George Q. Cannon

“ Every few days, every few weeks, or every few months, they think that something is going to occur, that will cause our destruction—I mean friends who have not the faith and the knowledge that we have. But this work of our God will go forth, despite all the opposition that will be brought against it. It will win, because it is true. As we have been told by Brother Woodruff, the eternal principles of truth are on the earth now in an organized form, and you cannot kill them unless you kill the people themselves. ”

“ Every power that is conceivable is brought to bear against us. We are maligned. We are represented as everything that is vile. Men think that in killing us they will be doing God service; not because of our wickedness, but because they believe we are wicked, because the adversary has had such power through falsehood and misrepresentation, that men believe that they will be doing God service in exterminating us from the face of the earth. And what is it that restrains the efforts of our enemies? It is the power of God only. ”

“ And this is the course that the servants of God have always taken with mankind, and hence, as I have said, the condemnation of the inhabitants of the earth, because they will not receive that testimony. They abuse the Church of Christ without having reason or foundation for doing so; they abuse it without having any evidence that is at all tangible or that can be relied upon; they have nothing more than their personal feelings, personal prejudice, and their personal tradition—that which they have inherited from their fathers—upon which to base their opposition. ”

“ It is a great work we are engaged in. The desire I have for every man and woman of this Church is, that they may be true, and that their children may live to be true to God in days to come; for we are laying the foundation of a work that shall stand undisturbed for one thousand years. Then, in the purposes of God, Satan will be loosed again for a little season, but it will only be for a little while. We are engaged in laying the foundations of that work. It is the most glorious work that could be committed to man. ”

“ Because, unless a man knows something to the contrary, unless he has had a testimony that these things are false, he is not justified in condemning them. There is only one way in which they can be fairly condemned, and that is by proving their falsity, by obtaining knowledge that is directly in contradiction to that which is borne testimony to. In this consists the condemnation of the inhabitants of the earth at the present time, as it has consisted in every age when God has had a work to do upon the earth. ”

“ They say to the people who do not listen to them: "You will be visited with the most terrible judgments if you do not believe what we say; you will go to hell, and you will burn there throughout the countless ages of eternity, if you do not believe what we tell you." ”

“ There have occasionally some persons arisen who have endeavored to stem the tide of wickedness that the devil has caused to flow over the earth; but there has been no Priesthood on the earth, no organized church, no organized power, through whom God could operate, and you may depend upon it, now that there is one, there will be a mighty struggle. It will cost the best efforts of which we are capable, to lay the foundation so successfully that it shall not be overturned, to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every kind of opposition will be brought against this work. ”

“ While Brother Woodruff was talking, I thought what an immense labor it is to endeavor to accomplish that which the Prophets have told us will be brought to pass in the last days. I look at this people so comparatively few in numbers, and at the immense work that is to be accomplished, and it seems an herculean, an impossible labor to the natural vision. It seems as if no human beings could accomplish it. But God has spoken concerning this work. ”

“ If he does not have revelation himself from God, he should, at least, be modest in contradicting the testimony of others who declare that they have had revelation from Him. The whole religious world in Christendom profess to believe in God. They declare that God lives and are continually preaching to the people a belief in Him, a belief in Jesus, saying that Jesus is the Son of God, that He lived upon the earth in the flesh, that He has gone to the Father, and that they are His ministers, having power to do certain things in His name, and to teach His doctrines. ”

“ But with this there is a power that makes hell tremble. It makes the Devil mad. It makes every man that is afraid of the truth angry in his spirit because of that which he sees. If men were not afraid of truth there would be no fear connected with this work. What is there about it to create fear? What is there in its manifestations, in its fruits, and in its operations upon the minds of the children of men to cause any man who loves truth to have any dread concerning it? ”

“ Certain men have gone forward in the midst of their fellow men, and in solemnity and in truth have testified that God has spoken, that God has given revelations, that God is doing a certain work in the earth of which they are the witnesses. They know this, they say, for themselves and bear testimony of it, and exhort their fellow men to seek for knowledge in the same manner in which they have sought for it, with an assurance that if they do so they will obtain knowledge. ”

“ You turn to them— to these men who profess to have the fate of their fellow beings in their hands, whose efforts, as they state, will send millions to heaven and millions to hell—you ask these men who profess to have such awful powers as this—"By what authority do you make these statements? Has God given you any testimony that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not the true Church? ”

“ Has God told you anything about it?"
"Oh, no," they will say, "God has not spoken to us. We do not believe He talks to anybody. We believe he has stopped all communication with man; that no living man has heard His voice, or knows anything about His mind and will." ”

“ It is only the power of God that restrains our enemies from overwhelming us. If it were not that God has said this shall not be, and has told us that He will establish this work never more to be thrown down, we would not be able to stand. But victory will perch upon our banners, and will do so until the end. But it will not be without a mighty warfare, the hostility against this work will be continuous. No man need calculate on anything else. ”

“ It is the power and lever, so to speak, by which humanity will be elevated to the presence of God our Eternal Father, for the very reason that the exaltation which God has attained to, has been through obedience to these self-same laws that are now taught to us. ”

“ We don't believe God has given you any authority. We don't believe your doctrine to be from God. We don't believe that the church you have organized, and that you declare is the Church of Christ, is the Church of Christ ”

“ That which obeyeth law is preserved and sanctified by law. The people who obey law will be exalted by law; they will be preserved by it, they will be sanctified by it; and that is the effect of the teaching of the Gospel upon the Latter-day Saints. ”

“ God will bless us if we seek to do His will. Remember, my brethren and sisters, that that which obeys law is preserved and sanctified by law. If you want to escape evils, obey the law that God has revealed. ”

“ You know it, each of you who have espoused it. You know its effects upon you. You know it has made you better men. You know it has made you men of purer lives, of loftier desires, of more God-like aspirations. ”

“ Every man, every woman, and every child connected with this work is a witness of the truth of this. If it has this effect upon you, will it not have the same effect upon every human being who comes within the range of its influence and who bows in submission to its requirements? Certainly it will. There is no human being, however low, that it will not elevate, if he will obey it. ”

“ Their power is exerted in our behalf, and the results we can see in the deliverances which are wrought out so miraculously for our good. It is a cause of amazement how we are delivered from time to time, so few in numbers, and so hated as we are. ”

“ It is the height of presumption for a man who professes to believe in God, to rise up and at his own instance and of his own will, because he chooses to take that view of God, and of God's method of dealing with man, and declare that the testimony of the man who says he has had revelation from God is false. ”

“ If it should be necessary to do this, and it cannot be done any other way, we would be willing to have armies resort to violence and have bloodshed, rather than such a dreadful heresy and such a wicked system should be perpetuated on the earth. ”

“ Now, notwithstanding men have done this, the world, without pretending to have any counter demonstration or testimony, without being able to disprove by the same sort of evidence, condemn wholesale, without discrimination or hesitation those testimonies and declare them to be false, and assert that the men who bear them are either deceived themselves or are striving to deceive somebody else. ”

“ It is beneficent in its operations. It elevates men and women; it makes them better, purer, more God-like, more orderly. It bestows blessings—this system does—upon all who espouse it, and all who come within the range of its influence. ”

“ It is not a proper method of dealing with affairs of this character; because if there is a God, and one man says he has had communication with Him, and another, who believes also, or professes to believe in God, denies that the first has had any such communication, and yet does not pretend that God told him any such thing, does not pretend to have had any communication from God—the contradiction of the one is not equal to the affirmation of the other. ”

“ We would have a pure people here; we would have a Zion such as the Bible describes, if we were allowed; we would have a city in which angels might walk in the streets all day, if we could have our way ”

“ God knowing this has reserved in the heavens to come forth at this time the noblest of His spirits, the men and women most capable of carrying out this work, and achieving the grand results the Prophets have predicted should be accomplished in the day and generation, preparatory to the coming of the Son of Man. ”