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This is the first address President Ivins delivered after being called as First Counselor. He does not allude to the new calling.
As I stand before this vast congregation this morning, and contemplate my early experiences upon this block, when the Latter-day Saints were few in number, with poor shelter, and very inferior ac-comodations compared with that which we at present enjoy, I am overwhelmed with gratitude as I think of that which the Lord has accomplished, for I see in this gathering the fulfilment of his word, and the words of his servants, the prophets uttered more than four-thousand years ago, and come to understand my own littleness, my own inability, my utter dependence upon the Lord my God, for without his aid we are helpless, he has done it. It has not been the work of man, although devoted men and women have been the instruments in the hands of the Lord in the accomplishment of that which we see before us this morning. Therefore, I give praise and glory and honor to God for all that I am, all that I hope to be, all that we are, all the we can hope to be, for our dependence is upon him.
I desire, my brethren and sisters, as a preface to the remarks which I make, to read briefly from the second general epistle of the Apostle Peter to the Church, as follows:
"We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."
At the time when the Apostle Paul was arraigned before King Agrippa, to answer to charges which had been preferred against him, after recounting the circumstances of his conversion, he turned to Agrippa and said:
"King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest." Then Agrippa said to Paul, "almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." And paul said: "I would to God that not only thou, but that all who hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, save these bonds."
I desire to paraphrase these words as follows: My brethren and sisters, do you believe the words of the prophets as they have been handed down to us through the holy Scripture? I know that you believe, and I would that all of you understood them, and comprehended their importance and application to us, not as I understand them, but more fully and comprehensively.
To properly comprehend the great plan of human redemption, designed by the Father for the blessing of his children, it is necessary that we be familiar with his hand-dealings with the people of the world, from the beginning of time, as we count it, until the present. It is not sufficient that we familiarize ourselves alone with the dispensation in which we live, important though that be. We must know something of the past, as history has written it, the present as we see and understand it, and the future as the prophets have declared it. Without this grouping of the past, the present and the future, our vision will be restricted, and incomplete.
I desire, my brethren and sisters, to take you back more than four thousand years, to a period of time when an event occurred which was of transcendent importance to us, when a promise was made by the Lord which bas not yet been fully fulfilled, but toward the fulfilment of which we are rapidly moving.
It was about 122 years after the deluge that the Lord called Abram, who at that time was seventy-five years of age, and a direct descendant of Shem, the chosen son of Noah, commanding him to go out from the country of his kindred, and from his father's house, into a land which he promised to give him, and to his posterity after him, for an everlasting inheritance. In obedience to the word of the Lord, Abram went from Haran, to which place he had been taken by his father, from Ur of Chaldea, and pitched his tent in the land of Canaan. Twenty-four years later the Lord spoke to him as follows:
"And when Abram was ninety years old and, nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him: I am the Almighty God. Walk before me, and be thou perfect.
"And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.
"And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying,
"As for me, behold my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
"Neither shall thy name be called any more Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham, for a father of many nations I have made thee.
"And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee."
We have here a promise made by the Lord, which, judged by human standards, was impossible of fulfilment. Abraham was an hundred years old, and his wife, Sarah, ninety years of age, a supposedly barren woman, but the Lord had spoken, and his word never fails. Isaac was born, and the Lord repeated to him the promise made to his father. Isaac in turn, became the father of Jacob, through whose-lineage, and the twelve sons who were born to him, the foundation was laid for the twelve tribes of Israel, the progenitors of a mighty nation.
To follow the history of this interesting people from that time to the present in detail, would he impossible in the short time which is at my disposal. You who are familiar with the story know that twelve sons were born to Jacob, six of whom, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulon, were the sons of Leah, his first wife. Joseph and Benjamin the sons of Rachel; Dan and Naphtali the sons of Bilha the handmaid of Rachel; and Gad and Asher, the sons of Zilpah, handmaid of Leah.
You are familiar with the story of Joseph, who was sold by his brethren to passing Ishmaelites who carried the boy into Egypt, and sold him to Potiphar, a captain of the king's guard. How he was cast into prison, and finally released and made the vice-regent of the king, the most powerful personage, except the Pharaoh, in all Egypt. You know how famine came to the land, which made it necessary for Jacob to send his sons to Egypt to procure food, where these men discovered that the governor of all the land was their younger brother, whom they had sold into slavery, and after returning to Canaan brought down their father and all of their possessions into Egypt, and were established in the land of Goshen, where they became a numerous people.
But Egypt was not the heritage of lsrael. Naturally they would have remained there and been absorbed by the Egyptians, but the Lord had decreed otherwise. He had given them Palestine as the land of their inheritance, and their return to that land was inevitable, even though it were against their will.
After remaining in Egypt more than two hundred years, some chronologists say four hundred, the Lord delivered them from the bondage of the Egyptians, through his servant Moses, and under the leadership of Joshua they again entered and took possession of the promised land, a great people. From the seventy souls who went into Goshen with Jacob, there went out 603,500 men more than twenty years of age, men able to bear arms, probably not less than three millions of people in all.
The history of the Israelitish people, from the time they crossed the river Jordan, under Joshua, and subdued Jericho, until the establishment of the kingdom, under Saul, about four hundred years, is one of almost constant war and contention, which resulted in the subjugation of neighboring kingdoms and peoples, until lsrael, under David, became the possessors of Palestine from Dan on the north to Beersheba on the south.
It was under Solomon that lsrael reached the zenith of her power and glory as a nation and kingdom. One hundred and twenty years had elapsed from the establishment of the kingdom, under Saul, until the division of the nation, which occurred during the reign of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. Five hundred years in all, since the return from Egypt. Years of conflict among themselves and with other peoples, years of faithlessness on the part of lsrael, and suffering because of their transgression and indifference to the words of the prophets whom the Lord sent among them to call them back into the old way of righteousness, but they said, we will not walk therein. When the watchmen whom the Lord placed on the towers of Zion sounded the warning trumpet they said, we will not hearken.
It was the day of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others of the prophets of old, through whom the Lord strove to keep the people in the path of righteousness and justice, the only road that leads to ultimate success, for final triumph has never been achieved and never will be, by a nation which denies the living God, and departs from the path which he has marked out for us to follow. In their pride of conquest lsrael saw, in the glory which had come to them, fulfilment of the promise made by the Lord to Abraham. He had given them the land of promise, from north to south, and east to west, they were in possession of it, and in their pride believed themselves strong enough to hold it forever.
The dissolution of Israel, as a great nation, commenced when the ten tribes, under the leadership of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, broke away from Judah and Benjamin and established the kingdom of lsrael, with Samaria as its capital city, while Judah and Benjamin, with a part, at least, of the tribes of Simeon and Dan retained Jerusalem as the capital city of their kingdom.
Both nations rapidly relapsed into idolatry, Israel to the worship of the golden calf of the Egyptians, while Judah, to a great extent, turned to the worship of Bel of the Babylonians, and the idolatrous gods of the nations with which they were surrounded.
In this condition Israel continued until about seven hundred years before Christ, when the Assyrian armies, under Sennacherib overcame the Israelitish armies, captured Samaria, carried the Ten Tribes captive into Assyria, at the head of the Euphrates, and brought people from their own country whom they established in the cities of northern Palestine, and the identity of lsrael as a distinct people, was lost to the world.
Judah continued to maintain a semblance of power for more than one hundred years after the fall of lsrael, when they suffered the same fate. Judea was overrun by the Babylonian armies under Nebuchadnezzar, Jerusalem taken, the temple desecrated, and despoiled of its wealth, and Judah carried captive into Babylon, as their brethren had been carried into Assyria.
This hasty and imperfect review brings us to the ushering in of the Christian Era.
After the fall of the Babylonian kingdom to the armies of Media and Persia, King Cyrus permitted the Jews to return from Babylon to Palestine and rebuild their city and temple which had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. With great enthusiasm this work was undertaken, and it appears that the Jews who returned from the Babylonian captivity showed greater faith in the God of their fathers than had been manifested before they were carried away.
The fate which befell the House of lsrael had been plainly outlined by the prophets whom the Lord had sent to warn them that the penalty of disobedience would he the dissolution of the nation, and that they would be taken from the land of their inheritance, and scattered among the strange and unbelieving nations of the world. A final fulfilment of this prophecy occurred when, about one hundred years after the birth of the Redeemer, Judea was trodden down by the Roman armies under Vespasian and his son Titus, Jerusalem taken, the temple destroyed, and the Jews scattered among the nations of the world, where they have remained until the present day.
The prophets Zechariah and Ezekiel had declared that the shepherds would neglect the flock, and that the sheep would he scattered, and become the prey of strange nations. To all human appearance, judged by every law of human reasoning, the promise made to Abraham had failed, he had been promised that Palestine should be the everlasting heritage of his children, and now they held dominion over no part of it. The end, it appeared, had come, the words of the prophets had been literally fulfilled, the promise made by the Lord if ever to be realized was still future.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Israelitish people had been scattered and lost to the world, to become the prey of strange and unbelieving nations, the Lord had not forgotten nor forsaken them. He remembered the covenant made with their father Abraham, and decreed that it should be verified. The prophet Jeremiah, six hundred years before the birth of Christ, speaking upon this subject, declared that the Lord who scattered lsrael would gather him again, in these words:
"Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say: He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.
"For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob and ransomed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.
"Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat and for wine and for oil and for the young of the flock and of the herd; and their soul shall be as a watered garden and they shall not sorrow any more."
Isaiah, seven hundred years before the birth of the Redeemer, referring to this same matter, said:
"And in that day [he spoke of the Latter-days] there shall be a root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people who shall be left from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Shinar and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.
"And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and assemble the outcasts of lsrael, and gather together the dispersed of Judah, from the four corners of the earth.
"The envy also of Ephraim shall depart and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim."
During his ministry among the Nephite people, upon this continent, after his resurrection from the dead, the Redeemer of the world, referring to this matter used the following language:
"I will remember the covenant which I have made with my people; and I have covenanted, with them that I would gather them together in my own due time, that I would give unto them again the land of their fathers for their inheritance, which is the land of Jerusalem, which is the promised land unto them forever, saith the Father.
"And it shall come to pass that the time cometh when the fulness of my gospel shall be preached among them; and they shall believe in me, that I am Jesus Christ, the son of God, and shall pray unto the Father in my name."
This entire chapter treats the subject to which I am referring, but I need not read further from it.
More definite and direct on this subject than any other, and to which I desire more particularly to call your attention, are the words of the Redeemer, just prior to his crucifixion. He called his disciples together, and in answer to questions which they propounded, spoke as follows:
"And now ye behold this temple which is in Jerusalem which ye call the House of God, and your enemies say that this house shall never fall, but verily I say unto you that desolation shall come upon this generation as a thief in the night, and this people shall be destroyed, and scattered among all nations.
"And this temple which ye now see shall be thrown down, that there shall not be left one stone upon another."
This was literally fulfilled at the time of the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, the son of Vespasian.
"And it shall come to pass that this generation of Jews shall not pass away until every desolation which I have told you concerning them shall come to pass.
"Ye say that ye know that the end of the world cometh, ye say also that ye know that the heavens and the earth shall pass away, and in this ye say truly, for so it is, but these things which I have told you shall not pass away until all shall be fulfilled.
"And this have I told you concerning Jerusalem, and when that day shall come shall a remnant be scattered among all nations; but they shall be gathered again; but they shall remain until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
"And in that day shall he heard wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall he in commotion, and men's hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delayed his coming until the end of the earth.
"And the love of man shall wax cold, and iniquity shall abound. And when the times of the Gentiles is come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fulness of my gospel; but they perceive not the light, and receive it not, but turn their hearts from me, because of the precepts of men.
"And in that generation shall the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled."
That the final destiny of Judah was different to that of Joseph is plainly indicated by the blessing pronounced upon him by his father.
Just before his death, Jacob called his sons to him and gave to each his last blessing. Upon Judah he pronounced the blessing of leadership, declaring that the scepter of power should not depart from his house until the coming of Shiloh, to whom the Jews looked forward as their final king.
When he laid his hands upon the head of Joseph, he said:
"Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills. They shall be upon the head of him who was separated from his brethren."
The promise made to Abraham gave to him and his posterity after him the land of Canaan, which was to be the land of his inheritance, and this promise was renewed to Isaac, and to Jacob, and the Lord, through the latter, enlarged this promise to Joseph, his heritage, like a fruitful bough by a well, whose roots are well watered, ran over the wall, and extended beyond the heritage of Judah to the utmost bounds of the Everlasting Hills, to America, where the Zion of our God is to be established.
The scripture which I have just read indicates plainly the unchangeable decree of the Lord regarding the destiny of the Israelitish people. Scattered and lost to the world as they have been, they are not lost to the Lord, nor has he forgotten the covenant which he made with their father Abraham, and which was reconfirmed upon the heads of Isaac and Jacob.
With the opening of the present gospel dispensation, now nearly one hundred years ago, the Lord commenced the work which is destined to result in the establishment of Ephraim, and other descendants of Joseph upon this continent, where the Zion of our God is to be established, and the restoration of the Jews to Palestine, the land of their fathers.
With the organization of the Church the Lord made plain the duty of its members. Men holding the restored priesthood, with its keys of authority, were sent into every country where they were permitted to go, proclaiming the opening of a new gospel dispensation, calling the people to repentance, and bearing witness that the mountain of the Lord's House was to be established in the tops of the mountains, and to be exalted above the hills, where we are today and that people from all nations should flow unto it, in order that they might be taught the way of the Lord, and learn to walk in his paths.
The promise made by the Lord regarding the restoration of the Jews to the Promised Land was not overlooked. At the conference of the Church, held on the 6th of April, 1840, now eighty-five years ago, Orson Hyde, a member of the Council of the Twelve, and John E. Page were called to go on a special mission to Jerusalem, for the purpose of dedicating the Holy Land for the latter-day gathering of the remnant of Judah. John E. Page failed in the accomplishment of the mission which was assigned him, but Orson Hyde, after surmounting many difficulties, a year and a half later knelt upon the Mount of Olives, and dedicated Palestine as the gathering place of the scattered remnant of Judah, and this servant of the Lord, moved upon by the spirit of prophecy, declared that inasmuch as it was by political power and influence that the Jews were scattered, it would be by political power and influence that they would be gathered, and that England was destined to be the nation which would take the leading part in the work of restoration.
More than seventy-five years had elapsed, almost a generation, as the scripture counts time, since the light of the gospel had broken forth among those who sat in darkness, since Orson Hyde dedicated the land of Palestine for the latter-day gathering of scattered Judah, and the Holy Land still remained under the dominion of the Turk, the star and crescent still floated from the minaret of a Moslem Mosque, where the temple of Solomon once stood.
Then came the great world war, and final peace at Versailles when Great Britain was given the responsibility of establishing and maintaining a protectorate over the Holy Land. The British armies, it is true, had already occupied Jerusalem, but it was with the signing of the treaty of Versailles that the first definite step was taken looking to the fulfilment of the words of the prophets, who had declared the redemption of Israel, and the restoration of Judah to the lands of their fathers, thousands of years ago.
The interest manifested by the Jewish people in the restoration of Palestine has few parallels in the history of the world. One is reminded of the zeal which their fathers showed as they returned from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild their city and temple, when women as well as men worked, and gave lavishly of their most cherished possessions that the task might be accomplished.
Jewish societies have been organized in various parts of the world, having for their purpose the creation of a publicly recognized, legally acquired home in Palestine, and the building up of the Jewish homeland in the Canaan of their fathers. Many millions of dollars have been subscribed by Jews throughout the world, to be used in the purchase of land, and the development of the dormant resources of the country.
From statistics which I have gathered, I wish to read the following, which shows a part only of that which has been accomplished:
Immigration
At the close of the war there were about fifty thousand Jews in Palestine. At the close of 1924 this number had been doubled, and latest reports tell us that Jews are pouring into Palestine at the rate of more than two thousand per month.
Agriculture
At the close of the war not more than one hundred thousand acres of land were in Jewish ownership in Palestine; since then through the Zionist movement as much more has been added by purchase. Swamps have been drained, sand dunes leveled, and agricultural exports, which before the war were practically nothing, now amount to more than twenty-five millions of dollars annually. Eighty-nine Jewish agricultural colonies are being developed.
Schools
One hundred and twenty schools have been established, as follows: 39 kindergartens, 65 elementary schools, 5 secondary schools, 3 teachers training colleges, 4 technical schools, and 5 manual training schools. These schools have 497 teachers, and a large number of students in attendance. Besides these schools several agricultural training schools have been established, and a University at Jerusalem which was dedicated last week by Lord Balfour, has been established on a site which cost sixty thousand dollars.
Large sums have been expended in the construction of roads, hydro-electric power plants are in course of construction, hospitals have been erected, and provision made for the care of the indigent and unfortunate. According to the reports which have been rendered there was expended from the first of April, 1921, to June 30, 1924, more than thirty five millions of dollars in the development of this undertaking.
A movement such as this cannot fail to excite the interest and admiration of the civilized world. The Hebrew people have suffered during the past centuries as no other people have ever suffered, so far as my study and observation entitle me to judge. They have been scattered among strangers, where they have been denied the right of citizenship, and participation in the commercial and industrial activities of the people. They have been ruthlessly robbed of that which they have honestly acquired by the labor of their own hands. Worse than all, pogroms have been declared against them, when the protection of the law has been officially declared to be inoperative, and permission given to wicked men and women to despoil them of their goods, and even deprive them of life itself.
The wonder is that they have survived and maintained their nationality during all these centuries of affliction, and now that they are undertaking to establish a home in the land of their fathers, where they may live in peace, and be a blessing to the non-progressive people who have so long dominated it, they certainly must elicit the praise and sympathy of all right thinking people.
From a human point of view it is a movement of great interest, but to me the one outstanding feature is the manifest hand-dealing of the Lord, which I see in it, and which they themselves do not fully realize. It will come in a natural way, it may be England, it may be some other nation, but it will be the Lord who will direct.
When Cyrus led the victorious Medio-Persian army to the overthrow of the great Babylonian kingdom he was not aware that he was fulfilling the words of the prophets who had lived long before, but he did so in wondrous detail. When Alexander of Macedon halted his army, after he had crossed the Dardanelles and won the battle of Granions, and notwithstanding the protest of his generals delayed his campaign against Persia, in order that he might besiege and finally destroy Tyre, he had no knowledge of the fact that the prophets had declared that the greatest maritime city of the world should be destroyed in just that manner, but it was nevertheless true.
So will the Lord continue to use the nations for the accomplishment of his purposes, until the words of his servants the prophets have all been fulfilled, until Zion is established, Judea redeemed, and his will done upon earth, as it is done in heaven.
God bless the Jews in this important work. May the eyes of their understanding be opened, and the time soon come when Shiloh, to whose coming they have so long looked forward, shall stand upon the Mount of Olives, and they recognize in him, Jesus of Nazareth, the Redeemer of the world, whom their fathers rejected. And may we, Latter-day Saints, we people who are of Ephraim, appreciate the part we are playing in this great latter-day drama, the like of which was never played before, and never will be again, is my earnest prayer, through Jesus Christ. Amen.
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