Latter days

“ Was not the first half of one's days spent in dreaming of happiness and the latter half in regrets and fears? ”

“ Or, in other words, if in this world only we have hope, let us seize upon any and every opportunity presented to us and enjoy life, mingle with and join in the giddy strife of the world, and glide along with the stream, for our days are but a span, as a shadow they pass away and we are no more. ”

“ I have never believed any man was qualified from the days of Father Adam to our day to go forth among the inhabitants of the earth with the declaration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in a way and manner to convince them or teach them the Gospel in its truth and purity, and in the power of God, only by inspiration. I have never believed that any man was qualified in any age of the world to build up the kingdom of God, or do the will of God only upon that principle. ”

“ No wonder that an angel should be commissioned from the eternal heavens from the throne of the Almighty with another message to the inhabitants of our globe! For do you suppose that this latter-day kingdom that is to be set up without hands will be set up without any communication from heaven, without any new revelation, without any Prophets, without any Apostles, or inspired men? Do you suppose that God will accomplish a work of this nature and yet the heavens be veiled over our heads like brass? ”

“ Remember this, Latter-day Saints; remember it, and treasure it up in your hearts, that you have salvation within your own keeping. If you are damned, you damn yourselves; you will be the instrument of your own damnation. It will not be because God will damn you; it will not be because Satan has such power that he can take away every blessing from you ”

“ Time glided rapidly away;—months flew by, and with sorrow and shame must I confess that the memories of the past, the memories of the bright, happy days of my innocence intruded but little on the life which I led. ”

“ You have done a vast amount of good, both for the living and the dead. Your days have been many and many call you blessed. You have been in the hands of God, the savior of thousands. Through the blessings of the Lord your life has been preserved in many dangers through which you have been called to pass. You have accomplished a great work and we all with one voice say: 'Peace and blessings be with you to the end of your days.' Please accept this tribute of love and respect. ”

“ Those Saints who saw in Joseph Smith the instrumentality of a divine purpose, and saw above and beyond their young Prophet the glories of a new dispensation, did not hesitate at the call of a new shepherd, the accents and tones of whose voice had the ring of the same inspiration that had moved other hearts in the days gone by. Ambitions had to be reckoned with, and they are full of seduction and danger when they obscure the vision by selfish aims. There is always darkness when men stand in their own light; there is nothing that dims a man's vision so much as his own shadow. ”

“ I have spent hours, and days, and nights, among the rocks and in the forest, praying to Almighty God to enlighten my mind, and lead me in the paths of rectitude and duty, and that he would let me live to behold a people he could own, who did receive the revelations of Jesus Christ, the Gospel, the principles and covenants which the ancients received and enjoyed. ”

“ Even when merely a judge is sitting there, like a bean on the end of a pipe stem, who would be flipped off should a grain of good sense happen to strike him, how big he feels while sitting there for days to adjudicate a case that should not require five minutes. ”

“ And behold, in thy childhood thou hast suffered afflictions and much sorrow, because of the rudeness of thy brethren.
2:2 Nevertheless, Jacob, my first-born in the wilderness, thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain.
2:3 Wherefore, thy soul shall be blessed, and thou shalt dwell safely with thy brother, Nephi; and thy days shall be spent in the service of thy God. Wherefore, I know that thou art redeemed, because of the righteousness of thy Redeemer; for thou hast beheld that in the fulness of time he cometh to bring salvation unto men. ”

“ THOSE memorable days that move in procession, their heads just out of the mist of years long dead—the most of them are full-eyed as the dandelion that from dawn to shade has steeped itself in sunlight. ”

“ THE DAYS OF MY LIFE.
The days of my life! They flow on like a dream,
And I'm nearing the waves of the dim silent stream,
Adrift in the darkness—yet fear I no ill,
For Goodness and Mercy shall follow me still.
The bright days of Springtime, the sunshine and flowers! ”

“ I have seen people, in the early days, who had to pass through a good deal,—stripped, robbed, pillaged, beaten, killed, murdered for their religion's sake. They were driven from their homes, they wandered about as exiles. ”

“ Who will despise the works of the Lord? Who will despise the children of Christ? Behold, all ye who are despisers of the works of the Lord, for ye shall wonder and perish.
9:27 O then despise not, and wonder not, but hearken unto the words of the Lord, and ask the Father in the name of Jesus for what things soever ye shall stand in need. Doubt not, but be believing, and begin as in times of old, and come unto the Lord with all your heart, and work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before him.
9:28 Be wise in the days of your probation; strip yourselves of all uncleanness ”

“ Do ye suppose that ye can bring the Lamanites to the knowledge of the truth? Do ye suppose that ye can convince the Lamanites of the incorrectness of the traditions of their fathers, as stiffnecked a people as they are; whose hearts delight in the shedding of blood; whose days have been spent in the grossest iniquity ”

“ The Third Fate: “World after world threads its time through our loom. We watch the pattern grow. Days and eras and ages pass. We know nothing of meanings. We only weave. We know that the pattern brightens as new days come and always voices in the dark tell us of the changing pattern of a new day.” ”

“ As I peer back through the shadow of my years, seeing not too clearly, but through the thickening veil of wish and after-thought, I seem to view my life divided into four distinct parts: the Age of Miracles, the Days of Disillusion, the Discipline of Work and Play, and the Second Miracle Age. ”

“ Desire and Grief, and Love, these are the young man’s torments, but they are the creatures of Time; Time removes them as it brings, and the vigils we keep, “while the evil days come not,” if weary, are brief and few. ”

“ One feels one’s self sinking gradually into one’s grave, and the past tense sounds the knell of our illusions as to ourselves. What is past is past: gray hairs will never become black curls again; the forces, the gifts, the attractions of youth, have vanished with our young days. ”

“ And shrieking wake, and clamour for new-day.
Only Man's bygone days are truly sweet:
This day is darkened by To-morrow's threat,
To-morrow by the menace of To-day;
From out the Past is fled away for aye
The grinding doubt of possible defeat.
Ah, were we wise, our lives 'tis thus we'd spend:
Because the Past glides onward without end,
Engulfing our To-day and our Hereafter,
We'd greet This Day, or Next, with careless
laughter
As 'twere the Past, and so our fortunes mend. ”

“ But whether on week-days or on Sundays, whether in youth or in old age, there are moments, rare though they be, yet for all that the most critical moments of our life, when the old simple questions of humanity return to us in all their intensity, and we ask ourselves, What are we? ”

“ New days come,—the foliage of the years,—unheralded days, unexpected days, surprising days, days that one loves and days that one fears; but the olden days, those which were familiar to us, those that we desire, that we wait for, will never return. ”

“ But not of late years are we about to speak; we are going back to the beginning of this century; late years—present years are dusty, sun-burnt, hot, arid; we will evade the noon, forget it in siesta, pass the mid-day in slumber, and dream of dawn. ”

“ We are filling life’s brief season Full of worry and regret, And the thoughts of past and future Rob the present of its best; And the happiness of others We perchance do oft forget. Past regret and future worry Banish peace and conquer rest. ”

“ For all our days are passed away in thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years yet is their strength, labour and sorrow ”

“ THE LAST DAY.
Last days are wretched days; and so are last moments wretched moments. It is not the fact that the parting is coming which makes these days and moments so wretched, but the feeling that something special is expected from them, which something they always fail to produce. ”

“ It is the spirit of truth that reveals the things of the Father and the Son, proceeding from the presence of the Almighty and the very glory in which He is enrobed, which makes him like unto a consuming fire. ”

“ When everything gives way before me and behind me; when the past lies in the distance in dreary monotony, like a city of the dead; when the future offers me naught; when I see my whole being enclosed within the narrow circle of the present, who can blame me if I clasp this niggardly present of time in my arms with fiery eagerness, as though it were a friend whom I was embracing for the last time? ”

“ No wonder, then, that while the world were wandering in darkness without God, without any true knowledge from the heavens direct to themselves, without the gift and power of the Holy Ghost, without the organization of any true church, without prophets, without revelators, without inspired men—no wonder that God has again commissioned an angel from the heavens to begin the work on the earth. ”

“ When the pain is hardest to bear, when the past, oh, the past—with all its immeasurable losses, begins to crush my very soul, I turn my dim eyes upward and repeat to myself, 'There is a Heaven of eternal rest and joy,' and so I grow serene in my waiting. ”

“ Connected by no link with the ever active Present, a monotonous Future stretched before them, made more dreary by its contrast with the keen excitement and ever-shifting variety of their past life of peril and pleasure. ”

“ A good portion of my life is already mingled with the past eternity; and, for the future, it is a dim scene, on which my eyes are fixed as calmly and intensely as possible,—to no purpose. The probability of my doing any service in my day and generation is certainly not very strong. ”

“ THE CONSENT.
It is the past that maketh my despair;
The dark, the sad, the irrevocable past.
Alas! why should our lot in life be made,
Before we know that life? Experience comes,
But comes too late. ”

“ The past given to oblivion, the future unanticipated, and the present enjoyed with the full consciousness of its pleasurable existence. Wearied, exhausted, satiated by a boundless indulgence of hackneyed pleasures, hackneyed occupations, hackneyed pursuits, at a moment when I was sinking beneath the lethargic influence of apathy, or hovering on the brink of despair, a new light broke upon my clouded mind, and discovered to my inquiring heart, something yet worth living for. ”

“ I pray the people—Saints and sinners upon the face of the whole earth—to hearken to the truth. Open your hearts to the conviction of the Holy Spirit upon you. I pray that you who have received the truth may live in it and abide by it, that you may enjoy the blessings of it and be prepared for the fullness of the glory of God, that will yet be revealed. ”

“ It reminds me too vividly of wonderful days, whose like I shall never see again, and friends, many of whom are dead, and many lost sight of in this inexorable coming and going of people and things, this inexorable change that goes on for ever. ”

“ Hour after hour I sit while the scenes are being shifted; and as I gaze upon the panorama of the past, I realize how crowded with incidents my life has been. Every day seems like a romance within itself, and the years grow into ponderous volumes. ”

“ The ten years from forty to fifty—the best ten years of his life! And if one counted the years before, the silent years of dreams, assimilation, preparation—then call it half a man's life-time: half a man's life-time thrown away! ”

“ Howsoever many they be, howsoever different their complexion, days of summer and days of winter, days of sunshine and days of storm, days of buoyant youth and days of stagnant, stereotyped old age, days of apparent failure and days of apparent prosperity, He is with us in them all. ”

“ These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. ”

“ So, every instant, the distance lessened between the old man and the young one, both weary of life. It was broad daylight now, though the sun was still low on the horizon. The mystery of dawn had left the world, the very pilgrims, between their recurring cries, were chattering, laughing, over the every-day details of life which would make to-day as trivial as yesterday, to-morrow as trivial as to-day. ”

“ The past may revisit our hearts with renewed sufferings, or our spirits with gay recollections; but the interest of the time present, even upon points the most passing and trivial, will ever, from the pressure of our wants and our feelings, predominate. ”