B. H. Roberts

“ Much honor accorded thee in God's economy of the world. But here thy glory—under the limits of our opening sentence—attained its flood tide. Never wast thou so honored before; never, so far as human ken may see, wilt thou be more honored. Indeed, how couldst thou be? What concerns the world more to know than what is comprised in thy message—Christ is risen; his Father is man's Father; his God, man's God—all men are brethren! This the sum of the law and the gospel—all else commentary. ”

“ Teaching truth, inculcating morality, guarding the purity of the home, honoring authority and government, fostering education, and exalting man and woman, our religion denounces crime, and is a foe to tyranny in every form. "Mormonism" seeks to uplift, not to destroy society. She joins hands with the civilization of the age. Proclaiming herself a special harbinger of the Savior's second coming, she recognizes in all the great epochs and movements of the past, steps in the march of progress leading up to the looked for millennial reign. "Mormonism" lifts an ensign of peace to all people. ”

“ On the contrary, I am persuaded that the time has fully come for the establishment in this world, in some permanent way, government by the people. That the reign of tyrants is ended and that the rule of the people has begun, and will remain. The people of our country, especially the people of our state, I trust, and believe, will stand for the great principles that will perpetuate free institutions; that there shall be in our country "equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;" ”

“ It must have been some such thought as this which led our Prophet Joseph Smith to make the following remark: "The things of God are of deep import, and time and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out. Thy mind, O man, if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss and the broad expanse of eternity—Thou must commune with God!" ”

“ Now, I cannot help but believe that though men are sinners—notwithstanding that fact—I cannot help but believe that God still has some compassion in his heart for his children, sinners though they be. Indeed, if that be not true, then it seems to me despair must settle down like a black pall upon humanity; for if God loves only those who have remained without sin, how very few of his children he loves! ”

“ The time when swords shall be beaten into plow-shares, and spears into pruning hooks seems not far distant, even the time when nations shall learn war no more—the vision of the prophets! These are the conditions in the midst of which we live: A time when property is more secure than it ever was before in the world; a time when personal liberty is more secure than ever it was before in the world; a time when the comforts of life among the masses of mankind well nigh equal conditions that only kings could enjoy in ages that are past! ”

“ Is it fair or just, or consistent, with the workings of a religion built upon a foundation of eternal love, that some of us shall be born into the world under a spiritual ban, compelled to go through the battle, with the certainty of no reward for honors or efforts, predestined for hell, as the elect, for no effort or worth of their own, are predestined for heaven? That is the doctrine of election, is it not? ”

“ Now, let us have peace, even if we have to fight for it—and in my judgment, for some time to come, if you have peace, it will be because you are prepared to fight for it; and when the great central government shall be established—the world's federation of nations—it will need the force, the power to compel men to submit to its just decrees. This dream of the poet, here in Isaiah, shall be fulfilled in very deed, when God shall judge among the nations; because when he judges among the nations, he will judge in righteousness, and he will judge in justice; that will insure the world's peace ”

“ While God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, I believe that he can have and does have infinite compassion for the sinner. He will never call your sin "righteousness." He will never compound a sin and say that it is less than it is. Always and everywhere God's law will stand pronounced against sin; but while he stands thus committed irrevocably against sin in all its forms, I believe that his heart goes out in compassion to men who sin, and he will save them from their sins as soon as they repent. ”

“ The extent of the universe is infinite and unbounded. It is empty in no part, but everywhere filled with substance. The duration of the world is equally infinite and unbounded. It has no end; it is eternity."
Such is the summing up of what he calls the "law of substance," by one of the profoundest minds of Germany, Ernest Haeckel. Analyze it, and you will find it precisely the same conception as that announced by our Prophet in 1832, when he said: "There is no space in the which there is no kingdom; and there is no kingdom in which there is no space." ”

“ The principle, however, which most concerns us here today in our deliberations is the great and fundamental principle of our system of government—"the law of laws," as De Tocqueville calls it, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people—"government of the people, by the people and for the people." This principle is, of course, the foundation not only of our republic but of all republics. It has, however, in our American system received increased emphasis; it has taken on new life; it has become a reality. ”

“ Youth of Israel, be proud of the station which God has given you. Be fervent in faith; be high-minded in your aspirations, for there remaineth for Zion a glory, a development, a recognition in this world that shall more than repay our fathers for all the scenes of turmoil, strife and labor through which they passed in establishing and maintaining this great work. They shall have joy in their posterity, too; for we, their sons, will carry the burdens laid upon them; and Zion shall triumph; and the gospel shall be proclaimed and accepted; and the children of men shall be saved ”

“ Tell me, is it true, that in your philosophy of things it is all right for Jesus to have a mother, but a terrible sin and blasphemy to think of him as having a father? Is not fatherhood as sacred and holy as motherhood? Listen, people, there is something else. Having objected to our idea of Jesus having a father, these peculiarly pious gentlemen turn now and object to our faith because we believe that we have for our spirits a heavenly mother as well as a heavenly father! ”

“ You insist, do you not, that there must be acceptance of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and do you not hold that those who do not accept this gospel cannot receive the benefits of its salvation? Now then, after two thousand years of proselyting in the world, under the most favorable circumstances, what is the sum total of your achievements? Why, less than one-third of the inhabitants of the earth are even nominally Christians! and what is your attitude toward God's children whom you have not converted. Why, that they are lost. That is the inevitable result of your attitude and doctrine. ”

“ Now I am wondering if you will bear with me while I point out the fact that we too, in this dispensation of the fulness of times, are in the same danger of failing to apprehend the greatness of the things of God restored to us. We, too, are human; we, too, fail to grasp the full import of the truth which is the center around which our thoughts are moving. We fail to realize that great as our conceptions may be of divine things, yet, those divine things are infinitely greater than our conceptions of them. ”

“ Come the liberty that shall strike off every chain, not only of iron, and iron-law, but of painful constriction, of fear, of enslaving passion, of mad self-will; the liberty of perfect truth and love, of holy faith and glad obedience! ”

“ But the old gospel, the old religion and the Church of Christ coming forth under a new dispensation. We, equally with you of other Christian persuasions, believe there is no other name given under heaven whereby men may be saved except the name of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ. Therefore to us there can be but the one true gospel and one true Church. Not only this, but our message goes further. It comes to you with the glad tidings that God is still in the world, not apart from it, not standing aloof in unsympathetic observation of the creation of his hands—but he is in it. ”

“ If any one would learn an impressive lesson upon the transitory nature of man's hold upon the remembrance of his fellow-men, let him engage in an investigation into some matter of local or personal history dating back a half century ago. So rapidly, in the very places where a man has lived and labored, does the recollection of him fade into rumor, or myth, or oblivion. The candid reader will doubtless suspend his judgment on this hitherto accepted theory of Rigdon's printership, or set it down as, at the most, only probable, but certainly not yet proved. ”

“ And when a people leaves the leading-strings of prescriptive authority, and enters upon the ground of freedom, that ground must be fenced with law; it must be tilled with wisdom; it must be hallowed with prayer. The tribunal of justice, the free school, the holy church must be built there, to entrench, to defend and to keep the sacred heritage. * * * In the universe there is no trust so awful as moral freedom; and all good civil freedom depends upon the use of that. But look at it. Around every human, every rational being, is drawn a circle ”

“ Whence obtained these men the wisdom that thus challenged the admiration of the first statesman of Great Britain, and of his age, a man of gigantic intellectual powers, of incorruptible integrity, and who devoted the great powers of his mind to the service of his country? Could the wilderness impart much knowledge of principles of government and statesmanship as was manifested in the councils of those American planters, manufacturers and trades people? ”

“ Prophets do not follow the precision in their language that is required of the scientists. These men, prophets and seers, commune with God. Their finite life touches, for a moment, the infinite life of God. Their limited wisdom touches for a moment the supreme wisdom of the infinite. For an instant they see things large; and infused and inspired with the fire they have received from this contact with the divine, lo! they come with their message and speak it in the words of spiritual passion. ”

“ I challenge the Christian world to equal—to say nothing of surpassing—this conception of the nobility of woman and of motherhood and of wifehood—placing her side by side with the Divine Father—consort and Mother of divine intelligences—the spirits of men. ”

“ Because of this attribute of truth in God, he must be thought of as imparting to the institutions which he founds his own nature; they must be in harmony with his attributes. Consequently, when he establishes his Church, it will be a church of truth; it will stand for the truth like its founder; it will speak the truth without variation, without turning to the right hand, or turning to the left hand. God must be true—an untruthful God? The very thought, but that I am refuting it, would be blasphemy. It would wreck the moral universe for God to speak untruth. ”

“ What men name divine immanence. His spirit permeates all the elements. "He is in the sun, the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was created. He is in the moon, and the light of the moon, and the power thereof by which it was made." Also he is in the many blazing suns that we call fixed stars, and the power by which they were created. He is "the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things;" which is the law by which all things are governed—even the power of God." ”

“ Strange indeed would be the spectacle of a man who would express himself in favor of war instead of peace. Peace is the mother of abundance; the nurse of sciences and of arts; for without peace these things may not abound. Peace is essential to the progress of nations; some one has called it the "calm health of nations." Every prompting of the heart and every deduction of the reasonable mind would array all men upon the side of peace. Good sense demands it; prosperity and progress of nations demand it. I give my voice for peace. ”

“ If our professors, as we see they do, insist that there is incarnate in man a divine spirit, and we get men through the veil of death, and they become immortal men, possessing immortal tabernacles, what have you here but the "superman" of the professors, or the "exalted man" of Joseph Smith's doctrine? And if we postulate for these immortals, as both Joseph Smith and the professors do, a limitless opportunity for progress and development, then indeed it is not impossible that man may approach, somewhat even to the excellence of his Father, and of his elder brother, Jesus Christ. ”

“ Our message also proclaims the persistence of the individual. There is something in you, my friends, according to this Mormon message to the world—there is something in all of us, that was not created: and that will not die. Something that is indestructible and uncreatable; a something that must live, because it can not be destroyed—the soul, the intelligence of man. That entity, that intelligence—you—will not be absorbed, and lose its identity. You, friend, as an intelligence, and as a man shall live through all eternities. ”