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THE DESERET WEEKLY.
Truth and Liberty.

No. 21. SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, NOVEMBER 7, 1896. VOL. LIII.

DISCOURSE
Delivered at the Weber Stake Confer-
ence, Ogden, Monday, Octo-
ber 19th, 1896, by
PREST. WILFORD WOODRUFF.

-[REPORTED BY ARTHUR WINTER.]-

I am pleased to meet with so many of
our friends this morning, and I feel
desirious to talk to you upon a principle
that I very seldom dwell upon before
the congregations of the Saints. I
have had my mind somewhat exercised
of late on various things, perhaps for
purposes known to the Lord better than
myself, though they are principles we
are all more or less acquainted with.

One of the Apostles said to me years
ago, "Brother Woodruff, I have prayed
for a long time for the Lord to send me
the administration of an angel. I have
had a great desire for this, but I have
never had my prayers answered." I
said to him that if he were to pray a
thousand years to the God of Israel for
that gift, it would not be granted, unless
the Lord had a motive in sending an
angel to him. I told him that the Lord
never did nor never will send an angel
to anybody merely to gratify the desire
of the individual to see an angel If
the Lord sends an angel to anyone, He
sends him to perform a work that can-
not be performed only by the adminis-
tration of an angel. I said to him that
those were my views. The Lord had
sent angels to men from the creation of
the world, at different times, but always
with a message or with something to
perform that could not be performed
without. I rehearsed to him different
times when angels appeared to men. Of
course, I referred to the angel visiting
Joseph Smith. The Revelator John
said that in the last days an angel would
fly in the midst of heaven, having the
everlasting Gospel to preach to them
that dwelt on the earth [##Revelation 14:6##]. The reason it
required an angel to do this work was,
the Gospel was not on the earth. The
Gospel and the Priesthood had been
taken from among men. Hence God
had to restore it again.

Now, I have always said, and I want
to say it to you, that the Holy Ghost is
what every Saint of God needs. It is
far more important that a man should
have that gift than he should have the
ministration of an angel, unless it is
necessary for an angel to teach him
something that he has not been taught.

I am going to refer to some of my
own experiences with regard to the
ministration of angels and the opera-
tions of the Holy Ghost. I have never
prayed for the visitation of an angel,
but I have had the ministrations of
angels several times in my life.

One visitation I received in Kentucky,
at the house of A. O. Smoot's mother,
while on my first mission. I went
through Jackson county into Arkansas
Territory, and from Little Rock waded
the Mississippi swamp 180 miles to get
across into Tennessee. I arrived in
Henry county, Tennessee, on the west,
at the same time that David Patten and
Warren Parrish landed in that region
on the north. We met and labored
together for awhile and built up some
churches there. I then held the office of
a Priest. I traveled thousands of miles
and preached the Gospel as a Priest,
and, as I have said to congregations
before, the Lord sustained me and
made manifest His power in the defense
of my life as much while I held that
office as He has done while I have held
the office of an Apostle. The Lord sus-
tains any man that holds a portion of the
Priesthood, whether he is a Priest, an
Elder, a Seventy, or an Apostle, if he
magnifies his calling and does his duty.

I will give you an instance of the
Lord's protecting care over me while I
was a Priest. I had this experience
while in Arkansas with my companion,
who was an Elder. There was a man
in that country who with his wife and
five sons had been in Jackson county.
His wife died there. The old gentleman
was in the faith apparently when he left
there. He was driven out, the same as
the rest of the Saints were, and some o[f]
his sons were whipped with hickory
gads in the persecution there. I knew he
was in this Arkansas country, and I felt
anxious to go and see him, as he was
the only Latter-day Saint that we knew
anything about in that region. The
night before I got there I had a peculiar
dream. I dreamed that an angel ap-
peared to us and pointed out a certain
path that we must follow, and that the
b[l]essings of God would attend us in
following that path. As we went along
this path we came to a log cabin with a
wall on each side ten or fifteen feet high.
This road led right through that build-
ing. When I went to the door and
opened it, it was full of large serpents.
My companion said he was not going
into that room for anybody or anything.
"Well," says I, "I am, or I'll die trying.
The Lord told us to follow that path,
and I am going to walk in it, unless I
am stopped by some power that I know
not of" I stepped into the door.
These serpents all arose up ready to
jump on me, and there was a very large
one in the middle of the floor that made
a pass at me. It appeared to me as
though I would be destroyed, but when
the serpent reached near to me it
dropped dead; in fact, they all dropped
dead, and they turned black and burst
open, after which they took fire and
burned up, and both of us went through
safely. The morning after, we arrived
at this man's house. His name was
Akeman. It was Sunday morning, and
we went into the house. Mr. Akeman
and his daughter were at breakfast.
His sons were settled in cabins around
him. We sat down, but there
seemed to be a peculiar spirit in
the place. I finally stepped up to
the mantlepiece, on which I saw a Book
of Mormon. I picked it up, and said,
"Brother Akeman, you've got a very
good book here." He said, "It's a book
that came from hell." I then began to
understand a little of what lay before
us. He had apostatized. He cursed
everything and everybody—Joseph
Smith, Lyman Wight, the Apostles and
a good many others whom he named.
He was very angry. I inquired about
his sons. He said they were settled
around him there. Well, we took up
our valises and left. I looked up one
of his sons—the youngest, I believe,
and the only one that was in the faith,
and he was like a drowning man; but
by praying with him we got the Spirit
of the Lord in him, and we had a pretty
good time with him. We told him of
our experience at his father's, and I said
we were desirous to have some meet-
ings there if we could. He said he did
not know; his father had apostatized
and was at war against everything that
was Mormon. He told us, however,
where an old gentleman lived close by
to whom he had loaned the Book of
Mormon. He was an aged man and his
wife was an aged woman. Their name
was Hubbard. We went to see them and
they were very glad to receive us. In
the morning my companion said he was
going to leave the place. Of course, he
was an Elder, and I was only a Priest,
and we generally suppose that the lesser
should obey the greater; but I said to
him, calling him by name, "You are not
going to leave here, nor I either; we
shall both of us stay here till I see the
fulfillment of my dream. It is here, and
I am going to stay and see it, and you
will, too." It is not natural for me to
take a stand of that kind, but I felt led
to do it upon that occasion. We stopped
there three weeks, and cleared land for
father Hubbard, while he fed and housed
us. Three times while we were there
I was warned of the Lord to go and
warn this Mr. Akeman. The last warn-
ing I received from the Lord was on
Saturday night of the third week. I
went up to his house which was about
three quarters of a mile distant, and
when I got there his daughter stood in
the doorway. I walked in and saluted
him. He was walking the room, but
did not say anything to me. I told him
the Lord had sent me to pay him a visit.