My brethren and sisters, my

My brethren and sisters, my soul has been enlarged for the love of my fellow men through the teachings of our leaders during this conference, and it has been added upon with. the living word of the Lord, and a desire to serve Him and keep His commandments. ¶

In the remarks of President Smith, at the beginning of our conference, he made it clear to us that no untoward thing had come except it was designed for our experience and our good, that even when our people were driven from Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, as well as those that made an exodus from Mexico, it is for some purpose, to ¶

serve the best good of the Saints at large. At first blush, we do not always recognize the hand of God in His providences in vicissitudes that come upon us ; but when we look over the history of the nations, when we see the effect upon the lives of men in the generations that follow them, we can then determine more fully and more perfectly the influence that men have had, and the good that has come to the nations because of having wrought out their destiny. Apropos of this, we might look at ancient Israel. It was for their salvation, the salvation of the family of Jacob, that they were cabled down into Egypt. Again, it was for their salvation that they were called out, for doubtless in that land they would have become effeminate as the Egyptians have become effeminate. They would have followed after the fleshpots of Egypt that they hungered and yearned after when they were in the wilderness. It is the history of all nations who have lived in such countries as Egypt, and particularly in the low hot lands of any of the countries of the earth, that in time they have become effeminate, have lost their powers of resistance. They have become followers of pleasure rather than followers of God. They have become listless and indolent in their habits, instead of active and full of work. And so the Lord, with an outstretched arm and a strong hand, brought them out of Egypt into the mountains and plains of Palestine, where they might be taught the way of truth and righteousness. Those who knew the way of the Egyptians were permitted to die, or were kept at least in the wilderness until they died, and only the new generation, those who were possessed of new ideals and new habits and traditions were permitted to go to the promised land. ¶

From that people have come the most vigorous stock of all the world, a nation that has kept its race, its religion, its customs, through all time Though preyed upon by other nations, imprisoned and made slaves, a hiss and a by-word, scattered, driven and peeled, still for all that the Jew today is the Jew of David's time, and the Jew of the days of Jerusalem when it was the Holy City; and the doctrines which they were taught of sanitation, the doctrines in part of the gospel which would bring them as a schoolmaster to Christ, have kept them intact as a people until this day. The peoples who occupied the countries of Europe, who lived in the mountain sections have been the most indomitable in courage and in perseverence, and in maintaining and upholding human liberties. They have become the pioneers and explorers of the world. Little Switzerland, for 500 years surrounded by empires and kingdoms, preserved her indivduality and autonomy as a republic. From the hills of Sweden and Norway, and the vine-clad hills of Germany, even the chalk hills of little, sea-girt, England came the hardy peoples who have pioneered and explored the earth, and who have kept, more or less, their integrity, and their individuality, and their characteristics through all time so far as history accounts for them. ¶

So in this land of America, most of our great leaders have come from the uplands of New Hampshire, the Green Mountains of Vermont and the hills of Virginia. So we may well sing, as we did yesterday- — ¶

"For the strength of the hills we bless thee, ¶

Our God, our Fathers' God. Thou hast made thy children mighty By the touch of the mountain sod." ¶

This is in fulfillment of scripture. This is the destiny of the Latter-day Saints or modern Isreal, that they should come to these mountains, that in them and by them and through them, in part, they might partake of that same sturdy nature as the nations who have occupied the uplands and mountain plains of the old world, and who have got away from the low lands. And so today, I can see, my - brethren and sisters, the providences of God, in our people being called out from the low lands of Missouri and of Illinois and brought to these mountains, and too it was in fulfillment of scriptures. From reading some of the remarks of our early brethren in the Church, it appears they did not think that they were going away from Ohio, and when they had come to Far West, they felt that there was the boundary line and that our people were destined to build up the center stake of Zion, and not come into these mountains, and it was with aching hearts, and with tear dimmed eyes, and with lagging feet that many of them made their way across the great wilderness of the west to this land. I can understand how one of our pioneer sisters felt when she looked over this valley, which was then a sea of shimmering sage and salt — no place to rest the eye, no green to enliven the scene, but all a dead sage color, when she felt in her heart that she had been brought here to die, that she would rather have gone back and met mobocracy with all of its hate than to have sojourned here. ¶

But today we are made to rejoice, and the hills and the valleys sing because of us, and the fields pour forth of their fulness, and the deserts have blossomed, and in the wilderness spring's have broken forth. So Israel rejoices in the fact, and as one visitor said last week in our Congress here, "We rejoice in this incomparable city." Isaiah said "Beautiful for location is Mount Zion, situate upon the sides of the North. The joy of the whole earth is Zion." ¶

I want to read to you just a little from these scriptures to bear out my point that we came here not by accident. Nor is it merely an incident in our history, but it was the design of the Almighty that here might His children find a place of refuge and rest. David anciently declared : "Get thee up into the high mountains, thou that bring glad tidings and that publisheth peace." And Isaiah tells us : "Come, my people, into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee. Hide thyself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be overpassed ; for behold, the Lord cometh unto His people, to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain." ¶

If you will turn back to the early history of our Church, you will remember that immediately in the wake of our expatriation from Illinois, there came the four years of fratricidal strife when father fought against son, brother against brother, that terminated "in the death and -misery" of a million souls, and no 'end of property was destroyed. And it will be remembered that the contending bodies, those two great armies, came and made a camping ground and bivouac of the very ¶

country which our people inhabited, in Missouri and Illinois, especially in Missouri, and if any one will read the history of Missouri, he will see there the dread penalties they paid for the persecutions heaped upon the Saints of God in the forties and the latter part of the thirties of the last century. We did not understand it then, but how would it have been had we remained in that land? Would we have lost our individuality as a people, between the nether stone and the upper stone, the millstones of war and strife, of hatred, of plundering and guerilla warfare, when whole disaricts were plundered and houses burned, the only witness seeming to be the chimneys pointing as with a solitary finger to God, and asking for vengeance upon those who had despoiled the hearthstones of those once happy homes? But we were gathered here, and shut in the chambers of the mountains, as God ordained we should be, so many hundreds of years before, "till the indignation was overpassed," and the wicked and iniquitous of the earth had been made to suffer for their iniquity. ¶

Again, I want to say to you that we were to come here, for, Prophet as he was, David the King and sweet singer of Israel, foretold also the coming of Israel to this land, and sang in these words : ¶

"O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy en'dureth forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy and gathered them out of the lands, from the east and from the west and from the north and from tha south." ¶

When Israel was brought out of Egypt they were not gathered from the east, nor out of the west, nor ¶

from the north; but they came up out of the land of the south, and so this does not apply to ancient Israel, as our ministerial friends of the world would have us believe. "He gathered them from the lands of the west, the north and the south. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way," this Israel. "They found no cities to dwell in," and you remember ancient Israel found cities prepared for them. They overturned Jericho, and they even came in and occupied the Holy City itself, the place where David dwelt, the place where Melchisedek doubtless had reigned as king, when Abraham paid tithes to him. But this Israel "wandered in a solitary way," where there was no place prepared for them. "They found no city to dwell in, hungering and thirsty, their soul fainted in them." They were not fed by manna from heaven. The bitter waters were not made sweet for latter-day Israel, but they hungered and thirsted in their journey, and "they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses, and he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation." "O that men would praise the Lord, for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men." Again, he says : ¶

"O that men would praise the Lord for His goodness ; let them exalt Him also in the congregation of the people and praise Him in the assembly of the elders. He turneth the wilderness into standing water and dry ground into water springs, and there he maketh the hungry to dwell, that they may prepare a city of habitation, and sow the field, and plant the vineyards which may yield the fruit of increase. He blesseth them also so that they are multiplied greatly, and suffereth not their cattle to decrease." ¶

I want to read just a little further ¶

from Isaiah, along this same line: ¶

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and dancing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God." ¶

It was not to be Lebanon, nor was it to be Carmel or the plains of Sharon in Palestine that they should occupy, this latter-day Israel ; but their country should be made fruitful as Sharon, and as rich as her plain, and as rich in its strength and beauty as Lebanon with its forests, or as Carmel with her richness. ¶

"Strengthen the weak hands," said Isaiah, "and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of fearful heart, Be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense. He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb man shall sing, for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert; and the barren ground shall become a pool; and an highway shall be there, and it shall be called the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those, the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast. The redeemed of the Lord shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs of everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." ¶

Tsaiah goes on to tell of this latter-day Israel, saying: ¶

"Thy watchman shall lift up the voice, and with a voice together shall they sing, for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion," proving in this statement that a Zion was to be brought ¶

again. It was not the old Zion he was speaking of, but a Zion that was to be brought again when the watchmen should see eye to eye — discourse with the same testimony, preach the same gospel, tell of the same providences of God and should be united in their faith. That was to be the condition "when the Lord should bring again Zion." "Sorrow and sadness were to flee away," and there was to be heard therein the song of praise with the psalter and with the harp, and even with the dance. There should be heard also the voice of singing and of melody. These things are characteristic of our people, and go to prove what I said in the beginning, in quoting the President in the opening address of conference, that it is not by accident but by design, in fulfillment of prophecy and in the providences of our God that these things have come to us, which, at first blush, we look upon as an untoward ill; and if we can see His providences, should we not look upon it as an earnest for our future, and that we should not question the providence of God nor doubt His infinite love, remembering that we are just "as close to Him as any child to the nursing place," as one of the poets has said, and that He loves us, and counts us, and cares for us as he cares for the least of all His creatures, for He is a compassionate Father and is not unmindful of the least of His creatures. ¶

I have had much to build up my faith in the providences of the Lord in meeting with our people upon the borderland of Mexico, having been commissioned to assist in bringing them out of that republic, and it might do you a little good if you knew some of the proofs that I received that made me so proud of ¶

my people, a people whose interests are my interests and with whom my children are identified. I met some of them at the station as they came in from Mexico. I looked down into the afrighted eyes of little children, and could see that, despite the fact that it was their first visit to a modern city of electric lights, automobiles, street cars and all that is incident to the traffic and turmoil of a busy city, it did not wean them away from the fear, and the dread and the terror that was seen in their little eyes, as they lifted up their faces to greet friends who awaited them at the station. As I looked in the faces of the women I read the tale told by tears dried upon their cheeks as they drew their little ones to their breasts and hurried through the crowd, seeking shelter in this blessed land of liberty. I could tell just a little of the stress under which they labored ; and when men stalked by, heedless of all things about them, silent, gaunt, and redeyed through wTatching, with lips split and blistered with the dust and winds of the mountains and plains — I could understand, I say, a little of the stress that had driven them out from that country. When I heard men, grown grey in the faith, men who have borne the burden in the heat of the day, men who have laid their all upon the altar of God, men who have spent thirty years and more in that land, for the sake of that people, and who love them as a man loves his firstborn, for that is the way that missionaries learn to love the people they labor among; and I heard men of that kind say that if they had not left that land there would have been bloodshed, I felt what they meant. It was not because they were afraid their lives would be taken, but they were afraid they would kill some Mexican. That was the proposition, and to keep their hands clean and unstained of blood they came out with their wives and children, and left all their possessions behind them. I sought the family of an elder in the mission field, and found his wife with her little ones, gathered together in one house of sixteen rooms, with 115 souls and not a curtain at a window, nor a blind, not a chair to sit upon, not a rug, not one thing for comfort, the little ones lying upon the bare floor, with a few blankets that the mothers were able to gather hastily about them when they made their exodus ; and, when they greeted me, what do you think was the first thing they said to me — "Sing to us, Brother Robinson ; sing 'We will go wher.e you want us to go, dear Lord." I couldn't sing for tears. But it was to me a new testimony of the integrity and the worth, the courage and devotion, the unbounded faith of the Latter-day Saints. Where else under the sun could you go and find a people who were driven and peeled as they were there, as some of you were when you were driven from Illinois, when you were scattered from Cottage Grove to Florence or Winter Quarters, as you called it ? — when, in the brief season you stayed in Florence, you had dug 600 graves, and yet you could say: ¶

"Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear, ¶

But with joy wend your way. Though hard to you this journey may appear ¶

Grace shall be as your day." ¶

And then add, in your refrain as you made your way over the dreary plain, unmarked save try the graves of those who had preceded you — • ¶

"And should we die before our journey's through, Happy day, all is well ! We then are free from toil and sorrow, too, ¶

With the just we shall dwell." ¶

And I heard them sing this song in the camps at El Paso and on the plains of Hachita in New Mexico, and Douglas, Arizona. I heard some of them singing this same hymn, "I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord," and "My Father knows how frail I am to meet my foes," and yet He gave them strength. These were the hymns they sang; these were the prayers they said, and this was the faith they exhibited. And does it not make one feel that his lot is cast with the best people of the earth, a God-fearing people, a people that trust God and question not His providences? It may be that modern Israel has been called out of Egypt for a purpose. For a purpose they went into Mexico. It may be now they are called out because the purpose for which our people went into Mexico was achieved. Now they have been given an opportunity, perchance, as ancient Israel was, to find better homes and to answer best the end of their creation and destiny, with an assurance and a success that may never have come to them in that land. ¶

I bear testimony to the truth of the Gospel. I bear testimony to the truthfulness of the testimony of our brethren who stand at the head of the Church. I bear testimony to the truth of God's word as revealed in ancient and in modern scriptures. My heart is made to exult in the fact that I am able to see in the promises that are vouchsafed to us, if we are but faithful and true, the glorious reward for which we seek. ¶

"Let us," my brethren and sisters, "keep the faith, finish the course, fight the good fight, and henceforth there is laid up for us a crown of righteousness, which God, the just judge, will give to all those that love Him and His appearance," which may it be our happy lot to realize, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶