Brigham Young

“ The day will be in which a man will go out and say to an army of a hundred thousand men, "Do thus, and so, or we are upon you;" and they will hear the rumbling of chariots and the rushing of troops, as in the days of Elijah. ”

“ I have been in this kingdom a good while—twenty-five years and upwards, and I have been driven from place to place; my brethren have been driven, my sisters have been driven; we have been scattered and peeled, and every time without any provocation upon our part, only that we were united, obedient to the laws of the land, and striving to worship God. ”

“ I will permit you to be as angry as I am. Do not get so angry that you cannot pray: do not allow yourselves to become so angry that you cannot feed an enemy —even your worst enemy, if an opportunity should present itself. ”

“ The faith of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is calculated to unite the people in one, and to bring them back to the unity and faith of those who obeyed the Gospel anciently, and finally to bring them back to glory. ”

“ Do all such persons know that they are not right? If they will examine their hearts, they will find a wicked anger and a malice there; and they cannot get into the kingdom of God with those feelings.
Learn to control yourselves; learn to be in the hands of God as clay in the hands of the potter; and if he will turn our enemies away, praised be his name. But if it should become a duty to take the sword, let us do it manfully and in the strength of Israel's God. Then one will chase a thousand, and two will put ten thousand to flight. ”

“ If the people of the United States will let us alone for ten years, we will ask no odds of them; and ten years from that very day, we had a message by brothers Smoot, Stoddard, and Rockwell, that the Government had stopped the mail, and that they had ordered 2,500 troops to come here and hold the "Mormons" still, while priests, politicians, speculators, whore-mongers, and every mean, filthy character that could be raked up should come here and kill off the "Mormons." ”

“ Are there any Democrats, any Whigs, any Methodists, any Baptists, or anything like the parties and sects of the day among us? No. What is there? Those who want to do the will of their Father in heaven; and when they can know his will, their faith is one, their hope is one, and they are one in all things. ”

“ There is only one thing to fear, and that is, that you will not be faithful to the kingdom of God. We have that kingdom; and it will spread its balmy wings over thousands and millions who have not yet heard the Gospel, and they will find Israel to be "the head, and not the tail."
What is the cause of the hostile feeling against this people? Brother Taylor has been telling you. God has restored the Gospel of salvation to earth again. ”

“ Wicked persons, solely for the accomplishment of their unhallowed schemes, have had the power to array the Government against us, through their lying and misrepresentation; but citizens, unorganized into cliques and parties, no matter how good their intentions and wishes, have not the power to avert the blow when the Administration of our Government is arrayed against us, unless they will also unite against the few well-organized scoundrels who are plundering our treasury and fast urging our country to dissolution. ”

“ This people are free; they are not in bondage to any government on God's footstool. We have transgressed no law, and we have no occasion to do so, neither do we intend to; but as for any nation's coming to destroy this people, God Almighty being my helper, they cannot come here. ”

“ But I will pledge myself that if there is a man, woman, or child that wants to go back to the States, if they will pay their debts, and not steal anything, they can go; and if they are poor and honest, we will help them to go. ”

“ Ask them where heaven is?—where they are going to when they die? —where Paradise is?—and there is not a priest in the world that can answer your questions. Ask them what kind of a being our Heavenly Father is, and they cannot tell you so much as Balaam's ass told him. They are more ignorant than children. ”

“ That unites the hearts of the people, brings together those of different nations, notwithstanding their various traditions and their different manners and customs, and makes them of one heart and of one mind. And what follows? All hell is moved against them, because the kingdoms of this world—the kingdoms of darkness—are in danger. All hell is moved against this people, because we are of one heart and of one mind. ”

“ The administrators of our Government have issued orders for marching troops and expending much treasure, and all predicated upon falsehoods, while every honourable man would have first made an economical and peaceful enquiry into the circumstances. And even now, every honourable man would use all his influence to avert the present unjust and entirely groundless movement against us ”

“ We have the knowledge of those things; and we have the greatest reason to be thankful of any people upon the face of the earth. If others ought to do right, we more. Be full of love and compassion to your fellow-beings, full of kindness, such as human beings can possess, for that is our business. ”

“ While brother Taylor was speaking of the sectarian world, it occurred to my mind that the wicked do not know any more than the dumb brutes, comparatively speaking; but it is our business to hunt up and gather out all the honest portion of the nations of the earth, and give them salvation. We may very properly say that the sectarian world do not know anything correctly, so far as pertains to salvation. ”

“ We have got to protect ourselves by the strength of our God. Do not be concerned in the least with regard to all the affairs that are before you; for we shall live and grow finely, as said a certain woman, who weighed but two pounds when an infant, and was put in a quart cup. ”

“ If there was a perfect union of our faith, our enemies could never cross the Rocky Mountains; or, if they undertook to come some other way, they never could cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains, nor the Basin Rim, on our north, nor the deserts at the south. ”

“ Also to see that we are in a Government whose administrators are always trying to injure us, while we are constantly at the defiance of all hell to prove any just grounds for their hostility against us ”

“ We are not to be persecuted as we have been. We can say, "Come as a mob, and we can sweeten you up right suddenly." They never did anything against Joseph till they had ostensibly legalized a mob; and I shall treat every army and every armed company that attempts to come here as a mob. [The congregation responded, "Amen."] You might as well tell me that you can make hell into a powder-house as to tell me that you could let an army in here and have peace ”

“ I would like this people to have faith enough to turn away their enemies. I have prayed fervently about this matter; for it has been said that the troops would come: but I have said that, if my faith will prevent it, they shall not come. If God will turn them whithersoever he will, so that they do not come here, I shall be perfectly satisfied. But another man steps up, and says to the one that prays for our enemies to be turned away, "Brother, you are a coward ”

“ We have sent a delegate to Congress during the past six years, and has there ever been an opposing vote in his election? No. The people only want to know who the right man is, and then they will support him. ”

“ We have a larger proportion of foreigners in this city than in any other part of the Territory, and there are a good many here to-day who have just come in from the Plains. I want those who are native born and naturalized American citizens to raise their right hands. [Over two-thirds of the congregation raised their hands.] ”