Brigham Young

“ We wish the Gospel to take effect upon each one of us; and we can change in our feelings, in our dispositions and natures, to the extent that was observed by brother Kimball in the comparison which he made.
A man, or a woman, desiring to know the will of God, and having an opportunity to know it, will apply their hearts to this wisdom until it becomes easy and familiar to them, and they will love to do good instead of evil. They will love to promote every good principle, and will soon abhor everything that tends to evil; they will gain light and knowledge to discern between evil and good. ”

“ Because it would throw many of you into lazy slothful, idle habits, and every Gentile that came through here would covet your farms, and would say, "This is the finest country we ever saw, how rich you are, how your cattle thrive upon the hills, your grain grows almost without labor in cultivating the earth." ”

“ We are not capacitated to receive in one day, nor in one year, the knowledge and experience calculated to make us perfect Saints, but we learn from time to time, from day to day, consequently we are to have compassion one upon another, to look upon each other as we would wish others to look upon us, and to remember that we are frail mortal beings, and that we can be changed for the better only by the Gospel of salvation. ”

“ I have never told you much about my belief in this magnetic principle. Speaking is a true gift, but I can speak to the glory of God, or to the injury of His cause and to my condemnation, as I please; and still the gift is of God. The gift of animal magnetism is a gift of God, but wicked men use it to promote the cause of the devil, and that is precisely the difference. You may travel through the world and make inquiries where the Elders have traveled, and you cannot find an instance where the devil has gained power over a good and faithful Elder through this power. ”

“ Take those that were wicked designedly, who knowingly lived without the Gospel when it was within their reach, they are given up to the devil, they become tools to the devil and spirits of devils.
Go to the time when the Gospel came to the earth in the days of Joseph, take the wicked that have opposed this people and persecuted them to the death, and they are sent to hell. Where are they? They are in the spirit world, and are just as busy as they possibly can be to do every thing they can against the Prophet and the Apostles, against Jesus and his kingdom. ”

“ The history of Joseph and Mary is given to us by their best friends, and precisely as we will give the history of the Prophet Joseph. We know him to have been a good man, we know that he performed his mission, we know that he was an honorable man and dealt justly, we know his true character. ”

“ We all have got spirits to attend us; when the eyes of the servant of Elijah were opened he saw that those for them were more than those that were against them. There are two thirds for us, and one third against us; and there is not a son or daughter of Adam but what will be saved in some kingdom and receive glory and an exaltation to a degree, except those who have had the privilege of the Gospel and rejected it and sinned against the Holy Ghost, they will become servants to devils. ”

“ Let a man be devoted to his God and to his religion, and his wives with him, and he is very apt to have children that will grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. If the whole of the father and mother in all their acts is devoted to the building up of the kingdom of God on the earth, if they have no desire but to do right, if righteousness reigns predominant, then the spirit that is within them controls, to a certain extent, the flesh in their posterity. ”

“ Every one of this people, with the Saints that have lived before us, from the days of Adam until now, and those that may come after us, all say, "Build up the kingdom of God." What for? To save the inhabitants of the earth, to get them all back into some kind of a kingdom where they can be administered to, and not have this organized matter return again to its native element, for we wish this work to be preserved. ”

“ Do the good and evil spirits go together? Yes, they do. Do they both inhabit one kingdom? Yes, they do. Do they go to the sun? No. Do they go beyond the boundaries of this organized earth? No, they do not. They are brought forth upon this earth, for the express purpose of inhabiting it to all eternity. ”

“ The spirits of people that have lived upon the earth according to the the best light they had, who were as honest and sincere as men and women could be, if they lived on the earth without the privilege of the Gospel and the Priesthood and the keys thereof are still under the power and control of evil spirits, to a certain extent. No matter where they lived on the face of the earth, all men and women that have died without the keys and power of the Priesthood, though they might have been honest and sincere and have done every thing they could, are under the influence of the devil, more or less. ”

“ You know that when you make a farm you dislike to see it overrun with weeds, and it would hurt your feelings to see your houses, barns, and other property destroyed. True, you can make more, but how do you suppose the Lord feels, who is much more compassionate than we are, when He sees the devil gaining an advantage over His creatures to lead them away to destroy them? Do you not suppose that the bowels of His compassion yearn over this people, and that He is angry with the wicked? ”

“ Those who have died without the Gospel are continually afflicted by those evil spirits, who say to them—"Do not go to hear that man Joseph Smith preach, or David Patten, or any of their associates, for they are deceivers." ”

“ I will venture to say that no man living on the face of the earth, capable of using language to portray the character of any individual that lives on the earth, could paint a worse character than they have given to Jesus Christ. ”

“ Many of the people in these valleys have no experience in these things, and I would be very glad to have such persons escape those trials, if they could receive the same glory and exaltation that they would if they had passed through them.
I look upon the people, and as I frequently say, I have compassion upon them, for all have not experience. It was told you this morning that you could not be made perfect Saints in one day, that is impossible. ”

“ If you could see, and would walk over many parts of North America, you would see millions on millions of the spirits of those who have been slain upon this continent. Would you see the spirits of those who were as good in the flesh, as they knew how to be? ”

“ Spirits are just as familiar with spirits as bodies are with bodies, though spirits are composed of matter so refined as not to be tangible to this coarser organization. They walk, converse, and have their meetings; and the spirits of good men like Joseph and the Elders, who have left this Church on earth for a season to operate in another sphere, are rallying all their powers and going from place to place preaching the Gospel, and Joseph is directing them, saying, go ahead, my brethren, and if they hedge up your way, walk up and command them to disperse. ”

“ It is not beyond the sun, but is on this earth that was organized for the people that have lived and that do and will live upon it. No other people can have it, and we can have no other kingdom until we are prepared to inhabit this eternally. In the spirit world those who have got the victory go on to prepare the way for those who live in the flesh, fulfilling the work of saviors on Mount Zion. ”

“ Do you not suppose that He often feels like saying, "O, my children, why do you not hearken to what I tell you, and take hold of the principles of life, and cease pursuing a course that is calculated to destroy you? ”

“ If a man is called to be a Prophet, and the gift of prophecy is poured upon him, though he afterwards actually defies the power of God and turns away from the holy commandments, that man will continue in his gift and will prophecy lies. ”

“ You can see the acts of these evil spirits in every place, the whole country is full of them, the whole earth is alive with them, and they are continually trying to get into the tabernacles of the human family, and are always on hand to prompt us to depart from the strict line of our duty. ”

“ With some there is a fearfulness, a want of faith and confidence in God, and a stingy close fistedness; this is the cause of many's being so pinched. As I have often done, I again invite those who are distrustful, and fearful that God is going to forsake this people, to leave, if they do not wish to be Saints and repose confidence in the God of the Saints. ”

“ This is an advantage which the faithful will gain; but while they live on earth they are subject to the buffetings of Satan. Joseph and those who have died in the faith of the Gospel are free from this; if a mob should come upon Joseph now, he has power to disperse them with the motion of his hand, and to drive them where he pleases. But is Joseph glorified? No, he is preaching to the spirits in prison. He will get his resurrection the first of any one in this kingdom, for he was the first that God made choice of to bring forth the work of the last days. ”

“ I will tell you what my feelings are, they are, praise God for hard times, for I feel that it is one of the greatest privileges to be in a country that is not desirable, where the wicked will pass by. ”

“ You may now see people with legions of evil spirits in and around them; there are men who walk our streets that have more than a hundred devils in them and round about them, prompting them to all manner of evil, and some too that profess to be Latter Day Saints, and if you were to take the devils out of them and from about them, you would leave them dead corpses ”

“ Taking these things into consideration, and viewing our present circumstances and the privileges we enjoy, there is not a heart that fully realizes what we have passed through and the blessings we now enjoy, without praising God continually and feeling to exclaim, "O praise the name of our God." ”

“ They have got the victory over the power of the enemy here, consequently when they leave this world they have perfect control over those evil spirits, and they cannot be buffeted by Satan. But as long as they live in the flesh no being on this earth, of the posterity of Adam, can be free from the power of the devil. ”

“ If the troubles of this people from the commencement of this work, from the early history of the Prophet, and the persecutions of the Saints, could be presented before this congregation you would be astonished, you would marvel at them. You would not believe that a people could endure so much as this people have endured, you would think it an impossibility for men and women to endure and pass through what a great many in this Church have. ”

“ If a person is honest before God and has more than he needs for his own use, and does not covet it, he will make a distribution to those who have not, and there need not any person go without necessary food. I know that there are many here who have given out much flour, and they have by no means suffered on account of their liberality. ”

“ These principles are correct in regard to the gifts which we receive for the express purpose of using them, in order that we may endure and be exalted, and that the organization we have received shall not come to an end, but endure to all eternity.
By a close application of the gifts bestowed upon us, we can secure to ourselves the resurrection of these bodies that we now possess, that our spirits inhabit, and when they are resurrected they will be made pure and holy; then they will endure to all eternity. ”

“ But we cannot receive all at once, we cannot understand all at once; we have to receive a little here and a little there. If we receive a little, let us improve upon that little; and if we receive much, let us improve upon it. ”

“ They do not pass out of the organization of this earth on which we live, You read in the Bible that when the spirit leaves the body it goes to God who gave it. Now tell me where God is not, if you please; you cannot. How far would you have to go in order to go to God, if your spirits were unclothed? Would you have to go out of this bowery to find God, if you were in the spirit? If God is not here, we had better reserve this place to gather the wicked into, for they will desire to be where God is not. The Lord Almighty is here by His Spirit, by His influence, by His ”

“ To accomplish this work there will have to be not only one temple but thousands of them, and thousands and tens of thousands of men and women will go into those temples and officiate for people who have lived as far back as the Lord shall reveal. If we are faithful enough to go back and build that great temple which Joseph has written about, and should the Lord acknowledge the labor of His servants, then watch, for you will see somebody whom you have seen before, and many of you will see him whom you have not seen before, but you will know him as soon as you see him. ”

“ When I find fault with the people for not hearkening to counsel, it is because I want them to live so as speedily to obtain the reward of righteousness, and not have to wait so long for it.
This is a good people, though there are some in our midst who do not do right. ”