Pastime

“ Every one ought sincerely to say with an ancient writer, “I have but one only affair; and I care for nothing else only lest any other thing should take off any part of my attention from this my only business.”339 What account will they be able to give to themselves or to their Judge at the last day, who make vanity, pastimes, and idle employments, the sole business of their life? or they who toil and slave much in bustling through the world, seeming to neglect nothing but their only affair. ”

“ You can reach back to that day and pick up all your generations—the hearts of the children searching after the fathers from generation to generation; and the ancient fathers looking down to their children, to do something for them, just as the Lord promised in the last chapter of Malachi. There is a promise that before the great day of the Lord should come, it should burn as an oven, and all the proud and they that do wickedly should become as stubble. ”

“ What canst thou deny me, who hast given me thyself! Govern me, and nothing will be wanting to me, in the place of pasture where thou has placed me, until thou bringest me to the happy pastures of eternal life. ”

“ For when I consider the leisure, filled with sacred occupations, the delectable refuge of my dwelling, your pious and holy dispositions—when I think of the holy band of so many soldiers of Christ, zealous in all Divine offices, and the shining examples of special excellence in particular brethren, and the sweet converse we had on the perfections of our celestial home—I tremble, I gaze, I languish, I cannot restrain my tears, and my breast is rent with many sighs. ”

“ See, dear child, how strange is destiny, which is none other but the hand of God—for we must be blind not to recognize in all these things the finger of divine Providence—it is precisely the efforts made to put an obstacle between us, to prevent us, me from fulfilling my duties of a pastor, you those of a Christian, which have been the cause of our sweet intimacy. ”

“ O ye Saints of the last days, do you realize the fearful—the infinitely important—the eternal responsibilities which rest upon you, to watch over yourselves, your children, and all who are placed under your charge? Do you realize that your condemnation and punishment will be in proportion to the light and knowledge against which you sin? ”

“ His own time for restoring all things that have been predicted by the ancient prophets. If they have predicted that the day would come when seven women would take hold of one man, saying, "We will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach;" and that, in that day the branch of the Lord should be beautiful and glorious and the fruits of the earth should be excellent and comely, the Lord has the right to say when that time shall be. ”

“ This being then the present condition of our earth, the present condition of the Latter-day Saints, and the work that is before them, to prepare them for the coming of the Lord, and for the redemption of the earth, what manner of persons ought you and I to be, to prepare for so great a change which is to come, over the face of this creation? How ought we to act and conduct ourselves? ”

“ Such beings are we, when we have laid off this outward tabernacle of flesh. We are in every way interested, in our relationships, kindred ties, sympathies, affections, and hopes, as if we had continued to live, but had stepped aside, and were experiencing the loneliness of absence for a season. Our ancestors, our posterity, to the remotest ages of antiquity, or of future time, are all brought within the circle of our sphere of joys, sorrows, interests, or expectations ”

“ We are what the Lord calls Latter-day Saints—we have received light and knowledge to that degree from the heavens that will, if obeyed, exalt us to these high privileges of which I have been speaking. ”

“ We have told them for the last forty-nine years that the Lord God had commenced a work to prepare the way before the face of his coming, to prepare a people to endure his presence, to gather his people from the four quarters of the earth into one, in order that they might be prepared against the day when the veil of eternity shall be rent, and the voice of the Lord shall be heard unto the ends of the earth. ”

“ It now remains for me to give certain counsels whereby the soul may know how to enter this night of sense and may be able so to do. To this end it must be known that the soul habitually enters this night of sense in two ways: the one is active; the other passive. The active way consists in that which the soul can do, and does, of itself, in order to enter therein, whereof we shall now treat in the counsels which follow. The passive way is that wherein the soul does nothing, and God works in it, and it remains, as it were, patient. ”

“ And we, Lord, full of wants, empty of sincere fruits of penitence, made up wholly of effeminacy and sensualities, lukewarm, and without desire, fixed in a certain state of languishing and imperfect piety, more sustained by habitude and the engagements of a holy profession than by thy grace or by a lively and solid faith, alas! we make thy body our ordinary food. ”

“ You will not wonder that I address myself chiefly to those who are just leaving academic life for the sterner struggle and the larger tasks of matured and instructed manhood. The hour belongs to them; if others find patience to listen, they will kindly remember that, after all, they are but as the spectators at the wedding, and that the priest is thinking less of them than of their friends who are kneeling at the altar. ”

“ If you fully understand and appreciate the warnings which you have received, happy are you, if you give heed and obey the voice of the Lord your God, for great shall be your reward, and eternal shall be your glory. ”

“ But this day was the Boy's birthday and the Father took from his pocket an envelope and placed it with a smile by the side of the little parcels.
Would he never look at his letters? The Mother was on the point of speaking, but long habit, the old habit of obedience to her lord, restrained her. Even now, when she was cold with anxiety, those old concealed forces of habit restrained her. Might she not offend him? ”

“ Calculate, therefore, what portion of it you should bestow on the world, pleasures, fortune, and on your salvation. My brethren, says the apostle, time is short; let us therefore use the world, as not abusing it; let us possess our riches, places, dignities, and titles, as though we possessed them not; let us enjoy the favour of our superiors, and the esteem of men, as though we enjoyed them not; they are only shadows which vanish and leave us for ever; and let us only reckon upon as real, in our whole life, the moments which we have employed for heaven. ”

“ One cardinal lesson of the parable, apart from the representation of actual conditions present and future, is that of patience, long-suffering, and toleration—each an attribute of Deity and a trait of character that all men should cultivate. ”

“ When shall I see the world pervaded by God alone, and prostrate myself in the path of Love Divine! When shall my religious works and daily duties be a thing of the past' When shall my sense of caste and family be gone! ”

“ Improve every object and every event, to mind thy soul of its approaching rest. As all providences and creatures are means to our rest, so they point us to that, as their end. God's sweetest dealings with us at the present, would not be half so sweet as they are, if they did not intimate some further sweetness. Thou takest but the bare earnest, and overlookest the main sum, when thou receivest thy mercies, and forgettest thy crown. ”

“ I would much rather be chastened than to heap up an abundance of this world's goods, and neglect some of the most important duties of my religion. Hence, when I pray in relation to myself, my prayer is for the Lord to chasten me, and also in relation to this people my prayer is, O Lord, let thy chastening hand be upon this people, until they learn to obey those good and wholesome counsels that are poured out from this stand by those who preside over us. ”

“ My days are bound each to each not by 'natural piety' (or not, let me say, by natural piety alone) but by pedestrian enthusiasm. The memory of school days, if one may trust to the usual reminiscences, generally clusters round a flogging, or some solemn words from the spiritual teacher instilling the seed of a guiding principle of life. ”

“ First, the right disposition of the mind of man; Secondly, the right ordering of his life. For the first, God suited the disposition of man unto the end; giving him such knowledge of God as was fit for his present state, and a heart inclined to God in holy love. ”

“ But if, perchance, on some solemn festival, or when requisite for the fulfilment of a duty, they communicate or sacrifice, they practise devotion for a little while, until they have discharged their duty, soon again to return, like the dog to his vomit and the sow to her wallowing, to their first disposition and habits. ”

“ You have been baptized, you have had the laying on of hands, and some have been ordained, and some anointed with a holy anointing. A spirit has been given you. And you will find, if you undertake to rest, it will be the hardest work you ever performed. ”

“ With time enough afterwards to think of this as soldier, priest, prophet, care-worn king, and fallible judge over men—with time enough to think of what his days of nature had been when he tended sheep grazing the pastures of Bethlehem or abided solitary with the flock by night, lowly despised work, under the herded stars. Thus converting a young man's memories into an older man's remorses. ”

“ I always warred in my mind against the enforced gloom of our home, and having for my private reading at that time Young's Night Thoughts, came upon what seemed to me the very spirit of true religion, a cheerful heart gathering up the joyfulness of surrounding nature; on which the poet says: "'Tis impious in a good man to be sad." ”

“ He was obliged to begin down at the lowest principles of knowledge, and ascend upward by degrees, receiving grace for grace, truth for truth, knowledge for knowledge, until he was filled with all the fulness of the Father, and was capable of ruling, governing, and controlling all things, having ascended above all things. ”

“ Hitherto I have only spoken of piety in general, but, just to show you more in detail how our fathers have disencumbered it of its toils and troubles, would it not be most consoling to the ambitious to learn that they may maintain genuine devotion along with an inordinate love of greatness? ”

“ More than this, in the two or three supreme moments of life to which men look forward and on which they look back,—at birth, at the passing of the threshold into fulness of life, at marriage, at death,—the Church is present to invest the hour with a certain solemn and dignified charm. ”

“ Accordingly, Passion time, or Passion tide, is the season when we are more especially called upon to commemorate, and call to mind, and ponder, and think over the suffering of our Savior, Christ, those scenes announced in the Gospel when He was betrayed into the hands of wicked men, and by them was falsely accused, reviled, mocked, scourged, crowned with thorns, and at last crucified. ”

“ And who dares to teach man, created in the image of God, that the daily duty appointed to him—duty to himself, his family, his country, and his race—serves but temporal ends? If neglected, are only temporal ends frustrated? When our Father sends us what fills our hearts with food and gladness, is He working nought but temporal ends? ”

“ The poet then goes on to ask, Who dares to say this man, this pastour, is a flatterer; the crime is universal; through all the world the learned pate, with allusion to the pastour, ducks to the golden fool. If it be objected, as it may justly be, that the mention of pastour is unsuitable, we must remember the mention of grace and cherubims in this play, and many such anachronisms in many others. ”

“ Perhaps Patience was a hard word for a baby to say, but the moment you could talk you said, 'Patty wants this' and 'Patty wants that.”'
“Did Patty ever get it? She never has since, that's certain! And look at your name: it's 'Waitstill,' yet you never stop a moment. When you're not in the shed or barn, or chicken-house, or kitchen or attic, or garden-patch, you are working in the Sunday School or the choir.” ”

“ Now, as the master of a family may, to a greater or less extent, infallibly succeed by zeal, affection, skill, and patience, in dispelling the superstitions and the ignorance which have happened to come under his roof; so, with zeal, affection, skill, and patience, proportioned to the greatness of the work, may the Christian nations at length effect a cleansing of the earth from the cruelties and impurities of polytheism. ”

“ We may feel that we are trying to do this; but a little more light of the Spirit from heaven—of the Holy Ghost shed forth upon our hearts—would enable us to see many imperfections and follies that are gathered up by the traditions of our forefathers and from the acts of our neighbours. ”

“ Have you been saving more than one life?”
“Not more than one—a good deal less than one. Don’t let us get into a sentimental strain, pater. You are the chartered—ah, the chartered sentimentalist of the family. ”

“ Bless, O Lord, his generations after him, that they may rise up and be mighty men in the earth; that they may be clothed with the power and the spirit, so abundantly manifested upon their respected father ”

“ The Lord has seen this order long enough, and it is a stink in His nostrils, and He wishes it driven away from the earth, and He has given us instructions to do it away, and if we want to do it away, let us begin among ourselves first. ”

“ Nor will you wonder, in comparing the longer with the shorter term of life, that the suit of supplicating parents in our Lord’s days, whether for the child or for the youth, was so often granted by a restoration to a more protracted term of life. ”

“ That spirit that now dwells within each man, and each woman, of this vast assembly of people, is more than a thousand years old, and I would venture to say, that it is more than five thousand years old. ”