Brigham Young

“ My desire is to teach the people what they should do now, and let the millennium take care of itself. To teach them to serve God and to build up His Kingdom is my mission. I have taught faith, repentance, baptism for the remission of sins, and the laying on of hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost. These principles you were taught in foreign lands. You are teaching them to your children. There is scarcely a child in Israel but is looking forward with anxiety to the time when he or she will be baptized. ”

“ We have been crying to the people for years and years to cease their trading and trying to speculate with the enemies of this people. We have said to them, "Store up those things that the Lord gives to us, these are years of plenty, these are the days when the abundance of the blessings of Heaven are upon the soil we occupy; treasure up your wheat or our traders will take our flour and carry it to our enemies." But our elders will go and borrow money of strangers for the sake of speculating. ”

“ Still, we are here as Latter-day Saints; we have assembled ourselves together to become one; to become the people of God, the children of Zion, the children of light. We are here for the express purpose of separating ourselves from the world and establishing that order of government that we read of in the Holy Scriptures ”

“ But those who are here, are here because of our religion. It is very seldom that you find a person in our midst, who is one of our citizens, who has come here with any other object than to serve God, be numbered with His Saints, help to build up Zion and establish peace and righteousness upon the earth. We look upon each other as though we ought to be Saints indeed; but while we are looking at our brethren and sisters we are very apt to behold their faults instead of their virtues. We are all liable to err; we are subject to weaknesses and liable to go astray ”

“ We acknowledge the covenant under which we live; we believe it, and are honest in our believe [belief] ; and we will honor that covenant by obedience to the laws of God. If we do not, our words and our actions contradict each other. By our acts, by our coming together, by our leaving our homes, our friends and our birthplaces that were dear to us according to the customs and belief of the world, we have declared our desire to serve the Lord. ”

“ The Lord never could teach His people while they were among the wicked how to live by themselves, how to unite their efforts and their whole power for the establishment of His Kingdom. This kingdom is not of the world, says Jesus. It is different from any other kingdom that is now upon the earth; and while the people of it are mixed with the people of other nations and kingdoms, the Lord could never teach them how to establish His Kingdom. ”

“ Ye Latter-day Saints, learn to sustain yourselves, produce everything you need to eat, drink or wear; and if you cannot obtain all you wish for to-day, learn to do without that which you cannot purchase and pay for; and bring your minds into subjection that you must and will live within your means. When we, as a people, can come to understand that we can live by ourselves, then we can live of ourselves, without any outside world. ”

“ If I know something that you do not understand it is my duty to teach you; and if you know something that I do not know, it is your duty to communicate your knowledge to me, till we become perfect by increasing in knowledge. ”

“ They must cease trading with those who would destroy us. To be called out from the wicked, and then take a course to call the wicked to us, how inconsistent it is! If the Lord were to say, "I will let the wicked drive you again, and I will call you to another place, where there is no one to disturb you;" how long would it be until the course taken by many would call the wicked in among us again, to seek to destroy us? The Latter-day Saints must stop this course, or they will bring evil upon themselves, and we will have to leave. ”

“ We as Latter-day Saints have confessed before Heaven, before the heavenly hosts, and before the inhabitants of the earth, that we really believe the Scriptures as they are given to us, according to the best understanding and knowledge that we have of the translation, and the spirit and meaning of the Old and New Testaments. ”

“ We have confessed before angels and men, and have acknowledged by our acts that we believe most assuredly that Jesus has called upon us as his disciples—those who will receive the truth, obey His commandments, observe His precepts and honor His laws, to come out from among the wicked, to separate ourselves from sinners and from sin. ”

“ Let us forsake those sins that are so grievous, and let us try to do right before the Heavens and with each other. Look at the Elders of Israel to-day; how many of them are gone to hunt gold. Hundreds of them are running off to Cheyenne to get work on the railroad. ”

“ My mission to the people is to teach them with regard to their every-day lives. I presume there are many here who have heard me say, years and years ago, that I cared very little about what will take place after the millennium. Elders may preach long discourses concerning what took place in the days of Adam, what occurred before the creation, and what will take place thousands of years from now, talking of things which have occurred or that will occur yet, of which they are ignorant, feeding the people on wind ”

“ If we have not confessed this by our acts as well as by our faith, then we are mistaken concerning the gathering of ourselves together. But we have confessed it, and we do believe it, and it is for us to live according to that which we acknowledge. ”

“ We have left the graves of our fathers—as our natives here would say, who lay great stress on birthplaces as well as many civilized nations; many have left fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters; and some have left husbands and some have left wives and children: what for? Because they believed in the words of Jesus and His Apostles, as well as in the Prophets and in the testimony of the Prophet Joseph and the Elders who have been sent unto them. This people have confessed this, and have shown to the world that they are honest in their belief ”

“ How to live. Have they to be taught to send for the Elders when they are sick, and that the prayer of faith will heal them? They understand these things. We are to be taught with regard to our every day life in a temporal point of view. ”

“ It is in our hands, it is within our power, whether we will stay in these mountains and build up the Zion of our God, or make the wicked and ungodly fat by our labor and give them our pos [s] essions. This many are doing, by running in debt to our enemies, and pursuing a course that is wrong. If they do not cease it they will have cause to weep and mourn. ”

“ It is among those who are the bride, the Lamb's wife, that the foolish are to be found. But he never has instructed us to call on the ungodly, and those who would mob us, to make foolish virgins. Some may quote the parable of the wheat and the tares and say they must grow together. Let me tell you, the tares will be in the field, and many will think they are wheat, until harvest comes; but at no time has the Lord said, bring the wicked and ungodly among my people to scourge them; for they are capable of bringing upon themselves all the evil necessaey [necessary] to perfect the good. ”

“ If one-half have breadstuffs to last them till harvest, it is more than they have in other places. Yet we have asked the people to save their wheat against such a year as last year or this year. Here are the devouring insects ready to take everything that we have. These are things the people have got to be taught to observe. ”

“ These things we understand alike. We have been baptized and have had hands laid upon us for the reception of the Holy Ghost. We have been taught to exercise faith, and to enjoy the gifts of the gospel. ”

“ If you have an abundance of beeves and flour and butter and eggs, and other things, will you furnish something for the Public Works? But if you are as they are in many other places, many of you have not got breadstuffs to last you one week. ”

“ Some may think they have the privilege of going to the gold mines or doing as they please, without being instructed concerning their temporal duties; that no person has a right to interfere with their temporal matters. ”

“ Brethren, we have many things yet to learn. Many of the brethren south are ruined by running in debt; men of handsome property, which will go for comparatively nothing because of their vain imaginations. ”

“ Much healthier, as a people, than we are now. Did we grow and increase? Yes; and as soon as we had time to till the earth and reap a crop, we produced wheat and corn and potatoes. We turned our cattle on to the range to make our beef. We had plenty of wheat. ”