Heber C. Kimball

“ To kill your leaders; and when they kill us they will kill every man and woman that will sustain those men. Well, they are not here—God be praised! Hallelujah! Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and goodwill to all good men! ”

“ You never will get peaches if you do not plant and let the earth conceive; but if the earth conceives, and you nourish it, you are bound to have peaches, and apples, and currants, and plums. If you cultivate and partake of the elements that God has made, you will have houses, and barns, and granaries, and everything else. God has made it. All we have to do is to take it from the earth. But you say it is all dead, do you? Oh folly! There is nothing that is dead that lives, nor shall we ever die temporally nor spiritually; for that tabernacle that I live in is life ”

“ Well, practice makes perfect: it makes perfect men and perfect Apostles, and Prophets, and Elders, and Teachers, and Deacons; and how can you be perfect without it? It is by our practice and living up to our profession that we increase and grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth. ”

“ If you find a piece of earth that is dead, you cannot produce anything from it, except you resurrect it and restore it to life. If that is not true philosophy, it is nothing that I have produced. It is what every man knows; if he can only reflect. But I thought it was curious doctrine when that Methodist spoke of it. ”

“ God designs we should be pure men, holding the oracles of God in holy and pure vessels; but when it is necessary that blood should be shed, we should be as ready to do that as to eat an apple. That is my religion, and I feel that our platter is pretty near clean of some things, and we calculate to keep it clean from this time henceforth and forever, and, as the Scripture reads, "Lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet." ”

“ They cannot transact business except they must lie a little. How long, do you suppose, it will take that man to get to heaven and to enter into celestial glory, where lies or anything that is impure cannot exist? It will take him as many millions of years as there will be millions of years to come.
Perhaps some people may think that if we do lie and are dishonest, and so forth and so on, when we die, the death that comes upon us and the change that comes upon us will change and take away those lies, and we shall find ourselves basking in truth. ”

“ Is there anything that we ever saw or thought of but what is in the elements, the air we breathe, and the earth we walk on?—and blessing be to God that I live on an earth that lives. Well, that is a curious idea. ”

“ It takes a smart man—that is, one who thinks he is, to act the devil. Well, I merely speak of these things.
Well, they would come from Dan to Beersheba, and from California to France,—that is, wicked and abominable spirits would have come into this valley when those troops came, do you not see? The blacklegs, and highway robbers, and whoremongers, and whores would have gathered into this place, if those troops could have come into this place to have slain our leaders. Let me die an honourable man living my religion rather than to bow down to their cursed yoke again, as the Lord God liveth. ”

“ He says, "The mind makes the man." That is true. What is the mind? It is that character that was made and fashioned after the image of God before these bodies were made,—that is, our spirits. What is the mind? It is the spirit that was made before this body. ”

“ If there is time, (and if there is not, it is not necessary,) go along and bow down before the Lord God. Say I, "Father, help me to be faithful and do the words of brother Brigham, my leader, that I may see glory in it, and that I may see immortality and eternal lives in it." ”

“ None of your business whether it is right or wrong, You will get water, if you dig away. That is rather presumptuous doctrine with some people; but with me it is not.
I have heard men teach in this stand that I was under no obligation to do anything, except I had a revelation. I do not believe the doctrine at all. I don't care who preached it. I am not the leader—I am not the Prophet, nor the chief Apostle. I do not hold the keys independently. I have no keys, only what I hold in brother Brigham; and then brother Brigham has the word of God the must do thus and so. ”

“ Well, it is the mind or spirit that is in the man that makes the man. Was that spirit a wicked spirit when it was organized and brought into existence? No—no more than our little children are sinners. But we have been led—that is, perverted, or rather led away from these true principles—led into evil principles by others. ”

“ Go along, or I will employ men that will do it. "I am going to get a revelation to know if there is water there." They do not know that by believing on any man's testimony they increase in knowledge, wisdom, and the power of God. They forget that. Do you not see that I can learn more to be led than I can to lead, if I have the right man to lead me? Brother Brigham is my leader: he is my Prophet, my Seer, and my Revelator ”

“ I came through him, both spirit and body. God made the elements that they are made of, just as much as he made anything. Tell me the first thing that is made on earth that God did not organize and place here in this world. ”

“ We mind our own business. We came to this land because we were just obliged to do so; and I have been broken up and driven five times; but, as the Lord God liveth, I do not go again, nor any other man or woman that will live their religion. Let us do right, as a people, and we never will go from this place until we please and God pleases to have us. ”

“ No; we have taken other men's books and reasonings, and fell into other principles—led away from nature,—some say, "nature's darkness." I do not know anything about such a thing as nature's darkness. If we were as we were in our first creation, we should be as innocent as little children, every one of us. ”

“ Well, upon the same principle, if God confers gifts, and blessings, and promises, and glories, and immortality, and eternal lives, and you receive them and treasure them up, then our Father and our God has joy in that man. ”

“ If their soldiers desert and come in here, may the Lord God bless them, that they may have the Spirit of God on them while they stay here! We live to let live, and we will treat them with kindness and gentility, if they stay here and behave themselves. ”

“ Well, now stop these little broils at home in your families: that is the end of all trouble with us; and God will bless us and will bless the earth, and the air, and the elements, and we shall be blessed with fruits and grain, and with every other thing that our hearts can desire. ”

“ Brigham, with his Counsellors, that they may be one; to bless the Twelve, that they may be one, with us; to bless the Seventies, that they may be one with the Twelve, and the High Priests one with the Seventies, and the Elders one with the High Priests, and the Priests one with the Elders, &c.; that we may all be one and partake of the same Spirit and same power, and same Holy Ghost, and same religion. ”

“ They are taught to you; and you, probably, have not got faith and confidence in them. Well, now, I do not care whether you have or not: if you will go and do as you are told, you shall have a knowledge, although you had not a particle of faith when you began. That is curious religion; but there is no knowledge on any other principle, only by obedience.
Some time ago I brought up a figure. Say I, John, Timothy, Jack, Peter—I do not care who they are—you go up above the arsenal and dig a well, and dig ten or twelve feet, and you shall find a good spring of water. ”

“ Well, this is just as brother Brigham has said here hundreds of times.
If those troops could have come in here, let me tell you, all the finest and smartest devils would have entered into the smartest bodies and come here to overturn us. You will not catch a mean, low, inferior, stupid devil in a smart man. I will tell you the Devil has his smart men. Says he, "You get into a smart body." Smart spirits do not get into inferior bodies. ”

“ It is in the words of the man of God, and God lets his angels go along wherever he goes, and the angel of God goes along and touches the man with the touch of his finger, and says, "Be thou made whole!" ”

“ You learn to do as you are told; and those that have not been baptised into the Church, I say, Go and be baptised, and put on Christ by baptism, that you may receive the Holy Ghost and be one with us: that is all I have got to say to you. ”

“ Now, there are a great many people, even to this day, with all the reformation that has been in our midst, who make a practice of telling lies. It is impossible for them to tell a story, except they put into the interstices of that story lies of their own manufacturing. ”

“ They have made us stiffen our upper lip, and now we have got to keep it stiff—I mean the upper lip; and if you grow as you ought, five years will not pass away before your lips will be five times as thick as they are now. ”

“ Because he has agents to attend to his business, and he sits upon his throne and is established at head-quarters, and tells this man, "Go and do this;" and it is behind the vail just as it is here. You have got to learn that.
Peter comes along with James and John and ordains Joseph to be an Apostle, and then Joseph ordains Oliver, and David Whitmer, and Martin Harris; and then they were ordered to select twelve more and ordain them. It was done. Do you not see works were manifest? They received the truth, and thus you and I are here to-day ”

“ You are very exact in military tactics. Here is Squire Wells, and he is under the direction of our Governor; and then every other officer in his turn must be dictated and governed as he is dictated. Does Squire Wells run to every man? ”