Joseph A. Benton Collection

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spared, & most recently deprived Congrega-tion, to lay the Corner-stone [cornerstone] of a new Edifice. We come to this hour & this spot with joy; & still we have come hither through much tribulation. But as this is the divinely ap-pointed method, for men whom sin has undone, of arriving at any permanent & settled state of blessedness, it behooves us not to complain. If we are truly, what we hope we are, a good Providence is over us; a divine hand is guiding us; a glo-rious Redeemer is in the midst of us; and holy angels encamp around us.

After having struggled, amid many vicis-situdes, for more than a year, against the depression & weakness of ill-health, & other as-verse circ^s [circumstances], on the fourth of Sept. 1850, your Pastor was permitted to lay the Corner-stone [cornerstone] of the first church-edifice Erected by this Society on yonder site. It was a day of

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joy to him, even greater than this. It was marked with a white stone. But few of those who aided in building that Edifice, originally, remain among us. It can not be otherwise than that my our affections should cling to them. That building was a greater undertaking, in its day, than this which now we rear; tho. [though] not half so large. We occupied it three years, & then enlarged it. Hallowed mem-ories already were with it. Sacred associ-ations gathered about it. Thither came a few to consecrate their offspring to Him that keepeth Covenant. Thither came the young to learn to learn the holy Scriptures, & the way of Life, thro. [through] Him who gave himself for the world. Thither came the humble & believing to sit down in sorrow, yet in hope, at the table of the Lord. Thither came mourners, with the ashes of their dead, to be comforted. Thither came, month by month, & year after year, slowly

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increasing numbers, to worship God, to hear instruction, to join in prayer, & to lift up the heart in music, whose strains are with us yet. And thither in weakness, in trembling, & in fear, came the preacher from toils many & vigils late — but, his manner of life you know.

When ashes were strewedn [strewn] upon the place of our altars, & the sweet tones of our bell were silenced, & the glory of the former house had departed, it was my hope that we might be able to lay the Cornerstone of a new one on the same day of the month as that on which we laid the former one. In that case, I thought to have used the same order, to have sung the same hymn, & to have made much the same style of due address. But, as the day had to be changed, so all else has been, except the hymn.

This block of granite is from the quarry at Mormon Island. There is no "stony ground"

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within the limits of the city, except such as the Sowers of the Spiritual seed may find; else we should have procured the material for this occasion nearer home. As it is, the block is from our own county, & we have some pride in that fact. There is nothing foreign to this city and County about the edifice we are rearing. This granite comports well with the solid & sub-stantial character of the building itself, & we trust, also, of those who shall worship in it.

Confessedly, if there be anything primitive, solid, & everduring, in doctrine & in character, in this world, it is held in the creeds covenants, & history, of the churches we repre-sent as firmly as in any other. We profess that we are built on the apostles and prophets, J. C. [Jesus Christ] being the chief stone of the corner; & not on fathers & saints, ancient or modern. Our doctrines, our covenants, & our teachings, are, indeed, too hard for some; but, oh, when days of trial come, & the storms of life beat fiercely, & the tides

"All are architects of fate; Building in these walls of time Some with massive deeds & great; Some with ornaments of rhyme."