Show irn arn TO au tie THE mm imi BY elder WILLIAM G C DUNBAR DURBAR DELIVERED in III the schoolhouse school house sunday evening jan uary ath 1874 reported REPORT aD DY BY DAVID W evans vav 14 1 LAST sunday bunday evening I 1 asked the tho iri privilege from tho the bishop to give a irl lri little I 1 atle lesson to the young and to the olda oida old oid and iid ild middle aged about the young it is 19 something new for ine me to ask for the privilege of speak ing in g nor por fonay tonly for my weakness has generally led rhe ib decline speaking when asked to do so but inasmuch as I 1 have llave assumed assumed the task I 1 trust I 1 shall be assisted by that spirit that illuminates the understanding and that it will oil on this occasion dictate things which will be for our good 1 have heard some say that they tilou thought ht we made too much fuss and talk about the rising generation but when whan we take into consideration the circumstances in which we are eladid placed as latter day saints we shall shail see that this is not the ease case we are connected with the kingdom of god established in these last days never to be cast down again we are not connected with a system of religion which is to expire when we expire but with one which is to exist when wo we anegone are gone and there is i s a prospect of a great many of us departing this life before very many years more pass away there are thousands and tens 0 of i thousands of us who embraced th the e gospel soon after the church was anizel by the prophet joseph smith and who krepow are pow now arriving at an au when v 1 lellie we must naturally expect pe that t we nye will not levei livelong long iong upon the tile C earth alil alii hence I 1 in i the minds 0 of f all such who reflect t there is an anxiety 1 about the young why because they have all an anxiety about the tho th e kingdom of god being have llave an about tile the young realizing that the responsibility of bearing off this thia kingdom and its principles must shortly rest upon their whan they will have to preach the gospel and to aI minister administer the laws and ordinances of the kingdom of god and to bear off it lt principles while they shall live upon the earth hence the anxiety of the old members of the church to know that their children are in a position to be able to perform the duties devolving u upon ivon lion them as well as if not better than their predecessors anre kye we have around us a multitude of children growing up tp Wea we are rein in the habit of callin calling them children and of trea treating them as lmh and all the time our speeches to them are arc as if directed to children hut but ut all of a sudden it has come to our notice that some of these children have arrived at the years of accountability count ability some of our sons for instance are as old as aa we were ourselves when we went forth to preach the gospel and we see around us a multitude of young toung men and women who were baptized when they were eight years old and who almost unnoticed have arrived at years when they begin to think and act for themselves among them are those who have a knowledg by the gift of the holy ghost that the church of jesu jesus 3 christ of lat lor tor iq is the church and work of god and perhaps a great proportion of them have this knowledge then there th ere area are aro a great many of them who say they have not this knowledge but they believe mormonism is is true because father and mother say it is that is they believe it by education and not by conviction and through understanding it for themselves among these children to which v aich I 1 am refer ing is a small number who have come in contact with certain influences and who are becoming skeptical and unbelieving as to the principles of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints we may shut our eyes to these things but they are facts and the question is how shall we treat them them if we knew that two gentiles were in n this meeting we would so arrange our discourse as to bo be suitable to them and let all the rest of the congregation who already know these principles sit and listen but it appears to me that we have to take a new departure in regard to our preaching we must adapt ourselves to circumstances and remember that thero there are those amongst us of the kind I 1 have mentioned it is true our children have been raised and grounded as it were in the principles of 1 mor monism they have grown up and have scarcely heard anything else it is not these little ones here that I 1 am so much concerned about but it Is the young men and the young women from sixteen to twenty two or twenty three years of age who go out in life for themselves perhaps the sisters go to service ervice fc in various parts of the tho city and among various kinds of people and the young men they go to learn trades learn to bo be carpenters masons blacksmiths or some gome other oc occupation cupan they have to go out in life and they meet with a great many that were not tobe to be found in our midst years ago ngo for amongst us now are those who volo are a re straining every undermine the education that we have been giving to our childr children cn when I 1 say bay education I 1 mean the religious training which we have iteen giving them there are tire men in our midst who consider they have llave a mission to perform and that mission is to undermine our Tell yeli religion gion glon there are many amongst ju us now who do not believe in and who care nothing about our religion same of these have come to dig in the moun mountains i tallis to extract the silver sliver and get a fortune they care nothing about religion of any kind there are others etheri here who consider they mey have a mission to undermine mormonism and who think the only way for them to do that is by undermining the education of our young people they say wo IM can only reach the young so far As asmith naith faith in mormonism M is concerned but if we succeed in making the rising generation skeptical win wid be a thing of the past and almost forgotten in the next generation there is a class glass of so called religious men med whose aim is to malre make our young folks skeptical there thele is the apostate who is either an infidel pr a deist working to acco accomplish malish the same object there is also the gentile who is a deist or a freethinker and does not believe in god or in a life hereafter and they all feel that it is their mission to undermine what we have been doing during the last twenty years to establish in the minds of the rising generation the truth of the principles which we have espoused and which we know to be true now kow if it has taken all the 1 know ledge edge that we have all tile the testimony that wo have received from the almighty to carry us through the present moment if it has taken tile the power of the holy ghost and the spirit of god to enable us to stand and resist the various opposing influences by which we have been assailed since we obeyed the gospel it will t take ake the same testimony and the same understanding to enable the rising generation to carry off this kingdom triumphantly in spite of all the combined comb domb ined opposition that may be brought against it hence the necessity my brethren and sisters of being exercised about the young and hence the reason that they should have a knowledge of the principles of truth that we have received that when we are alej departing this li life fe we can lay our hands upon them and bless them and set them apart for the work that we have about closed then the tile fathers in israel can say here are our sons who wili carry out what we have begun and the mothers ean can say here are our daughters who will wiil carry out what we have commenced der such circumstances the tho feelings of the dying will be those of joy and pleasure dorthey for they will know that they are leaving behind them a multitude upon whose hearts is ineffaceably impressed the condic conviction I 1 of the divinity of this work I 1 am pleased when I 1 hear a young man or young woman testify that they know this is the kingdom of god but I 1 should not be pleased to hear them testify that they did know if they did not mot I 1 should not be pleased to hear them say they believed if they did not believe it might cost me sorrow to bear hear my son or my daughter or your son or your daughter say t 1 I do not know that blo bio alo Monnon rmon ism ism is true or 1 I do not believe it is true or to see them ina lna in a kind of betwixt and between state of mind not knowing what to believe but at the same time I 1 would rather they would honestly say just what is the fact than to have them hypocritically say one thing and mean another I 1 would not like to see this among children or among oranong mer men and women but if a person is read reid v sick andee and we can find out what i 1 u e disease is then we can apply the remedy if however the patient insists that he is not sic kand that nothing is the matter with him wo we can cau not touch him hence I 1 say if we know the circumstances in which we are placed plated we know knonk what remedy to apply A young manor mauor man or young woman wili will ask this question for instance which is very natural naturals s father I 1 hear you say that all the sects in the christian world are wrong except the for cormons lor mons but yet I 1 find when I 1 attend the episcopal roman catholic or methodist church that they quote from the very same bibo bible which you quote from how is it that they are wrong do jolou you recollect brethren and sisters how we were when first the gospel reached our carss one of othe otho ohp first questions that we ve asked of the elder who preached to us was YOU say suy that argimon mormonism ism only is right but hut how 1 ia il th that atall all ali these other others s sects e et s and partle patties 4 W who ho say they believe bellev i elli eili in god tile the bible and jesus christ are wrong and you rou only are right this thib was a md kind of a a mystery to us it ift caused a query to arise in gilr our minds and we could not exactly understand it 11 this brings to my remembrance a figure that was very frequently used by the elders eiders when preaching the gospel in jn the old country in early days to explain this seeming mystery to the minds of the new converts they would liken the gospel and church of jesus christ mist and its organization to a watch with all its complicated machinery including N wheels pivots and pins face fingers and mainspring all these properly combined wil correctly tell the time of day but said the elders suppose a man comes along and takes one of these wheels away and another man takes another wheel and another takes another wheel another mall man takes a pin and another another pin another man takes takei a pivot and another takes another pivot one takes alib the face another nother takes a anger ans jims and another takes tale s another finger and so ol 01 on until finally the whole watch is is divided up say among six hundred different people every one of whom says bays T 1 I have lot the tho watch and I 1 can tell the tim time e of day say bay s the watchmaker do you think I 1 am such a fool as ai to believe that any of evou you can tell the time of day A vatch watch can not tell the time unless it is combined and united together every wheel and pivot in its ita place with the mainspring in good order it takes the whole machine to tell teli the time of day and when a man says gays 11 1 I have got the watch and he lias ilas only got a wheela divot pivot or a pin the tho face mainspring or case he does not tell the truth whether he knows it 11 so it is my young friends and Ir grethren brethren ethren and sister ersin stin regard to the bible every religious sect takes that part of it which suits them and they all say they believe in it and they have got the plan of salva tion for instance one sect will take faith in jesus christ and say that is all that is necessary for the salvation of man another sect will perhaps take baptism and say that faith and baptism are necessary for salvation and throw away something else and thus you find the whole christian world although professing to believe in the same savior and in the same rame bible opposed to each other and then tiie the 11 mormons cormons Mor mons come along and they say gay all these sects beets are wrong and we are right they say bl ay iy to the sects why you have not got the watch v ou have got cot one of the wheels one of the pins plus or fingers lingers or you have only got the case and there is nothing in iland it and it requires the case me with all its contents properly arranged to tell the time of day correctly in other words if you would teach the people how to be saved in the kingdom of god you must teach them to obey every principle of the plan of salvation that is precisely what tile the elders of this church do and that makes the grand distinction and difference between them and the so called rell neli religious teachers of the day now to illustrate this you attend a church achurch or a chapel and you perhaps hear a minister preach from the chapter of st marks mauks gospel where the apostles are comand ed to go and preach the gospel to every creature I 1 with th tho the 0 promise that he that believeth beli eveth und and is baptized shall be saved ac some of our young people have not read the bible a great deal it is true that ganv of them who jhb attend sunday school do read it but as n u general thing the class I 1 am referring to do not attend sunday school they consider that they are too old that they know too much or that it is rather humiliating to associate with children and with a few exceptions those I 1 mean are not of the kind who have read the bible but you will find no matter how hoy much it may chagrin us to admit it th that at they would rather read the ledger sowbelly Bom Sow bells or same other book of that character than the bible bibie and consequently when they head a sectarian minister quote from it that lie he that believeth beli bell eveth in jesus shall bo be saved they take it for granted that he is reading the bible when if they had read and studied its pages for fon themselves they would know that lie he only quotes part of it Is it not singular that sectarian ministers as a general thung manage to dorget that little word baptism when exhorting sinners to repent and be saved is ihnot it not singular that the tim divines of the day as a general thin thing L although they have havo haye hayo made tile the B bible bibie ible ibie the r s study tudy and have gone to college on purpose to study how to explain its contents should stop shorland shor tand say bay I 1 he tiit tilt that bellev eth shall be saved leaving out all about baptism what is tile the difference ill this sills rei re i 1 sped between the Mor monand mormon and the se sectarian tarlan teacher the mor mon men tea tha tf eacher eilef elief reads tho the whole of it the text and the context and he declares fo the people that lie me that believeth beli bell eveth andis and is baptized ahall be bb saved pin and cc lie he th that a bell beil believeth beli bell eveth not shall be condemned condemi ii ed Is it not singular that men professing ae to bo servants of god and ministers af f salvation when they ahby quote luote scripture should only espart of it this is the e ourse course pursued by of nearly every denomination in christendom one will take a pivot or a wheel and leave all the rest of the machinery another will doglio sam same e and so on ou and if we were to examine the whole we should perhaps fina nina find fina that all of the principles of the gospel are scattered amongst them but all of reject some portions of it on the tho day of Pentecost hen dpn when a large multitude of people were as id at Jerd jerusalem the apostles anstis of bf the savior who hai haa had |