The Growth and Ingathering of the Saints in California

My brethren and sisters, my heart is lifted up in praise and thanksgiving when I hear the testimony of my brethren in relation to the growth and advance that the Church of Christ is making in -the earth. With Balaam of old, I feel to say. "How goodly are thy tents. O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as the trees of lignaloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters. Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee." ¶

The mission that I have the honor of representing is not so large as some other missions in the United States; but I believe it has as varied interests as any of them. Varied as is the state of California in its flora and fauna, so is it socially and religiously. Mt. Shasta at the north end of the state is nearly three miles above the sea. It is crowned with glaciers of everlasting ice. The only plant life near the snow line is the lichen and the moss. Then we have in the Imperial valley, at the south end of the state. 300 feet below sea level, the palms and oranges and dates of the warmer countries. Just as varied as is the growth of vegetation, and the character of animal life between these two extremes of altitude, are the religious beliefs of that people. Someone has said that there are 1,440 odd "somebodies" in the United States and 80,000,000 of "nobodies," and that California has one-third or more of these "somebodies." Though I have been there a few years, I have not come to know much about the "somebodies;" but I have learned that the "somebodies" and "nobodies" that are there have a great many different ideas of religion. During the last summer it was my privilege to attend some lectures that were delivered before the Venice Assembly — a society resort near Los Angeles. I came away from those gatherings with a fixed and firm determination to preach Christ and Him crucified whenever opportunity offered; for I found there that the men who stood up as social reformers, as ecclesiastical leaders, as philosophers of all the ologies and isms of the day, seem to have lost sight of the fact that Jesus is the very Son of God. Many of them mouthed the same sentiment as Lyman Abbot had expressed, wherein he said, "My God is an ever-present energy, manifesting itself in all the activities of human life and in all the workings of nature. I believe," said he, "in a God that is in all things, and through all things, and of all things" — pantheistic wholly in its nature. I heard one of the most eminent clergymen offer a prayer just before the great Baba Bhareta delivered his address upon the mission of the old world to the new — the mission of the Buddhists of the eastern world to the Christians of the western world; and in his prayer he said something like this: "O Thou Great and Infinite One, from whom we emanate, and from whence all things come, who is of all things and through all things and by all things, let Thy Spirit rest down upon these Thy children this day, that whether the message be from Moses or Job, of Christ or of Bhudda, or of Krishna, that all shall know that it emanates from Thee, the Fount of Love alone." I heard some of them say, in speaking of the Master, that although He was one of the greatest leaders, ethically and morally, that the world has ever produced, that He was endowed with miraculous gifts, that He was the greatest Prophet the world has, ever known, yet they could not regard him as the Son of God as do orthodox Christians. Two weeks ago today, in Los Angeles, one of our little Sunday school hoys, a non-"Mormon," asked why they did not make a picture of God. He said, "I have seen pictures of angels and pictures of Jesus Christ, but why don't they make a picture of God?" It brought to my mind the addresses I had heard in the Venice assembly. It was brought to my mind again yesterday, by the editorial in the Deseret News in relation to what Joseph Hamilton had said at Wilson, New York, to the effect that God is a Spirit, and at the same time he tried hard to make it out that He is a personal being as well, stating that He could at His pleasure assume a personal form. ¶

In California. Christian Science has a great following. In fact, the religious atmosphere of that great state is abnormal. Those who are religious seem to be abnormally so. They have built up an ethereal sphere, through perverted imagination or fancy, that is wholly untenable to the matter-of-fact man. Christian Science, friends and followers in that State have fructified to that extent that there are many branches of Home Love, of Faith Healing, and of Faith Cure; and it is their hope, so I have been told by some of their leaders, that it will not be long before they shall live and never taste of death, through their knowledge of Christian Science. But these people deny Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. ¶

It is a fruitful land also for Spiritualism. Many men and women there study what they call the occult sciences. They have gathered from all over the world This class of people, too, deny that Jesus is the Son of God. ¶

We have there also headquarters of theosophy, with a temple of Isis, established for the very purpose of resurrecting the old theosophy of Egypt. They, too, deny that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. ¶

Then there is the Unitarian church, which has a large following. In fact, this assembly that I have been speaking of was conducted and presided over by a Unitarian, although he and his followers do not call themselves Unitarians, but they are nevertheless. They believe in one God — Love — an essence, a force; and they accept Jesus Christ, not as the Son of God, but as the expression of Love in human form. ¶

This has made it difficult for us to proselyte after the manner of the Apostles of old, and to use the Scriptures; for they have to be converted first of all to the thought that the Bible may be the word of God, before they will listen to the scriptural passages we can quote to prove the divinity of Jesus. ¶

In addition to those I have mentioned, there are many who are called Independent Christians. They claim, with the late Secretary John Hay, that they cannot find within the narrow creed of any of the orthodox churches a pure and full expression of their ideas of religion. Among this class of people we have greater freedom and are able to do the most good, because their minds are healthy, and they have not the vain imaginations that others have. They listen to our testimonies, encourage us, and give us the hand of fellowship. In some of their organizations we are privileged to speak, and In others we do the praying, while in others we have done the singing, and conducted burial services over their dead, because they do not attend to these things themselves; their organizations are merely for the cultivation of social virtues, and for beneficent purposes. ¶

Not a great while ago (I believe I mentioned it here once, but it will not hurt to tell it again), a Catholic priest came to me, and after he was assured that I was the representative of om people— for he had expected to see someone with a long, white beard, venerable and dignified in appearance— he disclosed to me his identity as a Catholic priest, and told me that he had come to the conclusion that no man could live a correct life in celibacy. He had heard of the wondrous growth and progress of our people, their institutions, and their social economy, and he desired to cast his lot with us, that he might have a home and a family of his own. "But," said he, "there is one crucial point I want to be satisfied upon before I can accept your Gospel— do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Soi» of God?" When I answered, "Verily we do," he remarked, "Well, I expect we are all in a measure the sons and daughters of God, but do you believe that He is any different from the rest of us, because I cannot think that he Is more than the natural son of Joseph or some other man." ¶

To my mind, it is just such doc~ trines as those put forth by Joseph Hamilton and Lyman Abbott that ar^ responsible for much of the infidelity in the world today and of the indifference towards religion. Men feel, so they express it, that they can see as far into the future as any other man. They do not care, they say, for a religion that deals with the dead past alone, and that has dead forms; they want something that is alive, that is tangible, that appeals to their material minds as well as to their emotions, and that can offer them something to do—something that is reasonable and tangible. ¶

Such are the questions that we are confronted with in that land. Therefore, we have to learn something besides the Scripture, and be enabled tc bring forth strong reasons upon these matters before we can satisfy them that we have a religion that is better than other churches of the land have —something that within the very genius of it answers the demands of men's souls, that is soul-uplifting, and that brings to men the benediction that always accompanies the truth. ¶

I note that Mr. Hamilton speaks of the fact that God created man in Hi* own image, male and female; that Ht, spoke to Adam in the Garden of Eden, that He reported to the council in heaven that Adam and Eve had become like unto them, knowing good from evil; that afterwards He visited Abram; that He ate and drank with 59 him on the plains of Mamre, and, after the custom of the country, had his feet bathed; that He told Abram that He had come down to see if the reports in relation to Sodom and Gomorrah were correct; that afterwards He wrestled with Jacob, and that Jacob constrained Him, in fact, would not let Him go until He had blessed him; that He changed the name of Jacob at that tim& to Israel, because, He said, you have prevailed with the Lord, and Jacob rejoiced, because, said he, I have seen the Lord face to face and still live. He quotes the fact, too, that God spoke, to Moses face to face, as one man speaketh to another, and not in vision nor in dark sentences; that God rebuked Miriam and Aaron for their jealousy and reminded them that He spoke to Moses as one man speaks to another, mouth to mouth. He cites the fact also that Stephen beheld the Christ, after the resurrection, sitting upon the right hand of the Father, clothed with the glory that He had prayed for before the dread night of Gethsemane. when He asked that the Father should restore unto Him all the glory that He had with Him before the world was; the fact, too, that Jesus, the Christ, was born of woman, as we are, and that He grew up as a child, like other children. If we credit the writings of the early fathers, we learn that He used to fashion animals, birds, etc., of clay; that in His father's workshop He learned to fashion the yoke for the cattle, and make tools, and' build after the manner of that day. Wc learn that afterwards, when John had become converted because of the Holy Ghost descending upon Him in the sign of a dove, the same bore witness to His Apostles that He was the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world; yet this same Jesus suffered hunger and thirst, and the adversary strove to tempt Him and lead Him astray from the path of righteousness because of His hunger, fatigue and thirst. ¶

We understand that He went to Nazareth, the home of His youth, and took up the Scriptures as was His wont upon the Sabbath day to teach them. Clad with newer and greater authority, having come into the fulness of manhood and privileged, under the law, to take up the ministry, He taught as one having authority, and they resented it and cast Him out, saying, "Is He not Joseph the carpenter's son, and have we not His brothers and sisters with us till this very day?" How sad the words of the Master as He turns from them— "a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country and among his own people." They know how He was mocked by the Pharisees and the Sadducees, when, fatigued and ill with privation and with the wondrous labors he performed, they cried unto him. Physician, heal thyself. They watch Him through His course of life. They can read of it as do we. How He wept over the death of Lazarus; how He seemed as a man among men, aside from His miraculous powers of healing and divination. At the same time He promised that those who believed on Him should do the works which He did, and greater works, and that the same signs should follow the true believer unto the end of the world. We know, too, that the early Apostles did raise the dead to life, performed miracles, cast out evil spirits, opened the eyes of the blind, unstopped the ears of the deaf, and caused the lame to leap like the hart. They read of the Master as He went to Golgotha, breaking down like a weak man under the heavy cross. They read how He died as a man dies. Notwithstanding all these things they feel that He was no more than man. They lose sight of the fact that He was a perfect man, enjoying the full capabilities of man; and that because of His parentage He had more than manhood, that He had power inherent within Himself to break the bands of death and take his body up again. It is afTer the resurrection that we note the greatest difference. He appears before His disciples in the self-same body, showing the prints of the nails in His hands and feet, and the mark of the spear-thrust in His side, and asks the doubting one to come and test Him, for a spirit had not flesh and bones as He had. We see Him then partaking of food with His disciples and laboring with them for 40 days. We then read of His ascension into heaven in the same bodily form that He had while sojourning among the children of men; and angels testified to those sons of Galilee that as He ascended into heaven, in the same manner He should also descend. John says, "Beloved, when He comes we shall be like Him, and we shall see Him as He is" — not as the vain imaginations of men would make Him, but as the express image of His Father's person, in the likeness of His Father. ¶

It seems to me that if men would study these things as they are written, and not spiritualize them, they could not help but admit the fact that we are in the image of our Father; that as He is the father of our spirits He is also the Father of Jesus, the Christ. And more, that He was the Father of Jesus, the Christ, in the flesh, the only begotten in the flesh. And so I repeat. I have felt constrained to preach more strenuously "Jesus Christ and Him crucified," and the personality of our Father, and the fact that we are indeed His children, and that we are commanded to become perfect like Him, and we may become like Him if we follow in the way which the Master hath marked out. I believe that the greatest revelation given in these the last days was the vision of Joseph the Prophet when he saw God the Father and the Son, and made statement of the fact that man is in the image of Deity. This revelation abolishes completely the theory of the men I have quoted, and annuls the Athanasian creed, which obtains in the Roman Catholic and Episcopal faiths, and is printed in their creeds even unto this day. I believe if men would study more of Jesus, the Christ, they would come near to knowing who our Father is and what He is like. Then they might accept Jesus as the Only Begotten of the Father, and turn to Him, and love and follow Him, and rejoice in the prerogatives of the everlasting gospel. This is why we are striving to preach to the people the divinity of Jesus, because of their disbelief in the Son of God. I pray, my brethren and sisters, that in our lives we shall emulate the example of. the Lord Jesus Christ; for then we may become joint heirs with Him to the power and the prerogatives of our Father. When men have been told these things, it has uplifted their hearts, and their minds have been exalted with the concept that the Latter-day Saints have of Jesus, the Christ. Many men have told me that they have had a new incentive to live aright, a deeper hope and a deeper faith had been implanted in their hearts because of the testimony of the Elders in relation to the personality of God the Father, and that Jesus is indeed His Son. ¶

God bless you, my brothers and sisters. Pray for us in the mission field, as we pray for you. We have the right to expect a great deal of you, that as we are looked upon as representatives of our people, that you at home shall do your part well; that all we say in our pride and love for you shall be maintained and upheld: that you will prove you are the people of God, that our mission in the world is the uplifting of humanity, and that in the due time of the Lord we shall succeed in it; which God grant, is my prayer in the name of Jesus, the Christ. Amen. ¶