthood which Jesus possessed, and by the authority of that priesthood He called his disciples. That priesthood confers the power to administer in all the fullness of the ordinances of the Son of God; in the spirit as well as in the outward ordinances. Therefore this Church never could have arisen had the Lord stopped with the mere translation of the Book of Mormon and the restoration of this lesser priesthood. It is true that with the latter we could baptize, but it does not impart the power to confer the Holy Ghost; and that this Church might have the power to administer in every ordinance of the Gospel, the apostleship was again restored, which holds all the keys, authorities and powers to administer, not only in the outward ordinances, but also to confer the spirit of the living God. That is the authority of the higher priesthood, and, like the authority of the lesser priesthood, was sent down from Heaven and restored to the earth in these last days; and of all the religious denominations upon the face of the earth, it is possessed by the Latter-day Saints only. None of the others make the least pretensions to any such power.

When the Latter-day Saints go forth and find people who will repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ, we command them, as the disciples of Jesus did anciently, to be baptized for the remission of their sins, and then we promise them with all boldness and confidence before God, being authorized from the Heavens to do so, that they shall receive the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands of the Elders. We do not say you may receive it, or it is probable the Lord will give it you; but we make a sure and certain promise that if they will faithfully comply with the conditions on which its bestowal is based, they shall receive it. We make this promise because we are commanded so to do; the Lord has sent us forth to do it, and were we not to do so He would hurl us out of our places and raise up others who would.

The apostleship has been restored by Peter, James and John—men who held the priesthood of the Son of God, men who had power to seal on earth and it was sealed in heaven. These men, commissioned and sent forth as holy angels, laid their hands upon the heads of the first Elders of this Church, and gave authority to them to ordain others to the same priesthood and calling and send them forth among the nations. It is because the people have obeyed the ordinances of the Gospel and have received the blessings promised that they have ga– thered here to these mountains. If it had not been for this these vales would still be without inhabitants except the wild savages who formerly roamed over their desert plains.

I have not time to enter into further particulars relative to the rise of this Church, the authority that has been restored and the blessings that are received. That God, who has sent His angel flying through the midst of heaven, according to the testimony given in the revelations of St. John, with the everlasting Gospel to be preached to every nation, kindred, tongue and people, may give you all the blessings of that everlasting Gospel sent from heaven by angels, and all the blessings of that priesthood, with its power to seal upon the earth and in the heavens, and that you may overcome and remain faithful to the end, and obtain eternal life in His Kingdom, is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the Old Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Dec. 27, 1868.

In ancient times there were certain great decrees which the Lord of all the earth made concerning this Continent and the inhabitants that should, from time to time, possess the same. This Continent was first settled, after the Flood, by a colony from the Tower of Babel, who were a righteous people. They were a people with whom God conversed, and to whom He made Himself manifest in a very wonderful and marvelous manner. How many people lived here before the Flood is not for me to say, as it is not revealed. We may, however, observe, that so far as new revelation has given us information on this subject, this Continent of ours may be ranked among the first lands occupied by the human family. The very first man who had dominion on the face of the earth, under the direction of the Heavens, once dwelt on this Continent. His name was Adam. Whether his first residence was on this land, whether the garden that was planted for his occupation was on this Continent, or some other, is not revealed in any written or printed revelation. But he certainly did, in the course of his lifetime, either from this being his native land, or by emigration, actually come in possession of this part of the globe; and a large settlement was formed, and the righteous who lived before the flood inherited it, and no doubt, left their blessing on the land. It was here where Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah and Noah dwelt. It was on this land where Noah built his ark, which was blown by the winds of Heaven away to the east, and landed on Ararat. It was here where Enoch preached and published glad tidings of great joy; it was on this land—the American Continent—where he gathered the people from many nations, and built up a city and called it Zion. It was here where the people of God flourished before the flood, and were of one heart and one mind, having an experience of some three hundred and sixty-five years in order to bring about a sufficient degree of righteousness and faith to be taken away from here and translated to some other region. It was here where Enoch was clothed upon with the power of God to that degree that he was enabled to publish to the inhabitants of the earth things that were before his day, even from before the foundation of the world, and also to prophesy of things that should transpire from his day down to the end of the world. It was here that he continued his preaching to the inhabitants of the city of Zion until he made them so acquainted with the law of God, and inspired them with such faith that the earth could not contain them. It was by his faith and the faith of his people that the very elements around him felt the power of God; and when he spake the word of the Lord the earth upon which he stood trembled and shook by the power of the Almighty, and the mountains fled from before his presence, and the great rivers of this Continent were turned out of their courses, and all things seemed to feel the power of the Lord. Even a new land came up out of the great deep, and so fearful were the enemies of the people of God, and so great was the terror of the Lord upon them, that they left this country and went forth upon the face of the waters and occupied the land that came up out of the deep. These things are not revealed to us by the Bible, or by tradition, but by the inspiration of the Almighty through that great modern prophet who was raised up to commence this marvelous work of which you and I are now partakers.

A few hundred years after all these things had transpired on this Continent, and Noah and his family, the only survivors of the Flood, had been wafted away to distant lands, and had peopled a portion of Asia, the descendants of Noah undertook to build a great tower that they might make themselves a great name, instead of fulfilling the purposes of the Almighty, in spreading forth, and occupying and subduing the earth. The Lord was very much displeased with them on that occasion, because of the wickedness that existed in their midst, which was calculated to be strengthened through their unity. Hence He made a decree, according to the old Book—the Bible, that they should not dwell thus, together. He confounded their language, and swore in His wrath that they should be scattered. A portion of the people from that tower came to this Continent.

There is something very remarkable in connection with the colonization of our Continent by people from that tower. I said they were a righteous people. Perhaps this may surprise some, especially if they have drawn the conclusion that all the people who engaged in building of that tower were wicked. But there were some few families among them who served the Lord their God, and when they learned the decree of Jehovah, that their language was to be confounded, and the people scattered to the four winds of heaven, they had considerable anxiety on the subject. They were anxious that they might be favored of the Lord and that He would lead them to a choice portion of the earth. They made it a subject of earnest prayer, and God heard them, and the language of the righteous portion of the people was not confounded. And God gave them a commandment to go down from the tower to a valley that was northward, called the valley of Nimrod, named after a mighty hunter who existed in those days. After they had come down into this valley by the command of the Lord they collected seeds and grain of every kind, and animals of almost every description, among which, no doubt, were the elephant and the curelom and the cumom, very huge animals that existed in those days, and after traveling and crossing, we suppose, the sea that was east of where the Tower of Babel stood, and traveling through the wilderness many days, with their flocks and herds, their grain and substance, they eventually came to the great Pacific ocean, on the eastern borders of China or somewhere in that region. They were commanded of the Lord to build vessels. They went to work and constructed eight barges. They did not understand the art of Navigation as we do in these days. They had no astronomical instruments by which they could ascertain the altitude of the sun, or the altitude of the moon and stars, by which they could determine their position on the great and mighty ocean. But the same God who had led them from the Tower of Babel and had gone before them in a bright cloud by day, and had hovered over their camp and had directed them in their journey through the wilderness, was their navigator in crossing the ocean. They entered these eight barges, about the construction of which it may be well to say a few words. A great many opposers of the Book of Mormon, in reading the account of these vessels, have really supposed that there was an insurmountable difficulty connected with the building of these barges because there happened to be a hole in the top, and another hole constructed in the bottom to enable the beings shut up in them to be watertight. These vessels were built, not in the form of a tea saucer as has been represented by some “anti-Mormons” in their discussions; but the Book of Mormon informs us that they were peaked at the ends, and enlarged as they came to the middle, and they were tight like a dish on the water, and were very light, like to the lightness of a fowl. They were exceedingly strong, and the length of a tree. This is a phrase very similar to one used by Isaiah who says, “the age of His people shall be as the age of a tree.” Isaiah does not say what kind of a tree. It was simply a way the ancients had of comparing a great many things. Now these vessels were so constructed that when furious winds should blow upon the face of the great deep, and the waves should roll mountains high they could without imminent danger plunge beneath the waves, and be brought up again to the surface of the water during tremendous hurricanes and storms. Now to prepare them against these contingencies, and that they might have fresh air for the benefit of the elephants, cureloms or mammoths and many other animals, that perhaps were in them, as well as the human beings they contained, the Lord told them how to construct them in order to receive air, that when they were on the top of the water, whichever side up their vessels happened to be, it mattered not; they were so constructed that they could ride safely, though bottom upwards and they could open their air holes that happened to be uppermost. Now all our ships at the present day are constructed with holes in the bottom as well as in the top. I have crossed the ocean twelve times, but I never saw a ship yet that did not have a hole in the bottom for the convenience of passengers, and it is one of the simplest things in the world to have holes in the bottom of a ship if you only have tubes running up sufficiently high above the general water mark. These were so constructed that when the waves were not running too high, air could be admitted through unstopping the holes which happened to be uppermost.

But the most wonderful thing concerning the first colonization of this country after the flood was the way that they navigated the great Pacific ocean. Only think for a few moments of the Lord our God taking eight barges, launched on the eastern coast of China, and bringing them a voyage of three hundred and forty-four days and landing them all in the same neighborhood and vicinity and at the same time. This was a miracle. This was not done by the aid of steam, or by the navigator’s art, but it was by the power of the Almighty God. He it was who controlled these vessels; He it was who governed the winds of heaven; He it was who brought them up out of the midst of the deep, when they were swallowed up, and He it was who guided them safely to this American shore.

They landed to the south of this, just below the Gulf of California, on our western coast. They inhabited North America, and spread forth on this Continent, and in the course of some sixteen hundred years’ residence here, they became a mighty and powerful nation. Although they became a great and mighty people, they were oftentimes very much chastened because of their sins. Here let me observe that before they arrived on this land the Lord said to them, “I design to lead you forth to a land that is choice above all other lands on the face of the whole earth; and this is my decree concerning the land which you are to occupy, that whatever nation shall possess the land from this time henceforth and forever shall serve me, the only true and living God, or they shall be swept off from the face thereof when they are fully ripened in their iniquity.” The Jaredites had this decree before them, before they set foot on this Continent. It was before them during the whole term of their existence here, that inasmuch as they would serve God they would be prospered, and inasmuch as they would not serve Him great judgments were upon them. Hence they were afflicted oftentimes because of their wickedness. On a certain occasion there were a very few individuals, Omer and his family and some few of his friends, that were righteous enough to be spared out of a whole nation. The Lord warned them by a dream to depart from the land of Moran, and led them forth in an easterly direction beyond the hill Cumorah, down into the eastern countries upon the seashore. By this means a few families were saved, while all the balance, consisting of millions of people, were overthrown because of their wickedness. But after they were destroyed the Omerites, who dwelt in the New England States, returned again and dwelt in the land of their fathers on the western coast.

I merely mention these things to show how the Lord operated among the first nations of the old inhabitants of this country, in order to fulfill His decrees. They could not fall into wickedness, and still be suffered to prosper on the face of this land. The decree had gone forth, it must be fulfilled. Finally, some sixteen or seventeen centuries after they landed here, they became so violently wicked, and transgressed the commandments of the Lord to that degree that they were really swept off to a man. The whole nation perished. Their greatest and last struggles were in the State of New York, near where the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated were found. There they fought day after day; there they struggled, one party against the other until millions were swept off. Only one man survived his nation for a very short space of time to see the fulfillment of a prophecy that was uttered by a great and mighty prophet that lived in those days, who stated that he should be permitted, after his nation was destroyed, to behold the colonization of the land by another people. This man, whose name was Coriantumr, King of a certain portion of the Jaredites, after the destruction of his nation, wandered, solitary and alone, down towards the Isthmus of Darien, and there he became acquainted with a colony of people brought from the land of Jerusalem, called the people of Zarahemla. He dwelt with them for the space of nine moons, and then he died.

After the destruction of the Jaredites, the Lord brought two other colonies to people this land. One colony landed a few hundred miles north of the Isthmus on the western coast; the other landed on the coast of Chile, upwards of two thousand miles south of them. The latter were called the Nephites and Lamanites. It was some four or five centuries after these two colonies came from Jerusalem and occupied the country before they amalgamated. A little over one century before Christ the Nephites united with the Zarahemlaites in the northern portions of South America, and were called Nephites and became a powerful nation. The country was called the land Bountiful, and included within the land of Zarahemla. But to go back to their early history. Shortly after the Nephite colony was brought by the power of God, and landed on the western coast of South America, in the country we call Chile, there was a great division among them. The righteous were threatened by the wicked who sought to destroy them. The Lord warned Nephi, their leader, to flee from among the Lamanites, to depart for the safety of himself and his family and those that believed in the revelations of God. Nephi and the righteous separated themselves from the Lamanites and traveled about eighteen hundred miles north until they came to the head waters of what we term the Amazon River. There Nephi located his little colony in the country supposed to be Ecuador, a very high region, many large and elevated mountains being in that region.

Here the Nephites flourished for some length of time. The Lamanites followed them up and they had many wars and contentions, and finally the Lamanites succeeded in taking away their settlements, and the Nephites fled again some twenty days’ journey to the northward and united themselves with the people of Zarahemla.

I mention these things in order to impress one particular item upon the minds of the Latter-day Saints concerning the inheritance or possession of this land. The Lord not only made decrees in the early ages with the first colonists that came here, but He renewed these decrees every time He brought a colony here, that the people should serve Him, or they should be cut off from His presence, and you will find that God, in every instance, has remembered these decrees. And there is one thing remarkable in relation to the history of these nations, and that is the rapidity with which they departed from the faith and righteousness and the love of the true God. Sometimes they would, after some great judgment, or scourge had fallen upon them, causing the death of many of them, repent and become a righteous peo– ple; and God would bless them again, and they would begin to rise up and prosper in the land. But perhaps in the course of three or four years a people that were almost wholly righteous would turn from their righteousness to folly, sin and wickedness, and bring down another heavy judgment on their heads. And thus generation after generation passed away among the former inhabitants of this land, and they had their ups and downs. Every time the majority of the people transgressed, a tremendous judgment would come upon them; and every time they repented before the Lord with all their hearts, He would turn away His wrath and begin to prosper them.

Now, these same decrees, which God made in relation to the former nations that inhabited this country, extend to us. “Whatever nation,” the Lord said, “shall possess this land, from this time henceforth and forever, shall serve the only true and living God, or they shall be swept off when the fullness of His wrath shall come upon them.” Since this ancient decree there are many nations who have come here. And lastly Europeans have come from what is termed the old world across the Atlantic. And lately the Chinese are beginning to come across the Pacific, and this continent is becoming extensively peopled. Many millions are already upon it. They have constructed many great and populous cities and have become very powerful on the face of the land; but they are nothing compared with the numerous hosts of the Jaredites that once spread over all the face of North America. But yet they are numerous, and are considered one of the most powerful nations on the face of the whole earth; and their resources are very great, and the prosperity which attended our fore– fathers in establishing settlements on the face of this land, in establishing a free government, with freedom of the press and religious worship, was very great.

They imagine to themselves that this prosperity is to continue forever, that there is to be no end to their greatness. Now I can tell them, as I have told them ever since I was a boy, their greatness will not protect them; their present prosperity will not protect them. There is only one thing that will protect the nations that inhabit North and South America, and that is to turn to the Lord their God with all their hearts, minds and strength, and serve Him with full purpose of heart, and cease from all their wickedness. That will protect them. If they will do this they will spread forth and become ten times stronger and more powerful than they have ever been, and the Lord their God will bless them more abundantly than hitherto. But on the other hand if they will not do these things the decree that was made in ancient times is just as certain to be fulfilled as the sun shines in yonder heavens.

We have seen, in a very small degree, the chastisement of the Almighty upon the present powerful nation of which we form a part. Great has been their chastisement in some respects; but in other respects they hardly seem to feel it. But still look at the desolation that certain portions of our fair country have had to endure by the depredations of hostile armies one against another. Tens of thousands rolling in the dust in their blood; whole towns and cities laid waste, and the country for hundreds and hundreds of miles, as it were, in perfect desolation. Railroads that cost millions torn up, cars and merchandise destroyed, and the whole country involved in a debt that perhaps will require a lapse of many years before much more than the interest on it is paid, and for which severe taxation must be imposed on all the inhabitants of the land. And, when we include both the North and the South, perhaps two or three millions of lives have been lost; if not altogether lost by the weapons of war in battle, they have perished in consequence of the difficulties and afflictions that generally attend armies.

This great war is only a small degree of chastisement, just the beginning; nothing compared to that which God has spoken concerning this nation, if they will not repent. For the Lord has said in this book, (the Book of Mormon) which has been published for thirty eight years, that if they will not repent He will throw down all their strongholds and cut off the cities of the land, and will execute vengeance and fury on the nation, even as upon the heathen, such as they have not heard. That He will send a desolating scourge on the land; that He will leave their cities desolate, without inhabitants. For instance the great, powerful and populous city of New York, that may be considered one of the greatest cities of the world, will in a few years become a mass of ruins. The people will wonder while gazing on the ruins that cost hundreds of millions to build, what has become of its inhabitants. Their houses will be there, but they will be left desolate. So saith the Lord God. That will be only a sample of numerous other towns and cities on the face of this continent.

Now I am aware that it is almost impossible for even some of the Latter-day Saints to get that confidence and that strong faith in the events which God intends to accomp– lish on this land in the future to believe in such a thing, to say nothing about outsiders, that do not believe a word of it. Outsiders do not believe it any more than they believed me when I was a boy and took that revelation which was given in 1832, and carried it forth among many towns and cities and told them there was to be a great and terrible war between the North and the South, and read to them the revelation. Did they believe it? Would they consider that there was any truth in it? Not in the least, “that is a Mormon humbug” they would say. “What! This great and powerful nation of ours to be divided one part against the other and many hundreds of thousands of souls to be destroyed by civil wars!” Not a word of it would they believe. They do not believe what is still in the future. But there are some in this congregation who will live, to behold the fulfillment of these other things, and will visit the ruins of mighty towns and cities scattered over the face of this land destitute and desolate of inhabitants. If inquiry shall then be made, why such great destruction? The answer will be, wickedness has destroyed them. Wickedness and corruption have brought about the fulfillment of the ancient decrees of Heaven concerning this land. Wickedness and corruption have brought desolation into their towns and cities. The time will come when there will be no safety in carrying on the peaceable pursuits of farming or agriculture. But these will be neglected, and the people will think themselves well off if they can flee from city to city, from town to town and escape with their lives. Thus will the Lord visit the people, if they will not repent. Thus will He pour out His wrath and indignation upon them and make manifest to the people that that which he has spoken must be fulfilled.

But what shall become of this people? Shall we be swept off in the general ruin? Shall desolation come upon us? Shall we feel the chastening hand of the Almighty like those who will not repent? That will depend altogether upon our conduct. We have it within our power; God has granted it to us, to save ourselves from the desolation and calamities that will come upon the nation. How? By doing that which is right; by living honest before God and all men; by seeking after that righteousness that comes through the Gospel of the Son of God; by following after the law of Heaven; by doing unto others as we would have others do unto us; by putting away all the evils and abominations that are practiced by the wicked. If we do this prosperity will be upon the inhabitants of Utah; prosperity will be upon the towns and cities erected by this people, the hand of the Lord will be over us to sustain us, and we will spread forth. He will multiply us in the land; He will make us a great people, and strengthen our borders, and send forth the missionaries of this people to the four quarters of the earth to publish peace and glad tidings of great joy, and proclaim that there is still a place left in the heart of the American continent where there are peace and safety and refuge from the storms, desolations and tribulations coming upon the wicked. But on the other hand, Latter-day Saints, how great are the responsibilities resting upon us and upon our rising generations. If we will not keep the commandments of God, and if our rising generations will not give heed to the law of God and to the great light which has shone from Heaven in these latter days, but turn their hearts from the Lord their God and from the counsels of His priesthood, then we shall be visited like the wicked, then we shall have the hand of the Lord upon us in judgment; then that saying that the Lord has delivered in the Book of Doctrines and Covenants will be fulfilled upon us, “that I will visit Zion, if she does not do right, with sore afflictions, with pestilence, with sword, with famine and with the flame of devouring fire.”

New here we have the choice. It is within our reach; we can put forth our hand after prosperity, peace and the extension of our borders, and have all these things multiplied upon us, and the power of God within us; His arm to encircle round about to protect us from every harm and evil. And on the other hand we can reach forth the hand and partake of wickedness and bring desolation and destruction upon our borders. Which shall we do? We are agents; we are left to our own choice. God has said that He would plead with His people. I expect that He will. “I will plead,” saith the Lord, “with the strong ones of Zion until she overcomes and is clean before me.” There is some consolation in reading this declaration of the Lord. Though we have to receive great chastisement, though He has to plead with us by judgment, tribulation, famine, by the sword and by the vengeance of devouring fire, yet after all, when He has afflicted this people sufficiently, there will be some few that will be spared and will become clean before the Lord.

It is quite a consolation to read that the armies of Israel will eventually become sanctified, and as clear as the sun, as fair as the moon, and that their banners will become terrible to the nations of the wicked. Yet we may have to pass through, by our own wickedness, many calamities that may overtake us. I hope not; but I do not know. I may say that my hopes are strengthened in regard to this matter, for what do I behold here in this Territory? I behold a people that have been willing to sacrifice all that they have for the sake of the Gospel; that have been willing to forsake their native kingdoms and countries and to journey by sea and by land to come here to serve God. I see a people, the majority of whom are willing to give heed to the counsels of the servants of God that are in their midst. Hence I look for peace and prosperity, hence I look for the arm of the Lord to be extended in behalf of this people so long as there is a majority of them who desire to do right, so long as there is a majority who feel to unite their hearts to carry out the great principles of eternal truth and righteousness that have been revealed. So long will the Heavens be propitious, and we shall find favor in the sight of the Most High. But remember the inhabitants who once dwelt on the land; remember their afflictions and their calamities; remember that judgments were poured out upon them because they would not be obedient. Let them be an everlasting lesson to us who live in these latter times. Let us serve God and we shall be blest, we shall prosper if we keep His commandments. Amen.