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This is the last General Conferece address delivered by Brigham Young, Jr.,I have found. He died one year later.
This is a day of rejoicing, and I feel to bless the name of my Redeemer for the privilege that I have of meeting with the Latter-day Saints in this conference. It is not often that we behold so many of our people assembled together as we witness this day, beneath this roof. God is exceedingly merciful unto the Latter-day Saints, and I am satisfied that prosperity and peace will dwell in their midst, as long as they observe to keep His commandments. The set time has come to favor Zion. Zion has been favored all the days that I remember in this life. Though driven and peeled by our enemies, God has sustained us, and we have grown, and enlarged, and built up the country, and become a great people. I have often heard the brethren prophesy of the day which we now behold--that the few who were gathered here upon a ten-acre block would multiply, others would gather in, and a great people would be established in these mountains. How speedily have these words been fulfilled! God is blessing the people. We witness it upon every hand; and if we continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth as it is in Him, this people will soon be the head, not the tall; for virtue, uprightness, honesty and continuity of purpose will bring the honest and the pure to the head of the whole world. I know something about the condition of the nations our own nation included. The wickedness that is abroad in the land is a reproach to the United States. It is a reproach to us that wickedness should prevail to the extent that it does. But as true as there is a God in heaven, the Latter-day Saints--not the latter-day sinners, but the Latter-day Saints--and the pure who do not claim to be Latter-day Saints, will rise up and be the head of this nation. I do not say that we are a government within a government. We are one with our parent government. But purity, excellency and honesty are sure to bring a people to the front. God designs it, and it will come to pass.
Brigham Young, Conference Report, April 1902, p.84
I feel to bless this people with all my heart and soul. I feel to bless every man and woman, of whatever land or religious denomination they may be, who feel to exalt Christ and Him crucified, and who preach this doctrine for the salvation of the human family. God help them; God help us. When the record is written and published that this people have made, under the guidance of inspired men, it will equal if not surpass any record that the people of God have ever made on this globe. It is a testimony in and of itself that should convince all men who are acquainted with it, that the people are guided by the hand of Jehovah. But there is something beyond this to the Latter-day Saints. Who is there in this congregation that has the living testimony and the fire of the Spirit of God in them? Brethren and sisters, answer that yourselves. Have I that testimony in me? Have you that testimony in you? It is the priceless gem that God bestows upon His anointed, and upon His sons and daughters who seek Him with undivided hearts. I know that this people have it, because I see and feel it. The inspiring. influences of that Spirit are in the midst of this people; and we are bound to succeed, because there is no power that can resist the influences of that Spirit and the revelations of God, Never in the history of this people will evil come upon them, unless they forsake their Redeemer. Never will sickness, death or anything come in your homes, but what God designs it for the benefit, the upbuilding and enlarging of the dominion of the Latter-day Saints. We have control over sickness--how far? Are there any deaths among us? There are, and good people die; but there is something in this that is far beyond my understanding; for I remember the time well when our Prophet Joseph Smith and our Patriarch Hyrum Smith--two of the noblest men that ever stood upon the earth--rode to rode to their death. They went to death at Carthage. What for? To leave the people without a shepherd? To leave us there in the midst of our enemies, trembling and like lost sheep? Oh, no! They went to seal their testimony with their blood, which cannot be refuted by all the world. They gave their lives to sustain this work, and it was necessary, according to the revelations that we have received. Are we any better than they? Are we any better than Christ? No. If God permits a thing, shall we complain at it? But I do testify to you this day that nothing will come to me, nothing will come to you, to your families, or to anything that God has given you, but what you will acknowledge His hand in it, and it will be for your salvation and the salvation of your families. I know it because God is doing this work. He has the issues of life and death in His hands, and I know that when these things occur, His hand is in them, if we are living right before Him; and there is no power beneath the earth nor above the earth that can check this handiwork of the Almighty for the uplifting, guiding and consolidating of His people. These things are hard to bear; but, brethren and sisters, I say to you as I say to myself; in my prayers every day I acknowledge His hand in all things, because I know He has my welfare at heart, come life or death, poverty, riches, persecution, or whatever it is. The Church of Christ will rise; the kingdom of God will burst forth, His purposes will be accomplished, and the exaltation of the faithful will be assured, and no one can hinder it.
Brigham Young, Conference Report, April 1902, p.84
I testify of these things unto you. I would like to talk a little longer, but there is no time; indeed I am not able to talk more. But I want to bless the people. I want you to hear my voice, for it is not stilled yet. I want you to hear me say, God bless you, brethren and sisters, and all the Latter-day Saints, from the center to the extremities. God be with the people. He is with them, and He will continue to be. We need not to fear famine, nor drouth, nor grasshoppers, nor insects of any kind; we need not to fear any foemen, nor any weapon. Fear God, and Him only; for He will bear us off victorious under all circumstances. We will live and grow and become better, and rise higher and become nobler and more efficient in our labors, if we serve Him with undivided hearts. God grant that this may be the case with all of us; that we may never shirk a duty, nor turn pale nor our knees tremble before our enemies. May He give us the Spirit of the Lord, and much of it, to send the Gospel forth to the nations, open up new missions, go to those who sit in darkness, preach the Gospel by the power of the Spirit to the poor and the destitute, to those who are not civilized as well as those who are. May He give us the power to accomplish this great work, and build up His kingdom, labor in His Temples, and accomplish a work for the living and the dead, that all may rise together, and that we may become a power in the earth and fill the whole earth, is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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