Southern States Mission and Missionary Releases

There is always a feeling of timidity with me when I arise to speak before a congregation of any size, but it seems as though it is increased when I face a congregation like this. I can only pray, my brethren and sisters, that I may be influenced by the whisperings of the Spirit of God for the short time that I shall address you, and that the same Spirit may also rest upon you. We are told that we can understand the things of man by the spirit of man, but to understand the things of God it is necessary for us to enjoy the Spirit of God. It is as necessary to listen by the assistance of that Spirit as it is to speak under its influence. ¶

It has been my lot, for some little time past, to labor in the missionary field known as the Southern States mission. It is probably the oldest mission in the United States, and perhaps in the Church. Many of the prominent men who stood with the Prophet Joseph labored and bore their testimony in that missionary field. A great many people have joined the Church in that section. Large numbers have emigrated to Zion: and the fathers and mothers, the grandfathers and the grandmothers of many of the youth of Zion today were found by the Gospel in the sunny south. In no place upon this earth can a more hospitable and kinder people be found. During my stay there, thirteen hundred Elders have labored in the South. They have taken their grips and gone out among the people, and lived where night overtook them. They would go to a house where they could see it was washday; they would walk boldly up and tell the folks that they were ministers of the Gospel, traveling without purse or scrip, and preaching the Gospel as Christ commanded it should be taught, and then humbly ask if they would wash some linen for them. In this way they got their laundry done for them. At the time we had five hundred Elders in the field, it was remarkable how few of them had to sleep out in the woods. Whether the people belonged to the Church or not, they would entertain and feed the Elders. And God will bless all, whether in His Church or not, who entertain His servants. The people of the South are the religious people of the United States. They love to hear preaching; they read the Bible. There is less of fashion and less of a desire to go and show new bonnets and diamonds in the churches of the South than in those of the North. They are a Godfearing and God-loving people. While their prejudices are very strong, their love is strong also. ¶

At present, we have less than a hundred and seventy-five Elders in the field; and if we were to release all who have been there for two years we would have less than a hundred and twenty-five, where we once had about five hundred. While we have between eight and nine thousand Saints in that mission, they are so badly scattered that it seems almost impossible to get enough of them together to maintain one healthy branch of the Church. Some months we baptize eighty or ninety new converts. When I left we could not fill the calls made of us to go and preach the Gospel and to baptize people who had been converted and were ready for baptism. We do not want our friends, the enemy, to think that "Mormonism" is losing ground in the Southern States. There seems to be an awakening in the hearts of the people, a desire to know God's will, and our Elders find plenty of opportunity to preach the Gospel; and the more persecution and opposition, the more opportunities we have for preaching. Our Elders are faithful and energetic. ¶

There is one thing that I want to mention here regarding Elders who return from the South. Sometimes Elders in that mission lose their health, and they are often home years and years without regaining it. Many times they should come home before they do; but I have had Elders say to me, "Brother Rich, I would rather stay here and die, than to go home before I have been here two years, and fulfilled an honorable mission, such a one as will gain me the approval of my Heavenly Father, and my brethren and sisters at home. There is no such thing in this Church as a two-years' mission. Sometimes it is just as much the will of God for an Elder to return home when he has been absent six months as when he has been absent three years. If the people here would only have confidence in the ones whom the authorities of the Church have appointed to preside over missions, they would then cease their gossiping about an Elder returning home before his two years are up. Should there be anything radically wrong with an Elder returning home, the presidents of missions understand that it is their duty to report the case to the authorities of the stake; and when it is not reported, and an Elder returns home in six or in twelve months on account of ill health, the Saints should extend to him as loving a welcome as they would if he had been absent two or three years. When they come home sick, you ought to sympathise with them, not criticise them. Very few ever come home before they are expected from any other cause than sickness. Sometimes an Elder comes to a mission when he could do the work of God more good at home than abroad, and when it is better for the mission that he should return home. In cases of that kind the presidency of the Church have instructed the presidents of missions to send them home. You know what the "Mormon" creed as laid down by President Young was: "Mind your own business." When you send one of your sons to the Southern States, then it becomes my business and not yours. I am amenable to the authorities of the Church, and if I see fit to send an Elder home when he has been there six months, especially if he is sick, sympathize with him, pray with him, help to build him up, and do not try to tear him down. By the way, if mankind could only observe that "Mormon" creed, what would it not do for this world. God has said that He will forgive whom He will, but He gives us to understand that we are expected to forgive all men. Our business is to forgive; the judging part belongs to God. Let us mind our own business, and not interfere with that which belongs to our Father in heaven. He has said that He will mete judgments out unto those who deserve them; and He has told us to have faith, hope and charity, and to love one another. ¶

We know that the Gospel is true. We know the conditions existing in the world, and if we do not love one another what a disagreeable condition we are in. The world do not love us, and we do not expect them to love us; for Christ has said that if we were of the world the world would love its own, but because He has taken us out of the world the world hateth us. So we need not expect the world to love us; but we should love one another. We should not only love one another, but we have been commanded to let our love go over the wall and to love even our enemies, always remembering the love that God the eternal Father had for the world, which was so great that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe on Him might have eternal life. ¶

This is the mission of the Latter-day Saints. We are very small in numbers compared with the fifteen hundred millions in the world, yet we are expected to carry the light of the Gospel to all mankind. Hence we have plenty to do. We know that God has spoken in the age in which we live, that He has restored the Gospel of His Son in fulfillment of prophecy, that He spoke to the Prophet Joseph Smith, that by revelation and the voice of God this Church 'was organized through the instrumentality of Joseph Smith, that the organization is perfect, that the Gospel has been sent out just as it always has been when God's power has been upon the earth, and that it is made free to all men. The requirements of salvation are the same today as they were in the days of Christ. Man must have faith in God and in the divinity of Christ's mission. He must repent of his sins. He must understand that those who reject the principle of baptism reject the counsel of God against themselves. He must remember that Christ Himself said that baptism was necessary in order to fulfill all righteousness. He must understand that it was taught by Peter, by John, by James, by Paul, and by all the Apostles, as also by the Priests, the Elders and the Seventies who were commissioned and sent out in that day. There is but one plan of salvation, but one way to eternal life. No man has the right to climb up any other way. There is but one way of receiving the seal of the Spirit. It is necessary for us to be born of the water and of the Spirit to enter into the kingdom of God, because Christ Himself said so. The faith of the Saints of old has been given to us, and we are contending throughout the length and breadth of the earth for the faith once delivered to the Saints and now delivered to us. We have been commanded to go into all the world and cry repentance; yea, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. You know that this is true, if you have not driven the Spirit of God away from you; and if you know the truth, then you know the Master's will, and you must remember that he who knoweth the Master's will and doeth it not will be beaten with many stripes. ¶

I wish to bear my testimony to you that I know that the Gospel has been restored to the earth in this age. I know that Joseph Smith was one of the greatest prophets that ever stood upon this earth. Without the learning of the world, by placing himself in communion with the Spirit of God, and in saying, "Thus saith the Lord," by the whisperings of the Spirit, he pointed out the organization of the Church and set the house of God in order as the Lord revealed it to him; and the theologians of the world from that day to this have failed to find one single flaw in the organization of the Church or in the requirements of salvation to be found in the Church. Whence came the superior wisdom of Joseph Smith, if it did not come from God? As a farmer's boy he pointed out the plan of salvation and the Church of Christ as it was not then found upon the earth, and it cannot be successfully attacked by the theologians of the world. The only argument is the argument used against Christ and His disciples--that their characters were not good. Their characters not good! The character of the Smiths not good? Where can you find a name upon the earth today where the fruits brand such a charge more falsely than the fruits that have come from the loins of the Smiths who were the father and the uncles of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The character of their generation brand it as a lie. Not only that, but we can hurl it back in their teeth, and challenge them to find as good an abstract of pedigree running down the stream of time as can be found with that name. Four hundred thousand people know the character of these men. And while I am speaking, I see two young men here who have been called as special witnesses for the Lord Jesus Christ. Start with them; they belong to the two families of the Smiths, -- the father of the Prophet Joseph and his brother. Do you know these young men? Do you know their lives? And do you know their fathers, President Joseph F. Smith and Elder John Henry Smith, also special witnesses for the Lord Jesus Christ? And the brother of President Smith, Patriarch John Smith -- do you know him? Do you know the fathers of these mighty men -- Patriarch Hyrum Smith and the late Apostle George A. Smith, a member of the First Presidency with President Brigham Young? Anything the matter with their characters? And the grandfather,-- the great grandfather of the present Elder George A. Smith, -- who was the Uncle of the Prophet Joseph, and who, after the assassination of the Patriarch Hyrum Smith remained as the Patriarch of the Church -- the Patriarch John Smith -- do you know his character? We will even go farther than that. We will go to those who do not belong to the Church, -- to the children of the Prophet Joseph Smith who are opposing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Tell the people of the world who charge the Prophet Joseph with being a drunkard, a loafer, and a dishonest man, that the character of the sons of the Prophet himself brands the charge as being false, because men do not gather figs from thistles nor graces from thorns, nor do they expect an impure fountain to send forth pure water. So far as the characters of these men are concerned, they maintain the testimony which the other Smiths maintain concerning the falsity of the charges that the Prophet Joseph, his father and his father's brothers were not sober, industrious and honest people. We cannot find such a genealogy in any other place on earth. God bless the name. God bless the memory of the instrument that was chosen by the Almighty through whom all these mighty truths came to the earth. ¶

My brothers and sisters, remember what the Church has done for you. Do you enjoy happy homes? Where did you get them? Through the instrumentality of a humble Mormon Elder the Church probably found your mother in Scandinavia and your father in England. It brought them together, and was the cause of the marriage between them which gave you existence upon the earth in a land where it was possible for you to enjoy happy homes. And what do you owe to the Church? You owe everything, even life itself; and you should remember that Christ the Redeemer has said that if you lose your life for His sake you shall find it again, even life eternal. I bear testimony that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, and that those who have stood at the head of the Church from the death of the Prophet Joseph up to the present time have been and are prophets, seers and revelators. I bear my testimony to this. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶