George Q. Cannon

“ There is nothing that will excite love in a man's heart so much as to see a wife as willing, even in her advanced years, to sacrifice her own comfort for his sake as she was when they were first married; and I am sure it must have the same effect upon a woman—to have the husband, when her charms are fading and she is growing old, and perhaps not so attractive as she was—to have the husband tender and kind and loving, not forgetting her good qualities, nor what she has done. ”

“ We know that when we have children born to us in the everlasting covenant and death takes them away, we are comforted with the assurance that though they be consigned to the silent tomb, we shall yet have them in eternity. Thus the sting of death is taken away, and the grave has no victory. Death does not fill us with gloom and apprehension and doubt and uncertainty. ”

“ A man should never talk to his children as though he were a tyrant. He should address them in kindness, and as though they were gentlemen and ladies, and they will grow up with that feeling and treat others with the same respect. Why, I would not ask my children to do me a favor without thanking them, any more than I would ask any grown person. Neither would I ask a favor of a hired hand without doing the same thing. I have been in such positions myself and know the feelings that such people have. ”

“ We must maintain law and good order, and we must frown down and put down every form of mobocracy and lynch law, and this disposition to execute vengeance outside the pale of the law. It is just as wrong for us to indulge in that spirit as it was for the mobbers of Missouri when they drove us from our homes there, or those in Illinois when they drove us from there. ”

“ Do we have peace in our hearts? Do we have order in our settlements? Do we have good order throughout these mountains? Yes, we have, and it is due to those men whom God has inspired to lead the people. ”

“ We have all the elements which are necessary to make us a great people, and we cannot be deprived of them. We are a united people to begin with. And then we are a temperate people, we are a frugal people, we are a loving people, we are a virtuous people, we are a brave people. Yes, we are a brave people; for it takes courage to be a Latter-day Saint. A man that is a coward cannot be a Latter-day Saint. A woman who is not a heroine cannot be a Latter-day Saint. ”

“ And is it not better to know and feel as we do respecting a future, to feel that there is a future before us that is bright and glorious, than it is to have our mind a blank in regard to a future, to be without hope, looking as it were into a horizon that is darkened by the densest clouds, which are impenetrable to our gaze and beyond which we can not see? ”

“ Even if everything should be as dark as it was fourteen or fifteen months ago, when it seemed as though the whole heavens were covered with the blackest clouds, with no ray of light to break the darkness, and when it seemed as though overwhelming destruction was about to come upon us—even under those circumstances God will prepare a way of escape, He will open out the path and make it plain, and we will emerge from the difficulty stronger than we were before, and be full of additional thanksgiving unto God our heavenly Father, for His goodness and kindness to us. ”

“ But our enemies say it is a delusion; but if this delusion brings peace and joy and happiness and certainty, and all those feelings that fill our soul with inexpressible delight, why, then we are in a better condition than those who are not thus deluded. But we know that we are not deluded. We know that when a wife is sealed to us by the authority of the holy Priesthood, that that ordinance is binding as eternity if we are faithful. ”

“ I think that if there is any people upon the face of the earth who should listen to the Priesthood and to the counsel of God's servants, it is the Latter-day Saints; and I think if there are any men upon the face of the earth that can claim loyalty from the people and allegiance to the Priesthood, it is the men who have borne it and who have exercised its authority from the time we settled these valleys until now. ”

“ The same wisdom that has maintained the organization of this people, and. that enables us to withstand attacks that would swamp any other people, will enable us to act in a far more extended sphere.
We have had conspiracies against our liberties from every quarter; we have had conspiracies of every conceivable character; you cannot conceive of anything scarcely in the shape of conspiracy that has not been formed against us, and yet we live and are a free people to-day. In many respects there are no freer people in the United States than we are. ”

“ God wants an honest people, a truthful people, a people whose word can be relied upon: a people whose word is as good as their bond. I do not know whether you all do or not, but if not, you ought to cultivate this quality of honesty. It is always profitable for a man to be honest. Let him get a credit of that kind and it will bring him profit; but if he deceives then confidence is gone and people will shun him. I never trade with a man that tricks me more than once. I do not say much. I suppose every body has the same kind of feeling. ”

“ A few have had temporal prosperity. But is that all prosperity consists of? Is that all success consists of? To have a little of this world's goods,—and there are very few of them that even have that. There is something else. There is the blessing of God; there is the peace of heaven; there is the joy of the Holy Ghost; there are the gifts and blessings that attend the faithful servants and handmaidens of Jesus Christ, in addition to temporal prosperity, before which temporal prosperity fades. ”

“ And people who are young are more sensitive than older persons of more experience in life, and we cannot be too careful about their feelings. We should treat one another with the utmost respect and the utmost kindness. Women should talk to their children in kindness; not harshly, and not in a spirit of scolding. It is a dreadful habit this habit of scolding. A man or a woman who is always scolding, loses influence with children and with everybody else.
I pray God to bless you and fill you with the Holy Ghost, in the name of Jesus, Amen. ”

“ So it may be said with reference to our entire Territory. We have shown our capacity in the midst of all the obstacles that have been thrown in our way, and in the face of all the attacks that have been made upon us in various forms and from various quarters—we have been able to withstand these and maintain good government. That power we still retain. We are gaining experience day by day. God is training us in this way. We are receiving a training such as no other people receive. Men are being made statesmen in spite of themselves. ”

“ I do not think there is any feature that is so much disliked and so much found fault with as that peculiar feature of our religion which requires us to listen to the counsels of the Priesthood. In this respect we differ from every other people upon the face of the earth. ”

“ Where men take the law in their own hands and seek to redress their own wrongs, it is abominable, and should be frowned upon everywhere. Better for us to suffer any number of wrongs than that we should resort to violence. ”

“ Virtue lies at the foundation of greatness. We mean to promote it and encourage it in the rising generation. In order that the rising generation should have it, the mothers must have it, and feel its importance, and the fathers also. And then we must teach all those other virtues that belong to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our religion is admirably adapted to every circumstance of life. ”

“ And when anarchy reigns, as it will do, for it is coming, and every man that opens his eyes to see the evils that abound—if he does not persistently resist the truth—must have a secret dread of it in his heart; when that comes, there will be no power upon this continent that will be able to stem it., except the organization which God has given to us. We have shown our capacity for self-government ever since we came here, from the very fact that we had no government except that which we framed. ”

“ We know also that when a man buries his wife, the faithful partner of his life, if she were married to him by the holy Priesthood, he knows when he lays her away in the grave that that is not an eternal separation, but that they will again be united. And so with the wife when she lays away her faithful husband, she knows as well as she knows she lives that they will be united, and that they will dwell together throughout eternity, if she continues faithful to the truth. ”

“ The nations that have possessed the qualities which our people possess have always been the honored nations. They have. been the nations that have won their way to power and have compelled admiration even from their enemies. These qualities we possess, and we mean to cultivate them. We mean to train our children in these virtues. We mean to make them a virtuous people above every thing else. That is the most desirable quality in this age of sin and corruption, when women, in many instances, are unsafe in the society of men. ”

“ I would rather-see men punished with death—which we believe is a law that should be put in force against any man who ruins woman—than that there ever should be a time in our country when corruption and wrongs of this character should run riot and be unchecked. Virtue lies at the foundation of individual and national greatness. No man can amount to much who is not a virtuous man, who is not strong in his virtue ”

“ God is blessing this people. He is causing them to increase, and He is giving us a firmer foothold. I am glad of it. I want to see this work increase, because I love it, and because I love every thing connected with it. It is not a partisan feeling. It is not a selfish feeling that a certain portion of people may be blessed more than other people. ”

“ I AM greatly pleased at having the opportunity of meeting with the Latter-day Saints in this place, and I trust that our meeting will be profitable to all. It is a most excellent thing to come together as we have done to-day, and as we shall do tomorrow, and have an interchange of views and partake of that spirit which is accessible to all of us—that is, to all those who have placed themselves in a position to receive it, by keeping the commandments of God. ”

“ We had to form our own government and make our own laws. We have had Governors who have fought our laws even when our Legislature has enacted them unanimously. So that that which we have to-day in the shape of good government is due to ourselves, under God. It is due in Beaver to the Latter-day Saints under God. If we have maintained order and resisted anarchy in Salt Lake City, it is because of this man [President Taylor] and the man that preceded him in his office, controlling and guiding the people all the day long ”

“ Destitute of many things that men and women consider essential to earthly comfort, yet they had that which is above price, and which riches cannot bestow, namely, the peace of heaven, the peace of God resting down upon them. And they have been a rich people from that day to the present. If they have not glad hearts and cheerful countenances it is their own fault. ”

“ Now, it is our duty to honor our God, and in honoring God we do not show dishonor to others. Because I feel in my heart to honor the Priesthood that God has restored to the earth, I do not therefore mean nor do I feel any sentiment of dishonor towards anybody else. It does not make me any the less a loyal citizen or a true man because I do this ”

“ They hate oppression, they hate it in every form, and they will fight it as long as it exists upon the face of the earth, until it is stricken down, and until it ceases to exist. They are bound to do that. The principles of their religion compel them to do it. ”

“ I never quarrel nor find fault, but then I think a great deal, and I suppose most of the people have a good memory for these sort of things.
As Latter-day Saints, we should be honest, truthful, frugal and economical, and do every thing we can to improve our condition. Every man that has a poor house should seek to get a better. When I started out in life I attached little importance to the matter of a house. ”

“ Men admire that quality wherever they see it. There is nothing so admirable as courage of that description. It impresses even our enemies. "Why," they say, "if this girl can do such a thing, what shall we do with a people of that kind?"
Well, courage is a quality that this people have always manifested. They have submitted to wrongs, it is true ”

“ The men who followed President Brigham Young and the Twelve Apostles over whom he presided when they left Nauvoo and came across to Iowa and followed the Indian trails to the Missouri River and built Winter Quarters, and then in the spring of 1847, traversed the plains, the untrodden—that is, to them they were—wilds, of which they knew nothing—people who followed him and them to Salt Lake Valley, and laid the foundation of Salt Lake City, they have been the people who have been the most blessed of God and most prospered ”

“ I want to see it in our country that our young ladies in the company of our young men, in any place and under any circumstances, in the darkest hours and in the most unprotected situations, will feel as safe as if they were in their mothers' bed chambers so far as anything wrong from the opposite sex is concerned. ”

“ You may strip them, as I have seen them stripped, of earthly possessions, and turned loose in a wilderness without a place of security and not knowing where they would find a resting place, and yet they were as happy a people as I ever saw in my life. ”

“ They may not have rich surroundings, an abundance of this world's goods, elegant houses, nor elegant furniture for their houses; but when they have this spirit they are happy and they are full of peace and joy. ”

“ On the contrary, it is sometimes an evidence of the highest and the purest and the best courage, to be willing to suffer wrong rather than take a course that could not be approved of to resist it, and these qualities in the struggle that lies before us will tell. You find a people who are frugal, who are temperate, who are industrious, who are united, who are loving, and who increase as we do, and they will make their mark on the earth. Such qualities always did tell in the struggle for existence among men from the. ”

“ And when I see wives in houses of a poor class when their husbands might build, better, I think their husbands do not understand woman's nature as they should do. Women with families should have good houses, and husbands should labor to get them, and then leave them to adorn them and make them comfortable and desirable. ”