Brigham Young

“ Yes, a good portion of this congregation are witnesses of these things, although many of them never saw Joseph, and were not personally acquainted with him.
We have been persecuted—we have built houses, made farms, cultivated the land, broken up the wild prairie, and made it like the Garden of Eden; we have fenced, built, and gathered substance around us many times, and as many times have been driven from our possessions, until we came to this inheritance which we now enjoy in these valleys of the mountains. ”

“ May the Lord bless you, my brethren; and I pray, all the time, that we may be preserved in the truth, that when the Lord has anything for us, we may be ready to receive it, and thus serve Him all the day long. If we have not been driven far enough to enjoy peace, tell me where next we can be driven to, to find it ”

“ Do not court persecution, for, remember, you are not playing with shadows, but it is the voice and the hand of the Almighty you are trying to play with, and you will find yourselves mistaken if you think to the contrary. ”

“ Do we see men that are following after false and delusive spirits? Yes. When a man comes right out, as an independent devil, and says, "Damn Mormonism, and all the Mormons," and is off with himself, not to Texas, but to California, (you know it used to be to Texas) , I say he is a gentleman, by the side of a nasty sneaking apostate who is opposed to nothing but Christianity. ”

“ There are many witnesses here, not only witnesses of Joseph and his career, but witnesses of the disaffected spirits that have come into this Church, and gone out again. Are there witnesses of men trying to rise up and usurp Joseph's place in his day? Yes, there are many witnesses, that many men tried it. ”