George Q. Cannon

“ He has chosen weak men, fallible men, men who are subject to all the failings and weaknesses of human nature. But, nevertheless, it is the authority of God. It is the authority by which He has built up His Church in all ages. It is the authority, the only authority upon the earth that can act in His name. When a man has this authority and goes forth and confines himself to its legitimate exercise and keeps within the bounds of his authority, God is with him; God confirms that which he does; God places His seal and His blessing and approval upon his acts ”

“ Virtue is upheld. Women are shielded as safely as they were when they were infants in their mother's bosoms—shielded from harm, shielded from the seducer, from those who would wreck their happiness. This is the case throughout all our society. Do drunkards flourish among us? Are they encouraged? We know they are not. Are persons encouraged in litigation and quarrelling? No; nowhere in the land is there anything of this kind. Peace prevails; good order prevails; quarrellings are seldom heard; virtue is protected and encouraged. Marriage is encouraged everywhere. ”

“ Every one of us will bring upon ourselves either salvation or condemnation as the case may be, according to the manner in which we exercise our agency before God. It is by this Priesthood and the exercise of it, that the blessings of God will flow unto us. It is by this Priesthood that we are bound together. God has surrounded us by bonds that are indissoluble. They cannot be separated. Time cannot wear them out. They will endure throughout eternity. It is a most wonderful tie, the binding tie of the holy Priesthood. ”

“ It is well for us, who, as a people, believe in Priesthood, that we should understand the nature and character and power of the Priesthood which God confirms upon man when He calls him to act in His stead in the midst of the people. As a people we differ in our views upon these points from almost every other church. There are one or two sects in existence which attach a great importance to Priesthood, but the most of them which form the so-called Christian world reject the idea of Priesthood, and deny that it is necessary for it to be bestowed upon man. ”

“ By it the man will draw his wives to him; by it the father and mother will draw their children to them; by it generation will be linked to generation, until all will be united clear back to our father Adam, the father of the human race on the earth. ”

“ Has the cry of distress gone up? Has the cry of the poor and the oppressed ascended from these valleys unto God unheard by the people? Do orphans and widows mourn and weep because of the circumstances which surround them? ”

“ But the time will come when there will be a separation, a final separation, of the righteous from the wicked, and that separation will be brought about by the exercise of the Priesthood which God has bestowed. That Priesthood will draw up from the earth the pure, the holy, the worthy. It will draw them up to the society of God. Everything that is not pure will be left behind. ”

“ Now, the prevalent idea in the world has been that if a man should be so favored as to receive the ministrations or visitations of angels, or to receive any manifestations of what might be termed a supernatural character, he would be completely invested with the power necessary to preach the Gospel unto his fellow-men and to administer all the ordinances thereof. But the Prophet Joseph not only received the ministrations of angels, but actually had revelations from God, which are written in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and which are now the word of God to the Church. ”

“ We should be particular ourselves and should impress every man with the great care that he should exercise to confine his acts to the authority which he has received from the Almighty.
Jesus himself, no doubt, was equally careful in regard to the authority which He held. He was called to be a Priest after the order of Melchisedec—that is, this higher Priesthood. He exercised the authority thereof among the children of men. He still is a Priest after that holy order. It was by virtue of that Priesthood that He officiated in the ordinances that He administered unto men. ”

“ I believe this is of extreme importance, and that where there are doubts as to a man's legitimately exercising that authority, that doubt should be removed. Every man should be careful on this point, to know where he gets his Priesthood; that it has come to him clean and undefiled, legitimately; and when men are cut off from that Priesthood by the voice of the servants of God, there is an authority on the earth which God recognizes in the heavens, and that man is cut off from the Priesthood. ”

“ Never were a people upon the face of the earth since the Priesthood was among men, so bound together as we are being bound; and this is the glorious feature of the tie that binds us together; it can only operate upon those who are righteous; it can only have effect when righteousness prevails and where people live in such a manner as to receive the promises of God. ”

“ In rebelling against the Catholic Church and its pretensions men have gone to the other extreme, and have discarded the idea of Priesthood entirely, and claimed that all men are alike before God; that all men are equally endowed with authority from God, and to exercise the power and the authority that were originally bestowed upon those who held the truth. ”

“ When the servants of God have proclaimed the truth Satan has ever been ready to say, "believe it not!" He has instilled into the minds of the children of men hatred for the truth—that is, every one that has been willing to listen to him. ”

“ No doubt they have, because they have had knowledge concerning the Savior that other lands and other peoples have not had; but in pagan lands, where the name of Jesus has never been heard, where men have sought after God and endeavored to live according to the light that He has given unto them and the Spirit that He has bestowed upon them, and which He bestows upon every man and woman born into the world, He has accepted of them, and in the day of the Lord Jesus, the heathen will have part in the first resurrection. ”

“ It does not bind the wicked to the righteous. It does not bind the wicked to the wicked. Its power and saving force can only be exercised or enjoyed where righteousness prevails. Hence when the people of God come forth in the resurrection, they will come forth pure. There will then be a separation of the wicked from the righteous. The righteous will enjoy their own society. In this probation it seems to be designed in providence of our God that we should all be mixed up together—no thorough separation. When we came to these valleys we thought we had left the world behind us. ”

“ God in heaven bound by the oath and the covenant that He has made, bound by all the conditions that pertain to the everlasting Priesthood, will cause the Holy Ghost to descend upon that soul, and he or she will be filled therewith. He receives the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost, and it stands on the earth and it stands in heaven recorded in favor of that soul if he continues to observe the conditions under which that baptism and confirmation are administered. ”

“ This illustrates most perfectly how careful men ought to be in acting in the name of God, not to overstep the bounds of the authority conferred upon them, but to carefully keep within those limits that are assigned to them in which to exercise authority. It is a lesson unto us as a people. ”

“ We thought that because these mighty mountains, which reared themselves on every hand as an impassable barrier between us and the rest of the world, Babylon was left behind. We thought we could live comparatively pure lives, and that we would be comparatively free from the associations of the world. But such ideas have been dispelled—very rudely dispelled—by that which has occurred. Babylon followed us. We find that these mountains are not sufficient to divide us from the rest of the world ”

“ There is no place upon the face of the earth where these virtues are better exemplified in the lives of the people than they are in Utah Territory. What woman cries aloud in our streets because of being defiled? What woman cries in vain for protection in all our land, from east to west, from north to south? ”

“ It may be possible that there is not another like it in the history of our race where a man was so highly favored of God, endowed with such authority, such power and had such manifestations of the mind and will of God as he received without having the Holy Priesthood. ”

“ A man who practices wrong may have all these blessings pronounced upon him; he may have been baptized and have had hands laid upon him; he may go through the Temple and have wives sealed to him and have every blessing promised unto him that is promised to the most faithful of the children of God, and yet if he does not live so as to be worthy of these blessings he will not receive them ”

“ This Priesthood, as I have said, came down unto Moses, but the children of Israel would not have it in their midst. We are told very plainly in the revelation that Moses sought diligently to sanctify his people and to lead them into the presence of God by means of this Priesthood, but they would not have it. The ordinances of godliness that were administered by it were not acceptable to that generation; they rejected them, and besought Moses to stand between them and their Father and God, for they could not endure His presence. ”

“ Yet on this land we are threatened as a people because of these things. Our liberty is jeopardized. All kinds of machinery are put into operation to destroy us, or to entrap and ensnare us, and deprive us of liberty. ”

“ See how many men are being used by the adversary of souls to accomplish his purposes in regard to this people—a people unexampled for sobriety, for temperance, for industry, for frugality, for kindness, for good order, for all the virtues that men revere. ”

“ As the Savior said, let us rejoice and be exceedingly glad because the wicked array themselves against us in this manner. It is a testimony to us that we are not in harmony with the wicked; that we are not taking the course that Belial would like us to take; that we are pursuing the path that God has marked out for us. ”

“ He was not satisfied until the earth drank the precious blood of the Savior of the world, and the life of every man who has held the Priesthood, and has exercised it from the days of righteous Abel down to the present time, has been sought for to a greater or less extent by the adversary of souls. He has used men as his agents to accomplish this. ”

“ In this manner the work of salvation will progress, until throughout the millennium, temples will be built, and the servants and handmaidens of God will go into these temples and officiate, until all who have been born upon the face of the earth, who have not become sons of perdition, will be redeemed, and the entire family be re-united, Adam standing at the head. ”

“ By virtue of this Priesthood Noah and his sons ministered and labored, as we are told, among the children of men to persuade them to forsake their sins and to turn to righteousness, lest the Lord should overwhelm them with a flood. ”

“ You can see, my brethren and sisters, the importance there is in our having the Priesthood of the Son of God in our midst. You see how necessary it is that it should be exercised and exercised properly. ”

“ In every land, in every nation, and among the people of every creed, men and women of this kind have been found, and according to their faith and diligence their works have been acceptable to our Father. ”

“ They themselves could not usher people into the Church of God. They could not legitimately administer an ordinance pertaining to the salvation of the human family. Yet God, in many instances, accepted of them, where they sought unto Him according to the best light they possessed ”