Erastus Snow

“ I exhort every Bishop and presiding Elder in this city as well as throughout the country to lay this matter to heart as one subject requiring their special attention. Not to make it a hobby to the exclusion of everything else, so as to disgust the people, but in the true spirit of the Gospel seek to bring this matter home to the hearts and understandings of the people of their respective wards and settlements. Feel after those who may be stupid and ignorant, who do not come to meeting, and do not receive the spirit of this Conference. ”

“ If there is any lack of disposition on the part of the ladies it is because they are not living their religion, for the neglect of one duty leads to the neglect of another, and if our young men and women fail to make themselves acquainted with the law of God they are liable to be led away. Young men or women seeking the society of the wicked are soon befogged and led to destruction. If the young men of Israel are not alive to their duties, the young ladies may be left to wander in the society of the ungodly. ”

“ They should govern and control, not by brute force, but by superior intellect, sound judgement and the wisdom that the Gospel teaches that they may win the hearts of their pupils, and so be able to impress their minds with those principles they present before them. ”

“ We can do with a number of young men who have small families or who are about to get them, and I say God bless them, and speed them and their wives on their way and by the help of God we will help them. ”

“ The subject of home production and becoming a self-sustaining people is another text, and this will probably guide me right back to "Dixie." I will ask the question, How are we going to become self-sustaining unless we avail ourselves of the elements around us and provide ourselves and families with what we need to eat, drink and wear, and our implements of husbandry and other thing [s] of like nature? We need iron ware and machine shops. ”

“ From three hundred to five hundred acres is the most that we can water from one dam and canal in that district of country, while lower down, the same labor would encircle a field of six or eight thousand acres of better land ”

“ Let the Bishops and others in authority endeavor through their teachers and otherwise to search out such individuals, and dig round about them, and prune them that they may perchance bring forth fruit. ”

“ Instead of raising them all to be farmers or mule drivers, we want a goodly portion of machinists, painters, artists, smiths, school teachers, and all other useful professions. We shall also need lawyers. ”

“ The southern country affords us facilities for r [a] ising many things that can not be successfully raised in the north. We have had one four years of internecine war that has almost entirely prevented the raising of cotton—perhaps the most essential of all productions for articles of clothing. Will we as a people be blind to this fact, and now, that the first woe is past, lull ourselves to sleep and forget that there is another coming. ”