George Q. Cannon

“ Our virtues are lost sight of. Our industry and the good qualities which have made this land so beautiful; those qualities which have been the means in the hands of God of reclaiming this land from its desert condition, and peopling it, and making the valleys resound with the hum of industry, and creating beautiful homes in it, from north to south, and from east to west; the practice of temperance and virtue, and the other qualities which characterize this people, are entirely lost sight of, because in the opinion of the majority we are heretic. ”

“ In every age of the world, the men who have laid the foundation of reformation, who have endeavored to stem the public current, and to mark out a path different from that trodden by the majority of mankind, have had the most bitter opposition to contend with. They have had everything to meet, and in many instances have had to lay down their lives in testimony of the truth of that which they were doing. ”

“ I do not believe that 150,000 or 200,000 people can be found in any part of the globe who have the feelings of serenity and calm security, and who have less apprehension concerning the future than have the Latter-day Saints who dwell throughout these valleys of the Rocky Mountains. I do not believe another people can be found who have the feelings I describe. ”

“ We accept the Bible to-day without a question —that is, those of us who believe in Jesus Christ and in God. There is not a living witness to substantiate its truth. We accept it because our fathers and our mothers and our teachers from our earliest days have taught us that it is true, that it is the word of God, and among protestants a belief in its sacredness, that I am sorry to say is fading away in many circles, was general. ”

“ Your leaders are shrewd men, and the rest of the people are the dupes of your imposture; you exercise an influence over them, you blind their minds and they are led by you because you are shrewder than they. ”

“ Unbelief is increasing, until even among those who profess to be ministers of religion you hear the power of God questioned respecting the affairs of men, and it is a rare thing to-day to find any man, even a professor of religion, who believes that God interposes by special providence in behalf of any of His children upon the earth. It is very rarely you can find men who have such a belief. ”

“ Of course there may be some who entertain a different opinion, but they are so few that they can scarcely be noticed, certainly they cannot be heard. Even those who advocate and espouse the cause of the red man, and look upon his race as ter-ribly wronged, see no hope for him in the great future, but believe that he must disappear before the march of civilization and the increase of the pale faces. Now, Joseph Smith has predicted in this Book of Mormon the very opposite of this, and the world will yet see and know for themselves whether he is a true Prophet or not concerning this. ”

“ Murder may be resorted to for the purpose of destroying them, but as long as one remains there is a power through which God can work and bring to pass that which He has said shall be accomplished. The killing of Joseph Smith did not destroy this work, that was tried; it is not the killing of those who were associated with him that will do it. The past expulsions of the people did not injure or destroy the work, neither would any such attempts, if permitted, do so in the future. ”

“ We have invariably said to them: "You cannot commit a greater crime than to shed the blood of your fellow-men, whether it be of your own race or any other race." Our influence has been to maintain peace, to endeavor to reclaim them from their degraded and indigent condition, and teach them industrious habits and those arts which would elevate them from their degradation. ”

“ Brother Pratt has alluded, in brief terms, to the revelations which God gave unto his servant Joseph Smith, through the Book of Mormon, or through the plates upon which that record was found. To-day there is probably no greater stumbling block in the way of the people regarding this latter-day work than this record. Everything has been done that could be done to blind the eyes and darken the understanding of the children of men concerning the Book of Mormon. ”

“ But inspired of God he made these predictions, and they are left on record like the other predictions to which I have alluded, and they will be fulfilled just as sure as God has spoken. And it is in consequence of our entertaining these views that we have been accused of having undue sympathy with the red man; because we have believed that they were human beings, that they had souls to be saved, and have felt to treat them with that kindness which we think is due to every man that stands in the form of God, whatever his race or color may be, whether black or red, yellow or white. ”

“ We adhere to a religion that is, as they believe, or as they assert, an imposture, and because of this they are ready to do with us as the Jews did with the Savior, and with those who believe in his divine mission. ”

“ We have fed them, we have clothed them, we have endeavored to elevate them, we have treated them kindly. We have thought that a man who would shed the blood of an Indian would receive as severe condemnation and punishment therefore, as if he were to shed the blood of a white man. ”

“ It shows how ignorant mankind are concerning this work. There is not a faithful man, there is not a faithful woman, who crossed the Mississippi River when driven from Illinois, but felt and knew that it was right for us to go into the wilderness and to carve out a new home, far away from those people who called themselves Christians, but who belied their profession—who did not feel this as much as President Young did, or any of the Twelve Apostles. ”

“ Now, it is the general opinion—and it has been the opinion entertained for many years—that the Indian tribes would disappear, that they would be wiped out from the face of the land, that they would disappear as the buffalo have disappeared, and that it would only take a very short time until they would be obliterated. If there is any one opinion that is general in our land among the people in our Republic, this to-day is the general opinion concerning the Red Man. ”

“ We have also endeavoured to teach the people this idea, and the consequence is that travel where our people may, if it be known that they are people of Utah, they can travel with a degree of safety that no one else can, because for these thirty-four years in these mountains we have pursued this policy—not to aid them in their attacks upon the whites, but, on the contrary, to persuade them—and, in fact, we have endeavored by force of arms to prevent them from doing such things when they have resolved to go upon the warpath. ”

“ We need not look for anything else. Our religion is an unpopular one, and we might possess all the virtues of the angels and they would be obscured by the misrepresentations and the clouds of calumny that are raised against us. ”

“ A man who doubts that the Savior was resurrected the third day from death, is looked upon as unworthy of that holy name, the name of Christian. So belief change and misrepresentation and falsehood fade away as time passes on and truth is received and accepted ”

“ They believe that God allows all things to go on without interference on His part. That, however, is not the faith of Christ, that is not the teaching of the Savior, who taught His disciples and all men to go unto the Father, and ask in His name for that which they needed, and that the very hairs of their head could not fall to the ground unnoticed. ”

“ It is a living entity, and it is composed of living entities, men and women who know for themselves that this is the work of God, not depending upon Joseph Smith, not depending upon Brigham Young, not depending upon John Taylor, not depending upon Orson Pratt, or any other man tabernacled in the flesh, for their knowledge concerning this work. You might kill all these men off, if God would permit you, and still the knowledge remains until you extirpate the whole people ”

“ And from that day to the present the people have had this spirit. Not a settlement has been formed throughout these mountain regions without the people themselves who founded it, being fully imbued with the feeling that they were called of God to come to this land, and it needed no constraint from President, Young or any other man to influence them to do so. ”