Show REMARKS RP is i EM kwa kua ts a ty ii by resident GEORGE A delivered in shenew the new hew tabet tade node bode salt la latre llie city sunday jav mav jy jay 77 1872 1873 reported TED BY DAVID W EVANS administration of the sacrament is an occasion which calls us one and all to ib reflection to inquire 01 of ourselves in relation to io our course of conduct in life whether the t a journey bourney we have pursued the paths that we are trU traveling are in accordance with the holy principles of 0 that religion which has been revealed for our sylvaon salv atton aon and which we have received while I 1 have shave visited the odthe of the east I 1 have observed that a great amount of means has been expended in the construction and ornamenting of churches and edifices nor por public worship every city every village is beautified with magnificent buildings stately domes elegant spires erected in honor and for the purposes of religion and I 1 have reflected upon the influence of this ro ligion religion upon the minds of a community in visiting friends I 1 found many who are professors pi ofes sors of religion who seem to have an utter disregard for any forms of worship whatever and who totally neglect prayer in the family and grace at the table I 1 am agi not aware of course whether or not this is general among christians but I 1 notice among the latter day saints that it seems beems to be very natural to be slothful and negligent and careless in relation to our gur everyday every day simple duties we may build temples erect stately domes magnificent spires grand towers in honor of our religion but it if we fail to live the principles of that religion at home and to acknowledge god in mall all sil our thoughts we shall fal fai fall fali I 1 short of the blessings which its practical exercise would ensure aw while hi lethe the sacrament Is passed aou sou around nd and we take lake the emblems of our saviors dj dath ath and anad buffe buffering ring and the sacrifice which he made for our oun salvation we should ask ourselves do we remember him in all things do we aa knowledge acknowledge bis his handin the provi dences with which we w are afe surrounded do we call upon him in our families and in secret or do we neglect lepto our oar dir duties do we miss praying with our families inythe in jhb morn morning ing lug and have not tim time 9 to do so in the evlo evio evening ning and are in such a hurry that we cannot even ask his hia blessing upon dur our food and cannot take time to attend me meeting Eiting on the sabbath nor afford to devote the day to rest meditation and ands ande tudy study let us aso aiso also ask these questions of ourselves are we honorable jn our re lations latious with each other do we do xio ayour by our neighbor as we would that he be should do unto ue are we just in our dealings are we honoring those principles of mor mon alty allty which adoue oan can us to inherit pa celesti lestil il glory brethren and sisters if WO we ask ourselves these questions and af teh tet te examining our conduce conduct and career carl can answer them honestly and truthfully in we the affirmative then wo we may partake of the tha bred bread and water in the presence of our hda heavenly venly venix father worthily if on the other haild hand wa have beep b ee p negligee t and caf cak careless eless we should for repentance is our first duty since sincer I 1 last haw raw you yon I 1 havo have visited the I 1 scenes of my rny childhood and the place of my birth after ad an absence of about forty lorty years my ideas or of night fight and wrong were formed there my with fhe ibe people up to fifteen years of age were such Rs as to td give deep and strong impressions of thir their character and of the principles by agich which they were governed gb gli verned 1 I cannot say that thit my visit was wag without its painful char acter acier forty years sweep from the face of th tb earth more than a generation I 1 un heistand ders dera stand tand statisticians to estimate that thirty bree years carry as many souls f froin ro tn the earth as dwell on it at otie oile time ident I 1 wend went into my native town atter after forty bearil yoac year absence and inquired tor for those who wire wire the butsin business esa men in my bo boyhood V hood for fon the magistrates mini ministers stets merchants farmers and mechanics with whom L was acquainted then where were they nearly nearis 1 1 dead 1 a very fewox few adf the old laces like an 11 leni ieni oaks remain on my rathers fathers farm there th re was a beautiful grove gruve g rove if f maple some t hundred tri trees tries es when I 1 was wag ull uil there re bea before re with no ho uther other r among ibm bam the bround ground bown sown so wn with white cover clover it was one une ot ok the moAt inot beau ti falfa fawns wn s I 1 ever eyer saw when I 1 ibra felt it ii I 1 up before fone fore a the house hoube in which I 1 was born and salu sald to the man who was resl nesi residing I 1 dind there 1 sik eik 1 ii I that grove stand standing ingy not a maple mapie t tree rep on the farm mastbe was the reply not rot tot lot A a single one said 1 I no 11 sad he snot gnot not inot it a anaple orl ori the farm I 1 ead iad haa had not even oven the tle curiosity to ta drive across me tle farm for in wy my mind that grove was the t e feature attire Te af all otters others it was waa lne ine place ofay dreams dreams many of you know wat ahat in 1853 we had difficulty ditri culty with the lir irr didus in southern soul goul herrl hertl ulah aa A t that time I 1 was military commander of the southern department previous to every attack atack on the settlement mi my dreams wo would uld carry me ma mackto back to that and theto thelo I 1 would ibee isee ee or get some sowa intimation of the coming trouble wili with me the lud ludiana lans ians now theres not a tree left it ilc would have haie beau about so with the people if had staid away a few years bonger I 1 went into the school Al district strict where I 1 had resided some six years and visited mr mi porter patterson with whom I 1 was well weli acquainted in my boyhood and began inquiring tor ton the neighbors nard isard hethey are all gone but four myself and wife and Mr Nl rJohn John Staf stamford stafford rord and field are all the married people that thag remain m a in that lived here when you went away thirty nine vine years and two months ago toen said 1 I 1 I 1 must go to the gr aveyard graveyard 11 these reflections would bring firing to my mind the sermons that I 1 had heard in my youth I 1 went to the cemetery and saw the graves of a great many of my old comrade there were headstones with inscriptions script ions to many whom I 1 had known alid alad home morue whose funerals I 1 had attended abd and I 1 could recite texts and a portion of the sermons preached at those funerals they TB were generally passages ts like this be edye ye also ready for lor in such huch an hour as yo ye thy thi think not the son of man mau iau cum eth etha P passages of this kind were generally selected elected ri as warnings to all to be ready for death from the monuments in the graveyard I 1 found that a good many had been summoned in their youthford youth for there were the graves of boys and girls with whom I 1 bad nad associated some of them my relatives I 1 visited three cemeteries with a like result theo the one nein in our own neighborhood one in colton and the other in potsdam village in all of which I 1 had been more or lems less acquainted latter latten day saints tn in their preaching call on men and women to prepare to live and they teach them how to live believing that if any person is prepared to live as he ought to he will certainly i be pre pro pared to dla die whenever the a summons snail shall come it was never a part par t or portion of our teaching to attempt to scare men to heaven I 1 went to the meeting house or rather to the site bite of the Inee flog house for the old frame building had been rep replaced laceLl by alother another of bricks and it converted into a lecture room for the the normal school it in that old frame building I 1 had bean been most solemnly sentenced to eternal damnation nine ti mesby a congregationalist minis ter forty years sears ago ile he had gone to hi his 3 grave and nearly all the persons present in the congregation at the time had followed or preceded him the object or of this sentence se tence in the eloquent and solemn fans fann guage in which it was pronounced and so oft repeated was no doubt to stir 1 in the minds ot of impenitent sinners and bf nue lne particularly a conviction convict iou lou that would secure conversion to christianity its gis as I 1 was considered impenitent and I 1 donot know but we the proper phrase would be to 0 o scare me to heaven bat but it did not have that effect with me I 1 never could understand nor realize certain portions of the teachings which I 1 there heard hoard that I 1 must become so thoroughly in lii love with the J justice ustice of god as to be perfectly willing wiffing to tobe tobo ibe damned adall to all ali eternity for his glory and summer suffer ali ail all the miseries which they so eloquently described was to me an impossibility I 1 could see no justice in such doctrines but those were times of great religious excitement when revivals vals vais and protracted meetings were common all over ghe the country and the souls of many were stirred to the very core as it were by the idea then so strongly I 1 advocated advocat edor edof of the punishment and misery which were to be ba eternally inflicted upon ulion all those who were finally impenitent those sermons divided the christian world into two classes one was made celestial inheriting all the blessings and glory which a god could bestow the other was banished to eternal misery when the doctrines of the latter day saints santa were preached to me I 1 could understand der stand them I 1 could believe in faith and repentance ropen tenee tence in the principle of obedience til dil ence and in the doctrines of baptism nur our the remission of sins and the la laying gitig on of hands hand for the gift of the holy ghost and that god had provided for all beings that cheatw a immor hilty in accordance with their works worick whether good or evil giving givin 1 as a matter of course to the faithful latter lavter day dwy ain alnas saints aln ts the tho reserved seats or to use the tho langu language agg aka 0 of athe tho the apostle paul I 1 could believe that there was wag a alory atory of if the sun a glory gidry of the ni moon on and a glory of the stars and that the glory of the stars differed as aa much ag aa the stars differ in brilliancy bud aud sud that alt ait sects denomination denominations sand and classes of mople mopie would receive punishments and and aud rewards in in i accordance with his divine justice every latter day sant that abides in the truth faithful to the end may expect the glory of the sun and every evary inan that acts in accordance with the light that ha ha possesses lays a foundation for greater glory and boror than ej eye eje a has seen or than it has hs entered into the heart of mortal man mali to conceive I 1 did not visit the with the feeling that some of the ministers of orthodox churches sought to impress upon my mind in my youth I 1 did not believe that they wre consigned to eternal punishment bol boi because pAuse they believed differently from what I 1 did i went there feeling fooling a conn conal dence denee that honorable men and women would receive honorable treatment from a lust just dae doe st god in speaking on hig this his subject I 1 designed ignec simply to wake up the hearts of my brethren and sisters to the tha necessity of manntai maintaining n ing this thia thi honor and dud to the fact thae that as we advance in the things of the kingdom greater sacrifices and more faith and diligence are required on bur part I 1 visited in the murse course of my journey the place where joseph smiths lathor lather was born Tolis field massachusetts I 1 was in the house he was born to in and atud upon the carpa where the family had resided three generations rations previous they having resided in that county essex as early as 1616 1066 my visit was yas vas io obtain some historical histo information in relation to the family of joseph smith it was about eighty one years year 8 since silice I 1 my grandfather moved away from that place at which time my nay father was wag eleven years old and jos josm ephs father twenty one they being broth ers it would seem strange that anter anner the lapse of eighty one years I 1 should nind nini any one who knew know my grandfather yet I 1 saw several persons who stated that they were personally acquainted with him although they could not remember when he moved away but after doing doling so he returned to that neighborhood and aud visited his relatives and acquaintances and they had distinct recollections of him and gave me reminiscences offis history the graveyard at topsfield Tops field contained no monuments over about eighty years old I 1 do not recollect the exact date among the oldest were the names of my great aunts and other relatives being a firm believer in the doctrine of baptism for the dead I 1 was anxious to procure the names of those departed persons persona wherever our records might be deficient and I 1 have I 1 believe a prospect of obtaining the names ot of about nine hundred bundred of the kindred of my great grand grandmother mother priscilia priscilla gould the old portion of the burying ground at topsfield Tops field used by the early inhabitants is totally without monuments no gravestones whatever so that I 1 presume they simply used usell headboards or monuments of wood and the place is now reserved as a sacred precinct in which we were told that any of the kindred of those ancient worthies of the town might might plant gravestones grave tones if they choose b but hut no person is allowed to be bu blied led there th the cemetery had been enlarged and from eighty years ago down to the present time there had bad been placed there many gravestones and handsome some mani maui festing testing the pride and aristocracy of those who placed them there I 1 noticed one particularly tic ticul arly ou on which was inscribed a notice to the effect that the person buried there waga wasa was wab a millionaire it did not say whether he obtained his money honestly or by some other means in vi biting the office of the town clerk I 1 examined the record kept by my great grandfather in 1776 8 at which time he be was the clerk of that town I 1 also found by examining the records ton years before then that he had represented the town in the legislature of the colony of massachusetts and was IL a very firm supporter of the revolution just as I 1 nias vias was about leaving the office to go to the railway station I 1 was told by the clerk that he be had a list of the names of the children of robert smith in the town record robert smith was supposed by us to be the first of our family who settled in massachusetts sometime previous to the year 1665 1 I there acer a bained what our family records fail to show sho our records show had a son samuel and that samuel had a son samuel and that samuel had bad a son samuel and a son asael and asael was our grandfather but I 1 ascertained that this robert smith had bad a large family and their names are contained in tharo thayo tharold ld tawn record the gente genne alog acal ical society of massachusetts has got out oat books containing the tue thi tui e records ot some hundred of the nami rami families libs of theolee the oldest st se settlers of bf the colony it our friends hore here whose ancestors ere were are buried jn in new england would unite in pare purchasing ahas an ad entire kt set of these works they would be enabled to find collateral if not direct branches of |