George Q. Cannon

“ We see the gathering of the people together. We see such a love as is unexampled anywhere upon the face of the earth—the love that exists in the midst of the Latter-day Saints in these mountains. You may traverse the wide earth and go to every religious denomination, and even to those of Pagan belief, and nowhere else will you see such an exhibition as this I have spoken of, as you witness here. And yet these people are illiterate. These people are unlearned. These people are weak. These people have come from various nations of the earth. ”

“ If the Priesthood, and the authority, power and gifts of the Priesthood were taken from the earth and taken back to heaven, how can man ever receive it again unless some beings from the heavenly world come and restore it to man again? ”

“ The earth was full of religion, so called. There were any number of men professing to be followers of Jesus Christ, any number of men professing to be His ministers, professing to have the power and authority to administer the ordinances of His Church, until men were actually confused and distracted in their thoughts—and especially when they came to select the form of doctrine that they wanted to espouse—by the multiplicity of sects, each one claiming to be the true church of Christ. But Joseph Smith was told that this would be the effect when God would reveal His Gospel. ”

“ Not only have the sick been healed, but the blind have been restored to sight, the deaf have been made to hear, and the power of God has been manifested in accordance with the promises he has made. And it is the outpouring of the Spirit in this manner, the confirmation of God's promises upon the people, that makes the Latter-day Saints so united. It is not the strength of imposture. It is not the delusion of shrewd men. It is not because wicked men have deceived this people. ”

“ So have we had to flee from our homes in this nineteenth century, in this land of boasted liberty, the proudest nation and the freest nation upon the face of the globe—we have had to flee to these mountains and take refuge here because we believed in those ancient principles, and because we contended for the restoration of this ancient power. ”

“ You cannot witness their exhibition among any other people, nor in any other land. And it is a remarkable thing that though the Latter-day Saints number so few, comparatively speaking, there is no topic to-day that can be broached in the hearing of any of the people of Christendom that excites the interest that "Mormonism" does. And yet if you ask men the reason of this, it would be difficult for them to account for it. They only know that the fact exists; that to them and to the world at large it is a topic of unflagging interest. The "Mormons" are looked upon as a peculiar people. ”

“ A few men have done so—a few honorable men—have protested against it; but the great body of the people have assented to it, and have not only assented to it, but they have endeavored to follow us to our retired homes here and destroy us. They are not content we should live in this wilderness land which we found so dreadful, in many respects, and so hard to conquer. ”

“ We have subdued the land by continuous, persistent, and unlimited toil, and we will not cease our exertions to make this a beautiful land, and to extend hospitality to all who visit us. But we have been envied our little possessions—the fruits of our toil, the hard earnings of the last 35 years; we have been envied these; and there are those who think that the best thing that could be done with us is to extirpate us from the face of the earth, blot us out of existence. Now, I say that this is the sin of this generation. ”

“ The Latter-day Saints are gathered from the nations of the earth—the poor, the unlearned, the ignorant. Our Elders preached the Gospel to them as they understood it, and under its influence and by its influence they are successful in gathering out a few. This Territory is being peopled by them. They are being taught how to live, how to better their earthly condition, how to improve their minds, how to acquire sound education and sound knowledge ”

“ May God help you, my brethren and sisters and friends, to receive the truth and to cling to it all your lives, to love it more than life itself, that in the end you may be saved and exalted in the Kingdom of God. ”

“ To see a people united together and scattered as they are over this extent of territory held together by a few impostors,—no, such a thing is abhorrent to reason. No man with reason can believe such a statement, and accept that as the solution of this organization—that is, of the problem connected with it. ”

“ Now, what would this principle accomplish amongst a more homogeneous people than ours?—a people more united than ours originally, more one in thought and training—what, I say, would this principle accomplish among such a people as this that I allude to? ”

“ There was no church which God acknowledged amid the multiplicity of sects as His. He was told to wait until the Lord should give the power and communicate the authority. Now, though he had received this communication from heavenly messengers, Joseph Smith did not presume to take one step towards organizing a church because of the fact that he had received communications of this character. According to popular ideas, if a man had received a communication of this kind from heaven it would have been sufficient justification to him to have gone to work and organized a church. ”

“ Then for God's sake and for the sake of suffering humanity, let some men band themselves together and do, in the name of God and true religion, that which the Latter-day Saints are accused of doing in the name of imposture and false religion. ”

“ He gave unto them the strength necessary to overcome all the obstacles which laid in their pathway, and they were filled with joy and peace, and from that day until the present the man or the woman who has thus bowed in submission to the requirements of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ has been sustained, upheld, strengthened and delivered. The strength and the grace, the gifts and the blessings which God has promised have been abundantly bestowed and have made the individual who has received them equal to every emergency. ”

“ I believe there are thousands of excellent people in the world—people as good as any that are numbered in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—scattered through all the sects and in the Pagan world and in the infidel world. ”

“ And now even in these mountains our homes are envied and men would destroy us; not because we are vile; not because we do injury to our fellows; not because our land is a land of wickedness, because it is not; not because we are full of strife and war upon our neighbors and seek to destroy them; not because of any of these things is our destruction sought; but because we believe that God has spoken from the heavens; because we believe in a Church that has Prophets and Apostles, and has the Holy Ghost and its gifts in it ”

“ To account for the ingathering of the people from the nations of the earth men have recourse to many theories, or to several at least, one of which is that our Elders go out to the ignorant and unlearned and the down-trodden, and depict in glowing colors the beauties of this land of ours and the blessings that they will receive if they will only gather here ”

“ While I believe that many ancient servants of God did receive the administration of angels, I think they have ceased to administer, and when I hear people assert that they have not, it always creates in my mind a feeling of doubt, and I think anybody an imposter who asserts he has received the administration of angels in these days. ”

“ These people have been brought up in different creeds, belonging to different churches, speaking different languages, they have been trained in different habits; not of one nation, not of one form of thought, not gathered together from one township, or from one neighborhood, but from various nations and neighborhoods with this diversity of belief—that is, of former belief and education and training. ”

“ Joseph Smith went forth and he ordained other men to go forth—gave them the authority under God, he being commanded of God to impart this authority to others who were suitable, on the same principle that Moses imparted the authority to Aaron, "being called of God as was Aaron." ”

“ It is admitted too freely for the truth that we are an illiterate people. It is said that we are under the control of impostors, shrewd men, who lead the masses and bend them to their will. This is said concerning us everywhere. ”

“ You have no account of a single individual who was a servant of God from the days of Adam, our father, to John the Revelator, who did not have communication from our Father in Heaven. God communicated with the people always when they were faithful. ”

“ But when the Apostles heard that people in Samaria had received the Gospel, they sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they came, laid their hands upon them and they received the Holy Ghost. In like manner Joseph Smith received the authority by divine or by heavenly administration to baptize men for the remission of their sins, but he had not then the authority to lay on hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost. ”

“ Every one who is connected with the work and who realizes its character does seek, as I believe by observation, more diligently to comprehend the nature of the duties and responsibilities which rest upon him or her. ”

“ God bestows wisdom according to the occasion and to the necessities of the case, and He gives strength and power to those who seek after them in the right spirit. He has done so from the beginning and He will do so until the end. ”

“ Is it because they wield such influence in the affairs of the children of men! No, it cannot be said that any of these causes exist to any extent. The "Mormons" are not a numerous people. The "Mormons" are not a wealthy people. The "Mormons" do not wield political influence to any extent, nor influence of any other character outside of their own society. What, then, is it that constitutes this, I may say, attractiveness or this interest in men's minds concerning this organization? ”

“ As difficulties have increased, as obstacles have had to be overcome, and the condition of affairs has changed and seemingly grown more threatening, they have had strength and grace and power given unto them commensurate with the trials they have had to meet. ”

“ This is the cry of men who themselves are destitute of this power and of this knowledge, and who take this means of accounting for it, and of making people believe that the present condition of things is the condition that should exist and that God designed to exist. ”

“ Now, among the people called Latter-day Saints, this is an almost universal practice, and we solemnly testify that—while we are far from being what we should be, far from having that faith we should have—there are numerous instances of the sick being healed by the laying on of hands. ”

“ And God's hand has thus been manifested in the most wonderful manner in the eyes of those who believe and who have had faith, and they have had causes for thanksgiving and praise to God every day that they have lived. ”

“ No man can think it. There is something more than this. There is some power beyond this; for, as I have said, if it were not so, we should have some exhibition on the part of good men in establishing such a system as we now behold. One would think they would show their power in organizing. ”

“ Now, I know that in talking in this strain it may sound strange to many who have no knowledge of these things. They may think it a very strange thing that men should testify in our day concerning the existence of these things. ”

“ It is unlike anything else that we know of. It differs from every other system that is extant among men. There are features connected with it which cannot be witnessed anywhere else. Human nature exhibits itself, it may be said, in new forms. ”