| Show DISCOURSE PRESIDENT PRESIDES GEORGE heikie BY iti all A SMITH DELIVERED at the adjourned general conference of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints in thelver the theL mew mem tabernacle salt sall lake ci city cyl tyl thursday morning mommy may ath 7 th 1874 REPORTED D by DAVID W EVANS benold BEHOLD I 1 will send you eiljah elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the lord and he be shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers lest I 1 come and smite the earth with a curse this passage will be found in the ath and ath verses of the ath chapter of the prophet malachi the latter day saints were driven from their homes in jackson county missouri about forty one years ago A portion of the mob commenced the outbreak in june or july and among their first deeds of violence was the destruction of the printing office plundering the stor storehouse eliouse and the tarring and feathering of edward partridge the bishop this was followed by whipping and killing the people and burning their houses and finally culminated on the of october in driving some fifteen hundred hundred persons from their homes on the public lands which they hai haa had purchased and received titles for from the united states the people thus driven went into different parts of the state the great body of them however taking shelter in the county of clay the settlements in jackson county were commenced on the principle T nel nei e of the law of consecration t if you read the revelations that hat t were ere given and the manner I 1 in n which they were acted upon you will find that the brethren E brought before the bishop and his counsellors coun their property and consecrated sec see rated it and with the money and means thus consecrated lands were purchased and inheritances and stewardships steward ships distributed among the people all of whom regarded their property as the property of the lord there were however at that period professed latter day saints who did not see proper to abide by this law of consecration they thought it was their privilege to look after number one and some of them believing that zion was to become aver a very wery y grea great city and that being ce the c centre centro s stake t U b of it they purchased tracts of land in the vicinity with the intention of keeping them until zion became the beauty and joy of the whole earth when th they i thought they could sell their la lands n els and make themselves very rich it was probably owing to this in part that the lord suffered buffered the enemies of zion to rise against her the members of the church at that period were very industrious frugal and law abiding and there was no possibility of framing any charges or claims against them by legal means and the published manifesto upon which the mob was collected boldly asserted that the civil law did not afford a guarantee against this people consequently they formed themselves vs into a combination a dawless lawless mob pledging to each other their lives their property and their sacred sacred honors to drive tho the wor cormons mormons Mor mons from their midst from that hour the heart of every latter day saint has been occasionally nally warmed with the feeling may I 1 be permitted to live until the day when the saints shall again go to jackson county when they shall build the temple the ground for which was dedicated and when the order of zion as it was waa then revealed shall be carried out and it has been generally under understood tood among us that the redemption of zion would not occur upon any other principle than upon that of the law of consecration forty years and more have passed away since these events took place we have been driven dirven five times from our homes five times we have havo been robbed of our inheritances our leaders and presiding officers have been killed and not lna ina in a single instance in any state or territory where we have lived has the law been magin fied in the protection of the latter day saints until we were driven into these mountains in 1834 daniel dunklin the governor of misso missouri uri url said the laws were ample and the constitution was ample but the prejudices of the people were so BO great that he and the other authorities of the state were powerless to execute the law for the protection of the mormons cormons Mor mons we have had one one protector our father in heaven to depend upon but governors judges rulers officers of any kind high or low have utterly failed to extend protection to the latter day sains saina god alone has been our lour protector and wo we acknowledge his hand in every deliverance we have hitherto experienced several times tho the church has made advances advance to organize the order of enoch as it was revealed in the book of covenants in path part and nd in the ancient history of the zion of enoch these ad advances how however every eveny the saints did prepared to receive we have bo been if gathered from many nations and we have brought many notions and traditions with us and it has seemed that with these no notions tibits and traditions wo we could not dispense dispO ise tse in 1838 an attempt was wag made in caldwell county mo 1 the latter day saints owning al all ali I th jhb lands in the county or all that were bete considered of any value they thoy organized ill lil big nig field ifield united firms by which they intended to consolidate 6 their property p erty and to regard it as the property e ty of the lord and alid themselves only on IT as stewards stew ards but they had not advanced so far in this matter asto as to perfect their system before they were broken broker up and driven from the state I 1 understand that three hundred and eighteen thousand dollars in money was paid by the saints to the united states for lands in the state of missouri not one acre of which any one of us has been permitted to enjoy envoy or to live upon since rince the year 1838 or the spring of 1839 though at the time of the expulsion the commanding general john IV clarke informed the people that if they would renounce their religions us fai tal faith alth they could remain on their lands lie he said that they were skilful mechanics industrious and or orderly defly and had joaane made more improvements in three years than tho the othor other inhabitants had in fifteen and if they would renounce their faith they remain but the they y must hold hoid no more inore meetings prayer meetings prayer circles or councils and they must have no more bishops or presidents and in view of their refusal to comply with these conditions the edict of banishment issued by the governor of the state was wag executed by this general with anargy an army at his heels and the latter day saints were driven from their happy homes and thousands thou Bands of them scattered to the four winds of heaven since our arrival in these valleys sermons have been preached from year to year to illustrate to us the principles of oneness we find that we are one generally in faith we believe on the lord jesus christ we believe in the ake first principles of the gospel the doctrines of repentance and baptism for the remission of bins the laying on of hands for the gift of the holy ghost and the resurrection of the dead we readily receive by the power of the holy spirit manifested to us through the prophets the doctrine of baptism for the dead the holy anointing and the law of celestial marriage this principle came in opposition to all our prejudices yet when god revealed it his liis spirit bore testimony of its truth and ana the latter day saints received it almost en masse in order to make a step in the night hight ri t lit direction and to prepare the people to return to jackson county tho principles of coop co op oration were taught and their practice entered into and for the purpose of instructing and encouraging the minds of the people upon the benefits of united action from the earliest settlement of this territory to the present time the presiding elders of the church have 2 every conference endeavored to impress upon their minds the necessity of making themselves self supporting we have looked forward to the day when babylon would fall when we could not draw our supplies from her midst and when our own ingenuity talent and skill must supply our wants the effect supay of all th this instruction is that we have made some progress in many directions but not so much as could have been desired the cultivation of cotton was introduced in the south sheep breeding has been extensively adopted numerous factories have been erected to manufacture both the wool and the cotton produced several extensive tanneries canneries tann eries have also been established for the manufacture of hides into leather and various other kinds of business have been introduced with a view to making ourselves self support ing within a few years the railroad lias has been constructed through our territory and the expense of freighting has been greatly reduced mines wines which before the railroad was built werm wae perfectly worthless have been developed and made to pay and the minds of many of the people seem to haye have ha ye been impressed with nith the idea that we may expect some regular general business to grow out of the production of the mines and a great many have been led to neglect home manufactures and ani to depend u upon pon pu purchasing from abroad some bome ettie settlements have however everte I 1 themselves considerably to produce clothing and many articles within themselves these circumstances are all clear before us you go through utah county today to day and say to a farmer have you got any borgum to sell no raised any for two or thre three e years sugar got so cheap we could cotsell not sell seil it 1 I suppose you have plenty of sugar no weare we amm ame out of sugar we any money to buy it with this is the position which our course of life has led us to and which we already begin to feel there is another principle connected with this matter which we should consider and that is when we as a community in the valleys of the mountains provide for our own wants we are not subject to the fluctuations and difficulties that result from a money panic or an interruption in the currency when we came to this conference a great many of us came with the determination to take such measures as should place us as a people on an independent footing and hence we propose through our brethren to go to work and organize a united order there is at present a deficiency in in our organization so far as our business relations am amm concerned of course in every are many industrious men then there some gome who are schemers and as each man looks out for himself that good principle which the savior taught so strongly that a man nian should love the lord his god with all his heart and his neighbor as himself is in a great forgotten and a few gather up the property I 1 while many of the laboring men who do most of the work colo cole como out tout at the end of the year behind without a full supply of the necessaries of life to avoid this a united order would organize a community to so that all the ingenuity talent skill a and nd energy it possessed would inure to the good of the whole this is ig the object and design in the establishment of these organizations it is perfectly certain that there is in every community a sufficient amo amount int of skill and energy and labor a to supply its wants and put all its members in possession of every necessary and comfort of life if all ail this skill and energy be rightly lightly directed di wo propose to take measures to direct aright the labor that we have in in our possession and lay jay a foundation for comfort happiness plenty and the bles bies blessina blessings sins P of life within ourselves we further do not believe that latter day saints in the service of the most high can enjoy that high degree d u of 0 f respect in the presence of the almighty to which they tire are entitled when they are biting devouring vou ring shaving skinning and and out ing lug and getting the advantage of each other in little petty deals we want to see these things cease entirely for we know that we can never be prepared for the coming of the saviour only by uniting and becoming one in temporal as well as in spiritual things and being bing prepared to enjoy tho the the tho blessings of exaltation the principles of life which we we now present for the consideration of the latter day saints were carried out in times pastas we read in the book of mormon among the Nep hites and Lamai Lama lites who each enjoyed over a hundred years of unity peace happiness and gienty rients plenty as the result of adopting t this 1 system or of unity and if we will unite in one acting in good faith every man esteeming his brother as him self regarding not dot what he lle possesses as his own but the lords all carrying out these principles the result is certain it is ia the enjoyment of the spirit of the lord it is the light of eternity it is the abundance of the things of this thi earth it Is an opportunity to provide education for our children amusement and interest for ourselves a knowledge of the things of the kingdom of god and all sciences which are embraced therein and an advance in the work of the last days preparatory to the redemption of the centre stake of zion brethren and sisters think of these things and as llo lle the spirit of the almighty was in your hearts when you received the laying on of handland hands hand sand and the baptism of the hol holy y spirit bearing testimony mony meny that the ohe gospel of jesus christ was true seek with all your hearts and know by the same spirit that the establishment lish ment of the united order is another step towards the triumph of that great and glorious work for which we are continually laboring namely the dawning of the millan millennium and the commencement of ule uie reign of christ on the earth thesis the work of the almighty these pi inci ples pies aie from god they are for our I aad and unless we remember and abid abide e in them our progress will be slow if we vve are slow to learn and progress but try to carny earry out the purposes of god he will not cast us he has been very patient with us these forty years and he may conti continue nue to be so but understand that the hearts of bf the fathers must bo be turned to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers A unity must exist the latter day saints must love one another they must cease to worship this worlds goods they must lay a foundation to build up zion and to be one oue an n order that they may be prepared for th the 3 great day that shall burn as an oven I 1 bear my testimony to you of the truth of the gospel of jesus christ of the book of mormon of the ministry of joseph smith and of his servants the elders that were called of the lorf lord lord libby by him brigham young and the apostles and elders who have borne these tes fes testimonies ta I 1 to the ilat riat nations ions lons of the earth and I 1 say brethren give diligent heed to these things lest by any means wo we should let them slip and come short of entering into rest may the blessings of israels god be upon you sor jor ever amen |
