H. W. Naisbitt

“ Here is the place where there should be intelligence. Here is the place where there should be wisdom. Here is the place to expect revelation, and that not in any vague, misty, half understood sense,—not lost or covered up by a multitude of words, but divested of everything that will deprive us of knowledge as to the essential principles which belong really to revelation. ”

“ Simply that there is a man living his religion. He is filled with the Spirit and power of God It is a lamp to his feet and a light to his path. It actuates him in all the circumstances of life; as a father, as a member of the Church to which he belongs and as a citizen. It is this which gives lustre to the eye and elasticity to the step, even when the body is bent with weight of years, and the stranger who has come direct from the eternal worlds can see that there is a man who has been with Jesus and has learned of him. ”

“ Why, I am from the eternities that are beyond the vail, I am come from where your Father dwells and I can see in the lustre of your eye, I can feel by the aura or influence which surrounds you as you move from place to place, that you are animated by the spirit of your Father's house, I can discern in your physiognomy the lineage of your progenitors. ”

“ When a man shows that he has received a gift from God, no matter about its character, whether it is a gift of wisdom, or whether it is a gift leading into mechanics, science or literature—whenever that man exhibits these attainments, and he is taken and set apart by the servants of God, you will see that spirit enlarge his faculties, increase his judgment, and when that day comes, you will see a good spirit in the midst of Israel. It will glow and grow and increase in every direction that will minister to the welfare of the kingdom as a whole. ”

“ It is just as orderly and systematic as the education our wives give to their daughters, or that mothers give to their married girls. You never find a mother, in training her children for domestic life, begin to tell them in the first place how to make one of those very rich cakes that we sometimes make ourselves sick with at Christmas. You would scarcely find a man who took an apprentice, begin to teach him in the first place some higher branches of his trade. You would scarcely find a teacher begin to teach his pupils the advanced principles pertaining to a classical education. ”

“ Man feels that he is He not only feels that he is, but thousands and millions of the human family have an inkling of the great fact that they have been, and millions and millions more have an inkling of the other great fact that when they leave this stage of existence they will continue to be. And it is the realization of such things which establishes the idea outside of any other special revelation that our origin is divine as well as human. ”

“ Men who reject the principle of revelation in any direction must inevitably become stunted, they must inevitably cease to live, because revelation is the element of life, it is the secret of growth, it is the power of increase, and it is only in proportion to the receptive ability of a man, or woman, or child, that they can increase in intelligence. ”

“ Now, I know there are a great many who think that the spirit of revelation and inspiration is of no use in the details of every day life. This, however, is a mistake, for the self same inspiration and revelation can qualify a man in business, it can help his faculties, enlarge his reason, and make him more noble and godlike and intelligent in all the directions he may be called upon to act in. To be sure there are those who say that our religion has nothing to do with our business. ”

“ When a person is called upon to address a congregation and notices the upturned faces before him, waiting, wishing, very likely praying, for the blessings which they particularly desire, I think that no man can look upon such a sight unmoved, he must feel his own ignorance and weakness, and dependence, and when he does this I believe that all public administrations will be an advantage and blessing both to the speaker and hearers, and I am sure that is my object this afternoon. ”

“ Why, when you come to probe and to reach the foundation of the idea it is nothing more nor less than the communication of intelligence possessed by one to another who in regard to that subject remains in ignorance. That is all there is involved in revelation, and whenever you find a human being who is ignorant of any subject pertaining to any direction of human thought, or in regard to any useful field of human experience, there revelation is an absolute necessity. ”

“ Now one of the most startling revelations that has been given to the human family in the day and age in which we live, by the elders of Israel, to a dark and benighted world, is the great fundamental idea of "the fatherhood of God." Now, this may not appear so startling to the American citizen whose mind is impregnated with the idea that the human family are equal,—that one man is as good as another, but in the Old World there exists conditions of class and of caste. ”

“ Now, then, revelation may vary in degree; it may vary in character, according to the necessities of the case, according to the intelligence of individuals. The mother who guides the destiny of a family and endows it with all the comforts of domestic and social life finds herself surrounded by a few crude men and women, or, as we call them, boys or girls. You consider the character of this offspring. When they were born they were helpless, and in infancy they possessed no intelligence save those animal instincts which lead only to the preservation of life. ”

“ But in a few weeks or months the spirit of intelligence begins to dawn. The mother watches the growing spark and seeks to fan it to a flame; to point out the remedy where difficulty occurs in early experience; to explain the educational process through which the child must pass from man or womanhood ”

“ Men don't gather grapes off thorns nor figs off thistles. Then, if we are the children of our Father you can see at a glance by that illustration that if we submit to the process of education which he had pointed out and laid down, we must become like him. Well, now, this may seem incredible to some that a human being, defiled and deformed as he is by sin and transgression, the result of ages—I say it may seem almost incredible that a human being should be able to rise to the characteristics and attributes and appearance of the Father ”

“ Now, what would be thought of your intelligence? Why everybody would say you have certainly made a mistake; they were apple trees that you planted, and apples are the fruit; if you want pears you must plant pear trees. ”

“ Why we shall have to do this by the reception of his spirit, and by cultivating the principles of life that come through revelation. When we come to look at each other as we are, we see stamped in our countenances selfishness, we see exhibitions of sensuality, we see the evidences of a thousand and one conditions to which we have been subjected and our fathers before us. Now, the Gospel has been given us to do away with sin and death; it has been given to develop in us the attributes and characteristics of our Father in heaven from faculties we already possess. ”

“ Now, may God bless us with his Spirit, may he lift us from the grovelling condition in which we find ourselves placed; may he infuse into and surround us with the influence of his Spirit, that we may live indeed a new life, and so glorify God "in our bodies and spirits which are his," is my prayer in the name of Jesus. ”

“ And in connection with this, wherever and whenever you comprehend this higher intelligence that bears rule in the eternities, controlling the destines of these great orbs that we see from time to time in the midnight heavens—wherever you find those that have graded from a fallen world you will find those who graded up and through the instrumentality of the self-same Gospel that is given to you and me. There is no other Gospel. There is no other way to that exaltation which pertains to the Gods only through the revelation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. ”

“ Take the Prime Minister of England, Lord Beaconsfield. There is a man who has made himself a necessity to the government of the country, to Her Majesty, to the higher classes; he has done this by virtue of the inspiration of the Almighty, and yet with all his grand attainments, that man man is looked upon more or less as an intruder because he was not nobly born! ”

“ When we consider the exalted character of our first father, when we consider the position that he occupies, and when we consider his offspring on the earth subject to the infirmities of the flesh, it is not unlikely that many are lead to say, "how can we be the children of our father who art in heaven? And if we are his children how can we renew or be restored to his image and likeness, how can we develop the attributes which he possesses, how can we become like him in our spirits and more or less in our tabernacles." ”

“ Now, that is a mistake because the object of this Gospel is to minister to our spiritual and also to our temporal wants and interests. Take our bishops as an illustration. Are they not called to administer in the temporal affairs of the kingdom? What is their office? They are fathers to the people. They are to see that every man becomes self-sustaining. They are called upon to open up industries for the growing youth of our Territory. We sustain them in that office. Thus our religion enters into temporal things and they are ordained and set apart for this. ”

“ Hence when a man realizes that he had a pre-existence, when he realizes that the present existence is but a transitory condition, when he realizes that there is a vast and illimitable future before him, he desires to comprehend how he shall best minister to his individual welfare in that future. ”

“ Now, this is the purpose for which you and I have come from the Old World, from the different States in the New World, and from the different parts of Europe and the islands of the sea, to be taught of God, to enjoy his Spirit, to be educated in his Church, to be subject to his authority, and to grow and increase in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that is something worth having, something that is worth living for, something that outshines and outdistances all the organizations and systems which men may have introduced. ”

“ How many of us lose our children because we fail to apply to these great fountains, so that all could operate and under-stand how to resist adverse influences, while we are in the flesh. Now, if we would cultivate this spirit, if we would listen to its teachings, it would come to us in many ways, in visions, in dreams and manifestations of the power of God. ”

“ Now, divested of all extraneous or outside ideas, divested of all the mystery that has been thrown around the idea of revelation by man-made teachers, divested of all traditions and thoughts that have been written in regard to it, what is the essential idea involved in revelation in its significant simplicity. What is there that is difficult of comprehension? What is there that it should need men of classical education to explain it ”

“ Why the wife had become assimilated to the husband and the husband to the wife; they were actuated upon in a great measure by the selfsame impulses, until they had become similar in their habits of life, so thoroughly one that they were like each other even in their facial expression, and when death claimed one or the other, but a few hours or days would pass before they were again and for evermore united. ”

“ Now, then, if we are one in our origin, if we are really one in destiny, we must all reach that destiny by the self-same process, and that process is to be found in the ordinances of the Gospel, in the power of inspiration and revelation resting upon those who initiate men and women into that order. ”

“ It is quite true that under some social, religious or political circumstances, we hear of a certain unity and equality among the human family; but if you attempt to put that unity and equality into practice, what are the results that inevitably flow from such a course? ”

“ He can see in a moment how we have been beclouded by sin, how we have been subjected to evil influences, how we have given way to temptation, and how we are the subjects of the conditions which surround us. But as he passes along he meets one of a little different stamp. A man may be dwelling in a hovel on the bench or in the low wards of the city, and he steps up to such a one and says, "how do you do." ”

“ There is the charmed circle of the royal blood, into which the plebeian never enters. There is the larger circle of the aristocracy, or, as we call them, the "upper ten," and into the precincts of that circle, jealously guarded as they are, a stranger scarcely ever enters. ”

“ Every elder in Israel who will look back upon his experience, if it reaches even to the early history of this Church, will comprehend how odd and mythical the ideas in regard to revelation were as then held by mankind. It is true that the masses of the people as well as the teachers believed that in the ancient times there had been some communication with the intelligences who dwell behind the vail. ”

“ I presume we all understand that the Spirit of the Lord is in the congregation of the Saints. If we do not understand it and if there is any one that does not realize the necessity of enjoying it, it would be a good thing perhaps for him to get up here a while. ”