Amasa Lyman

“ Would you see them clad in glory and crowned with immortality and eternal lives? Then teach them truth while they prattle around your knee; learn them to lisp the truth, teach them to love it ere they can fully know its worth, and as they grow in capacity to reason and understand they will then, bless the father and mother that taught them truth and purity, and to hate and despise the wrong and choose the good. Truth will regulate all life's details ”

“ Then, its temples will rise in beauty, grandeur and glory, and the home of every Saint will become a temple where God will delight to reveal the richness of his blessings to his faithful children. If our God shines as the perfection of beauty out of Zion, Zion must reflect that beauty; it must have an existence in Zion reflecting its beauty outwardly upon the world around. The glory of Zion must be created by the children of Zion. We cannot attain to this all in a moment. We first begin to make our homes tidy and to subdue every enemy to our peace, that we may have more comfort. ”

“ The multitude we see assembled here to-day are here because the kingdom of God is to be built up; for if the kingdom of God is to be built up, there must be people to constitute it; there must be a people to be ruled, or the rulers would have nothing over which to rule. If the mere assembling of the people together constitutes the kingdom of God now, why has it not constituted the kingdom of God at other times? People have assembled together before; communities have existed before, yet the existence of such communities has not and does not now constitute them the kingdom of God. ”

“ How can a mother teach her children the right if she is reckless of it herself? How can a father do that if he neglects to set before his household the example of propriety that should constitute the constant and ceaseless labor of a father? ”

“ The kingdom of God is established now for the development and increase of its principles within us, to reflect light on the darkness that surrounds us and reveal to our understanding the true relationship we sustain to God, and the reason why the requirements of the Gospel are laid upon us and why we can be saved by listening to them, and why we are not saved if we refuse to listen to them. ”

“ There is no action in life, no labor that we perform, no relationship that we sustain to God and one another, but what should be connected directly with the development of the kingdom of God. Says one,—"We must become perfect and holy; we must become God-like; we must become like the angels or like the spirits of the just who dwell with God." ”

“ This is the picture of the home of a Saint, of him who loves to beautify Zion and exalt the children of Zion above all other people on the earth.
It does not follow of necessity that the poor man must possess broad acres. If your garden is no larger than this stand, cultivate it properly, plant fruit trees and other useful plants, and rivet the attention of your growing family to the contemplation of their duty; let them see an example in you from day to day and from year to year which will exercise a salutary influence upon the minds of your children throughout their future lives. ”

“ When we talk about the kingdom of God our thoughts are apt to travel away from scenes of earth, as though it were a matter of the ideas alone and not connected with our earthly operations, labors, duties and services. ”

“ There is another field that is equally taxed with the support of a noxious growth: I refer to ourselves at home. We carry about with us our notions, our habits of thought; and our habits of thought give character to our actions. When, for instance, the storm of passion is aroused in our bosom, we yield ourselves up to it without an effort and unresist-ingly allow ourselves to be carried away by its influence from a course of propriety and right, and we do wrong and say wrong things. ”

“ As we are, so were they; and as they are in all their brightness and glory around the throne of God, so may we be with our wives and children, friends and associates in the kingdom of God on earth, when we have travelled along to that state of exaltation to which they have attained, when we have learned to vanquish the monster of sin and death, rising above him to live in the elements of truth and holiness in a state free from corruption and sin. ”

“ Where is the school in which we are to be taught the plain, simple, unvarnished administrations of truth in a way to bring it within the range of our feeble comprehension of truth that we may understand it? Are we to learn it in any one place to the exclusion of all others? ”

“ One reason why the gathering together of the people does not constitute the kingdom of God is, that the mere gathering of the people is not particularly an intellectual operation, it does not of itself particularly inform the judgment or enlighten the mind in reference to God, and man's relationship to God and his purposes. ”

“ I have come to the conclusion that the more I talk about the right and the less I talk about the wrong, and the more I become occupied with the right the less danger I shall be in of becoming occupied by the wrong. ”

“ If I have not myself been able hitherto to make such a home, it is the home that lives in my mind. I show you the ladder over which you may travel from any condition of degradation and ignorance to all that is noble, exalted and Godlike. We must start from where we are, and we shall soon see better houses, more fruitful and lovely gardens ”

“ Being connected with so great an enterprise, I do not feel any more that I am a worm of the earth, but that I am associated with the Gods of eternity, and that angels are my kindred and of my family. This is the way I want the Saints to feel If they feel this way they will shun all wickedness, and seek for right and try to do it all the time. ”

“ If we strive to subdue stormy passions within us, he will assist us in the good work until the Spirit of God is not merely a casual visitor, but a constant dweller within us to increase our store of knowledge, extend our views and make our conceptions of God and truth more as they should be. ”

“ Let rising anger be suppressed; let the place where it had its incipient being become its grave. Never let the mouth utter the word that should not be spoken. This counsel is just as applicable to myself as it is to you. ”

“ All you know you know here, and all you can learn you must learn here while you are here. To acquire a knowledge of God is eternal life. That appears to many to be a great something. I say something, because people know nothing of God. ”

“ But I have prayed this prayer, "If the bestowal of wealth upon thy servant, O Lord, will make him a fool and cause him to forsake the truth, may I remain poor until I can bear it." We might as well complain that we were not all born at the same time as to complain of any disparity that may exist between us in pecuniary matters. ”

“ Then, let us remember that all this work is upon us; it is to redeem the earth, to be learning how to cultivate and improve its condition; it is to bring into existence a holy nation of men and women before God. ”

“ We have much yet to learn; the improvements we have not yet made are all to be made, whether they relate to the cultivation of our fields and gardens or to the cultivation of our minds; it is our duty to garnish and embellish them and make them beautiful and lovely as the residence and heritage of intellectual men and women. This will bring into existence God's temporal kingdom on the earth ”

“ We have ourselves been made in the image of God. Then it is essentially necessary that we should learn ourselves as an all-important step to the knowledge of God. We must learn to correct our lives and our actions; we must learn to govern ourselves and sanctify our affections, that we may be prepared to hold communion with heavenly intelligences. ”

“ It is not some service we have to perform at some remote place from where we are now living that will benefit us, but it is how we deport ourselves here towards one another and towards God; how we shall make our farms, cultivate our grounds, and how to use that which we have been blessed with as faithful stewards of the manifold mercies of God. ”

“ Why all this gathering together of this mixed multitude of people; people from so many nations; people of different tongues, of different customs, different traditions and notions, yet having one and the same feeling in reference to a few of the details that make up the great aggregate of life's actions? ”

“ To complain of circumstances that cannot at the present be improved would simply be a waste of your time, and your time is precious, for we are not going to live many years according to the common course of things to improve ourselves here. It will be to our advantage to live in this world as long as we can improve, and the longer we live here and improve, the stronger grow the ties that bind us to this existence. ”

“ We cannot go to where he is, to be taught of him personally and to associate with him. What have we in this world that gives a truthful indication of his character to the mind that is open to the light of truth? ”

“ The Gospel required me to pursue an upright, just, virtuous, honest course of life with all the world around me and to live at peace with all men. I commenced living in the world without quarreling with anybody ”

“ Another cones-quence will be a constant in-dwelling of the Spirit of God; that Spirit that brings life and light, and knowledge and understanding to the soul of man, that quickens the intellect of man and sanctifies every power to hold communion with still higher and holier principles.
We say we want the Holy Spirit; then let us so live our religion that we may have the Holy Spirit, which will improve our condition continually, making us better and better citizens of the kingdom of God with every degree of gain over ourselves. ”

“ We have brought with us to Utah more or less of the old notions that have grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength; throughout our lives their influence has been upon us. So far as these are in opposition to the truth and the right, they must be overcome, for as we learn the truth we must exchange our incorrect notions for notions that are correct in reference to living with one another and in reference to our general conduct in life. ”

“ The Prophet Joseph once took me by the arm in the street, and said, "I have so many blessings, and there is nothing but what you can enjoy in your time and place the same as I do, and so can every man." ”

“ Heaven is a development of internal powers and external changes. We learn to know God now as human beings, influenced by the effects of sin and folly, degraded and surrounded with darkness, misery and wretchedness. ”

“ They are men and women and children, such as we see here to-day; intellectual beings like ourselves, who have been educated, taught, trained, led onward and upward from a condition of ignorance to the possession of that infinitude of knowledge that makes so incomprehensible a difference between us. ”

“ There is a way that is fruitful of noxious weeds where something better should grow, and this is as truthfully the result of the conduct of the farmer as is the rich harvest of healthy grain that affords him bread and sustenance. Some people think they can pray the weeds out of their fields and gardens, but their prayers can only be effectual when accompanied with a reasonable amount of honest labor rightly and wisely applied. ”

“ This is the way I want you to begin to learn God, and the consequences will be peace and the joy that springs from peace. Then heaven will be in the home where you dwell, in the land and country where you live, in your associations with your friends and neighbors and kindred in all life's varied relations. ”

“ Let us live in this way and we shall speak kindly of one another and be more charitable to all men.
The result of our education is differences of feeling and differences in our way of life; we have brought these differences with us from our distant homes. ”

“ But when you have a great many weeds growing on your land, pray for your land, and do not forget to go out on to that land and pull up, remove and destroy by your diligent labor the weed-plants that so much annoy you. ”

“ Let the Saints who have just come to these valleys from their fatherland learn to be contented in whatsoever position they are placed in, that is, when you are in circumstances that neither you nor your friends can change for the better. ”

“ That we may learn to do this, it is necessary that we should control our passions, for if we do not control them they will control us, and under such control we do wrong. When we control ourselves, the result is equanimity of feeling such as is necessary to the exercise of an enlightened judgment, if such judgment exists within us. ”