Brigham Young

“ Compare those inhabitants on the earth who have heard the Gospel in our day, with the millions who have never heard it, or had the keys of salvation presented to them, and you will conclude at once as I do, that there is an almighty work to perform in the spirit world. Joseph has not yet got through there. When he finishes his mission in the spirit world, he will be resurrected, but he has not yet done there. Reflect upon the millions and millions of people that have lived and died without hearing the Gospel on the earth, without the keys of the kingdom. ”

“ Should you receive a vision of revelation from the Almighty, one that the Lord gave you concerning yourselves, or this people, but which you are not to reveal on account of your not being the proper person, or because it ought not to be known by the people at present, you should shut it up and seal it as close, and lock it as tight as heaven is to you, and make it as secret as the grave. The Lord has no confidence in those who reveal secrets, for He cannot safely reveal Himself to such persons. ”

“ If I have not wisdom and power to gain the influence necessary for me to wield in the midst of this people, without cursing them, without telling them that they and their substance shall be cursed, and that if they do not do as I say they shall go to hell—without threatening the people all the time with my judgments and the judgments of the Almighty—I say, let Brigham sink a little lower, and get into the field where I can find my true level, where I can be made more useful. ”

“ Looking at the conduct of many, yea, very many, as we can see it exhibited in this our day, they want the mastery, the influence, the power. They want to be able to say to the people, "Do this or do that," and have no objections raised. They would have the people obey their voice, and yet they do not know how to gain the affections of the people; they do not understand the dispositions of the people. ”

“ That man or woman that is a child of God, that honours his or her calling in the kingdom of God on the earth, is just as much your brother or sister as any person you have been accustomed to claim that relationship with. If you see a woman who lives her religion, who is owned of God, you see a person that is flesh of your flesh, blood of your blood, and bone of your bone, although she may have been born upon the opposite side of the earth from where you was born. ”

“ The man who cannot know millions of things that he would not tell his wife, will never be crowned in the celestial kingdom, never, NEVER, NEVER, It cannot be; it is impossible. And that man who cannot know things without telling any other living being upon the earth, who cannot keep his secrets and those that God reveals to him, never can receive the voice of his Lord to dictate him and the people on this earth.
Does brother Heber know things that I do not? Yes, facts that have slept in his bosom from the time I first knew him. ”

“ No matter who they are, nor whether they are upon the islands, or upon the continents; no matter whether they are the wild Arabs who traverse the scorching sands of Arabia, the aborgines of our own country, who roam over its plains and mountains, or the delicately nurtured dwellers in highly civilized nations; they are all of one flesh and blood. ”

“ There will be but one big vine in the vineyard, according to that. Never mind, we will be the branches, and the roots will fill the whole soil and the branches the heavens.
It may be just as well to have one tree that will bear a million bushels of peaches, as to have a million trees that will only produce one bushel each. All can partake and be filled; all who will can rejoice, and all can strive to build up this one kingdom, or to nourish this great tree. ”

“ But if I do not give the Saints and others the counsel of the Almighty, and that too by the Spirit of my mission, they are at liberty to dictate me, or to correct me in every error I commit; and certainly I should commit great errors, if I did not enjoy and have the Spirit of my mission, and counsel according to the will of the Lord. If all who are called to responsible stations would look at themselves precisely as they are, I will venture that we would have many more fathers than we now have, and fewer masters to drive the people. ”

“ If a person understands God and godliness, the principles of heaven, the principle of integrity, and the Lord reveals anything to that individual, no matter what, unless He gives permission to disclose it, it is locked up in eternal silence. ”

“ We must have knowledge pertaining to ourselves, and that knowledge will give us the key to know how to ask and obtain, and without that knowledge we cannot have eternal life, which is "to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent." If we have that knowledge we will know how to ask so as to obtain, and not ask amiss, we will ask and have our requests granted. How can we have that knowledge? By applying our hearts to wisdom and our lives to rectitude; by living as perfectly before God as we know how ”

“ But I have not yet attained to perfect confidence in myself in all circumstances, neither has God in me, for were such the case, He would answer every request I made of Him, every wish of mine would be answered to the letter. And this is the difficulty with the people, they have not attained to perfect confidence in themselves, neither have we as yet sufficient grounds for that degree of confidence. ”

“ As I said last Sabbath, they are willing to do anything to obtain eternal life, to secure to themselves a seat in the boxes, as brother Orson Hyde termed it. If you have a blank ticket for a theatre, you may fill it up for the boxes, or the gallery, or the pit, just as you please. Your lives must fill that blank, and if you would fill it for one of the best seats in the kingdom, you must live accordingly.
Do not flatter the man of influence, or the rich man. I know that the brethren might turn round and say, "Brother Brigham, do you see any of this, very lately?" ”

“ We will lock them up, when He reveals them to us, so that no man on earth can have them, and no being from heaven, unless he brings the keys wherewith to get them legally. No person can get the things the Lord has given to me, unless by legal authority; then I have a right to reveal them, but not without. When we can keep our own secrets, when we can keep the secrets of the Almighty strictly, honestly, truly in our own bosoms, the Lord will have confidence in us. ”

“ We may have confidence in God until doom's day, until we carry out in our lives all that we now know about God, and it will profit us little, unless we take a course that He may have confidence in us, and reveal unto us His secrets, as the Prophets have said, for His secrets are with the Prophets. ”

“ If I can gain that knowledge, if I can know precisely how an individual appears to my Father in heaven, and be able to look at him with the same kind of eyes as do the Holy Ghost and holy angels, then I can judge the good or evil in the person, without further trouble. ”

“ You know that almost every man who becomes a public speaker uses certain peculiar words to convey particular ideas, selects a vocabulary and arrangement more or less peculiar to himself, thereby causing that great variety of style observed in speakers and writers. I have mine, which is peculiar to me. Did you ever see a man who had such a peculiar vocabulary as brother Heber has? ”

“ The brethren have learned, years ago, that if a man was to give me a gold watch, a suit of clothes, a span of horses, a fine carriage, or a purse containing a million of dollars to buy my friendship, that does not buy it, has nothing to do with it, consequently I have not much opportunity of knowing whether the people have this spirit or not, for they do not exhibit it to me. ”

“ We do not always know that He will actually hear our prayers and answer them. Sometimes the Elders will get that faith and the sisters will often lay hands on their children and have faith and confidence in themselves that God will answer their prayers, and say to, fevers and pains, "Be ye rebuked and stand far off from this the afflicted," and it is done. But you have to attain to this power by your faithfulness and confidence in yourselves, that God will answer your prayers. We know that the Lord often heals the sick ”

“ We want confidence in each other. The Bishops, Presiding Elders, and men in authority seek for the obedience and confidence of the people. How are they going to get it? By abusing the people? By scolding them? ”

“ It is true that I have not altogether the experience that those have whose parents would not embrace the Gospel, nor any of their father's family. My father and step-mother embraced the plan of salvation as revealed through Joseph the Prophet; and four of my brothers, five sisters, and their children and their children's children, almost without exception, are in this Church; also many of my cousins, uncles, and other classes of what we call relatives or relations, are in this Church. ”

“ Ask those individuals, those who at times have desponding feelings about the absence of their relatives, when they are in the light of the Spirit, when the joys of salvation fill their bosoms, whether they would prefer the society of their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters whom they have left behind, or whether they would like to associate with them better than with their neighbours here, and they will tell you, "No." ”

“ They do not love sophistry, it is an abomination to them. When men are smooth as oil, with a smile always upon their countenances, as some Elders have, to gain an influence, the love people have for such men is rotten, is without foundation ”

“ Again, many will pray for the sick and for themselves, for this blessing and that, without receiving an answer, and think "I am so unworthy, I have not lived my religion and walked up to my privileges, though I have thought of everything that I can confess." Some people will come and confess to me things as simple as it would be for a woman to take the last egg from her hen's nest, and then reflect, "what an evil I have done to rob that poor hen of her last egg," and talk about that which the Lord cares nothing about, and say within themselves, "I do not receive the blessings I desire ”

“ On the other hand, if a man was in beggary, and owing this Church a thousand dollars and lacking a suit of clothes, but with his heart right, brother Brigham would say, "Come along here, you are the man I want to see; come to my table and eat, and I will also give you clothing to put on." Let a man have the power of God with him—the Holy Ghost within him—so that when he talks you can see, feel, and understand that power ”

“ Brethren and sisters, you know that often, when you hear that any one has spoken against you, your feelings are irritated, disturbed by anger, and you imagine that that person is your enemy, when, in reality, such is not the case. Are you never liable to err? If your neighbour has spoken something derogatory to your character, go to that neighbour and say to him, "I heard that you said so and so, and with such and such reason, and I connected this and that with it," and you can soon learn the facts in the case, It is often all right, when we talk calmly together, like brethren ”

“ If you have sheep and have become a shepherd in the fold of Christ, you must bear in mind that you must know your sheep, and that then they will know you, that is, if you have got sheep. Perhaps some of you are nursing a flock of goats, and do not know the difference. ”

“ The Apostle merely hinted at this subject when he said, "And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." ”

“ So far as I am concerned, I do not claim relationship anywhere else. And I do not think, that the Saviour will claim any son or daughter of Adam to be his brother, sister, mother, or kin, or connection of any kind or description, according to the flesh, except those who do the will of our Father in heaven—the will of Jesus and his Father. ”

“ The most of our Elders want to be obeyed, as strictly as you are taught by them from this stand that this people ought to obey brother Heber, or brother Brigham; as strictly as they preach to you to obey our counsel. ”

“ A man would get exceeding great faith, if he did not outweigh and out-measure himself, for it is but a short time before some are prone to take the glory to themselves, and say, "I have laid hands on the sick and they have been healed. ”

“ And when persons have proven to their messengers that their bosoms are like the lockups of eternity, then the Lord says, I can reveal anything to them, because they never will disclose it until I tell them to. ”

“ Many Elders were preaching and presiding, who were ignorant, aspiring, and tyrannical, and but few of them treated the people as kind and benevolent fathers treat their children. There were not many fathers, but there was a disposition to be "many masters," as we see here. ”

“ It is as much as He can do to get a particle of sense into some of the best and most influential men in the Church, in regard to real confidence in themselves. They cannot keep things within their own bosoms. ”

“ Let the human family do as they did in the days of Adam, in the days of Noah, or even as they did in the days of Lot; let parents propagate children, and let one generation succeed another, and this does not change the blood, flesh, bones, sinews, &c., pertaining to our organization in the flesh ”