Wilford Woodruff

“ I will here say, before closing, that two weeks before I left St. George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them. Said they, "You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God." These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and they waited on me for two days and two nights. ”

“ I look upon this portion of our ministry as a mission of as much importance as preaching to the living; the dead will hear the voice of the servants of God in the spirit-world, and they cannot come forth in the morning of the resurrection, unless certain ordinances are performed, for and in their behalf, in Temples built to the name of God. It takes just as much to save a dead man as a living man. For the last eighteen hundred years, the people that have lived and passed away never heard the voice of an inspired man, never heard a Gospel sermon, until they entered the spirit-world. ”

“ One of the peculiar features in the faith of the Latter-day Saints is that we believe there is but one Gospel, that there never has been nor never will be any other, and that that Gospel never changes from one generation to another, and that it consists of the simple principles taught by the Savior and contained in the New Testament, which principles never deviate one from another. ”

“ When he was put to death, and while his body lay in the tomb, he went to the spirit world to introduce the Gospel to the spirits there, that they might have the opportunity of either receiving or rejecting it, and be judged according to men in the flesh. And it will be the privilege of every son and daughter of Adam, sometime of their life, either in the body or in the spirit, to hear the glad tidings of great joy proclaimed to them, for God is just and is no respecter of persons. ”

“ Our Elders who are called constantly from the plow and the workshops to go forth into the world and preach the Gospel, traveling from place to place on foot, without purse or scrip, and although they are not trained in colleges or seminaries of learning, yet they are sustained and enabled to cope with the learned and wise, and the honest in heart receive their testimony, which is accompanied by the Spirit of God, and the Holy Ghost. ”

“ His works are before you; they are before the heavens and the earth, and all men. The entire Territory bears marks of his genius and enterprise; and the Lord certainly crowned his labors with success, as he has blessed the labors of his brethren who have not spared their hands or their hearts in assisting him. ”

“ There is no doubt or obscurity in the minds of the Latter-day Saints respecting this principle, it has been made plain unto our understanding by the light of revelation. The Adversary, well knowing the nature and importance of the mission of this Prophet of God, put it into the hearts of wicked men to kill him, and in taking his life they thought they were putting an end to "Mormonism." They reasoned from their human standpoint, for such might have been the case if this work were the creation of man. ”

“ And I cannot believe that there is an honest-hearted man anywhere who possesses any portion of the spirit of the Lord, and who has any faith in the revelations of God, who can believe that men, whether of high or humble birth, learned or unlearned, would be divinely called to minister in the things of God, unless they were endowed from on high with the same power that the ancient Apostles possessed.
Well, the Prophet Joseph Smith lived fourteen years after he had organized the Church ”

“ As the Lord ever has done in attempting to establish his rule and government on the earth, he chose the weak things of the earth, and them he will use to confound the wisdom of the wise. He manifested himself to a boy in his teens, and also sent an angel to him on several occasions, in fulfilment of the revelation to John the Revelator, and of the inspired words of many other Prophets and Apostles who have spoken concerning the marvellous work and wonder of the latter-days. ”

“ The Gospel must be thoroughly and faithfully preached to every nation under heaven, and the Lord holds us responsible, for verily the trust has been imposed upon us, and it behooves us to see to it. I have traveled more or less for the last forty years, without purse or scrip, and I have been sustained by the hand of the Lord, and so have my brethren. ”

“ He has performed an honorable mission to earth, and while his body sleeps his spirit lives, and he continues his labors, strengthening the hands of Joseph, and Hyrum, and Jedediah, and Heber, and George A., and all those who have been true and faithful to God and to man while upon the earth, who are now engaged in the same great cause of redemption and salvation. Although President Young has finished his earthly career and mission to this earth, the work has only commenced. ”

“ I believe that holy men of old wrote and spoke as they were moved upon by the Holy Ghost, and that they meant what they said and said what they meant, and that the Apostle Paul spoke truly when he said, "that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation." ”

“ The sick were healed of their sickness, the lame were made to walk, the blind to see, the dumb to speak, etc., through the administrations of those among them who held the Priesthood, which authorizes men to act in the name of the Lord; and without it no man ever did or ever can officiate in the ordinances of the House of God. ”

“ And so natural is it for the devil to oppose every move that the Lord makes towards reclaiming and redeeming the earth, that men are often found to denounce the "Mormons" and their religion when they know nothing either of us or our tenets. ”

“ George in the south, a distance of some 500 miles, and see on every hand towns and villages, gardens, and orchards, fields and crops; we behold a people industrious and happy, building their own dwelling-houses, meeting-houses, school-houses, tabernacles and Temples, and improvements and enterprises are constantly going on. ”