Franklin D. Richards

“ This, then, is the foundation that all men have to lay in their hearts and lives before they begin to receive the principles of eternal life as they are revealed. You my brethren and sisters that are from Scandinavia, from the northern countries, from the Cape of Good Hope, New Zealand, Australia, and from the islands of the sea, including the frozen regions of Iceland—every one of you were taught and embraced those first principles in the primitive part of your faith and belief in the Gospel. ”

“ I pray that the good Spirit of God may dwell in our hearts; may write His law on the tablets of our hearts; may impress the principles of truth upon our minds, so that we may live them and make them profitable to us in the future. ”

“ Our peace is that which the Gospel brings. The fruit of the Spirit which the wicked can neither give nor take away. There is no use being worried over these things. It is part of our heritage. They who will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution; we have every reason to expect it. It is our duty to seek wisdom of the Lord in all matters; seek for the Holy Spirit, and attend to our own business. ”

“ We are preaching the same Gospel that was given to those ancient worthies. You can trace the Priesthood by referring to the Book of Doctrine and Covenants—the holy, high Priesthood that has come down from Adam to Noah, and down through Enoch, Methuselah and the different men of God who lived in ancient times—you can trace it clear back to Adam who was ordained under the hands of God, who told him that that Priesthood should abide in his generations and that it should be on the earth at the end of time. ”

“ In regard to the principles of the Gospel which the Lord has revealed to us beyond what He has to other people, we should remember that we shall be called to account for the use we make of them; remember that we use them, live them, and administer them in all righteousness in our lives and conduct, and while there are no two families whose conditions and circumstances are just alike, still the same general principles will have their general effect in all households. We must cultivate righteousness. We are learning the principles of the Gospel one after another ”

“ Go back in the history of the world and you will see that the greatest nations that ever existed, as soon as they commenced to pervert justice, crush truth and right, persecute God's people and exalt iniquity, then commenced their downfall, and their way was down, down, down, to demolition and destruction, until more substantial and better elements were found in their ruins with which to raise up and create something new. ”

“ It was that excellence and purity which God saw in the Puritan fathers that came over to this country for the love of the truth, and to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences,—it was that excellence that preserved them and established them here, and as long as they maintained the principles of liberty, allowed others to enjoy the same rights that they themselves enjoyed, just so long did they prosper. ”

“ They who will not in their due time and place become articles of nutriment and health to the Church and the Saints will become refuse and will be cast off. These are principles in nature and in life which all are conversant with; we know and understand them. In this dispensation of Providence, wherein it seems as though all the powers of darkness were arrayed against us, we need to understand that it is to God and to God alone that we must look. We need to understand the laws of all things well. ”

“ Inasmuch as the work of God spreads, and its influence and potency are felt among the nations of the earth, so long will this opposition and this antagonism exist, and we must expect it; it cannot be avoided. It is an eternal consequence of our faith. If we reckoned upon anything else, we reckoned wrongly. Every true Saint, when he embraced this Gospel, felt to lay down his good name, his earthly substance, and life itself,—all was laid upon the altar. ”

“ Philosophers of this world have done this; and all they of the Saints who have rendered obedience to these principles know, truly, how a faith in them exalts those that embrace them, until it has come to be a truism among the people of God, "that righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." ”

“ We will, however, remember our brethren who are absent, and pray for them; we will ask the Lord to bless and protect them, to strengthen and fill them with the wisdom of the Holy Ghost continually, that the joy and comfort of the truth and of the holy Gospel shall be theirs, and that they shall be preserved from the hands of their enemies.
We who are gathered together, instead of entertaining ill feeling of cultivating malicious designs towards our enemies, will ask the Lord to strengthen us and to qualify us not only for what is upon us now, but for what is before us ”

“ You need to have your roots strike deep into the soil of Heaven and stronger into the soil of eternity, that you may derive that nourishment and that strength that shall bring to you greater, more abundant and more glorious blessings than ever you have yet realized. ”

“ We want to know how to hold them in righteousness, because we cannot hold these precious eternal treasures in unrighteousness; if we think we can we shall be deceived and will some day find out that they are not to be held in unrighteousness, for they only take effect with the pure in heart, they that are willing to keep the commandments of God, and walk in the way of His counsels.
Sin is a reproach to any people. It is better for us right, here in this life that we keep the commandments of God, even if we did not look for any future reward of glory. ”

“ Well, then, we have nothing that we need be afflicted or worried about, except our own unrighteousness. I know how the Saints feel about many things which are menacing and intimidating them at the present time; but brethren and sisters, now is the best of all times to go often into your closets, for secret prayer, and there find that grace and help of God which is able to buoy you up in every time of need. Men that are the heads of families need now to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be Prophets, Seers and Revelators to their families, to their kindred and to those that are around them. ”

“ Because we feel happy and strong within ourselves when we lie down at night and rise up in the morning; when we go out and when we come in; we feel the sustaining influence and approval of an honest heart, of a pure conscience, and of all just people—a conscience void of offense towards God and His people. ”

“ The great thing for us to do is to feel after Him, and repent of our sins, our waywardness, and of our weaknesses and sinfulness, and put away everything that is unrighteous and that which is displeasing in the sight of God and of angels and good men. If we do this His favor and His power will rest upon us, and He will allow nothing to come upon us but what He will sanctify to our greatest good and to His own eternal honor and glory, and we shall see by and by His infinite wisdom in all His providences towards us. ”

“ We need not think, however, that although the Lord permits certain things to come upon us, that He will not soften the hearts of the wicked and ungodly. He has told us with a firm decree, that from a time when the Saints commenced to be more faithful they should begin to prevail against their enemies, and they have proved this in the deliverances that have been wrought out in their behalf from time to time. Have we any reason to doubt or lack confidence in the promises of God for the future? ”

“ God has undertaken to perform a work in the earth which is going to astonish the world, and which will give to His name honor, and glory, power and dominion. Now, all these things that occur—I need not go into any enumeration of them, because in all of your different settlements circumstances and conditions are more or less varied—it has been the studied plan of our adversaries to spread snares for our feet throughout the land; and it need not be wondered at, of course, that they who stand highest in authority should be the objects more particularly of their wicked designs. ”

“ There is something about our labor that is strangely peculiar, but not more so, perhaps, in our day than has existed in former ages of the world when the Gospel has been revealed to man. It has always seemed to be the case that whatever period of time we take up to read concerning the work of God and its effects among the inhabitants of the earth—we always find that the people of God and the people of the world have been in direct antagonism ”

“ And do you know that go where you will—among those ignorant tribes that surround us, or to the highest civilized, and most cultivated portions of the European or American nations,—the man that is obedient to the holy principles of the everlasting Gospel—if they do not know he is called a Mormon—is respected above all men who disregard the principles of righteousness and truth. If some of our brethren who work in the mining camps behave themselves and live their religion, the very men around them respect and honor them. ”

“ Now, I hope that none of the Saints will grow weak in the knees; do not let them hang down their heads, nor allow their hearts to be troubled; do not let the sisters lie awake at nights brooding over this and that, that is going to happen, and getting a great deal of borrowed trouble. There is no promise of grace to sustain them in such trouble; but the Lord has promised that His grace shall be sufficient for our day, sufficient for the troubles we have to bear; but we have no promise of grace to sustain us in borrowed trouble. ”

“ Gardeners and nurserymen especially will understand that at the close of the adverse season, when the winds and storms have loosened the soil, the roots have extended themselves deeper into the earth, when the sun shines and the gentle rain falls and the pleasant spring appears, those roots, now greatly enlarged, will cause the trees to put forth larger leaves, with more abundant bud and bloom, and with larger and more luscious fruit than before. ”

“ Let us pity while they are so blind, so ignorant, so ill-natured, and so willing to depart from good government, even to enact laws to prevent their fellow-citizens from worshipping God according to the dictates of their own conscience. ”

“ If any evidence were wanting to indicate to the doubtful, the unbelieving, or the half-hearted, as to whether we are of the world or the world of us, we are obtaining daily evidence of the fact that we are not of the world. ”

“ It is absolutely important that we and they should know which side of the fence they dwell on; that they make up their minds either to serve God or the devil; and this is a time that calls all people professing to be Saints to make up their minds determinedly whom it is best to serve, and if the Lord is their God, to get some oil in their vessels that they be not always in darkness. ”

“ Do not be alarmed though the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things. While they are in confusion and strife of every kind, you will multiply upon the earth and establish lasting peace upon the face thereof. The Latter-day Saints who are the object of all observation from the four quarters of the earth, are the only people that have pure and settled peace in their hearts and in their midst. ”

“ It is also very natural that in that grove, as the wind passes over it, the tallest trees are really the most tried part of it, for the wind and storm will dash and blow upon them, while the smaller ones that are protected by each other, scarcely feel it, perhaps. ”

“ Among other benefits that will be produced by the strange conditions that attend us is this: that while there are those among us who have not known whether they were following for the loaves and fishes, or whether they were following for the truth's sake—many who are ready to dabble in spirituous liquors and in those intoxicating drinks which inflame the passions, which madden the soul, daze their intellects, destroy the faculties of man, drowning their souls in the perdition of the ungodly ”

“ Therefore, let it be known to all the world that it is one of the first principles of the Gospel of Christ that men should repent of their sins, that they should be washed in the waters of regeneration for the remission of their sins, that then, in pursuance thereof, they may receive the Holy Ghost from heaven, which is promised unto obedient believers. ”

“ We should go to work and put transgression from our midst, cultivate righteousness and put away all sin, and by keeping His commandments and living by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of His servants the work of sanctification will go on in our hearts, our homes, and our habitations will be holy in His sight. He will not allow the acts of the wicked to come against us any longer than will be for His own glory and our greatest good. ”

“ Put up with it as Christ did when he was hanging upon the cross and his life's blood oozing out from his heart, and his spirit ready to depart, and say "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." That is the way we want to look as far as we can upon those who are oppressing and injuring us, breaking up our homes, and scattering our women and children to the four winds. ”

“ There are times and seasons when the hoary frosts of winter not only prevent the trees from showing forth their foliage, from developing any bloom, but cause them to cast their fruit to the earth, scarcely giving indications of life. ”

“ Because they are reliable; because the principles they have embraced and put into practice render them substantial and trustworthy. You go into the classes of the university or of the colleges where young men have gone in quest of an education, and you will find that the man who is pure and virtuous in his feelings, in his thoughts and in his ways, who does not delight in folly, in sin and the secret works of darkness, but is at home attending to his lessons and his duty—it is he that makes his way to the head of the class, and gets the highest honor among his fellows. ”

“ Adam was taught that he must be born of the water and of the spirit, and in demonstration of this he was caught up by the Spirit and placed in the water and brought forth out of the water, as the revelation of God to Joseph declares. ”