Brigham Young

“ It is the greatest work for the salvation of the human family that has been revealed to man since the fall of Adam. I hope you teach this in the Sunday school, that we are serving a God who has a body, parts and passions, and who has feelings, and a fellow-feeling. Well, you startle at this. You have a fellow-feeling. If the Christian world were to hear me declare that our Father in heaven could know and sympathize with this mortality by experience, and has a fellow-feeling, and deals kindly and sympathetically and mercifully with those who are froward, they would be startled. ”

“ With regard to the ordinances of God, we may remark that we yield obedience to them because He requires it; and every iota of His requirements has a rational philosophy with it. We do not get up things on a hypothesis. That philosophy reaches to all eternity, and is the philosophy that the Latter-day Saints believe in. Every particle of truth that every person has received is a gift of God. We receive these truths, and go on from glory to glory, from eternal lives to eternal lives, gaining a knowledge of all things, and becoming Gods, even Sons of God. ”

“ But we have something more than morality alone to teach the people. What is it? It is how to redeem the human family. In Adam—that is, if we believe this book (the Bible) , and believe the history that Moses gave of our first parents, and of the inhabitants of the earth, which indeed we have to depend upon, for we are not in possession of any other history of our first parents, and are consequently obliged to refer to this history—if we believe this, I can say that as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all are made alive. ”

“ It is only the beginning. It is the first stage of all the intelligence that the philosopher in his reflections, taking the starry world before him, and looking into the immensity of the creations of God, can imagine. ”

“ Keep the Ten Commandments, and then go on until we are perfect, loving our neighbor more than we love ourselves, imparting to all that kind fellow-feeling, that we can take those who are in this poor and stricken condition of life, and raise them, that they may come up and possess the fruits of the earth, and enjoy all that we can enjoy in raiment, food and possessions. Raise our own horses, our own food, and let every one be a producer, and then we can with a good grace, be consumers. ”

“ What is required of us as soon as we come to the years of accountability? It is required of us, for it is an institution of heaven, the origin of which you and I cannot tell, for the simple reason that it has no beginning, it is from eternity to eternity—it is required of us to go down into the waters of baptism. ”

“ We will take a moral view, a political view, and we see the inequality that exists in the human family. We take the inhabitants of the civilized world, and how many laboring men are there in proportion to the inhabitants? ”

“ If we go and preach the Gospel, men and women of age, youths and children believe our testimony, come forward and desire to receive a remission of their sins by obeying the ordinances of the house of God, that are placed in that house for the express purpose of remitting sins. Then they commence to live moral lives, as becometh those who have embraced the truth, and continue to live by the truth until they are prepared to enter into an exaltation. ”

“ It is for you and me to improve our children, and teach them to bring forth the elements here, until we possess all things that are on the earth, and then prepare to possess the things that are in Heaven, and go on from glory to glory, until we are crowned with God the Father. ”

“ We cannot hear their voices. We cannot behold their glory. We are shut out from this. The vail of mortality being dropped between us and the Creator, something has to be done so that we may return and behold those that are exalted. ”

“ It is not the work of a day, or a week, or a month, but the work of a lifetime; and when we end our career here, we hope to leave those behind us on the earth of our own posterity, who are better calculated to go on with this work, and who will do so until it is completed. ”

“ Ask the Christian world, Do you believe in such a God? No, they say. What kind of a being do you believe in? Such as was described in the inscription which Paul saw written on the altar at Athens, "To the unknown God." "We worship that unknown God." ”

“ And if we are at variance with our neighbor, and are in want of better judgment than we have to settle our difficulties, let us call three or twelve men, and leave it to them to decide between us. Adopt this course, and it would save an immense amount of time, and set the lawyer to raising his own potatoes and wheat, instead of gulling the people. The non-producer must live on the products of those who labor. There is no other way. If we all labor a few hours a day, we could then spend the remainder of our time in rest and the improvement of our minds. ”

“ Those who have been in the habit of swearing, swear no more. Never use the name of the Deity without his authority. If we are in the habit of telling that which is not true, learn to speak the truth. If we speak evil of our neighbors, cease to speak evil. ”

“ Now the object is to improve the minds of the inhabitants of the earth, until we learn what we are here for, and become one before the Lord, that we may rejoice together and be equal. Not to make all poor. No. The whole world is before us. The earth is here, and the fullness thereof is here. It was made for man; and one man was not made to trample his fellow-man under his feet, and enjoy all his heart desires, while the thousands suffer. ”

“ The Latter-day Saints will never accomplish their mission until this inequality shall cease on the earth.
We say but very little about politics. If we have laws, we should have good laws, and we should get good men to adjudicate those laws. ”

“ It is no matter, the Lord is managing all this, and he does just as he pleases with regard to the treasures of the earth, and we may look for them, but if we are not to find them, they will be hid. When God says to his agents, remove this gold, this silver, this copper, it will be done. ”

“ If we can believe Moses and the Apostles, we die in consequence of sin in the conduct of our first parents, in eating that which they were forbidden to eat; that we are shut out and cannot see and understand heavenly beings. ”

“ For those who, many of them, are living in luxury. And, to serve the classes that are living on them, the poor, laboring men and women are toiling, working their lives out to earn that which will keep a little life within them. ”

“ It is an unequal condition of mankind. We see servants that labor early and late, and that have not the opportunity of measuring their hours ten in twenty-four. They cannot go to school, nor hardly get clothing to go to meeting in on the Sabbath. ”

“ Infringe upon no one. Instead of making any poorer, make all wealthy.
A few words upon the minerals found in our mountains. We have had a great many men examining among the mountains, and through the plateaus and ranges in the south. ”

“ This work must continue until the people who live on this earth are prepared to receive our coming Lord, and dwell with the sanctified, and to associate with angels and with our Savior, preparatory to entering into the presence of our heavenly Father. ”