I believe that you already understand all that is necessary for your
safe guidance through the perils and temptations that await the Elders
and Saints of the last days. None of you can be said to have heard the
Gospel last Sabbath, been baptized on Monday last, ordained on
Tuesday, and on Wednesday sent forth to preach, as were many of the
first Elders. On the contrary, I think you have been pretty well
schooled.
But the inquiry arises in my mind, Do the Elders realize the
importance of their missions? Do they realize that in their
administration they carry with them the keys of life and death, not
pertaining to this life alone, but to this in connection with all the
life there is? It is necessary that you should fully realize this in
your calling as Elders in the Church of Jesus Christ. The thousands
and tens of thousands of incidents that make up the sum of human
lives, whether for good or evil, depend on a momentary watchfulness
and care.
If an Elder, in preaching the Gospel, does not feel that he has the
power to preach life and salvation, and to legally administer
the ordinances, and that, too, by the power of God, he will not fill
his mission to his own credit, nor to the good of the people, and the
advancement and honor of the kingdom of God. From all I can read,
from all I can gather from the revelations from God to man, and from
the revelations of the Spirit to me, no man can successfully preach
the Gospel and be owned, blessed, and acknowledged by the heavens,
unless he preaches by the power of God through direct revelation. Not
but that, in a great many instances, a man may not be manifestly under
the immediate and powerful influences and direction of revelation to
dictate him all the time in his meditations and reasonings, and yet
can advance many good ideas that he has gathered by means of his
natural reasoning. But to magnify and make honorable the calling of
an Elder in this Church, I cannot conceive, in my understanding, any
other true principle by which it can be done, only when perfectly
controlled by the Spirit of the Lord.
When men enjoy the spirit of their missions and realize their calling
and standing before the Lord and the people, it constitutes the
happiest portions of their lives. If our minds can reach forth to
eternal things, can conceive the glory, honor, and benefit arising
from the plan of salvation Jesus has purchased, and can grasp the
gifts, blessings, powers, privileges, light, intelligence, and fulness
of the eternities that are to come, these God has bestowed upon us to
offer to the people. If they will receive it, they can have all the
Lord has purchased for them. If they reject you, they also reject the
Son; and if they reject the Son, they reject the Father and heaven and
heavenly things, and seal their own condemnation. If the brethren can
reach forth unto these things, so as to see and properly understand
them, they can magnify their calling; and this is the only way in
which they can.
Many of you have been in the world and met with opposition; and when
the Scriptures have been honestly adhered to as the standard, you have
successfully met all that can be brought against the plan of
salvation. That is all very well, and is pleasing to such as have a
philosophical turn of mind. Their modes of thinking and reasoning call
for solutions of what appears to them mysterious and problematic; and
those solutions, to be satisfactory to them, must accord with certain
theories. But let one go forth who is careful to logically prove all
he says by numerous quotations from the revelations, and let another
travel with him who can say, by the power of the Holy Ghost, Thus
saith the Lord, and tell what the people should believe—what they
should do—how they should live, and teach them to yield to the
principles of salvation—though he may not be capable of producing a
single logical argument—though he may tremble under a sense of his
weakness, cleaving to the Lord for strength, as such men generally do,
you will invariably find that the man who testifies by the power of
the Holy Ghost will convince and gather many more of the honest and
upright than will the merely logical reasoner.
Debate and argument have not that saving effect that has testifying to
the truth as the Lord reveals it to the Elder by the Spirit. I think
you will all agree with me in this; at least, such is my experience. I
do not wish to be understood as throwing a straw in the way of the
Elders' storing their minds with all the arguments they can gather to
urge in defense of their religion, nor do I wish to hinder them in the
least from learning all they can with regard to religions and governments. The more knowledge the Elders have the better.
It is well to perfectly understand the religious and governmental
theories of the world; it is satisfactory: yet, in preaching the
Gospel, an Elder who prides himself in using good sound arguments and
logic is not so apt to lean upon the Lord for his Spirit as are those
who are not so particularly gifted in reasoning. It is our duty, so
far as we can, to gain knowledge and information pertaining to human
life and the organization of the kingdoms, thrones, empires, and
republics of the earth—to become well acquainted with their
religions, laws, manners of administration, pursuits of life,
manufactures, agriculture, arts, manners and customs, &c.: but when we
are possessed of all this knowledge, we need the power of God to teach
the truths of the holy Gospel. I wish you to bear this truth in your
memories and put it in practice.
By your own experience you know that "Mormonism," if not true, is
worse than nothing; and if true, its value is beyond our computation.
In your traveling and preaching, you will meet with many who will
oppose the Gospel, and by them your names will be cast out as evil.
Pertaining to this, I will make but one requirement of you—that, when
you are spoken everywhere against, as were Jesus and his disciples,
for the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of the people, for the sake
of our Redeemer, for the sake of our heavenly Father, and the heavenly
hosts, and for your own sakes, you so live that there never can
truthfully be an evil word spoken against you. Never, through
committing evil, lay the foundation for a person to truthfully speak
evil of you. If you pursue this course, you will be justified before
God, Jesus, angels, and your brethren. You can then testify to the
truth, and teach it in all plainness, simplicity, and honesty, and be
able to bid defiance to the world.
In your traveling you will have to trust in the Lord. I do not know
whether you have means sufficient to enable you to go directly to your
fields of labor. Probably some of you have, and some have not. Strive
to be full of the Holy Ghost, and the necessary means will come to
you, often in a way you cannot comprehend, and you will be expedited
in your journeyings and perform your missions. And furthermore, if you
will not drop one thread in the garments of your characters, from the
time you leave here, I am not in the least doubtful in my mind—I have
not a shade of hesitancy in my feelings in promising that each of you
will accomplish a mission that will please our Father in heaven and
every good person on the earth and in heaven, and live to return to
this place. Have faith to live, and do just as you should do; and do
not imagine that you can go to the right or to the left, or do this,
that, or the other wrong with impunity, thinking that it will be well
enough in the end. Do that alone which you know to be right and which
you ought to do. When you come to that which you do not know to be
right, let it alone and trust in the Lord, and you will live.
Some of our Elders have died while on missions. I have nothing to say
against them, for all must die sooner or later. But there is no
necessity for laying down our bodies until we are full of years. If
you only have faith, and every moment live according to the faith of
the Gospel, and keep your gaze, thoughts, and acts heavenward, I have
no hesitancy in saying that you will live to perform your missions.
You have received your blessings, and I say amen to them, and to much
more. In this my faith resembled Father Smith's, when he was asked by myself and one or two others for a patriarchal blessing. He
said to us, "Sit down, and write every good thing you can think of in
heaven and on earth, and I will sign my name to them, and they will be
your patriarchal blessings. If you only live for them, they shall all
come upon you, and more." Live for the blessings you desire, and you
will obtain them, if you do not suffer selfishness, pride, or the
least alienation from the path of true virtue and holiness to creep
into your hearts.
When you reach your fields of labor, do the best you can; and when
the enemy comes along and tells you that you are somebody, say, "Mr.
Devil, it is none of your business. What I have spoken is what the
Lord gave to me. I have presented it to the people, and that is all I
have to do with it." If you cannot preach as nicely and smoothly as
you wish, and a feeling rises that you cannot preach at all—that you
had better return home, tell Satan to get behind you—that he has no
power to dictate whether you preach a word or not, for you are in the
Lord's service. So live that the Spirit of the Lord can instruct your
minds at all times, and you can then defy the Devil and all his
emissaries. If you have nothing from the Lord to present to the
people, be as willing to be silent as you would to preach what might
be termed a splendid discourse.
A short time ago I made a few remarks concerning the Elders who have
been on missions, and I will now say to you, Do not come from your
missions leaving behind you people whom you have oppressed, from whom
you have begged their money. I would work my way there and back again,
or beg from strangers, before I would take one dime from the Saints,
unless they of their own freewill and accord wished to make me
presents, and were able to do so without dis tressing themselves. True,
I have seen the time, and so have many of my brethren, when my heart
has ached to see men and women go without food day after day for the
sake of feeding me, when I could feed myself; but any other course
would not satisfy them. Under such circumstances you must humor the
people and yield to their feelings. But do not go to preach this
Gospel for the purpose of becoming rich. If the Lord has anything for
you, he will give it to you; and if he has not, tell them that you can
provide your own living when you reach home, if the Lord will bless
you. You may say, "We may bless the people until doomsday, and still
they will find fault with us." Can they justly do so? If they cannot,
their faultfinding cannot harm you.
Some of our Missionaries, after an absence of two or three years,
return with their eyes cast down: their countenances are fallen. I
wish you to take such a course that you can come home with your heads
up. Keep yourselves clean, from the crowns of your heads to the soles
of your feet; be pure in heart—otherwise you will return bowed down
in spirit and with a fallen countenance, and will feel as though you
never could rise again. When the Quorum of the Twelve was first
organized, Joseph said that the Elders of Israel, and particularly the
Twelve Apostles, would receive more temptations, be more buffeted,
and have greater difficulty to escape the evil thrown in their way by
females than by any other means. This is one of Satan's most powerful
auxiliaries with which to weaken the influence of the ministers of
Christ, and bring them down from their high position and calling into
darkness, shame, and disgrace. You will have to guard more strictly
against that than against any other evil that may beset you. Make up
your minds not to yield, for one moment, to the subtle
insinuations of the animal propensities of your natures while you are
absent on the Lord's errands. Rather, suffer your heads to be taken
from your shoulders than to sacrifice your honor, violate your
covenants, and forfeit the sacred trust reposed in you.
When you arrive in Liverpool, you will find brothers Amasa Lyman and
Charles C. Rich, two of the Twelve, and you will be under their
direction and supervision. Some of you will again visit your parents
and friends in your native lands. This, no doubt, will be very
agreeable; but do not sit down in your ancestral homes with a purpose
to stay there, but let your missions be first and foremost to preach
the Gospel of life and salvation to the people, and gather them to the
place appointed. I do not think there was worse said about the Savior
and his disciples in ancient days than has been said about the people
of Utah in modern times. Take no notice of this, but attend to the
business about which you have been sent. Tell this genera tion the
truth, and pass along. Many will tell you that your religion is all
error. Reply that you will make an exchange with them of ten errors
for one truth. Do not contend or argue much, but pass along peaceably
and preach the first principles of the Gospel—faith in God and in his
Son Jesus Christ, and teach the people to repent of their sins and be
baptized for the remission of them, and they shall receive the gift of
the Holy Ghost through the laying on of the hands of the Elders. It is
often the case that some wish to preach about things of which they
have little or no knowledge. Let alone that which you do not know or
most assuredly believe to be true—doctrines which you do not perfectly
understand, and strive to be honest. If you do not understand a
doctrine or a portion of Scripture, when information is asked of you,
say that the Lord has not revealed that to you, or that he has not
opened your understanding to grasp it, and that you do not feel safe
in giving an interpretation until he does.
May God bless you! Amen.