Report on the Southern States Mission

(President of the Southern States mission.) It has been my privilege for some little time back to labor in what is known as the Southern States mission. The field covered by the Southern States mission is rather large, including the states of Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky; so that it reaches from Lake Erie on the north to the Gulf of Mexico on the south, and from the Mississippi river to the Atlantic ocean. Since I have been there, from 1,050 to 1,100 Elders have labored in the Southern States mission. I believe that I have traveled 140,000 miles. I have not the exact number, but between 3,500 and 4,000 baptisms have taken place during that time. We have published and distributed among the people 1,500,000 tracts, 70,000 of the Voice of Warning, 10,000 Orson Pratt's Works, 7,000 Books of Mormon, 55,000 of a little work called Durant, besides about 20,000 miscellaneous works bearing upon the principles of the Gospel. I believe there is not a house, outside of the larger cities of the south, where the Mormon Elders have not tapped at the door. As a rule, the Elders are happy in their labors; all of them are who have the spirit of their mission, and it is only occasionally that I have found an Elder destitute of that spirit. The Gospel has been preached, many people have rendered obedience to the principles of the same, and in return they have borne testimony to their relatives and neighbors that God has given them a testimony concerning the divinity of this work. The people of the south are a good people. As a rule, they are a religious people. They are not a hypocritical people. If they are your enemy, they let you know it. We have made some very strong and influential friends in the south; and, as is the case wherever the Gospel is preached, we have also made some very strong and influential enemies. I believe that I have three invitations there now to be killed, but I have been so busy that I have not had time to fill any of them yet. We have lost four Elders by death during the last four years; and considering the large number that we have had laboring in the south, and the difference there is between the climate in the valleys of the mountains and down around the everglades of Florida, I think the Lord has blessed us exceedingly in not allowing more of our Elders to lay down their lives in the south. The most of our trouble comes from the ministers. If they would remember the commandments of God, and stop their lying and stop bearing false witness against their neighbor::, we would have less trouble in the south. Probably the ministers of Salt Lake would be surprised if I should tell them that I have a book, almost the size of a family Bible, containing an account of all the mobbings of the Mormon Elders in the south, and 85 per cent of the mobs have been headed by ministers. When our Elders go into the large cities to preach the Gospel without purse or scrip, these ministers go to the officers of the law and remind them that there are laws against beggars, against vagrants, and they ask that our Elders be arrested when they have no visible means of support. They went so far in one of the legislatures of the south as to influence a man to introduce a measure making it a crime to preach the Gospel without a salary! I think if Christ and the Apostles were to come back and meet some of these pretended representatives of Jesus, He would not labor three years before the cry would go up, Crucify him! Crucify him! ¶

I rejoiced in listening to the testimonies of the Elders yesterday. I want to refer briefly to the remarks of one of them concerning the Congress of Religions, held during the period of the World's fair, when the representative sent by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was rejected. It is the first time in the history of this world when the representatives of all the religious faiths of the world came together in a Congress. The pagan, the Jew, the various denominations throughout Christendom, the heathen priests — all were there. There was one, and only one, who did not receive of their courtesies. There was one who was not of the world! Jesus Christ said concerning His people, "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.' If ever I had cause for rejoicing, it was when it was demonstrated, the only time in the history of the world when these words of Christ had a chance to be verified, that we were the people who were not of the world. We are the ones who claim that God has revealed His Gospel anew from the heavens, and that it is builded upon the rock of revelation from God. Those who were instruments in causing the word to go forth 1800 years ago to crucify the representative of modern revelation are the ones today who are engaged in the same cause. I have often said that the devil does not care how many dead prophets the people of this or any other generation believe in; but when God reveals His mind and will anew, then it is the devil's business to blind the eyes of the people and stop their ears against the prophet of God who comes to deliver that message to mankind. It was unbelief in modern revelation anciently that was the curse of the generation to whom Christ came, and He told them that their condemnation was that they would build synagogues to the memory of the dead prophets, but stood ready to crucify the living ones; and I believe that if Christ came again He would have the same message to deliver throughout the length and breadth of Christendom. ¶

I rejoice in the work of the ministry. I have enjoyed my labors. I thank God for the testimony He has given me concerning the divinity of this work. I know that if I am faithful to that testimony to the end of my days I will be saved and exalted in the celestial kingdom of God. That we all may be faithful to the end of our days, and reap this great and everlasting reward, is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶