Henry W. Naisbitt

“ If Americans choose to apostatize from the political principles of the fathers of the Republic, I do not know that I can help that. If any man belonging to any religious or social organization chooses to neglect or repudiate the principle of that organization, I do not know that I can help it. I do not know that any community can help it, we can only state the facts as they are, premising, however, that apostacy admissible from the institutions of men in no way justifies the same action in regard to that which is divine. ”

“ Now I think that there are advantages to be derived from this angelic communication. Whenever a man realizes who and why he is upon the earth; whenever he realizes the instincts which are implanted within him and which make him soar after something that goes beyond the reach of human life and time, I think every one will agree that there is a vast field and need also for the acquisition of intelligence that would tend to the advancement of thousands and millions of the human family. ”

“ We are all, I think, satisfied to be acknowledged (and to feel it an honor and a privilege to be acknowledged) as students or pupils in the great school of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have all comprehended the depths of our ignorance; we have all realized that the training which has been necessary for us, the lessons which have been given unto us had to be adapted to our capacity and to our condition; no matter how high our spirits might soar in anticipations of the present or the future that spreads before us—when we have come to ourselves ”

“ Does this generation need to repent? There are many who think they need no repentance; that they occupy positions in society too elevated; that they belong to the upper crust, the great "upper ten," who are leaders in science, in art, and in literature, and who are among the cultured of our nation and in other nations of mankind. They think they have no occasion to repent; they "thank God that they are not as other men, not even as this publican, or as this "Mormon." But, brethren and sisters and friends, there is no royal road to salvation in the economy of God. ”

“ And when in our ignorance we realize how far we are behind many of those who have grown gray with experience, who have been passive to the reception of the spirit of revelation, who have been able to grasp a large amount of truth, and to comprehend the bearings which one truth had upon its neighbor truth, (all together jointly working out that process which is called and constitutes education in the life of a Saint) , we have had our ambition stirred, our feelings wrought up, our minds illuminated by the influences of this same spirit of inspiration. ”

“ What, then, are the primary or foundation principles of religion? Faith in God, growing out of the necessities of man's nature, growing out of the nature of his spirit, the origin of his being, the history and memory of the past, the outlook into the future—these all foreshadowing the necessity and advantages and blessings of faith in God. Hence every man who is a religionist has sought unto a Being of some kind ”

“ This is being done with that force of rhetoric, with that glow of imagination, and with that wealth of illustration which belongs to men of the type of Ingersoll, and congregations everywhere, hang with breathless suspense upon the words they utter, and thousands are grateful in their iniquity that the myth of religion, the fear of God, the certainty of punishment, the future life, have been swept away by so ruthless and so untiring a hand. ”

“ But the Elder who stands before the congregations of Israel, realizes that he is but the instrument, that he is but the medium, and that he needs to be taught as well as to be the medium for teaching; that he needs to be fed, as well as to be the instrument of feeding others; that his character and capacity are pretty much like the majority of those who are in communion with the same Church; that if he is to grow, to increase, to acquire strength, to become filled with intelligence, that he must reach beyond the confines of man's thought ”

“ Numerous have been the methods and channels through which the human family from time to time have received intelligence. Preaching is as old as history. Men have learned from each other. The results of individual experience have been transmitted to those who had less opportunity, and in this way knowledge has been increased in one from the resources of another. ”

“ What is the position that a man's children occupy toward him as their parent? Every parent expects obedience. Every parent expects respect to his wishes. Every parent expects that when he makes a law that that law will be carried out in his household; that there shall be order, rule and authority there. This is the idea which prevails between God and man upon the earth, and that again implies the principle to which I have already alluded, the spirit of inspiration and revelation ”

“ And as the stirring impulses of these warm thoughts rush through the hearts of the listeners in the midst of the nations of the earth, their minds begin to expand and their hearts begin to swell with the newfound dignity thus spread before them, and in the promise of the future; but by and by there is a change in their condition; in the pride of their hearts, under the inspiration of those men who thus taught and counseled them, they thought they were going to be somebody. ”

“ However disagreeable it may be to my personal feeling to stand before a congregation, the consciousness which the Elders of this Church possess that they have had committed to them the authority of the Holy Priesthood, and that they are entitled to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and that they possess the faith and prayers of the Saints who are their associates in the Church—those who understand their needs—is enough, I think, to buoy up an individual when he is called upon suddenly to address the people ”

“ But the good wife takes it, and works it, and kneads it into loaves, and finally opens the oven door and thrusts it as it were into the furnace. By this time it thinks that its end has come; it is now about to be consumed. After it has undergone this baking process for a while, it comes forth from the oven a beautiful, brown, pleasant, well-flavored loaf, in which condition it is fit to be presented to the highest authority in the land.
Now, to return again. Here is the human family unconscious of their origin, unconscious of their destiny. ”

“ Whatever the character of these angels might have been, whether they were resurrected beings who had dwelt upon the earth —whether they were those of higher grades—archangels, as they are called—or whether they were de-signed and appointed specially to minister to individual men—which of these varieties they may have belonged to, it is very evident that the scriptures are full of the history of angelic communication, and that they were the instruments in the hands of the Almighty, sent to communicate his will under certain conditions. ”

“ Every minister fighting, and every congregation quarrelling for the ascendency of their own special and peculiar sect and faith. You go into any little village of a few scattered hundreds and you will find four or five churches there, each one endeavoring to perpetuate its own special idea, partly irrespective of the salvation of the masses. In fact they have become money making institutions. Ministers have become professionals. ”

“ But, when we pondered upon these things, we realize how little they understand our position, how little they understand our condition, how little they understand the thoughts we have in regard to the future, how little they comprehend the foundations of our faith, even while they pray, beg, beseech and coax us to recant, how little they know of the power of the spirit and of the result of the experience we have passed through in the school of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. ”

“ It is almost an insult to a great many people now, to tell them that they need salvation, but yet in the innermost recesses of every man's heart and every woman's soul, in the depths that no plummet hath sounded, not even the one made by themselves,—there rests the feeling that they need be sorry for many of the things that they have done in life, and if not for those that they have done, at least for the thousand and one things that they have left undone, for there are sins of omission as fatal as those of commission. ”

“ But Christians believe, I think, as a rule, that men have not always been dependent upon those who dwell in the flesh for the intelligence which they have acquired. Those who have accepted the Bible, the Old and New Testament, will understand that there have been in past ages other methods by which intelligence was communicated than simply through men who dwelt in the flesh. ”

“ There was a Christian church, then, in the early history of Christianity. Men were organized into groups—into churches and belonged to the true church of which Christ was the head! So there are organizations called churches in our day, and in the age in which we live. But there is one great difference between our age and that one. And what is that? Why, there is diversity in our time. ”

“ Hence you found more abiding solace in the Gospel, and you began to comprehend the advantages of gathering. You began to realize that there was something of an intelligent character in connection with it; that by gathering you would escape from this contempt and from this opposition; that you would be in the midst of those who were of like faith with yourself. By and by you had the chance of leaving your native land; but the trials and difficulties which you had to meet on the way to "the valleys of the mountains" were very hard, and such as you were not accustomed to in your native land. ”

“ Spiritual communication is one of the corner-stones of the old book. It is filled with instances where intelligences not directly of earth have visited members of the human family and communicated with them from time to time. ”

“ If the first church was divine in its order, divine in its ordinances, divine in its officers, divine in its institutions, if it was to accomplish a divine purpose, nothing short of that divine order could accomplish that purpose in this or any other age of the world. That is why Sectarianism has failed to bring the people to a unity of the faith. ”

“ Civilization with all its concomitants were not then in existence, or like Sodom and Gomorrah under the hall of brimstone and almighty wrath, its cities might only have been found to-day, as great, dead, saline seas. The dark ages! ”

“ As the weeks pass by it advances towards a higher form, even towards maturity, until with the warmth of the increasing sun, and partly as the product of the good cultivation which it has had, it glows in this sunshine of the summer with the promise of an abundant harvest. ”

“ In looking upon a congregation like the present, I think that every Elder in Israel must feel that from the few small loaves and fishes which he may have accumulated in his experience, he is unable to feed and supply the necessities of the multitude before him. But while he occupies the position, he realizes that the infinite resources of the Holy Spirit are within general reach, and that this can be supplied and so administered as to bring home the little food that may be presented ”

“ Even among those which are most advanced, and whose citizens are presumed to be intelligent, and to comprehend the questions which agitate the public mind, there is an amount of ignorance which is, to say the least, discreditable. It has been my lot individually, to come in contact with many who have visited this Territory and city, and to hear their expressions of surprise in regard to the religious faith of the Latter-day Saints. To tell a stranger that the people of Utah believe in the Bible, appears to be something altogether unlooked for. ”

“ We had left even our Stars and Journals and pamphlets on the plains; we had thrown them out of our trunks—and I do not know but some had to leave their trunks also—and we were thrown more decidedly upon our own resources, and we had each to seek more earnestly the inspiration of the Almighty to give us intelligence. But even in these adverse conditions our minds became enlarged, we continued to grow, and had feasts of fat things in the tabernacle, and in the Ward, Quorum and other meetings of the Saints. ”

“ There are no principles in the science of religion that can be repudiated, or neglected, or disobeyed by man, without his subjection to the penalty, repentance of all evil and a return to that which is right is one of the primary elements and evidences of true manhood and womanhood, and it is also an essential part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When man has thus accepted and manifested his faith in God by his repentance, having believed on and in the word of His servants, and acquired active faith in them, he has made an advance. ”

“ Those who revere the name of Washington and of the fathers of this republic, and because of that reverence, cherish the fundamental truths of the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, are no more tenacious of the truths uttered by those whom they accept as leaders, than are the Latter-day Saints in regard to the teachings and ordinances as established by Christ. ”

“ But the Elders of this Church go forth and tell mankind that they are the children of their common Father; that they had their origin in the eternal worlds; that there lies before them a grand and sublime destiny ”

“ I might multiply these illustrations of the science of religion. I might go on to show that there were other important elements in the teachings of those who were converted in early times to christianity. The world to-day is full of organizations. It knows the weakness of individual effort. It is when men and women are aggregated that they wield large influence over mankind, and the early christians were no strangers to the advantages of organization. They formed themselves into little groups called churches. ”

“ The many agencies which are at work among the Latter-day Saints, to bring to pass the purposes of the Almighty, are more or less understood by all. I think that there are none of us scarcely, who would claim the title of "Master of Arts." ”

“ There is nothing that interests the Latter-day Saints so much as the enunciation of the principles which they profess and literally accept; but it would seem as if there was in the outside world, less comprehension and understanding in regard to the principles that the Saints believe in, than there is in regard to any other subject which has acquired the same prominence. ”

“ You can find in this Territory people of every nationality almost. You can find them from every state of this Union. You can find people that have been identified with every religious organization. You can find people that are well up in the doctrines of the religious world, and who comprehend the truths that are taught to them from time to time. These have been gathered from the nations by the power of truth, by the influence that the Elders carried, and they have colonized and spread abroad until the population is numerous in all the valleys of this mountain country. ”

“ Ministers are paralyzed and stand aghast in presence of the enemy, and before a sin-sick world, and now if there is one medicine needed more than another in this age, it is that medicine which will minister to faith, to peace, to order, to confidence, which will bring assurance, and will give men that trust and satisfaction with and in the doctrines that they teach and practice, such as was possessed by the Apostles and Teachers and Saints of olden time. ”

“ The religious world hold to the theory that there was a period in the history and experience of mankind when this spirit of inspiration existed among men, but that it was some two or three or four thousand years ago. The Christian—I might emphasize that and say the CHRISTIAN world—have professed to have faith in the Savior of mankind as occupying an intermediate position between the Creator and his children, They will take up the Scriptures and point us to illustrations which establish his character in that respect. ”

“ If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself, and as was said of the Savior "we know that thou art a teacher sent from God, for no man can do the things that thou doest except God be with him," so we can say of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Though he was called in poverty and raised in ignorance, yet the Lord made him mighty, and no man unless he had been thus sent of God, could have accomplished the work that he has performed. ”

“ Having established this faith in God, we want to know what position we occupy towards Him. He is our benefactor. He is our friend. We are His children. The Scriptures tell us that we are created in His image and likeness. ”