Orson Hyde

“ The Almighty has blessed us in this country; he has poured his blessings bounteously upon us, for which every heart here should beat with gratitude to the Most High. While war is desolating the country from which we came, we are here in peace, for which we should be thankful now that we are here. ”

“ They thought they had given us an outfit that would last us until our destruction would be consummated: they imagined it would last us until we got beyond what they pleased to call civilization; but thinking that, perhaps, we might live through all, they demanded five hundred of our best men, while in camp in the wilderness, leaving our camp to the care of cripples and old men and women, in the midst of an Indian country. ”

“ I need not reiterate in your hearing, that we are living in a most important day and age of the world—equally important to the Saints of the Most High as to the rest of mankind; for the present is fraught with events that should admonish us to live near to the Lord and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. ”

“ A great enterprise was determined upon by our Heavenly Father, and for this purpose he seemed to have inspired a certain individual with the manifestations of his will in dreams, and visions of the day, perhaps, also, of the night, and that individual was Joseph of old. ”

“ Many of us know what it is to be in the very depths of poverty and privation; and we now seem to have advanced into a measurable prosperity, in order that we may be proven and tried in another manner, and let it be known in the heavens and to the just on the earth whether we are able to abide prosperity as well as adversity. ”

“ This created a jealousy that was satisfied only in his separation from them, and they sold him to certain Ishmaelitish merchants, who bore him away, a slave, into Egypt. Little did they think, as they saw him take his departure, with the camels of those merchants, that he was but a pioneer to open a way before them, and that they would actually have to follow on his track and seek succor at his hands. ”

“ It required ships, means and men to enable him to make his way across the trackless deep to find a country which, to him, seemed necessary to balance the earth. The Spirit of God came upon him, and he had no rest day nor night until he accomplished what the Spirit wrought upon him to do. ”

“ This country discovered by him, is enveloped in war; and if you live a few years longer you will see much of the land that has been blessed with unequalled prosperity from the east to the west, a wilderness and a desolation ”

“ If they had had any faith that he would be successful they would have fitted him out with the best ships that any navies of the time could have afforded, manned with sufficient men and supplied with all the necessary equipments ”