Discourse 1889-05-19 [D-139]

REMARKS

By President Wilford Woodruff, at the Sanpete Stake Conference, held at Manti, Sunday and Monday, May 19 and 20, 1889.

REPORTED BY A. WINTER.

After an absence of five years, through the providence of God we are again permitted to meet with our friends in Sanpete. This is a privilege that we greatly prize. It is a great blessing to be able to come here as free men, and to have the opportunity of opening our mouths and teaching the people as we are moved upon by the Spirit of the Lord. I have no right to say that it has been so long since we preached to the people that we have forgotten how; but I have a right to say that we are just as much dependent today upon the Lord for His Holy Spirit, to guide us in our teaching and instruction to the people, as we ever were. And in order for us to enjoy this blessing, we need the faith and prayers of the Latter-day Saints

who assemble to be taught. Every man in the Church of God on the earth should be able to speak as he is moved upon by the Holy Ghost. Then his words are the word of the Lord, the mind of the Lord, the will of the Lord, and they are scripture.

Of all people that have ever lived, the Latter-day Saints have the greatest reason to be thankful to the Lord. We possess the fulness of the Gospel and are members of the Church of Jesus Christ. We occupy a place in that land which was given to Joseph by his father— the land of America. We have received the organization of the great Kingdom of our God—that kingdom which was spoken of by Adam, by Daniel, and by all the ancient prophets whose eyes have been upon this age of the world. We are building up Zion in the very place and on the very continent which the Lord designed. Therefore, why should we not be happy? Why should we not be contented? Why should we not be united together to carry out the purposes of the Lord? We should be. There is no man who has received this Gospel and enjoys the Holy Ghost but can rejoice and be thankful, and be willing to pass through whatever trials or afflictions he may be called upon to endure for the Gospel's sake. I feel to rejoice myself at this time that we have the privilege of meeting together in peace. When I contemplate our position as Latter-day Saints, and the responsibilities that we are under, I feel that our hearts and our souls should be drawn out in thanksgiving to God. We should labor for the building up of the Kingdom of God and for the establishment of His work; for we have been called of God and appointed to take this kingdom in the latter days and bear it off. We have promises given unto us that no other dispensation or generation of men ever had. It has been promised us that we shall possess the kingdom and the greatness of the kingdom, and it will never be overthrown, but will remain until Jesus Christ, the great lawgiver to Israel, comes to reign over His people. Therefore, we need not think that we have nothing to do. We have a great work before us, and it will require all our exertions and all our talents and ability to perform it. We must seek for the Spirit of God to assist us; for without this Spirit we can accomplish but very little.

There is a subject pressing upon my mind at the present time which I want to speak upon. I refer to the treatment of animals. My soul has been pained a great deal by the treatment which man extends to the beasts of the field. Before the railroad was built across this continent I crossed the plains several times, and the abuse of animals which I then witnessed gave me great pain. The Lord has given unto us horses and cattle and other animals for our benefit. Not one of these animals can talk to us, and I therefore look upon their ill-treatment as a great evil and a sin. This is a matter which the world consider of small consequence for the President of a church to talk about. I have not done it heretofore, but I am going to do it now.

We all admire a fine horse. It is one of the noblest of animals. It is also one of the most useful of animals. The treatment that we extend to horses, in many instances, is unjust and unrighteous. I have seen men take a young horse that had never had a harness on. They have harnessed it, and they have taken a black-snake whip, and before it was ever put to a wagon or anything of the kind they have whipped it almost to death. I have seen young men in these valleys do that. Does that horse know why he is thus abused? The man who does this commits a sin. When you harness a young horse for the first time, he knows nothing about it and does not know what to do. That horse should be treated kindly, no matter whether he kicks, or jumps, or bites. He don't understand why that harness is put on him, and the man who has any kindness about him will treat that animal kindly. If you do this, the horse will very soon learn what you want of him, and when he learns that, he will do it. Treat your animals kindly and they will treat you kindly; they will do all you ask of them.

Here is a young heifer. She has a calf. A youug man goes to milk her. She has never been milked before. She kicks and won't stand still. What does that young man do? He gets a club or something of the kind and goes to thrashing her. Now, whoever does that ought to be thrashed himself. Treat that animal kindly. In a little while she will understand what is wanted of her and will then act all right.

I want to see a change, especially with the Latter-day Saints, in their treatment of the beasts of the field. They have been given to us for our use. They are a great blessing to us, and we should treat them gently and with consideration. It is wrong to exercise tyranny over anything. When I was a boy and went to school, the schoolmaster used to come with a bundle of sticks about eight feet long, and one of the first things we expected was to get a whipping. For anything that was not pleasing to him we would get a terrible thrashing. What whipping I got then did not do me any good. I have always felt that ill-treatment either of chil dren or animals is all wrong. Kindness, gentleness and mercy are better every way. I would like this principle instilled into the minds of our young men, that they may carry it out in all their acts in life. Tyranny is not good, whether it be exercised by kings, by presidents, or by the servants of God. Kind words are far better than harsh words. If, when we have difficulties one with another, we would be kind and affable to each other, we would save ourselves a great deal of trouble.

I wonder if there is a man here who ever gained anything by scolding or beating his wife or his children. I never saw auy good result from it. You go into a family where a man treats his wife and children kindly, and you will find that they will treat him in the same way. Complaints reach me of the treatment of men to their wives. They do not provide for them. They do not treat them kindly. All this pains me. These things should not be. Here is a man who has a wife or wives. They have been given unto him of the Lord. They have placed themselves under his direction. This man is held responsible by his Creator for the course which he pursues toward these women. He should be kind to them; and in their afflictiou he should not tyrannize over them, or scold them, or pain their hearts. We should be kind to one another, do good to one another, and labor to promote the welfare, the interest and the happiness of each other, especially those of our own households. The man stands at the head of the family. He is the patriarch of his household. I have attended meetings in this Church where one man has had almost a congregation of sons and daughters. There is no more beautiful sight on earth than to see a man stand at the head of his family and teach them righteous principles and give them good counsel. These children honor their father, and they take consolation and joy in having a father who is a righteous man.

Our sisters, also, have their duties to perform to their husbands. They should consider his position and his circumstances. Many of our brethren have gone to prison, for the Gospel's sake. This has created a degree of trial, affliction and sorrow in their families. As a general thing, as Brother George Q. Cannon has said, it has a tendency to draw their wives and their children closer to them. Every wife should be kind to her husband. She should comfort him and do what good she can for him, under all circumstances in life. When all the family are united together, they enjoy a heavenly spirit here on the earth. This is how it should be; for when a man in this Church takes unto himself a wife he expects to remain with her through all time and eternity. In the morning of the first resurrection he expects to have that wife and his children with him in a family organization, to remain in that condition forever and forever. What a glorious thought that is! I have felt if, when I get through this world, where I have passed through many tribulations and afflictions with my wives and children, I can only have them with me in the next world, in their immortal bodies, to stand with me in the presence of God and of the Savior, and of the old patriarchs and prophets, it will pay me for all my labors if I should live to be as old as Methusaleh. And I have no doubt that all of you feel the same.

There is another thing I wish to refer to here. I have heard that in Zion there are some men who entertain the idea that they inherit the body and spirit of Moses, or Abraham, or David, or Noah, or somebody other than themselves. I hope none of you here indulge in anything of this kind, because it is a

most foolish, nonsensical and false doctrine. You gaze upon a man who professes to have inherited the body or spirit of Moses, or any of those I have named, and I think you will conclude that his appearance does not indicate that such is the case; at any rate, it certainly has not improved him. Brother Woodruff, Brother Cannon, Brother Smith, Brother Lorenzo Snow, or any of the brethren, will never inherit anyone's body or spirit but their own, in time or in eternity, unless the devil gets into them. It is Satan who inspires men to believe in such absurd things. He delights in having any of the brethren entertain false ideas, no matter what they are. I tell you that whoever sees me in time or eternity will see Wilford Woodruff, not Noah, nor Abraham, nor Enoch. Every man has his own identity, and he never will lose that identity. Therefore, when you hear such doctrine as that advanced, do not believe it. There are a good many things Satan would like us to believe; but we must guard against these.

The Latter-day Saints need instruction; they need preaching to; and we esteem it a great blessing to be able to mingle with you, to speak to you and to bear our testimony unto you. I say to the Latter-day Saints that the visions of our minds are open, the revelations of God rest upon us, and the voice of God to us is that the day has come when we, as shepherds in Israel, holding the Apostleship and keys of the kingdom of God, should stand in the midst of this people and call them to repentance, call them to open their eyes to see, and their ears to hear, and to prepare themselves for the great events the God of Israel is about to bring to pass in the earth.

We live in a very important day. Father Adam, three years previous to his death, called his sons together —Seth, Enos, Jared, Canaan, Maha'aleel, Enoch and Methusaleh, with the residue of his posterity —into the valley of AdamOudi-Ahman, and there he blessed his posterity. The power of God rested upon him and he told the people what should befall them until the latest generation. [##Doctrine and Covenants 107:53-56##] These things are all written in the Book of Enoch, which will be revealed in the due time of the Lord. Since then there have been Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and other patriarchs and prophets. All of them saw, by vision and revelation, this day and this people. They proclaimed our history from the beginning to the end. Where are these men today? They stand, in their immortal bodies, in the presence of God and the Lamb. They are watching over us. We are their children and we are fulfilling the mission of the last dispensation of the fulness of times. I feel sometimes to ask, where are the hearts and feelings of the people who have embraced this work? It is a glorious work, a grand work. The Prophet Isaiah, in speaking of Zion, says:

"Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. * * *

And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising." [##Isaiah 60:1-3##]

One hundred and fifty thousand of those Gentiles that Isaiah saw have gathered to these valleys of the mountains, in obedience to the Gospel of Christ. Is not that Gospel as true today as it ever was? Are not the revelations of the Almighty as true today as they were in the days of Adam, and Enoch, and Moses, and Christ and His Apostles? They are. And we have been reserved in the spirit world for thousands of years, to stand in the flesh in the latter days, and to take God's kingdom and build it up. Understanding these things then, what are we, as Latter-day Saints, thinking about? We have got a great warfare to fight. Lucifer, the son of the morning, and all his hosts, are united against us. We are but a little handful, compared with the inhabitants of the earth. There never were but few men and women, in any age of the world, who were independent enough to reject evil and to serve the Lord. But we have been counted worthy to be numbered as His people. It is time, therefore, that we arose, that we awoke, and that, clothed upon with the power of God and the Holy Priesthood, we should magnify this Priesthood and obtain the blessings belonging thereto. This people have power to contend with the heavens, and to control the heavens, in a measure. With this Priesthood resting upon them, this people have power that when their prayers shall ascend into the ears of the God of Israel, they shall be heard and answered upon their heads. Shall we desert the Lord? Shall we desert His cause? God forbid. There is no mistake about this work. The Lord is not trifling with us. We have the same eternal and everlasting Priesthood that God has kept in the heavens for eighteen hundred years. Will you tell me that we have not power to fulfill the commandments of God? If you do, you tell me that which is not true. The God of heaven has given us all needful power, if we will only rise up and magnify it before the heavens and the earth. We have no time to contend or quarrel over water ditches. We should be united together and magnify our callings before the Lord; for I tell you there is no time to spare. The Almighty is going to cut short His work in righteousness, or no flesh could be saved. The heavens are full of judgments, and all those who remain in Babylon, God will not spare; they will be burned with the wicked. We are responsible for the use which we make of the power God has given us. I tell you the devil has no power, the Gentiles have no power over the Latter-day Saints when they do their duty and are united. It is not ordained for the wicked to have power to bring to pass evil upon us, if we are united. Zion shall not be moved out of her place, saith the Lord. [##Doctrine and Covenants 101:17##] But the day has come when the Lord calls upon Zion to arise, and upon these Apostles and these Elders of Israel to feed the flock of Christ. We should teach them the words of life and salvation, and the Latter-day Saints should hear us and lay these things to heart. They should fulfil the commandments of God. We are here only upon a short mission. We are the messengers of the God of Israel, messengers of life and salvation. And if we will do our duty and obey the commandments of God, we shall accomplish all that the Lord expects us to do.

Brethren and sisters, do not quarrel one with another; do not contend about water or anything of that kind. I tell you that the man who, rather than quarrel with his neighbor, will say, "Take my water; I won't contend with you," that man will get a good deal more wheat than the one who fights and quarrels and goes to law about his water. He will be blessed of the Lord and justified before Him. Let us put all these things aside and call upou the Lord in mighty prayer, asking that His blessings may be upon us, and that His revelations may be fulfilled upon our heads; that Zion may be purified and the Saints of God be united together.

This is the way we, as the Presidency of the Church and as Apostles, feel. I want you to understand that God is with us, that the keys of the Kingdom of God are here, and that Zion is here, and they have all come to stay. I rejoice in this; I rejoice in the Gospel of Christ, in which there is no change from eternity to eternity.

Brethren and sisters, let us try to live our religion and sanctify ourselves before the Lord. Seek for the Holy Spirit; pray for it; and labor for visions, for dreams, for revelations and for the gifts of the Gospel of Christ, that they may strengthen us in the good work. I pray God to bless you and those who preside over you, as well as those who labor in this Temple in Manti, and in all other Temples in Zion. They are performing a glorious work in these Temples. And when we get through our work here, I trust we will be together in the Kingdom of God on the other side of the veil. This is my prayer and desire, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.