Orson Pratt

“ After telling in the revelation that the great day of the Lord was at hand, and calling upon me to lift up my voice among the people, to call upon them to repent and prepare the way of the Lord, and that the time was near when the heavens should be shaken, when the earth should tremble, when the stars should refuse their shining, and when great destructions awaited the wicked, the Lord said to your humble servant—"Lift up your voice and prophesy, and it shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost." ”

“ Says one—"If the inheritances of the Saints are to be apportioned by lot, a good man, perhaps, will be put off with the poorest inheritance, and some not so good will get some of the best, it is all haphazard." Oh no, we find that lots cast by divine appointment in ancient times were cast upon a principle which designated the very thing which the Lord desired. How was it on a certain occasion about casting lots to discover the transgressor among all the hosts of Israel? A certain man had taken a gold wedge, and the people had been forbidden to take it. ”

“ Saith the Lord, in a certain revelation—"Let mine army become very great, and let it become sanctified before me, that they may be as fair as the sun, as clear as the moon, that their banners may be terrible unto all the nations of the earth." We learn from this declaration of the Lord, that before Zion is redeemed we are to be quite a numerous people ”

“ What a terrible crime it was for a man to lay his hands on sick persons and ask the Lord to heal them, and then if the Lord healed the sick they should not be worthy to keep their land, but should be driven from their homes and be deprived of their property! ”

“ The Lord has given us time since he brought the fulness of the Gospel from among the Gentiles to lay a foundation so that we could commence this missionary work in behalf of and among the remnants of Joseph. We have got the foundation laid, we have succeeded in building many cities, towns, villages, &c., for some four hundred miles north and south; we have got our farms fenced and our water ditches dug, and we have begun to prosper in the land, so that now, I think, is the time for us to wake up our minds in relation to the scattered remnants of the house of Israel. ”

“ We are told that Zion—this people, the Latter-day Saints, are called Zion—shall be redeemed and restored to the lands of their inheritances, and in consequence of this promise made to us by the Lord, many of us have felt much anxiety to know when the Lord would fulfill this great revelation, and some perhaps who were little boys and girls when it was given, and now grey headed—for it is about forty-two years since—have not considered or reflected much about what God has promised to do with, or what blessings he has promised to bestow upon, this people. ”

“ The great and important thing with us is to exercise sufficient faith before the heavens, that God may pour out the spirit of prophecy upon us. The same faith will procure the same blessings, and the spirit of prophecy was considered by the ancient Apostles as one of the best gifts, far greater than the gift of tongues or than the gift of interpretation of tongues. ”

“ We have a religion that does away all these things, it does not believe in the order of things that the New Testament sets forth, and you pretend that this New Testament religion is to be enjoyed in our day; our wives and children must not be corrupted by it. ”

“ Perhaps you may inquire—"May not this great work, the redemption of these Indian tribes, take place after we have returned to our inheritances?" No doubt but what there will be a great work transpire among the Indians after we do return; but let me say to you that there will also be a great work performed among them before we return to receive our inheritances and before the redemption of Zion. ”

“ We have got to be sent forth as missionaries to all parts of this American continent. Not to the Gentiles, for their times will be fulfilled; but we must go to all those tribes that roam through the cold regions of the north—British America, to all the tribes that dwell in the Territories of the United States, also to all those who are scattered through Mexico, and Central and South America, and the object of our going will be to declare the principles of the Gospel unto them, and bring them to a knowledge of the truth. ”

“ I scarcely ever heard of such an instance; there may be some few instances in history, but they are very rare, in which a person will repent and try to restore fourfold. The United States Government told us that we must appeal to those who had murdered, robbed and driven us from our homes, for the redress we sought. But we have had the revelation of the Lord pretty well fulfilled—"You shall be persecuted from city to city and from synagogue to synagogue, and but few shall stand to receive their inheritances." ”

“ If any of our people had been guilty of breaking the laws it was in the power of our enemies to bring us before their courts of justice, for in all these places they held all the civil offices in their own hands. ”

“ You may think this rather a curious thing in this great American republic, one of the most liberal governments on the face of the whole earth; but if it is a strange thing it is known as the truth to thousands and tens of thousands that we were dispossessed of our inheritances. The land is still there, but it is occupied by those who do not own it. ”

“ In these last days, in redeeming his people from bondage he has told us in plain words, that his angel should go before us and also his presence; and as, in the deliverance of Israel in ancient times the waters were divided and plagues sent forth upon the Egyptian nation, it would not surprise me at all if there should be similar power manifested in the redemption of Zion. There may be a few individuals go to prepare the way, to purchase a little more land and get things in order ”

“ It was once considered the most dreary, desolate, barren place on the face of all North America, a land where it was supposed that no human being could subsist, or in which if he undertook to subsist by the labor of his hands by cultivating the earth, he would perish. ”

“ It is a marvel to me that we have been able to build school houses and educate our children in any degree, especially when considering the vast labor that has been required of them, for as they began to grow up and ought to have been at school, they have had to be in the mountains herding sheep, or at work irrigating the soil ”

“ Had any other people come to this desert wild and undertaken to cultivate the soil they could not have done it, they would have broken up; there would not have been union enough among any class of people on the face of the American continent to accomplish what the Latter-day Saints have accomplished in reclaiming the desert. ”

“ You might have passed through the land there for hundreds and hundreds of miles, from city to city, and inquired for an Elder who had authority to baptize for the remission of sins and to build up the Church and kingdom of God, and the answer would have been—"There is no such person here." ”

“ We read numerous prophecies referring to the last days, in which it is said that the wilderness should be like the Garden of Eden, and that the desert should be made to blossom as the rose, that it should blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing, and that they should have songs of melody, thanksgiving in the desert, &c. ”

“ It will be a fulfillment of that saying in the Psalms of David—"Give ear, O shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock. Stir up thy strength and come and save us." He is called, in a peculiar manner, the shepherd of Israel. This is what is meant also in the blessing of Jacob upon the twelve tribes of Israel, or more especially upon the tribe of Joseph. ”

“ This long period of tribulation, and the dispersion from our homes and inheritances, have been the cause perhaps of a great many going down to the grave without having the opportunity and privilege of returning to participate in the blessings that were promised. ”

“ The mob were very anxious to come in possession of our property, and hence after the main body got out one or two hundred miles from Nauvoo, where there were no inhabitants, cut off from all resources, and unable to obtain any information from our poor brethren, the mob was so anxious to get the property of which they had forcibly deprived us, that they attacked the city with cannon and musketry, and finally drove these poor people out and compelled them to cross the river, where a great many of them perished. ”

“ The Lord understands the future as well as the past and the present, and his Spirit understands that which is to come, and the promise is that that Spirit shall be given to us through the prayer of faith, so that we may be able to comprehend in some measure the things of the future. ”

“ But by hard labor and perseverance we have made ourselves comfortable homes in what was formerly a desert, and the Lord has been very favorable to us and really has blessed us far beyond anything we could have anticipated when coming here, and he has caused that the seasons should be very fruitful as a general thing ”

“ It will be astonishing to us when the time comes for the Lord to gather in, from every part of this great continent, these poor, miserable, degraded Lamanites, that his servants may have power over them in order to bring them to civilization. ”

“ Ask them why they have come so many hundred miles to find Elders of the Church and they will reply—"Such a person came to us, he spoke in our language, instructed us and told us what to do, and we have come in order to comply with his requirements." ”

“ For they of whom I speak, are they who have not as yet heard my voice; neither have I at any time manifested myself unto them. But I have received a commandment of the Father that I shall go unto them"—these other sheep he is now speaking of were the ten tribes whom he visited after he had visited the people on this land—"and that they shall hear my voice, and shall be numbered among my sheep, that there may be one fold, and one shepherd ”

“ We need not expect, from what God has revealed, that a very great number of those who were then in the Church and who were driven, will have the privilege of returning to that land. We need not expect anything of the kind. ”

“ Then we had to stop up of nights to take the little amount of water allotted to each man or family, for it was necessary to husband it as economically as possible in order to bring our crops to maturity. ”