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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 mis-
sion. I was in the potteries in Stafford-
shire, 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 be-
fore 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 dwell-
ing upon this, I will say that the first
thirty days after I arrived in Hereford-
shire 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 pray-
ing for it when I went there. I took no
honor to myself with regard to this mat-
ter, 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 es-
tablished 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 bap-
tized 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 po-
sition today and the position of the
Apostles in that day. I gave him to under-
stand 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 oppor-
tunity, 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 re-
sponsible 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 minis-
trations of Angels—the same Gospel that
was taught from Adam to Christ, and
from Christ down to our day and gener-
ation, 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 an-
ciently; 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 Presi-
dency 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 over-
thrown 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 Apos-
tles, 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 Presi-
dency 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 apos-
tles 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 re-
joice 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 to-
gether. 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