Charles W. Penrose

“ Are the heavens sealed up and become like brass, that no man can break through, and no heavenly being come to this little world and make manifest the things of eternity? Has the Holy Ghost changed in its power and influence and revealing qualities? Or are the children of men in such a condition that they are not willing to receive the Lord and His ways and His works and His light? Has God purposely departed from the earth, or have the people of the earth departed from God? ”

“ Well, my brethren and sisters and friends, I take great pleasure in bearing testimony this afternoon in this public congregation before the heavens, before Almighty God, who shall judge the world, before Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant, before the angels of heaven who can hear and witness my words, that in these last days our Heavenly Father has revealed the ancient Gospel anew, by His own voice from heaven and by heavenly messengers sent down from on high; that the authority which the ancient prophets and apostles held in ancient times has been restored, and men hold it now ”

“ If God manifested himself in ancient times, why should He not manifest Himself in latter times? If God spoke to the world by the power of the Holy Ghost, through chosen men in former ages of the world, why not in this age? If angels came down from heaven and ministered to persons upon the earth in any period of this world's history, why not in the latter times? ”

“ It is all right to say that millions upon millions of the heathen nations for hundreds and hundreds of years have been in the dark, and that they are in the dark to-day, that they are away from God, that the light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ does not shine into their souls, that their philosophers and sages and poets and preachers and mighty men of intellect are all wrong ”

“ It is our privilege to come near unto our Father, to drink of those streams that flow from the eternal fountain, to have the Holy Ghost in our hearts every day, springing up "like a well of water unto everlasting life." ”

“ And the Zion of our God shall arise and shine, and the glory thereof shall stream forth to the uttermost parts of the earth, and God will break down every nation, kingdom and government of the earth which refuses to hearken to his voice, until the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our God and His Christ, and He shall reign from pole to pole and from shore to shore. ”

“ For the Holy Ghost has not changed, God has not changed, the truth has not changed, and the Lord is just as willing to-day as He was in the first years of the Christian era to reveal himself to those who desire to learn of Him, and the Holy Ghost is just as much a revealer to-day as it was in the olden times when the Prophets wrote and spoke under its influence. ”

“ We have assembled here to-day to worship God our Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ His Son, under the influence and power of the Holy Spirit. In order that our worship may be acceptable to God, it must be done in the name of Jesus, and it must be done under the influence or His Spirit; for "God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." We must be sincere in our worship; we must be sincere in all that we do in order that it may be acceptable to God. ”

“ A great many of those persons that I have referred to among those reformers and others who worked on the earth, as they thought for righteousness and for the Lord, have labored in sincerity, but not always in truth. A great many errors have prevailed in the world since the time when the Apostles were put to death, when the lights that God placed in the world were put out by the hand of wickedness; since the servants of God were destroyed in the flesh, a great many errors have crept into the world, and darkness has spread over the minds of the children of men. ”

“ This is our business here in Utah—to learn the Lord's ways, to walk in the Lord's paths, to be devoted to Him; not only to be baptized by water into His Church, but baptized by the Holy Ghost, that we may be brought into a oneness with our Father, brought into communion with Him, that the voice of the eternal Spirit may whisper peace to our souls, and point out the way that we shall go, and enable us to bear testimony of the truths made manifest from the Lord through His inspired servants as He reveals His will. ”

“ It is our privilege to walk in the light continually, and have the Holy Ghost to be our constant companion, directing our ways, not only our actions and our doings. but our feelings and our thoughts and our sentiments, that we may become purer and holier, day by day, until we are sanctified and made clean and white and fit to go back into the presence of our Heavenly Father. ”

“ Very few squarely deny the existence of a God; but there are a great many people who do not know whether there is a God or not; they are not satisfied in their minds. "I do not know," seems to be the sentiment of the great bulk of intelligent people now-a-days in regard to divine things.
Well, as I said in the beginning of my remarks, we have met here to-day to worship God in His way—not our way, that is, not the way we have made, not the way that any man has made, but according to the plan and pattern revealed from heaven by Almighty God, in our day and time. ”

“ The spirit that is in the head of the Church is in the body, and runs to every extremity, enlightening it, filling it with life and with vigor. And it brings forth the same fruits, which are love, joy, peace, patience, long-suffering, brotherly kindness and charity, and the light of God bears witness to these things. ”

“ If the light of God was revealed to six men in the same degree, they would comprehend the principles presented before them, the principles of the Gospel, exactly in the same way; and if six men can be united in comprehending truth exactly alike, six millions or any number of men can be united so as to see and comprehend the truth exactly in the same way, and this was the effect of the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Revealer, the spirit of life and light, which God gave to His people in the ancient Christian Church when the Gospel came to them. ”

“ If we are Latter-day Saints, we come to learn what is right and then do it with all our might, fearless and regardless of the opinions of others, or what other people may do or try to do. The business of our lives is to try and find out the will of our Heavenly Father and perform it. This we can do. There is no need to be in doubt as to what it is. There is no need to depend upon any man—Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Peter, Paul, Isaiah, or anybody else. ”

“ When God calls men to officiate, what they do on earth in His name in the way He has appointed, by His authority, is as valid as if He performed it himself in person; what they "seal on earth is sealed in the heavens;" and what they "loose on earth is loosed in the heavens." But when men administer the ordinances without authority, without inspiration, without being called and appointed and ordained specially for that work, all their ministrations are vain and valueless. ”

“ Though many have worshipped in sincerity, they have not worshipped in truth, because they did not fully comprehend the way of truth. When they read the Scriptures, they only partially comprehended them, and they differed among themselves as to the meaning of those things which they read. Thus sect has multiplied upon sect, denomination upon denomination. And in what is called Christendom, people are in confusion, not comprehending alike, not seeing the truth as it is; for if they could all see the truth properly, they would see alike ”

“ Now, though persecutors in these times do not realize it themselves, they are filled with the same spirit towards the servants of God. When Joseph Smith, called of God to be a prophet in this latter time, to usher in the great last dispensation of God's mercy to man, to bring forth the ancient Gospel as taught by Jesus and His Apostles, to reveal again the ancient Priesthood and authority thereof, to lay the foundation of the Latter-day kingdom, to prepare the way for the coming of the Son of Man ”

“ The men who were called the Reformers, who came out from the Church of Rome, and introduced a little more truth than the people previously had, and reformed several errors that were existing—were, some of them, most excellent men, and they performed a great and a good work in the earth. But they were not called of God in the way that His servants were called in ancient times who wrote the things contained in the Bible, neither were they endowed with the Holy Ghost, which those men enjoyed. They nevertheless did a grand work in the earth, and for that they will receive their reward, no doubt ”

“ The servants of the Lord in this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in spite of all attacks and schemes and efforts to stop them, will go out to every nation, kindred, tongue and people, and preach the Gospel of the kingdom as a witness before the end shall come, and they will gather the elect of God from the four winds and bring them to Zion. And these Temples which we are laboring upon will be erected, and the people of God will enter them and administer in behalf of the living and the dead, and God will commune with His servants therein. ”

“ Now, it looks to me a great deal more reasonable to think that the people of the earth have departed from God, and gone out of His way, and made ways of their own; that they have "heaped to themselves teachers having itching ears, and have turned away their ears from the truth, and have turned unto fables;" that they have become "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God;" and that they have a form of godliness, but lack the power thereof, than that God has forsaken them, without any acts of their own. Now, I know that this sounds very harsh in Christian ears. ”

“ Many Christian people do say this, and are not shocked in their feelings a bit; but to say that the Christians of this generation are out of the way sounds terrible in their ears. Nevertheless I will make bold to say that this is the fact; that the whole earth has gone astray. I will go no further than they say themselves: "We have left undone those things that we ought to have done, and have done those things that we ought not to have done, and there is no help in us. ”

“ The truth is just the same, but the people have gone astray from the Lord's ways, corrupted themselves before Him, filled the earth with abominations and iniquity, and their eyes are so closed to that which is true and pure, that when the truth is revealed from heaven, it is accounted a strange thing, and they not only turn away from it, but they are filled with hatred towards those who have received the truth and desire to walk in it. ”

“ Every man that lives, and every woman that breathes the breath of life has a right to know in his or her own heart, whether a thing is right and true or not, and those who do not strive to obtain this knowledge are derelict. "He that doeth the will of the Father shall know of the doctrine." ”

“ It sounds very disagreeable to the people who compose Christendom, to say that they have gone out of the way—those good, pious-appearing people, who express such beautiful sentiments, and have such religious emotions and such lofty feelings, and many of whom are sincere in their hearts—to say that they have gone out of the way and that they are in the dark. ”

“ No atom in nature can be destroyed. It never commenced to be; it will never cease to be. God looks upon things as they are, in their eternal nature, and therefore they are all eternal or spiritual to Him. But speaking after the manner of men we call things temporal and spiritual, natural and supernatural; yet after all when we come to comprehend them as they are, they are all material and all spiritual.
The inhabitants of the earth, as I have remarked, have been without any direct communication from God, and therefore they have been measurably in the dark. ”

“ All who ever dwelt in the earth in the flesh must appear before the bar of God, and be judged for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or evil, and they will receive a reward for the good that they did, and a punishment for the evil that they did, especially and particularly if they did evil knowingly, if they sinned wilfully, sinned against light and knowledge. ”

“ I am merely taking them as the Lord will take a great many of them: "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee." They tell the Lord, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." That is what is the matter with the Christian world. They are not walking in the Lord's way. ”

“ We at the present time are creatures of time, and we see things that change. We do not comprehend their eternal nature. We do not comprehend their essence. We only see that which is on the surface, on the outside. But God looks into the internal nature of things as well as of men, and comprehends them. ”

“ The Old Testament and the New Testament contain books which were written by men who lived in ancient times, and who were inspired of God. Those books do not contain all that was written by the servants of God, in ancient times, but only a few of the writings given to the children of men by inspiration. ”