George Q. Cannon

“ They were willing to take upon them the obloquy and shame; to be sawn asunder, to have their heads cut off, to be crucified, to be thrown into the dens of wild beasts, and to suffer anything and everything, every kind of death, for the sake of the Gospel that they had embraced, and they endured these things unflinchingly. Will they receive only the same glory as those who pass along without any affliction and suffering, and who have pleasure all their days? ”

“ This is not the faith of the Latter-day Saints. The Gospel that we have heard brings to us peace and joy. There is no feature in it from the contemplation of which we recoil. There is no feature connected with it that we can not sit down and contemplate with pleasure and joy, and the more we contemplate and investigate it, the higher our admiration rises for the author of it—the great and good Creator who has revealed it. ”

“ What could be offered to us that we have not got in our religion? Is it wealth? I expect to have boundless wealth and boundless dominion, if faithful to God; and I expect that every faithful man and woman in the Church will have everything that his or her heart can desire in this Gospel which God has revealed. The Prophet Isaiah, speaking of Jesus, says, To the increase of his kingdom there shall be no end. That promise is also made to us—to the increase of our kingdom there shall be no end. What did the Lord say to Abraham when he had blessed him? ”

“ Who can contemplate such a plan of salvation, or rather condemnation, and admire the author of it, and worship him as a just, pure and holy being? Is there any wonder when such theories are propounded and advocated by the professed ministers of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, that men have revolted at such a belief and would not exercise faith in Jesus Christ? The wonder to me is that so many have received teachings from men who, professing to be ministers of Christ, have entertained such views as these. ”

“ We, with all our faults, do love one another. The Latter-day Saints dwell together in unity, no matter where they come from. They come here by hundreds and thousands from foreign lands, but here they are in the midst of their friends. They may not speak the same language, and may have different habits and ways of living, but when they reach here they are at home. This is one of the results of the Gospel. It is strange, but how beautiful and Godlike, and how much it ought to fill our hearts with gratitude that we live at a time and are associated with a people who are thus blessed. ”

“ I would not give a fig for my religion if it would not do this, so long as its believers are not extirpated, as were the believers in the Gospel in ancient days. If they will only let us live and enjoy our natural and heaven-bestowed rights, I have no fears as to the result. It is true that the wicked could turn in and kill us off in detail, as they killed our ancient predecessors—the Apostles and followers of Christ. In that day they killed every man that professed to have revelation from God. ”

“ We had better watch well our ways, look well to our hearts, keep our minds well on the principles that God has revealed, and love our religion more than anything else on the face of the earth. We must preserve our love for the principles of our faith intact and inviolate, free from every impurity. ”

“ Millions died on this great continent before the landing of the whites on American soil—countless tribes of Indians wandered to and fro from the polar regions of the north to the equator, and from the equator to the polar regions of the south, and not one amongst them all knew anything about God, his Son Jesus Christ, or the plan of salvation. They lived and died, generation after generation, in ignorance of these important truths, and many of them were doubtless just and upright men, so far as their traditions enabled them to act and walk uprightly. ”

“ It has been a matter which has puzzled thousands of well-meaning, honest people who believed in God and in the Gospel as far as they knew it,—to understand what disposition would be made of those who died in ignorance of the Gospel. For instance, the millions of heathen who have died without having heard the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Many men, including ministers, have entertained the idea that they go to a place of punishment from which there is no escape, but that they welter there in torment throughout the endless ages of eternity. ”

“ We who live on the earth are eternal in one sense—our spirits are eternal; and the elements of which our bodies or tabernacles are created are also eternal. They can be changed, dissolved and reconstructed, recreated and reorganized, but they are eternal, and so are we, and we shall live eternally. God's providences and God's salvation are not confined to this space of time, which we call life; but they extend throughout eternity and when individuals die in ignorance of the Gospel they will have the opportunity of hearing that Gospel elsewhere. ”

“ It is natural for man to seek to exercise rule wherever he can; and it is perfectly right when bounded and controlled by principle.
In the Gospel there is open to us room for the exercise of this feeling without any evil results following it. We can, if we choose, in this life lay a foundation for eternal riches, dominion and rule, and the possession of all blessings which God has promised to the faithful. We therefore look for a heaven of this kind. The Latter-day Saint does not look for an empty heaven, where he has got to sing continually to the thrumming of the harp. ”

“ We are brought nearer to God, we feel that there is a spark of immortality within us, that we are indeed immortal and partakers of the Divine nature, through our inheritance as the children of God. And this is the effect that the principles of the Gospel, when properly understood, have upon mankind. ”

“ The Saints look for a tangible heaven, the same as we have here, only glorified immensely. We expect to be like God, our heavenly Father—to take part in creation, in the creation and peopling of new worlds, and in doing things similar to what God has done. ”

“ May God bless you, my brethren and sisters and friends, and pour out his Holy Spirit upon you, enlighten your minds and strengthen you in doing right, regardless of consequences, that you may be able to endure to the end, which I pray in the name of Jesus. ”

“ If God would permit it, we might be hunted, slain and driven until all were finally extirpated from the face of the earth, and in this way, probably, our religion would not stand and endure the contest or contact with what is called a superior civilization. But so long as we are allowed to live, and to enjoy the exercise of our opinion in this great nation, whose boast it is that it is the land of untrammeled liberty, I do not fear the contest or its result, and in saying this I believe I speak the sentiments of every man and woman who belongs to the Church in this Territory. ”

“ God has placed us here, we are his children, and he loves us all. We can not begin to understand the love that God our Father has for his children. He loves all that dwell on the face of the earth—the dark sons of Cain that dwell in Africa and in America, in Asia and throughout the islands of the sea, as well as those who live in Europe and America who are of the white race. ”

“ Unless a law is proclaimed unto men, that they may understand it, there can be no transgression of that law, and consequently no condemnation following its transgression; and if condemnation follow, there must be a knowledge of law. There must be a comprehension of a law and wilful violation of it, before condemnation can come. There is no room for the exercise of pity to a person who, knowing a law, violates it. We do not have any feelings of pity to men who violate our laws when they understand them. ”

“ We have, therefore, at the present time, that at our doors, which menaces us with greater danger than mobs. I do not dread the results, but doubtless many, unless they are very careful, will have their hearts hardened and their eyes blinded by, and they will fall a prey to and be overcome by, these evils, which the adversary is seeking to pour upon us. ”

“ We are but a small handful of people, and we are surrounded by the foremost civilization of the age, which is believed in and upheld by forty millions of people, who have in their possession all the agencies of the pulpit and the press—the most advanced agencies of civilization; and our barbarism, as it is called, is brought face to face with their advanced civilization. We do not shrink from the contest, but are willing to abide the issue and to submit to the results. We are not afraid of this Gospel. ”

“ Peter was the senior Apostle—the President of the Twelve, and he, therefore, had the right to hold the keys, and to seal a wife to her husband, and the ordinance would be bound in heaven as he bound it on the earth. The Latter-day Saints claim to have received the same authority. We believe when we marry that we marry for eternity, and that our wives and children will dwell with us in eternity. This is our faith. It was over his posterity that Abraham was to reign. ”

“ There is danger not in mines alone, not in the increase of strangers in our midst, not in the seducing influences which attend the presence of some of them, but in the fact that we ourselves are growing wealthy, and that it is natural for us to become attached to wealth, and for the mind of man to be allured by it, and by the influence which it brings. ”

“ Recollect the words—joint heirs with Jesus Christ, and as he has dominion and rule so will they. He that has been faithful over a few things shall be made ruler over many, says Jesus; and in another place he says that all who have forsaken fathers, mothers, houses or lands for my sake shall receive a hundred fold in this life, and in the life to come life everlasting. We are promised, then, a hundred fold for all we forsake in this life, and life everlasting hereafter. ”

“ I recollect on one occasion preaching on the Sandwich Islands to a large congregation, endeavoring to prove that baptism for the remission of sins was necessary, and that, according to the words of Jesus to Nicodemus, unless a man was born of the water and of the Spirit he could in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven. ”

“ It is a poor religion that will not stand one, two, three, or half a dozen railroads, or that will not stand in the midst of the hottest persecution, and triumph when in contact with everything that can be brought against it. ”

“ It is so with everything connected with our religion. There is nothing impure about it—it is God's. There may be impurity in men, and they may fail in carrying out the doctrines which God has entrusted to them, but this does not alter the doctrines. They are true and good from beginning to end, from the first to the last that has been committed to us, and their practice among the people will exalt them. ”

“ We may regret their course, but when we know that they understood the law, and had power to live above it, and that through yielding to their weaknesses and to their propensities they have violated the law, we feel to say, "Let justice take its course, the punishment is a just one, and they must abide by it." ”

“ The mobs came upon us, and they cleansed from among us the hypocrites and cowards, and those who could not endure. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, which brought persecutions, and called upon men to forsake houses and lands and everything that was dear to them, and to push out into the wilderness, had no attraction for the classes I have named, in the early history of the Church ”

“ If God has entrusted us with the revelations of his will, if he has taught us holy and pure doctrines, as we testify that he has, we would be recreant to God and to the duties and obligations he has placed upon us if we did not stand up and face the world in arms, if necessary, to maintain his great truths in the earth. ”

“ There is something revolting to the merciful mind in the idea that God, our Heavenly Father would condemn millions of people to endless pain because of their ignorance of some great principle or truth, which he might have communicated to them but did not. ”

“ It is true that men can find employment and considerable enjoyment in the acquisition of wealth, and in expending the same in the busy scenes of life, but after all, there is something unsubstantial and unreal about everything of this character. Decay is written upon everything that is human, death is written upon everything that we put our hands to and upon ourselves We know that we are here but for a short time; we know that everything we possess will, like ourselves, perish and pass away ”

“ To think that God would consign to endless torment millions of his creatures who died in ignorance, of which they might have been relieved if he had revealed his will and sent his ministers unto them! ”

“ Will those who, live lives of ease and pleasure, consulting their own inclinations and gratifying them, be saved with those who endure all things for the truth's sake? We read in the scriptures of men and women who aspired to serve God with all their mights, and to do everything that was required of them. ”

“ No, the Apostle Paul, in the chapter that has been quoted from—15th chapter of the 1st of Corinthians, makes it plain that there is a difference in the degrees of glory that men will receive after death. He says that there is one glory of the sun, another of the moon and another of the stars. This shows that different degrees of glory will be awarded men and women in the resurrection according to their faithfulness here. ”