Discourse 1895-10-06 [D-97]

DISCOURSE Delivered at the General Conference of the Church, in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday, October 6th, 1895, by PREST. WILFORD WOODRUFF.

-[REPORTED BY ARTHUR WINTER.]-

President Woodruff read from ##Doctrine and Covenants 68|Section 68## of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, as follows:

My servant, Orson Hyde, was called by his ordinance to proclaim the everlasting gospel, by the Spirit of the everlasting God, from people to people, and from land to land, in the congregations of the wicked, in their synagogues, reasoning with, and expounding all Scriptures unto them.

And, behold, and lo! this is an ensample unto all those who were ordained unto this priesthood, whose mission is appointed unto them to go forth;

And this is the ensample unto them, that they shall speak as they are moved unto by the Holy Ghost,

And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost, shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation:

Behold this is the promise of the Lord unto you, O ye my servants;

Wherefore be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come.

He then said:

I have read these verses this morning before you that you may understand the position that I occupy before God, angels and men. I have a desire to speak a short time to the Latter day Saints; but I want you to understand, as I have read here, that I am not capable, nor is any man capable of teaching the children of men and edifying them in the Gospel of Jesus Christ without the Holy Spirit, without revelation, without the inspiration of Almighty God. Therefore, I want the faith of the Latter day Saints, and alao [also] their prayers. I need the Spirit of God to assist me, as does every man who attempts to teach the people the things of the kingdom of heaven. I have been sick for about a week, confined mostly to my bed and room; but I have felt that I did not wish this conference to pass without meeting you. For the last day or two I have had the privilege of mingling with my friends, and I have a desire to express myself upon some things appertaining to our day and generation and to the work of God.

The question arises in the minds of the people in our day and generation, Does President Woodruff have revelation? Do his counselors have revelation? Do the Twelve Apostles have revelation? Do this people have revelation? We live in too important a day and generation, and in the midst of too important events, for any man to be qualified to lead the people of God one hour without revelation and inspiration from Almighty God. And at this point I want to say a few words with regard to this principle of revelation. Read the history of the world. Old father Adam, three years and a half previous to his death, called together seven of his sons, all High Priests—Seth, Enos, Jared, Mahallaleel, Canaan, Enoch and Methusaleh—with the residue of his posterity, and there he stood on his feet for a long time, clothed with the Holy Ghost and the power of God, and he prophesied unto his sons what should take place concerning them and their posterity to the end of time. [##Doctrine and Covenants 107:53##] Follow this out; take all those early patriarchs and prophets, and later ones, too, and they all have had revelation. They had to have it. Whenever a city became ripened in iniquity, and men blasphemed God and broke His commandments, the Lord Almighty raised up prophets and inspired men to warn that city and the inhabitants thereof of the judgments of God which should come upon them unless they repented. Jeremiah was called to warn Jerusalem and Judea in the reign of King Zedekiah, and in doing so he stirred up the anger of the people against him, and he was cast into a dungeon and abused in almost every way, because he told them what was coming to pass unless they repented. He did not praise them; but he told them that they were committing sin and breaking the laws of God, and if they did not repent, the judgments of God would overtake them. [##Jeremiah 37-38##] In reading of how they persecuted him and what he passed through, a man would almost expect to read in the book of Jeremiah that he said to them, "You may all go to hell for what I care, I am not going to endure these things." But you cannot read it there; for the Lord in calling him had said unto Jeremiah:

"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." [##Jeremiah 1:5-7##]

Jeremiah gave forth the word of the Lord, and not one word fell unfulfilled. And so with every other prophet.

Take the whole history of the world down to the present generation, and has there ever been a time when the people of God did not need revelation? I say, nay. Now, I would ask this congregation; I would ask the Jews, the Catholics, the Protestants, I would ask the clergy of all nations: Can this mighty dispensation, of which every prophet has spoken, be fulfilled, and can these great events transpire in the earth, without revelation from God? No, most assuredly not. God never gave to a man a greater dispensation than the one in which Joseph Smith was called and ordained of God to organize the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It required revelation. It will require it to the winding-up scene. Zion cannot be built up without it, prophets and apostles cannot do their work without it, nor can the nations of the earth be warned of the great judgments that are at the door without it. Therefore, we say to all men, Joseph Smith was called of God by revelation. And further, we say that no man ever did or ever will have power to warn the world, to preach the Gospel, or administer in one of the ordinances of the house of God without the Holy Priesthood. It is just as necessary in the last days as it was in the days of Christ and His Apostles, or in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah. You cannot separate these things; they belong to the same God, to the same salvation, to the same principles of eternal life.

I have sat and listened to every Apostle that is before me now bear record during this conference. Did not these Apostles speak by the Holy Ghost and the power of God? They did, and their testimony is recorded in the great library of the celestial kingdom of God. They could not edify us without it. I would to God that the inhabitants of the earth would get rid of the idea that revelation ceased when Christ was put to death. It is a false doctrine. Revelation belongs to the salvation of the children of men.

Again, why did the Lord choose such a weak man as Wilford Woodruff to preside over His Church? Why did He choose Joseph Smith—an illiterate boy, as he was called? Why has He chosen that class of men? Because He could handle them. He has chosen men that will acknowledge the hand of God. The question has been asked me many times, Why did not the Lord choose some of the great divines of the day? Because it is not His manner of doing business; it never has been. You may take the apostles and prophets in any age of the world, and they have been very humble men. They are in this day and generation, or the Lord could not handle them. That is the reason the Lord has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the wise, "and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are." [##1 Corinthians 1:27-28##] Could Joseph Smith rise up and boast before the God of Israel that that was his work? Could Brigham Young? Could John Taylor? Can Wilford Woodruff?

Can any of these Apostles? Taken as we have been from the plow, the plane, the hammer, and the various occupations of life, can we boast we have power to do this? We cannot; we are not made of that material. The only marvel I have had all my life has been that the Lord ever chose me for anything, especially as an Apostle and as President. But that is His own business; it was not mine.

My name has been referred to two or three times by the Apostles with regard to my labors. I want to say something in relation to that. To begin with, I will say that the Lord has never set His hand in any age of the world, especially in ours, to establish a Zion like this, without preparing an element for it. In fact, the Lord never undertook to do anything with regard to this world, appertaining to His kingdom and work, until He had prepared a people for it. Now, the set time had come for the fulfillment of the revelations of St. John, when another angel should fly through the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwelt upon the earth, "saying with a loud voice, fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come." [##Revelation 14:6-7##] The time, I say, had come for the manifestation of the Gospel of Christ to the world. The Apostles of Christ and every man that bore the Priesthood in their day and generation were put to death for the word of God and testimony of Jesus, and the Holy Priesthood was caught up to God, and remained there until the day and generation in which Joseph Smith was raised up. He was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood by John the Baptist, who held the keys of that Priesthood while dwelling in the flesh. [##Joseph Smith-History 1:72##] He was ordained to the Apostleship by Peter, James and John, who held the keys of that Priesthood when they were taken from the earth. [##Doctrine and Covenants 128:20##] That was the beginning of this work. The Lord could not undertake a work of this kind without there was a way and a people prepared for it. In the first place, the Lord prepared the minds of men of the generation in which Joseph Smith was born, that they might be ready to receive His work when it was established. There were men that were kept in the spirit world thousands of years to stand in the flesh in this generation to bear this Holy Priesthood and to bear record of that to the inhabitants of the earth. Those men have been born in this day, and they have been moved upon to prepare for this work.

Now, I desire to say something about myself. It is generally considered egotism for a man to speak of himself; but I speak of my history and experience because it is applicable to thousands of others. Eighty years ago, when I was about eight years old, I attended Sabbath school under Dr. Porter, a great reverend divine in Farmington, Connecticut. There I read some strange things in the New Testament. What were they? Why, I read of Apostles; I read of men who laid hands on the sick, and they recovered; who cast out devils, raised the dead, caused the dumb to speak, the blind to see, the lame to leap, who held converse with God and with holy angels, and had visions and revelations. Brethren and sisters, I read of these things when I was eight years of age. They made an impression upon my mind as soon as I read them. "Why is it, Dr. Porter,—why is it, Dr. Haws,— why is it, gentlemen, that you do not advocate in your day and generation that faith once delivered to the Saints? Why don't you receive these things, if they were the servants of God and had the Gospel?" "Oh!" said they, "these things are all done away with. They were given in the dark ages of the world to convince the world that Jesus was the Christ. We live in the blaze of the glorious gospel light of Christ; we do not need them today." "Then," said I, "give me the dark ages of the world, if they will give a man power to unlock the door of eternity and hold converse with God, and receive these blessings and gifts manifest in that day." From that time my inspiration began. As soon as I grew a little older I began to read the revelations. My soul was drawn out upon these things. In my early manhood I prayed day and night that I might live to see a prophet. I would have gone a thousand miles to have seen a prophet, or a man that could teach me the things that I read of in the Bible. I could not join any church, because I could not find any church at that time that advocated these principles. I spent many a midnight hour, by the river side, in the mountains, and in my mill (being a miller,) calling upon God that I might live to see a prophet or some man that would teach me of the things of the kingdom of God as I read them. I remained in that condition until the year 1833. I was living with my brother on the shores of Lake Ontario. A man by the name of Zera Pulsipher, sixty miles from where I lived, was moved upon in the month of December, with the snow three or four feet deep, to arise and go to the north, the Lord had some work for him there. He called upon another man to go with him. They traveled two days on the road to the north, not knowing where they were going. Our house was the first place that they stopped at. I was lumbering at the time on the shore of the lake. Zera Pulsipher told my brother's wife who they were and what they were, and what their principles were. He said the Lord had sent him into the north country to do some work there. My sisterin-law told him that her husband and myself both believed in the principles that he taught. Well they held a meeting. I went to it, and for the first time in my life I heard a Gospel sermon. I invited the men home. I borrowed a Book of Mormon, and sat up all night and read it, and I had a testimony it was true. In the morning I asked to be baptized. Myself and brother were baptized—the first in that region of country. From that hour till this I never have had one moment's doubt with regard to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know the work is true. I have been called into the vineyard and ministry with the rest of my brethren, and I have traveled a great many miles and quite a number of years. I have held the Apostleship fifty-eight years. Brother Joseph only held it some fourteen before he was slain. Brother Brigham held it about forty, and Brother Taylor about the same length of time as myself. I have labored all these years and I know it is the work of God. I know the Lord is with this people. I have a desire that we may magnify our callings and fulfill our position upon the earth. God has organized this Church; He has organized it with prophets, apostles, pastors, teacher, helps, etc., in fulfillment of the promises of God in the last days. I traveled with Joseph Smith quite a length of time. I traveled with Brigham Young forty years, at home and abroad. I traveled with him to this country. We came with the pioneers. Brigham Young, though he never wrote many revelations, had the revelations of God with him from the day that he embraced this work till the day of his death. I have often thought of the time when he was asked if he would not go on to California instead of stopping in this barren land. What was his answer? I was with him when he gave that answer. He said, "No, I am going to stay right here. I am going to build a temple here; I am going to build a city here; I am going to build a country here." Has it not been so? Yes, it has. Was it not by revelation? Certainly it was. We have all been called from this low position in life to the Priesthood. Thousands of this people have been called to go abroad to preach the Gospel. In speaking of myself and the manner I was led, so we find it everywhere throughout the world. Where did you come from? You came from every state in the Union; from England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, Ireland and other parts of Europe, as well as from the different nations of the earth and the islands of the sea. One of these simple Elders came to you and you heard him preach the Gospel, and he promised you if you would repent of your sins and be baptized for the remission of them, you should receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Did you not receive it? You did, or you would not be here today. Nobody could then keep you at home. We have been gathered together by the commandments of God, and so far we are trying to do the will of God. But we have only just begun. I was at the concert here last night, and I could not help but think that if President Young had been there and looked upon that vast assembly of ten thousand people, gathered not only from this territory but from neighboring states and territories, he would have felt satisfied. When he built this Tabernacle we did not have people to fill it; but he told us that in the building up of Zion we would never have a house big enough to accommodate us however large we might build it; and so it proved last night. I enjoyed the concert. Governor Thomas invited me to address the assembly; but I felt that people had gathered there, not to hear preaching, but music.

Let me speak a little further with regard to the Lord preparing a people for this work. The history of this whole people is in that line. I will refer you to the year 1840. The Lord gave a commandment for the Twelve Apostles to go to England. There had a few gone to England before; Brother Kimball and several others went in 1837 and established the Church there. But in 1840 the Apostles were called as a body to go there; and the devil did not like it. He tried to kill us all. There was hardly one of the Twelve Apostles who went that was well. When I left home President Young paddled me across the Mississippi in a canoe, and I was suffering with the chills and fever. I had spent two years in Tennessee and Kentucky, in the midst of sickness; but I never had an attack of chills and fever in my life till I was called to go to England. It was so with most all of us. The devil did not like it; but we went. It was the harvest time then in that land. We accomplished a great work. We

baptized about seven thousand that year, opened doors throughout England and and Scotland, and laid a foundation for the work which has been fulfilled up to the present time. I will refer to one circumstance connected with that mission. I was in the potteries in Staffordshire, having gone there when I got to England. I was doing a good work there, baptizing almost every night. One night I went to Hanley to hold a meeting, and there was a very full house. Before I got up to speak, the Spirit of God came upon me and told me that that was the last meeting I should hold with that people for many days. I had appointments out for two weeks in that region of the country. After I got through preaching that night, I told them it was the last meeting I should hold with them. I went down into the water and baptized quite a number, and in the morning I went before the Lord and asked what He wanted of me. He told me to go to the south. I got into the stage and rode eighty miles south. I went into Herefordshire, and the first man's house I stopped at was John Benbow's. In one hour after I arrived at his house I learned why the Lord had sent me there. I name this because it is in the line of what I was speaking of. Here I found a company of men and women, some six hundred, who had banded together under the name of United Brethren, and were laboring for the ancient order of things. They wanted the Gospel as taught by the prophets and apostles, as I did in my youth. Well, without dwelling upon this, I will say that the first thirty days after I arrived in Herefordshire I baptized forty-five preachers and several hundred members, and I had in my hands all the chapels or houses licensed for worship according to law. We brought in two thousand in about eight months' labor. Many of these people had been looking and praying for this very work, and they were praying for it when I went there. I took no honor to myself with regard to this matter, I never felt that I could. All we have to do is to follow the dictation of the Spirit of the Lord, and give God the honor and the glory of it. We did a good work there and God blessed us. From there we went to London. Brothers Heber C. Kimball and George A. Smith and myself preached and established the first branch of the Church in the city of London. I rejoiced very much in my labors in Herefordshire, Gloucestershiae and Worcestershire, and thousands of those that were baptized there are in Utah. We had quite a number of Bishops in this Territory that I baptized at that time. The youngest I baptized there was Brother Rowberry, who was a bishop of Tooele. He was only a boy at that time.

I want to refer to one circumstance that took place while in that mission and I do it as an example of the Lord's dealings with us in matter pertaining to temporal matters. John Benbow was a noble man. He was like an English lord; as rich a man, I suppose as ever came into the Church. He had not been baptized a month, I do not think, when he came into a little sitting room with his wife, and he probably spent three quarters of an hour in telling me that he had been reading in the New Testament how in the days of the Apostles they sold all their possessions and laid them at the Apostles' feet [##Acts 4:34-35##], and he said he felt it was his duty to fulfill that law and he wanted to do it. I listened to him patiently and when he got through it took perhaps half an hour to tell him the difference between our position today and the position of the Apostles in that day. I gave him to understand that God had not sent me to Eng land to take care of his gold, his horses, his cows and his property; He had sent me there to preach the Gospel. I told him, however, that the Lord would accept of his sacrifice, and that whenever he could do good, he should do it; he should assist the poor, help publish the Book of Mormon, etc. Now, what would have been the result if I had taken the other course, and said, "Yes give me your property and I will take care of it?" Why, he would probably have apostatized. Not only that, but there would have been one foolish Apostle, who would have been a suitable candidate for apostasy also. But was that any temptation to me? No, it was not. It would not have been to any Elder who had enough of the Spirit of God to know the difference between a hundred thousand pounds of money and a part in the first resurrection, with power to pass by the angels and the gods to exaltation and glory, and stand in the presence of God and the Lamb forever and forever.

I name these things to show that there was a people prepared for this work. Go where you would and you would find spirits of this kind. That is why this people have come up here from the various nations of the earth. We have the Gospel of Christ abroad in all nations today as far as we have opportunity, and we have got to continue this work. The Lord is going to cut His work short in righteousness [##Romans 9:28##]; and as I have said before, however insignificant this people may be in the eyes of the world, the God of heaven holds us responsible for preaching this Gospel to every nation under heaven, and we have it to do or we will be damned. We cannot avoid this. Why? Because, as Paul says, "Woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel." [##1 Corinthians 9:16##] There is but one Gospel; never has been but one, and never will be; and Paul says, "But though we, or an angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." [##Galatians 1:8##] That Gospel, ye saints of the living God, and the world, is in our hands, sent to us by the ministrations of Angels—the same Gospel that was taught from Adam to Christ, and from Christ down to our day and generation, when God has had a people on the earth. I have a great desire myself for the welfare of the Latter-day Saints. We have a great work to perform.

Before I close, I want to say a few words to the Apostles and to the Saints of God. I want to say something about the devil. The devil, in the days of the Savior, got one Apostle to deny his Lord and sell Him for thirty pieces of silver. But when Judas' eyes were opened to see what he had done, he did not prize those thirty pieces of silver, but went out and hung himself. Is that devil dead? Has Lucifer, the son of the morning, gone out of existence? No; he is here today. He is in the midst of this people; and if there are any people under heaven that Lucifer with all the fallen angels that dwell on the earth are laboring to destroy, they are these Latter-day Saints. It was so anciently; it will be so until He who holds the keys of death and hell shall bind Satan and shut him up. Until that hour he will labor for our destruction. I want to say to these Apostles that I have seen days of trouble with the quorum of the Twelve. I have referred many times to the days in Kirtland, and my heart has had a great deal of pain over those affairs. There the devil labored with the Apostles and caused a good share of them to apostatize. One half of them apostatized, and some of the others came pretty near it. The signers or witnesses to the Book of Mormon— Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris—all apostatized from the Church of Jesus Christ, though they never denied the Book of Mormon. In the darkest day, neither one of them ever denied that, but always maintained it to the day of his death. But I want to say to my brethren that if the devil could get one of these Apostles—yes, one of them—to believe that the Presidency of this Church were working against him, and that we did not have his welfare at heart, or if he could get a Seventy or any man in this Church to believe it, he would labor to do so. If the devil could have got the Savior to have followed him, he would have overthrown the whole plan of salvation. But he did not do it. Jesus said, "Get the behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." [##Luke 4:8##] So I say to these Apostles before me, if the devil could make one of you believe that we would not give you right counsel, he would do it. But he will not do it. I thank God for that. I feel I can prophesy that before God and angels. The Apostles, as a body, are united, and God has laid His Spirit upon them, and they will be true and faithful to this work until they get through with it. Those are my feelings. I rejoice in this. I trust I shall never pass through any more of those scenes that I witnessed in the days that are past and gone.

Brethren and sisters, God bless you. Now, do not be afraid that the Presidency and Apostles of this Church will give you any wrong counsel. We have learned better than to do that. We shall never do it while we dwell in the flesh. The salvation of the sons of men is of far more worth than all the honor that the human family can give upon our heads. Give me salvation; give me a part in the first resurrection; give me the privilege of standing in the morning of the first resurrection with the resurrected dead—with my father's house and with the prophets and apostles who have lived in my day and generation; give me power to be exalted with them in the eternal worlds in the kingdom of our God. That is all I ask. And it is my privilege and yours. It is the privilege of this people to receive these blessings at the hands of God. I have confidence in my brethren. I rejoice with them in the union that dwells today in the house of Israel, and with the Presidency and Twelve Apostles. We love one another. We understand something of the work of God in our day and time. We have labored together. Here are my counselors; they have spent years and years upon the islands of the sea, where they have had to live upon cocoanuts and poi and food of that character, and they did it to save the souls of men. God has blessed them in all their labors. He will bless them. He will bless this people.

I believe this is all I want to say to you this morning. I felt sick when I

arose; I feel better now, and as though I had been refreshed in spirit. I thank God I am able to talk to you, as the saying is, in my old age. The Lord has been very merciful to me. The devil has sought to kill me from the day I was born; but God has had an agent with me to keep me from his power, and so far I have been preserved. I hope the Lord will not let me live an hour longer than I can live in his service. But I am a feeble man—weak like the rest of you. If anybody supposes that the Presidency and Apostles here are never tempted of the devil, they are mistaken. We are tempted all the time, more or less, and we have to war against these things in order to stand and maintain our position. I pray God that His blessings may rest upon us. I rejoice in this conference. It has been a glorious time. There is a good spirit here; and the testimonies that have been given unto us by the power of God have been choice. The angels are watching over us. The eyes of all the heavenly hosts are over us. Those who have lived in other dispensations understand this dispensation far better than we do, and they are watching over the labors of the Elders of Israel. I pray that we may pursue that course wherein we may be justified before God, and have power to conquer and overcome; and when we have finished here, that we can go home to receive our reward. The great library in the celestial kingdom of our God contains the history of the dealings of God with all the world, for it belongs to this world. Your history is there; mine is there; our testimonies are there; and we will have to meet them. I hope and pray that my sins may be blotted out of the book of remembrance and not be remembered against me. I hope and pray this will be the case with you; for blessed is the man that will meet this blessing when he comes to the end! God bless you. Amen.