George Q. Cannon

“ We are like a city set upon a hill that cannot be hid. Those qualities that characterize this people, which make us so remarkable, which have enabled us to make a beautiful place out of the desert, as we have done in this country, and would do wherever we might go—those qualities would draw men to us. If we were on an island we should have ships coming with commerce; upon a continent we should have railroads and means of communication such as we have to-day. ”

“ I pray God to bless you my brethren and sisters and friends, to let His Holy Spirit rest down upon you and preserve you in the truth. Let us love and cling to the truth with all our hearts, and it will bear us through. It is that which will endure in time and throughout eternity ”

“ Can any good thing come from Joseph Smith, an uneducated man? Can any good thing come out of the "Mormon" people. And the whole world seemingly is in a turmoil. Every conceivable falsehood is told about this people. Well, this will continue to be the case; I have no doubt of it in my mind. We have got this warfare to fight, and every people who have stood in our position had it before us. ”

“ Every reformation which was ever effected among men had to be effected in the face of opposition, and frequently the foundation stones have been laid in the blood of the men who were the instruments in the hands of God in laying the foundation. ”

“ We gave perfect liberty to all, and there never has been an hour since we first occupied this country when our tabernacles, boweries, and other places of worship have not been open to men of every denomination to preach within their walls or under their shade. Time and time again our children have been invited to this tabernacle to listen to ministers of different denominations, that they might know what other people taught; this has been upon the principle which Brother Woodruff has stated, that if they have one truth we have not got, we are willing to exchange our errors for that truth. ”

“ And what is there to induce him to shoulder this responsibility except principle?
We desire to have no margin of unmarried women among us. We do not want institutions among us which are not of God, and which propagate death and disease. We desire every woman to be married, and as there are not more women than men in Utah, if everyman marries, there will be no plural marriage, it will cease, and that is the best remedy in the world for this "Utah Polygamy," as it is called, Let every man marry, and there will be no single women of marriageable age. ”

“ A man marries a wife, and he does it—if he does it properly—with the clear understanding between them beforehand, that if it be right to take another, according to the tenets of his religion, he may do so. Well, he takes another wife What is the result? He doubles his responsibility, he increases his care. What man of sense or principle is there that would take these obligations upon him lightly? Would any man do it for the sake of gratifying lust? ”

“ We believe men will be rewarded for the deeds done in the body, and we therefore can afford to be liberal in our views in this respect. As President Woodruff has said, we would give every man the right to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience, knowing that he will have to be responsible for his actions, and that it is none of our business except to present the truth as we understand it before him, and if he accepts it, all right, if he rejects it he must endure the consequence. ”

“ It is not because other people do not do wrong with women that the outcry is raised against us. It is not for doing wrong with women, it is for marrying more than one woman, which we could have avoided if licentiousness had been our object, that we are attacked. When God revealed that principle to the Latter-day Saints, there were men who felt as though they would rather go to their graves than carry out that principle. ”

“ Men will be glad to seek refuge, glad to seek protection, glad to live in any place where men and women are honest and true, and where the principles which Brother Woodruff has announced, the principles of true liberty are maintained, and God grant that they may be ever maintained.
It has been said that those who have been persecuted will, when their turn comes, become persecutors. ”

“ We do not, however, believe that human beings are consigned to it eternally. The hell may be endless and the punishment endless, but it does not follow that they who are consigned there are to remain in it eternally. ”

“ We might go to the deserts of Sahara, or the most forlorn place on the face of the earth, and it would only be a little while our industry, our frugality, our union and those qualities which characterize us, would draw the world to us. We cannot be hid. ”

“ The world entertain certain ideas concerning truth, they entertain certain ideas concerning God and concerning His servants, and when men come to them with something that conflicts with these ideas they are led to reject them, and it is not until a man has died, not until in many instances his blood has been shed, that he is recognized as a Prophet of God. ”

“ They were men who had lived all their days and had been true to the covenants they had made with their wives, and the thought of marrying more than one woman was as repulsive as it could be to any men in the world. ”

“ He would have been a bold man who would have ventured to have said—unless he were a Prophet; you know Prophets take strange liber-ties; God gives them liberty to say remarkable things—that in the space already passed such great changes would have occurred in this valley, and throughout these valleys, and that this place would become so important. We hear of railroads coming in here from every direction, making Salt Lake City their objective point. We are bound to be lifted up. You cannot conceal us, it is impossible. ”

“ Here is President Taylor, and Brother Woodruff, who has spoken, and other men of mature years in those days—they know how it was. They would have shrunk from it if they could, but the very fact that they have embraced it ought to be sufficient to show the world that they are devoted to principle, that they have been willing to lay down their lives, if necessary, to carry out principle. It would be cheaper, no doubt, to discard plural wives and follow the ways of the world. ”

“ It is all very well to plead for liberty and contend for the rights of man. But wait. If you ever get power, you who have been persecuted will turn round and persecute other people." This has been cast against us as bearing out the history of the past. ”

“ Men may fight it, they may kill those who advocate it, and use every means in their power against it; but the fiat of Jehovah has gone forth concerning it, and it will spread and increase and will gather within its pale every holiest soul throughout the earth sooner or later, not making war, not attacking, not assaulting, but by the power of divine truth and by the spirit that accompanies it, bearing testimony to every honest soul. And as these troubles increase of which Brother Woodruff has spoken—for they will increase, in our own land, too ”

“ As for ourselves we are opposed to being seized by the throat, because men think we are in error. And to avoid this we have fled a number of times, leaving everything, and finally came out here into the wilderness, thinking we could have peace for a while which we have had. But this people might as well take wings and fly from the planet as try to get out of the reach of the world. ”

“ But because men marry wives and give their names to their offspring, and are not ashamed of them, and are true to these wives and do not go outside of the family circle, and believe a man ought to be killed who does it—because they do this they are decried and all hell is stirred up. Now, if these things are wrong we practice them without knowing they are wrong. We believe them to be true. We believe this principle has been revealed for the salvation of women• And a man takes a great responsibility upon himself who enters into this order. ”

“ We do not have the same motives to impel us to such a course that people who persecute have. Persecutors generally believe that those whom they persecute are doomed to spend the endless ages of eternity in hell fire, unless they can be made to repent of their errors. ”

“ But there is this difference between the dispensation in which we are engaged and other dispensations which have preceded it: we have the promise of God that His work introduced in this the dispensation of the fulness of times shall never be overthrown, so that this dispensation differs in this respect from every dispensation which has preceded it. There is no stopping this work. ”

“ These things come in contact with established institutions, with established crafts; man's craft is in danger, and hence the outcry. There is a great outcry, and it comes from those whose craft is most in danger. It has ever been so, and it ever will be so while man continues under the same influence which now operates upon him. ”

“ A man in this position, if he feels as he should do, will feel there is a great responsibility resting upon him in the taking care of the children of such marriages, in the education and training of them, and the preserving of them from vice. ”

“ So far as it is true we are wedded to it, and as such we have espoused it, as such we maintain it, and as such we hope to die believing in its tenets and practising them; but if any one else has something better let him come along. ”

“ The organization of this Church does not coincide with men's minds, it is contrary to their feelings, it comes in contact with their traditions and their prejudices. "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" ”