| Show THIRST FOR BLOOD the growing spirit of the age aged seems to be bd one that craves for blood sanguinary desires are fiercer more inore general and seek gratification with increased violence they are not confined to one nation or people to one sect or party to one race or color to one faith or creed but they seem tos tom permeate the great mass of humanity outside of these valleys and some who have taken up their residence here manifest the same spirit and are animated by like desires the Christ christian lail faith professed in various forms by all of what are called the enlightened and civilized nations on the barthi earth j teaches emphatically that one great object for which it was revealed was to bring peace pe aceto to the human fam family liy I 1 glory to god in the highest and on earth peace goodwill good will toward men was the song of the angels when they heralded the advent of the messiah to mortality and peace and love was the burden of his teachings while he in the flesh his immediate followers enjoyed a peace and unity that were as different from and as repugnant to the jarring and discordant sec baries of that day as the peace and unity of the latter day saints I 1 are to the people of this age what a picture it would have been of inconsistency in the believers and impotency in we the principles which they believed if shenew the kew testament h had ad recorded bloody strife between the immediate followers of christ they were strictly commanded to love one another to be one as the father andson are obe on to cultivate peace charity love forbearance andall those virtues which make the human character lovely and de desirable s and the same command is as binding today to day by acceptance upon every professing christian of every nation as it was then ulon upon the apostles and disciples who received and believed the gospel yet wha what do we see professedly christian nations convulsed with anger against other professedly christian nations seething boiling raging with a mad tumult of passions at work to kill killilay slay destroy and sweep each other from the face of the earth sects denominations creeds and parties say they have the gospel they call it a gospel of pe peace ace they declare it teaches peace that it forbids blood to be or unjustly shed that it denounces the murderer and says that he has not eternal life abiding in him bim 11 they will admit that it does not discriminate between the murderer of one man and the murderer of one thousand they expatiate on the love of godsted god shed abroad in the heart on the coming blissful reign of the prince of peace of the unity that should and shall characterize the church militant as it does the church triumphant yet they them abuse us in the fl erdest fiercest and most bitter manner for enjoying that very unity say we have not the gospel just because we show the evidences of possessing it which the early followers of christ displayed even to being the objects of malignity and persecution and declare we are slaves to rafn raft unworthy to live ilvy because we ave will not show our independence by abusing or killing good men and slaying one another looked at in the light of truth what does this show simply that when the children of men give themselves up to the spirit of darkness there is nothing too gross inconsistent wicked or untrue for them to do and say athirst A thirst for blood is raging through the nation A sanguinary fever like a terrible epidemic has fastened upon the children of men the evidences of its existe existence are to be seen in increased murders in vars wars breaking out on ton on every hand in the best mechanical and inventive skill of an age which is beyond all others the aget age of invention being employed in the construction of deadly weapons mylien peter the hermit stirred up E europe drope to do battle for the holy sepulchre although the clang of arms and the tread of mailed warriors re sounded through the length and breadth of that continent as ts the crusaders gathered for their onslaught against the saracena saracens Sara cens a more imposing force could now be thrown into t the he arena drena of actual inflict conflict in a few days than then composed the flower of the worlds chivalry and arms an age of war was scarcely as destructive to human life then as a years is now yet nation after nation springs to the conflict offers its decato hecatomb mb of victims to the moloch of battle and aud in hi a few months retires to recruit its w asted energies its best blood having been poured out like a crimson river this spirit will increase as the children of men continue to reject the gospel and the farther they wander from its ts principles it brings peace analice and life ilfe to the human family its opposites are strife and death As mankind beco ifie subject to the power of evil so does the thirst for blood increase within them they may at assemble peace congresses erect platforms deemed sufficient to meet the wants of the age attempt the fusion of parties labor to reconstruct inaugurate vigilance committees to protect those whom the laws are I 1 insufficiently ansu efficiently administered to afford protector prot ecton to they may do all this or anything else they choose but while they continue to reject that gospel in which they profess a nominal belief in it corrupted form the spirit of strife contention war bloodshed and destruction will increase their actions they may themselves direct but the results of those action 4 are beyond their control god will overrule those results for disown purposes and glory |
