Orson Pratt

“ Thus we see that the kingdom of God did not exist to our knowledge, either on the Eastern or Western hemispheres of our globe for many generations. It became entirely extinct from the earth about four centuries after the Christian era, and there was nothing left on the face of the wide earth but the wisdom of man, the governments of man, the religion of man, the power of man, and the rule of man. God, angels, prophets, revelators, and every vestige of Divine authority and government were excluded from every nation under heaven and wholly rooted, out of the earth. ”

“ All have equal rights. I would as soon take up the weapons of war to defend the rights of the Presbyterians as any other sect and party on this American Continent: they all have equal rights with the Latter-day Saints, and therefore they should be protected with them. I do not know all things which are in the future; but Daniel's prophecy has pointed out that the little stone will smite the image on the feet, and break in pieces the feet, iron, clay, brass, silver, and gold, and that the whole great fabric should come tumbling down together with a mighty crash. ”

“ What man, by his own sagacity, without the inspiration of the Almighty, could have understood that a great iron kingdom should arise, and be diverse from all the other kingdoms, and should break in pieces and devour the whole earth, and stamp them down with oppression and tyranny?—which it is well known was done by the great Roman empire. ”

“ Imprison the polygamist for having more than one wife, and you have the same right to imprison a man for having more than one child, or to punish the slaveholder for having more than one slave. The same Constitution that protects the latter also protects the former. It is just as much the right of the people to have twelve wives as to have twelve children. What would you think of a State law that would undertake to deprive you of the privilege of having only one child? This would be no more barefacedly unjust than the State laws against polygamy. ”

“ If the voice of the people is declared for that which is wrong, then the minority, however right, has to suffer with the rest. But this, perhaps, was as good a government as could be established under the circumstances.
Our brave and hardy ancestors were just emerging from the tyranny and oppression of ages: the star of liberty had but just risen above their horizon: their minds were still beclouded with the dense fogs, traditions, customs, laws, and forms of governments in the Old World ”

“ May the Lord our God, our great King and Lawgiver, bless the people! May he open the eyes of the honest, that the words of truth may penetrate them! May the power of the Holy Ghost, like a gentle stream, flow over them! ”

“ After the nation had struggled along, increasing in knowledge and power and experience, and had maintained their independence and liberty for upwards of half-a-century, and had made rapid strides in teaching, developing, and enjoying the principles of physical, moral, and religious liberty, the Almighty determined to assert his right and establish an everlasting kingdom upon the unalterable principles of eternal truth—a kingdom which could never be destroyed nor ever be shaken, though the heavens should pass away and the worlds disappear with a universal crash. ”

“ Neither the United States' army nor all the armies of the earth can destroy the kingdom. All that we claim is, as I have stated heretofore, in relation to ourselves, the right guaranteed to us by the American Constitution. We do not ask for any other rights: we ask for no more privileges under that Constitution than what are enjoyed by the people of every other Territory of the American Union. ”

“ But between the time of the setting up of the kingdom and its final triumph, there will be successive stages of its increasing greatness and glory. Many of the Saints will see their King long before he comes in the clouds of heaven. Before that great day the Saints will have great dominion and rule on the earth. Zion will send forth her laws and her institutions, and her peace officers to protect every sect of Christendom and all flesh in their religious rights, as was so clearly and eloquently laid before you by our beloved President two Sabbaths ago. ”

“ Dissenters from these new religions formed other sects, the weaker being persecuted by the stronger, and all being persecuted, more or less, by the governments from whose established religion they they had dissented. Among this heterogeneous compound of clashing creeds and clashing swords, no voice of God was heard—no inspiration of the Almighty to calm the troubled elements—no Prophet or Revelator to point out the kingdom of God and bid the nations welcome.
Human wisdom in religious or governmental affairs is the great source of disunion and all its attendant train of evil. ”

“ Our ancestors had gained their independence, and had framed the articles of the Constitution, and the Government was established, giving unto the people a voice and privilege of electing their own officers. In the Constitution, certain rights were guaranteed to the people, such as liberty of the press, the liberty of speech, and the liberty of emigrating from one part of the Union to another, settling in whatever State or Territory they saw fit. The people preserved in their own hands the power to protect their own rights ”

“ The old, wrinkled, worn-out monster seems ready to break in pieces. All that seems to be necessary is for some power, distinct and independent, to set the old thing crumbling, and its final dissolution will soon follow. Such a power will be the kingdom of God cut from the mountain. The location of the stone of the mountain could not be in Asia, Africa, or Europe, nor upon any distant island of the sea; but it must be in America, near the extremities of the feet and toes. This mountain kingdom could not be found in the low countries of America, but in some high, elevated region. ”

“ The Lord now saw that there was one nation upon the earth where he could venture to begin the great work—where a theocracy could exist in an ecclesiastical form, being legally and lawfully entitled to all the rights and protection guaranteed in the great American Constitution, in common with all religious parties. The kingdom of God could not be set up without calling officers, and inspiring men, and revealing laws, while this Republic elects its own officers and makes its own laws.
The American Congress do not pretend to inspiration. ”

“ But one thing we do know—if they will let us alone, we will let them alone, and do them good; but if they illegally and unlawfully trample on our toes, I do not know but we shall try to fulfil that which is in the prophecies. If they undertake to oppress us and bring us down into bondage, and deprive us of our just rights guaranteed by the Constitution, I do not know but the great Jehovah has it in his mind to do unto them as they would do unto us, if they had the power ”

“ Hence such a government might in reality be termed a theocracy, because God was the author of the laws, forms, and institution of the same. After a period of time, men departed from God, apostatized from the form of government instituted from heaven; and, still thinking that it was needful and necessary to have some kind of government, in order to control the people and keep them within due bounds of subjection, they concluded to form and establish governments of their own, according to the best judgment and wisdom they had. ”

“ You see the difference between the period of time in which the kingdom is growing and spreading forth and enlarging its dominions, and that more glorious period when the kingdom of heaven shall come to meet the earthly kingdom—when all the powers of heaven shall be made manifest and have place on our transfigured and sanctified earth. ”

“ Hence the various nations, both before and after the flood, instituted governments according to human wisdom, some making choice of one form, and some of another; some giving the whole authority into the hands of a ruler, called a king, an emperor, or monarch; others reserving a portion of the power in the hands of various individuals, termed nobles or princes; others leaving the form of government more or less in the hands of the people at large, something resembling a republic. ”

“ The Speaker, who occupies the highest and most honourable station in the Lower House, is not a Prophet: he does not deliver the word of the Lord as law; neither does the honourable President of the Senate say, Thus saith the Lord God: but all the deliberations and enactments of that illustrious body are the results of human wisdom. They would not suffer a Prophet of God to come into their midst and dictate the laws that should be adopted by the nation. ”

“ Do not our comfortable buildings, our public works, our extensive improvements testify before heaven and earth, God, angels, and men, that the Latter-day Saints have been an industrious people, if nothing else? Look at the amount of labour required of men here to make a living that is not required in a more fertile region. A man has to spend two or three tedious days to get one small load of wood from our almost inaccessible mountain kanyons. ”

“ Therefore the former-day kingdom was not the stone of the mountain. The ancient kingdom being overcome, fled to heaven, and the Priesthood was caught up to God and to his throne; and there the Saints are reserved in heaven until the coming of the Son of God to reign on the earth, according to the predictions of the Prophets. Then he will bring that kingdom which is in heaven with him. He has to set up a kingdom on earth preparatory to that which will come from heaven. This preparatory kingdom must be established on the earth, where men-made governments exist. ”

“ We might query here, Have the Latter-day Saints had much time to do evil, even if they had been very much disposed to do so? You generally find that an industrious people are a moral people—that a people whose hands are engaged, whose physical powers are exerted from sunrise till sundown, whose weary limbs are obliged to be active in irrigating the soil by night as well as by day, and who are obliged to ascend the mountain heights in quest of wood and timber, exposed by night to the chilling blasts and drifting snows of those elevated and dreary regions, have not much time to devise mischief. ”

“ Daniel said that the kingdom which was to be established in the last days never should be destroyed, nor left to other people, but should exist for ever, and increase until the whole earth should be filled by the Saints of the Most High. ”

“ While time shall last, the free agency of man should be protected; but when the archangel shall stand forth upon the land and upon the sea, and swear, in the name of Him who liveth for ever and ever, that time shall be no longer, then woe be unto the wicked and those who have rejected the servants of God, for they shall be consumed by the brightness of his coming and punished for the abuse of that moral agency given them, and in the exercise of which they had been so carefully protected by the laws of Zion. ”

“ On the other hand, you go among the nations where they are eating and drinking and feasting on the best, and what do you find there? All manner of evil, drunkenness, lasciviousness, blasphemies, and every species of degradation and immorality. Such a class of lazy, indolent loungers can imagine up more mischief in twenty-four hours than what the whole people of the Saints would live to do in twenty-four years. ”

“ And even these rights we do not ask for: they are ours without asking for them. We do not beg for them: we will not bemean [demean] ourselves so much as to crouch to the Congress of the United States to ask for rights that we are already in possession of, and that every American citizen should enjoy here upon this boasted land of freedom. ”

“ In the midst of these most inhuman and dreadful persecutions, the United States called for five hundred of these suffering, wandering exiles to leave their families upon the Plains in the midst of wild savages, without shelter or food, to fight the battles of the nation against Mexico. ”

“ There is no country which would better answer the terms of the predicted location than that elevated region bordering upon the great Rocky Mountain chain. A kingdom in that high region might well be called a mountain kingdom, and be thus designated by the inspired Daniel. Its proximity to the western extremity of the image would almost preclude the idea of any other mountainous location.
But to establish such a kingdom, some one must receive Divine authority. And what is the testimony of the Latter-day Saints in regard to the calling of any one in this Church? We want now to test ourselves. ”

“ Having demonstrated the fact that an everlasting kingdom is to be set up in the last days, let us next inquire whether the period has arrived for such a grand event to be fulfilled. Is there anything that should be fulfilled before we ought to look for such a kingdom? ”

“ He has to irrigate the land, and spend as much labour in that one thing as the Illinois farmer would in raising his whole crop. Independent of all this, look at the scores of cities which have sprung up as if by magic; the tens of thousands of houses that have been erected, many of which are large and, commodious, and may be pronounced splendid for a new country. ”