Brigham Young

“ But now, just as soon as anything is given to the Latter-day Saints they are looking from east to west, and from north to south, to see where they can strew that that God gives them among their enemies—those who spurn the things of God, and would destroy his kingdom from the earth. I say, let the Lord keep us poor rather than forsake our religion and turn away from it! Why can not a man serve God with his pockets full of greenbacks, and not lust after them one particle? If he can not do it, he is lacking in wisdom, faith, and knowledge, and does not understand God and his ways. ”

“ You recollect that Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a net which gathered all kinds. If our net has not gathered all kinds, I wonder where the kinds are that we have not got. I say that some of the worst men in the community would be the first ones to proffer their names to go into such an association. I do not want them there. Is this the fact? Yes it is. I understand it exactly. But if such a community could be organized, to show the Latter-day Saints how to build up the kingdom of heaven on the earth, I would be glad to see it—would not you? ”

“ The heavens and the earth are full of blessings for the people. To whom do they belong? To our Father in heaven, and he wishes to bestow them upon his children when they can receive and dispose of them to his name's glory. ”

“ Work through the day, and when it comes evening, instead of going to a theatre, walking the streets, riding, or reading novels—these falsehoods got up expressly to excite the minds of youth, repair to our room, and have our historians, and our different teachers to teach classes of old and young, to read the Scriptures to them; to teach them history, arithmetic, reading, writing and painting; and have the best teachers that can be got to teach our day schools. Half the labor necessary to make a people moderately comfortable now, would make them independently rich under such a system. ”

“ They have been very independent, there is no question of it. When they have heard the Gospel, though, perhaps, in the flood of persecution, and the finger of scorn pointed towards them, they have said, "The Gospel is true, and if my friends will not believe it, it makes no difference to me, I am independent enough to embrace the truth, and to gather out from the midst of Babylon and to make my home with the Saints. ”

“ They have so much business on hand, so many cattle to take care of; they have money to let out, or money [to] borrow; they have men to see to, or something or other, and it seems as if the affections of the people are hankering after the things of this world too much, too much! Stop, Latter-day Saints, and reckon with yourselves, and find whether you are actually in the path of obedience to the requirements of heaven or not. Some suppose that they are serving God and are on the road to eternal life, but many will find they are mistaken if they are not careful. ”

“ We can get rich a great deal quicker by serving God than by serving ourselves, do a great deal better, and do a great deal more good. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. He is anxious, and is waiting with extended arms and hands, comparatively, to pour the wealth of the world into the laps of the Latter-day Saints, if they will not give it away to their enemies. ”

“ Not all would do this, but a few; and the majority are so well off that they have not that prudence which belongs to Saints; and I feel sometimes a little irritated, and inclined to scold about it, when I see women who were brought up without a shoe to their foot, or a second frock to their back perhaps, and who lived until they were young women in this style, without ever stepping on to an inch of carpet in their lives, and they know no more how to treat a carpet than pigs do. Do they know how to treat fine furniture? ”

“ I have got some brethren who are just as close, tight and penurious as I am myself, but I would rather take any moneyed man in this community, and undertake to manage him, than some men who are not worth a dollar in the world. ”

“ If we could see such a society organized as I have mentioned, you would see none of this waste You would see a people all attending to their business, having the most improved machinery for making cloth, and doing every kind of housework, farming, all mechanical operations, in our factories, dairies, orchards and vineyards; and possessing every comfort and convenience of life. A society like this would never have to buy anything; they would make and raise all they would eat, drink and wear, and always have something to sell and bring money, to help to increase their comfort and independence. ”

“ Ladies and gentlemen, you may take any country in the world, I do not care where you go, and if they do not employ doctors, you will find they will beat communities that employ them, all the time. Who is the real doctor? That man who knows by the Spirit of revelation what ails an individual, and by the same Spirit knows what medicine to administer. That is the real doctor, the others are quacks.
But to the text. We want to see a community organized in which every person will be industrious, faithful and prudent. What will you do with the children? ”

“ If you do go to law, you will hate your neighbor, and you will finally have to pick some of your neighbors who hoe potatoes and corn, who work in the cabinet shop, at the carpenter's bench, or at the blacksmith's forge, to settle it for you. ”

“ Build your houses just the size you want them, whether a hundred feet, fifty feet or five, and have them so arranged that you can walk directly from work to dinner. "Would you build the houses all alike?" ”

“ I see a great many who profess to be Latter-day Saints, who would not be contented in heaven unless their feelings undergo a great change, and if they were there and you wanted to keep them there, you would have to break their backs, or they would get out. ”

“ Doctors make experiments, and if they find a medicine that will have the desired effect on one person, they set it down that it is good for everybody, but it is not so, for upon the second person that medicine is administered to, seemingly with the same disease, it might produce death. ”

“ If the ladies want silks, we have the mulberry here of all kinds; we have the silkworm eggs here, and we have made the silk. Go to work now and raise worms, and wind the silk, and weave it and make all the satin ribbons you wish for. ”

“ They are not lawyers, but they understand truth and justice, and they have got to judge the case at last." Why not do this at first, and say we will arbitrate this case, and we will have no lawsuit, and no difficulty with our neighbor, to alienate our feelings one from another? This is the way we should do as a community. ”

“ And we can have coats and vests and pants made of our home-grown material, which a man would wear for his best suit, and hand down to his posterity. When we have learned the worth of silk we will make it and use it instead of linen. We have a splendid country for raising silk, but not a good country to raise flax in; splendid for raising wool, grain, fruit, vegetables, cattle, milk, butter and cheese, and here we are importing our cheese. ”

“ The youth would have a good education, they would receive all the learning that could be given to mortal beings; and after they had studied the best books that could be got hold of, they would still have the advantage of the rest of the world, for they would be taught in and have a knowledge of the things of God. ”

“ Make our own clothing, but do not put seventeen or twenty-one yards in a single dress, neither be attired so as to look like a camel. It is not comely, it does not belong to sensible people, nor to any people who wish to carry themselves justly and correctly, before the heavens and intelligent men. ”

“ Suppose, for illustration, we draw a line through this congregation, and place those on this side where they cannot get a doctor, without it is a surgeon, for thirty or fifty years to come; and put the other side in a country full of doctors, and they think they ought to have them, and this side of the house that has no doctor will be able to buy the inheritance of those who have doctors, and overrun them, outreach them, and buy them up, and finally obliterate them, and they will be lost in the masses of those who have no doctors. ”

“ See if we are doing good, if we are bestowing our substance on the poor, that they may have food to eat and habitations to dwell in, and be made comfortable: see if we are sending our means for the poor in foreign lands, and aiding to send the Elders to preach to the nations and gather up the people and make them happy and comfortable. ”

“ We have men and women here, who did nothing in their lives before they came here but weave satin ribbons and satin cloth. This is their business, they know how to get it up. If you will raise the silk, dress yourselves just as beautifully as you please. ”

“ By and by when this people learn the value of the mulberry and the silkworm, you will see the women with their few trees in their yards and around their lots, and for shade trees in the streets; and the children will be picking the leaves and feeding the worms, and they will get up silk dresses here like those in the East Indies. ”

“ Gravel our streets, pave our walks, water them, keep them clean and nicely swept, and everything neat, nice and sweet. Our houses built high, sleep up stairs, have large lodging rooms, keep everybody in fresh air, pure and healthy. ”

“ There are plenty of such people here in this house—men and women, old and young. There are young people here who have left their parents and every thing they had on the face of the earth for the sake of the Gospel. ”

“ If they would turn merchants, cattle breeders, farmers or mechanics, or would build factories, they would be useful; but to stir up strife and quarrels, to alienate the feelings of neighbors, and to destroy the peace of communities, seems to be their only business. For a man to understand the law is very excellent, but who is there that understands it? They that do and are peacemakers, they are legitimate lawyers. There are many lawyers who are very excellent men. What is the advice of an honorable gentlemen in the profession of the law? "Do not go to law with your neighbor ”

“ We ought to learn some of these facts, and try to shape our lives so as to be useful. Let the men make their lives useful. Let the women make their lives useful. Mothers, teach your daughters how to keep house, and not how to spend everything they can get hold of. ”

“ Instead of having every woman getting up in the morning and fussing around a cookstove or over the fire, cooking a little food for two or three or half a dozen persons, or a dozen, as the case may be, she would have nothing to do but to go to her work. ”

“ You let your children read novels until they run away, until they get so that they do not care—they are reckless, and their mothers are reckless, and some of their fathers are reckless, and if you do not break their backs and tie them up they will go to hell That is rough, is it not? ”

“ Because the very first thing, they want a horse and buggy, and a piano; they want somebody to come every day to give them lessons on the piano; they want two hired girls and a mansion, so that they can entertain company, and the boys are afraid to marry them. ”

“ Thousands and thousands of Latter-day Saints never expect to own a carriage or to ride in one. Would we ride in carriages? Yes, we would; we would have them suitable for the community, and give them their proper exercise ”

“ If I could make you a little mad, when you get home if you see a pretty good piece of carpet, thrown out of doors you will go, perhaps, and shake it and lay it up, thinking that it may be serviceable to somebody or other ”

“ Through the summer they will work and use them, and in the winter turn them out to live or die as they can, taking no care of that which God has given them. Were it not for the ignorance of the people, the Lord would curse them for such things. ”

“ We will have our railways to convey the food to the pig pens, and somebody to take care of them. Somebody to gather up the scraps at the table, and take them away. Somebody to take the feed and feed the cows, and take care of them out of the city. ”

“ But here is our dining room, and adjoining this is our prayer room, where we would assemble perhaps five hundred persons at one time, and have our prayers in the evening and in the morning. When we had our prayers and our breakfast, then each and every one to his business. ”

“ And when they have all eaten, the dishes are piled together, slipped under the table, and run back to the ones who wash them. We could have a few Chinamen to do that if we did not want to do it ourselves. Under such a system the women could go to work making their bonnets, hats, and clothing, or in the factories. ”

“ Yes, and they would have it too, we would have nice ones to carry out the sick, aged and infirm, and give them exercise, and give them a good place to sleep in, good food to eat, good company to be with them and take care of them. ”