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Our Conference thus far has been one of exceeding interest to me, and I presume it has been to all who have shared in its proceedings. I do not know that I ever heard our brethren of the Twelve Apostles speak with greater power than they have during this Conference; I do not know that I ever felt more edified myself by the remarks which have been made; and I have felt very thankful for the measure of the Spirit of God that has rested down upon President Wilford Woodruff. He has been greatly favored of the Lord in speaking to us. And so with President Lorenzo Snow.
I have no doubt that the Latter-day Saints will go from this Conference instructed upon many points, and with their minds enlightened concerning many things that perhaps have been, to some extent, hidden from them. From that which I have heard, it is evident that a great many surmises have been indulged in, and perhaps ill-natured and unjust remarks made concerning the authorities of the Church over some of their recent actions. I was, therefore, exceedingly thankful that the Spirit of God moved upon President Woodruff and the other brethren to address the Conference upon the subject that they spoke upon.
I believe it is the duty of the authorities of this Church to explain as far as possible the motives for their actions and for their expressions; for we are a united body, and that which interests those who are called to lead the Church interests all the members of the Church. Moreover, to have perfect harmony, and to prevent the adversary from taking advantage, it is necessary that sometimes explanations be made which men naturally shrink from making, especially in public. This has been the case with the authorities of the Church; it has been so with President Woodruff and also with the rest of the brethren.
Then again, the situation of affairs has been very peculiar, especially because of politics having received so much attention, and causing feelings among the people, and in some instances among the leading men. In consequence of this, the brethren have felt to hold their peace, and to say nothing about affairs that really needed ventilating. We have been reticent, because we felt that we were likely to be misunderstood, and to have misconceptions of our motives. For this reason we have permitted ourselves to be exposed to animadversion and censure, and, in some instances, condemnation. Of course, you can understand why the brethren should feel delicate. Anxiety to save was the dominant feeling in their breasts.
But that which has transpired and the explanations that were made yesterday ought to be a solemn warning to Latter-day Saints to not be hasty in their conclusions, nor in their animadversions and censures, not to say their condemnation of the men whom God has placed to preside over the Church. I believe that a great amount of sin has been committed on this point; that the Spirit of God has been grieved, and that darkness has come to many minds, because men and women have indulged in condemnation without understanding all the circumstances surrounding the case which was mentioned here yesterday.
Only a few days ago a letter came to hand containing the most severe strictures concerning our conduct. It was written by a man who was formerly a President of a Seventy and a Sunday school superintendent. He expressed himself in a manner to lead us who read the letter to conclude that he gave voice to the feelings of a great many others also. This man said we stood self-convicted of having violated a law of the Church, and he called upon us to repent and make amends for our conduct. Now, when a man who professes to love the cause of Zion and to respect the authorities of the Church will put his thoughts on paper in this form, and send them to us, it furnishes an index of how others may feel who may not have as good opportunity even as he had to know the truth. It is very significant that such a letter should be written and sent. While it is only a little thing of itself it is an indication of how hundreds of others may feel.
In the remarks that I make here I would like to bring this home to the minds of the members of this Church. There is one thing that the Lord has warned us about from the beginning, and that is, not to speak evil of the Lord's anointed. He has told us that any member of the Church who indulged in this is liable to lose the Spirit of God and go into darkness. The Prophet Joseph said time and again that it was one of the first and strongest symptoms of apostasy. Have we not proved this? Have not his words upon this subject been fulfilled to the very letter? No man can do this without incurring the displeasure of the Lord.
It may seem strange, in this age of irreverence and iconoclasm, to talk in this way. Nevertheless, this is the truth. God has chosen His servants. He claims it as His prerogative to condemn them, if they need condemnation. He has not given it to us individually to censure and condemn them. No man, however strong he may be in the faith, however high in the priesthood, can speak evil of the Lord's anointed and find fault with God's authority on the earth without incurring His displeasure. The Holy Spirit will withdraw itself from such a man, and he will go into darkness. This being the case, do you not see how important it is that we should be careful? However difficult it may be for us to understand the reasons for any action of the authorities of the Church, we should not too hastily call their acts in question and pronounce them wrong.
Perhaps never since the days of the great apostasy in Kirtland has there been such a spirit to do this that I am speaking of as there has been of late years. Why, some of us have felt as though we scarcely dare go to conference in some places, we have heard such an arraignment of our motives and such a condemnation of our actions. This is a strange thing to say, yet it is true, and many persons here know it is true.
Yesterday's explanations ought to have the effect to make those persons who have indulged in these censorious remarks and in this condemnation feel so ashamed of themselves as to cause them, if they have any love for the truth and any desire to keep the commandments of God, to clothe themselves in sackcloth and ashes and beseech the Lord to forgive them for the sin they have committed. For they have condemned innocent men. They have said that which is not true about the servants of God, and no man has the right to do this about anybody, much less about men who are striving to do all they can for the work of God. If these men and women do not repent, they are likely to apostatize.
I had a daughter in this congregation yesterday, and she overheard one sister remark to another, "Why, I thought it was only one or two in the First Presidency that had these feelings, and that this was some personal difficulty with one of them. Why, it is the whole of the Twelve as well. It is not confined to one or two of the First Presidency, or to the three; but it is also the Twelve."
This shows the ignorance that has prevailed concerning the situation of affairs, and it shows how we have been exposed to these unjust and cruel remarks. It has seemed as though many of our people have taken their inspiration and their ideas concerning the transactions of the authorities of the Church from articles in the newspapers, the writers of which knew no more about that which was going on than an entire stranger.
I speak in this strain to impress upon you, if possible, the folly of indulging in a spirit of that kind, and drinking it in as though it was something delightful. God has spoken so plainly to us concerning the many influences that are abroad that we ought by this time to have understanding concerning them. President Woodruff yesterday dwelt upon the many evil influences that have gone abroad in the world. I have known good men and women, sincerely desirous of doing right, who have been brought into subjection to these evil influences, and they have not known it themselves, because they had not discernment enough to distinguish between the true and the false.
It is the case with a great many Latter-day Saints. Yet there is this about the Latter-day Saints: they do know the voice of the true shepherd; they are able to distinguish between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. There is a great deal of the spirit of discernment among this people, and they are a hard people to deceive; but they do get deceived occasionally. Cunning men mislead and deceive them, and wrong spirits get possession of them. The spirit of falsehood is abroad, and it frequently attributes to the best of men conduct that is vile and low. It did it to the Lord Jesus Christ; it did it to the Prophet Joseph Smith; it did it to all the prophets that have lived. The aim is to destroy them, and what better way can you get an influence into operation that will destroy a man than to blacken his character and tell lies enough to make him appear as a devil incarnate?
That is what Satan tries to do. Those have been his tactics from the very beginning. He would make out the servants of God to be devils incarnate. And he will deceive, if possible, the very elect by his lies and misrepresentations. The only thing for men of God to do is to trust in Him. You cannot meet these falsehoods. They are manufactured faster than they can be exposed. No man can defend himself against lies. His protestations amount to nothing, because they are not believed.
In my early life, in publishing, I was always on hand to combat every lie that made its appearance. I thought it my duty to do it, and I do not know but it was. My mission was to publish the truth and to oppose falsehood. But as I grew older, there was such a volume of lies that I found it hopeless to reply to them. I have not done so for years, except in one instance, and then I did it at the solicitation of my brethren. If Satan lets loose a stream of falsehood, it is useless for a man to attempt to stem it; you may as well let it flow on, and leave the vindication to the Lord.
And so with us as a people. We have been lied about until there is no crime in the calendar that we have not been accused of. But we are outliving them, and we will leave them behind. The adversary, however, still lives. He still manufactures falsehood, and finds agents who are willing to propagate them, and he finds them among the Latter-day Saints, too. I have heard the most abominable falsehoods told about the First Presidency of the Church by those who call themselves Latter-day Saints. What will be the result of this? If those people do not repent, they will lose the Spirit of God, if they have not lost it already; they will go into darkness, and will lose their standing in the Church. When a man loses the Spirit of God, the tie that binds him to the Church is severed; and he wonders after a while how he could have thought as he once did concerning it.
My brethren and sisters, I would like to impress you this afternoon with the importance of retaining the Spirit of God, and not allowing other spirits to take possession of you. You should live so that the Spirit of God will reign within you, and that when an evil spirit seeks to take possession of you, you will feel it as sensibly and it will make such an impression upon you as the disturbing of a smooth pond of water. Our minds should be in such an unruffled condition and so free from any disturbing influence that when anything contrary to the mind of the Lord seeks to enter into us we will realize it as quickly as does the pond of water when it is disturbed.
When anything comes along that is not right, we should stop to question ourselves. We should not admit a wrong spirit into our hearts, nor think evil of anyone. There is too much of it in the world--telling tales about men and women, and when you examine them, in nine cases out of ten you find they are not true. There may be some element of truth in them; but truth can be distorted into a falsehood. We as a people should seek, above all people, to love the truth.
The authorities of the Church have known concerning this that was spoken of yesterday, and we have been satisfied as to the course that would have to be taken unless there was a change. But we did not want to expose this matter to the public, and to weaken the confidence of the Saints; for we wanted them to exercise their faith. But it is necessary that something should be said to the Church, that the people may not go on yielding to wrong influences and indulging in remarks and feelings contrary to the Spirit of the Lord.
Now, I ask you, if any of you have indulged in this spirit of condemnation and censure, to repent with all your heart, and ask the Lord to forgive you. Where you have said wrong things publicly, go and correct them. If you have spoken evil about your neighbors, go and confess it to them and ask their forgiveness. Apply the principles of the Gospel to our every day lives. Let us not think that we can cover up these things. The Lord will expose them. If there is something that we do not understand, suspend our judgment and the expression of our views until we can understand it.
I rejoice exceedingly in the testimonies that have been borne during this conference. I know that this is the work of God. I know that God lives. I know that Jesus lives; for I have seen Him. I know that this is the Church of God, and that it is founded on Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. I testify to you of these things as one that knows--as one of the Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ that can bear witness to you today in the presence of the Lord that He lives and that He will live, and will come to reign on the earth, to sway an undisputed sceptre.
I say that it is our duty to keep the commandments of God, and to be faithful in all things. The world may say that you are submitting to men; but it is not so; you are submitting to God. This is God's work, and He only asks from you and from me that obedience which every child should render to its father. We do not owe any obedience to the rebel Satan. He would fill us with all sorts of ideas against God, and he would bind us in chains of darkness and lead us down to destruction, if we would listen to him. That would be all right in the estimation of those who have his spirit; but it is wrong. It is right to listen to the Lord, and to obey Him. He is our Father, our Creator; He is the source of all our blessing and power, and we should submit to Him.
If He says to a certain man, "You are my servant, and I want all my children to do as you say," it is our duty to respect that appointment. I frequently ask my boys to listen to one of their brothers, and if he does not do right they can tell me and I will attend to it. I teach my children to respect their brothers who are their seniors in age, and to respect one another; and I caution the older boys not to trespass upon their younger brethren, but to respect them. I do that in my small family--small compared with the family of God.
Has not God the right to choose one of His children, as He has done Joseph Smith, and Brigham Young, and John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff, and ask the rest of us to obey His counsel as He gives it through the one whom He chooses? "Well, but," says one, "how do we know that He has given him this authority?" You can know it, if you will do the things that He requires at your hands. If God chooses the weakest among His children, and says to the rest, "obey him, and I will sustain and bless you in doing it," He has a perfect right to do so. He has done this with this people from the days of Joseph Smith down to the present, and we have been prospered, blessed and delivered in listening to the counsel of the men whom the Lord has chosen.
We were blessed and prospered in listening to the Prophet Joseph during his lifetime. After his death, how wonderfully were we blessed and prospered in listening to the counsels of President Brigham Young. He led us across these dreary plains to this inhospitable land (for it was inhospitable then) and laid the foundation of all that has been done here, until today the State of Utah is the admiration, it may be said, of the whole nation, and men wonder at the wisdom and shrewdness that President Young exhibited. Therefore, we not only have our own experience to testify how prospered and blessed we have been in listening to counsel, but we have the testimony of many others.
God blessed us also in listening to President John Taylor during his lifetime; and He has blessed us and borne testimony to us by the outpouring of His Spirit since it has been the privilege of President Woodruff to stand in this exalted station. I repeat, the Lord has a right to exact this from us. We are His children, and when we have called upon Him He has listened to us and has answered our prayers. That is the way I view it.
Satan tempts me, as I suppose he does you all; but I tell Satan that I have nothing to do with him. I tell him that he is a rebel, that he has tried to ruin the purposes of our Father, and I want nothing to do with him; I will try and not listen to any of his blandishments, nor let him whisper anything into my ear or my heart that would weaken my attachment and my devotion to my Father and to His Kingdom. That is the way I feel. I want nothing to do with Satan in any form. I believe it is the duty of all of us, as the children of God, to be in this condition, and then, as far as we are concerned, Satan will be bound.
My brethren and sisters, I beseech the Lord to bless you all. I ask Him to open all our eyes, that we may see; open all our hearts, that we may comprehend, and that we may profit by the experience He gives to us, and grow and increase in faith and power until the heavens themselves will draw near unto us, and we will draw near unto them, and they will be open to us to behold the things of our Father and God in their true light. This is my prayer for the entire Zion of God, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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