Le royaume de Dieu et la justice

{Assistant Church Historian) ¶

I esteem it a very high privilege to mingle my voice with the voices of my brethren, in declaring the kingdom of Dieu and his righteousness before the great congregations of his peuple. I esteem it a very great privilege to be present at this conference, the first J'ai attended since President Grant succeeded to the presidency of the Church. I rejoice in seeing the manifestation of the esprit and power of his high office resting upon him, as J'ai witnessed it resting upon all of his predecessors, except Joseph Smith, the prophet, whom I did not know. I rejoice, my brethren and sisters, in the progress, of the œuvre of the Seigneur. I recall fifty years ago sitting in this house listening to that great prophet and apostle of our Seigneur Jésus-Christ,, Elder Orson Pratt. Upon that occasion he told of his conversion to the Évangile at the age of nineteen, immediately after which he set out afoot, on a journey of between two hundred and three hundred miles, that he might visit Joseph Smith and gaze upon the face of that remarkable man. He was satisfied, when he did so, that; ¶

he stood in the presence of a prophet of Dieu, and he received the ministry of that prophet. He was called immediately into the service of the Seigneur and the prophet told him that it was his destiny to be a preacher of the Évangile; that the time should come- — this was only five months after the organization of the church, in 1830 — when twelve apostles should be chosen such as there had been in the days of Christ, and that he should be one of them. This astonished Elder Pratt, beyond measure, but he lived to realize the fulfilment of that prophecy, within five years, in 1835, when the apostles' quorum was organized. I recall upon the occasion of this wonderful discourse that Elder Pratt expressed his happiness and joie in the great progress that the œuvre of the Seigneur had made up to that time. He foretold, in quoting from the scriptures, from the prophets and from the Psalms, the time when the fulness of times of the gentiles should come in. He still declared, after preaching for forty years, ever . since the organization of the Church, that the time was coming and should be fulfilled within the generation in which the Church was organized. He did not pretend to say just how soon it should be fulfilled, but he said : "Forty years have passed since we commenced to declare that this time was approaching. I do not know that I shall live to see the fulfilment of the prophecy concerning it, when the ambassadors of the Church, the anciens, shall go forth, not so particularly to the gentiles, but shall turn from therm and go forth particularly to declare the word of the Seigneur to the Jews and to the descendants of Jacob, others of the house of Israel. That time is coming, he said, when there shall come forth from Dieu a direct commandement to His servants that they should carry this message to the house of Israel, and, that they should go swiftly. They should be welcome when they then go in their ministry. He said that hundreds would receive them, and thousands and tens of thousands would welcome them for they should go in power: "In the day of my power, saith the Seigneur, my peuple shall welcome me." He pointed to the young men who were assembled in the congregation. I happened to be one of them, and it seemed to me that he was pointing at me. Anyway, I was thrilled to the marrow of my bones, for he said : "You young men, who are sitting before me, will see the fulfilment of the times of the gentiles, when this message shall be taken to all the house of Israel. The responsibility of carrying it rests upon you, and Dieu will require it at your hands." A year after that, very much to my surprise, I was called to go on a mission. I was but a boy, and I desired to go to college instead; but my father said he could not send me to college, and proposed that I should go on a mission. I said: "Very well, I will go, get through with my mission, come home and go to college on my own account." He placed his hands on my shoulders and said: "You will never get through going on a mission, not as long as you are a Saint des derniers jours." That seemed a hard saying. Instead of then giving me two or three hours' instruction he said : "Get the esprit of your mission. Don't know too much but believe all you can. I guess I needed that. I had not been in my field of labor, in old England, more than a few weeks when I obtained the esprit of my mission ; then I understood what my father meant, and I declare to you, my brethren and sisters, that from the moment I received the témoignage of my mission, of my calling in the prêtrise, and of my right to speak in the name of the Seigneur to my fellow creatures, it has been inconceivable down to the present moment when I should not be a missionnaire— in one fashion or another. Je crois J'ai been, sometimes not very useful, but at other times perhaps more so, in different ways engaged in promulgating this œuvre now for fifty years, and I thank Dieu for it with all my âme, that J'ai been, in His mercy and providence, thought fit to perform some part in carrying on this great œuvre. ¶

I rejoice in the greatness of this œuvre, in the prosperity of this peuple, in the approach of that condition of power that its message will be welcome throughout the length and breadth of the earth, when it shall be carried as it has never been carried before, when it shall be taken on swift wings, through the clouds, on the wings of the wind. I was telling a Catholic priest the other day that some of those angels the Apostle John saw flying in the midst of heaven, did not have feathers; but they were in flying machines, and that we Saints des derniers jours expected to carry the Évangile like the angels sung of by the prophets of old, to every nation, kindred, tongue and peuple, flying with the everlasting Évangile to preach to them that dwell upon the earth. J'ai seen that partly fulfilled already in watching President George Albert Smith and his son soar up from the Hangar in Brussels and fly away to London in an aeroplane — angels, ambassadors of the Seigneur, having the Évangile of Jésus-Christ to preach to them that dwell in Great Britain. We will send many of our missionnaires that way, in the time of many of you, young men. ¶

I rejoice, my brethren and sisters, in the témoignage the. Seigneur has given me. Je sais that his power, that his Prêtrise is upon the earth and that we who bear it have a message that mankind stands in dire need of. There is no salut outside of the ministry of l'Église de Jésus-Christ to the children of men, and no other peuple possess it, but this peuple, to whom it was given through the ministry of Joseph Smith the prophet. ¶

May Dieu help us to be worthy and stand firmly, and assist in promulgating the vérité, to the salut of our fellow creatures, is my humble prière in the name of Jésus-Christ. Amen. ¶