A blest people: harvest, homeland, and the conserving of the youth of Zion

splendid talks of the brethren yesterday and today, giving comprehensive reviews of Gospel principles, I feel very much in need of the sustaining power of the Lord to properly direct your thoughts during the time that I may stand before you. As suggested by President Lyman, we have before us many of the same faces, brethren and sisters who meet here at these half yearly . conferences. We miss some of them, however. ¶

For my part, I have not yet become accustomed to the absence from this upper stand of President Winder, President John Henry Smith, and Patriarch John Smith; and I miss, from these missionary seats, President Ben E. Rich, that valiant preacher of the Gospel who, I believe, would have passed through the hardships of an Apostle Paul if necessary to perform his duty as a preacher of righteousness. I miss also from the seats of the presidents of stakes, President George Osmond, who served many years as a bishop, a faithful bishop, having the qualifications that the Apostle Paul ¶

would have a bishop to possess, who labored many years as an efficient counselor to President Budge of the Bear Lake stake, and who afterwards served as the President of the Star Valley stake. I make this reference because none of the general authorities of the Church were privileged to attend the funeral of this faithful worker in the Church, and testify of their appreciation of the noble work that he performed, such service as hundreds of these brethren whom I face this morning are now performing in the Church. ¶

We meet beneath the shelter of this dome twice a year, under varying circumstances ; in April we meet about the seed-time, men hopeful as to what the result will be of their planting, hopeful, at the same time anxious. At this season of the year we might almost celebrate the harvest-home. I contrasted, the other day, at those splendid exercises in dedication of the seagull monument, the meager life-saving harvest of 1848, with the rich harvests of 1913, and thought of how the capacious elevators, and the large and well filled grain bins have taken the place of the partly filled meal sack of those early pioneer days. Well may we sing, as did our sister so beautifully a moment ago. of the labor of the great pioneer. As he looked out over this valley, with the vision of inspiration, it required no report of an agricultural college to determine whether or not this land would produce crops to sustain the people ; he was prepared to realize that a new system of agriculture among the Anglo-Saxon race, namely, that by irrigation, could be successfully inaugurated here, and later he had a further vision of the possibilities of this land. McDonald, the agronomist of the Transvaal for the British nation, in his book on dry farming, properly gives President Brigham Young credit for foreseeing the day when our bench land, above the irrigation ditches, should be almost as valuable as our irrigated land. Little did the brethren — unless they had the same prophetic foresight as their leaders — realize the fortunes that were being divided to them when an acre of ground in this city, and a ten-acre or twenty-acre lot outlying a short distance, were parceled out to them. They little dreamed that, within the life-time of many of those who then lived, that these possessions would be worth a small fortune. Our ideas of the richness and value of these mountain valleys increase year by year. High as our standard may be one year, we realize that the fertility of mountain and meadow, of the plain and of the bench land, is even more valuable than we supposed they were and contain greater possibilities for wealth producing. ¶

We are indeed a blest people, living under the protection of this great republic, the inauguration of which has been properly said to be the greatest single achievement of the eighteenth century. When we contrast our happy lot with that of our unfortunate brethren in Mexico, torn and bleeding Mexico, we can understand the great blessing it is to live under the protection of a great government which secures us "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" day and night, whether we realize that this protecting power is thus about us or not. We are fortunate also in having abiding places in these splendid commonwealths in the Rocky Mountains, which also give us a large measure of security, and protection which conduces to prosperity and happiness. ¶

We are greatly privileged, also, in living at a time when divine truth has been restored, and when divine authority has been again committed to man. We are trying to accomplish a work among the people, with this splendid organization that has been given unto us by inspiration in this age. We are trying to accomplish an important mission among mankind. It is true our labors are not understood. Some of the world realize something of the potency, for either good or evil, of this great and perfect organization, and they speak of it as the "oncoming giant," and they think that it should be crushed, because they know not that its fruits are good ; but occasionally there are those who realize the important mission that this Church is performing. The late poet of the Sierras, Joaquin Miller, realized this when he gave through the mothers of "Mormonism," that splendid tribute to "Mormonism." With your indulgence I will read a part of his words. His lines were suggested by the welcome that the mothers here gave to the President of the United States upon his visit to Salt Lake City, in appearing at his public reception with their babes in their arms : ¶

A ROUNDELAY OF SALT LAKE. ¶

Beneath our forty stars is she The purest woman, sweetest, best, Who loves her spouse most ardently And rocks the cradle, oftenest; Whose home is filled, whose heart is fed ¶

With halo of a baby's head. ' ¶

How pitiful that we must pay And pension man for killing man, While woman brings forth as she may, Unpaid, unpensioned, as she can; Gives life while man takes life away. ¶

Gives life, gives love because she must, How sad that we must pension, pay ¶

Our tallest, bravest and our best For killing brave men, east or west, Until our race is in the dust, As Greece is in the dust today; A tomb of glory gone away. ¶

I say the mothers of strong men, Strong men and merry men and tall, Must build, must man the Spartan wall And keep it stoutly manned as when Greece won the world, nor wrecked at all. ¶

I say that she must man the wall. The wall of breasts, unshielded, bare, The wall to do, the wall to dare, The wall of man, or we must fall. I say that she, strong-limbed and fair Deserves the pay, the pension, care. ¶

Of all brave, heartfelt welcomes found Where flowers strew the fragrant ground ¶

And rainbow banners fret the air By city, hamlet, anywhere, In Midland, Southland, Northland, West', ¶

I reckon Utah's first and best. ¶

Not guns to greet the nation's chief, Not trumpets blaring to the sun, Not scars of glory and of grief, Not thrice told tales of battles fought, Not seas of flowers at his feet, Not bold to glitter and to greet, But Utah brought her babes, and brought ¶

Not one babe fretted or afraid. Not one that cried or wailed, not one. Oh, what to this the booming gun? Oh, what to this the loud parade? Proud troop to troop poured manifold In battle banners rampt with gold? ¶

Just babies, babies, healthful, fair From where the Wasatch lion leaps, From sunless snows, from desert deeps. Just babies, babies, everywhere; just babes in arms, at mother's breasts, And robust boys with girls at play, With pounding fists, too full to rest; As chubby, fat, as fair as they. ¶

Behold yon seas of alkali Of sand, of salt, of dried up seas, Then sheltered by these watered trees And humbly dare to question why These countless babes, these mothers, aye, ¶

The maid in love, the lad at play, ¶

All seem so gladsome, bright and gay? ¶

Who tented here, who brake the sod. Subdued the Artemisia's strength With patient Ruth at ready call? Who faced the red man at arm's length And she beside him first to fall, And while he prayed the living God Who gat such babes as never man Had looked upon since time began? And why? Because the loving sire Loved life and hated low desire; He loved his babes, he loved his kind By desert waste of mountain wind; He watched his happy babes at play The while he gloried, glad as they. ¶

This John the Baptist, naked, lean,' Lorn, crying in the wilderness, This half fanatic, Luther, Huss, Whom we once mocked in his distress, Stands better than the best of us; Stands nearer Jesus, God, because He loves his babes, obeys His laws — Because his hands, his feet are clean; Because he loves his hearth, his home, And patient heaps the honey comb. ¶

Behold yon million desert miles With scarce a plow, with scant a tree, Save where this desert garden smiles And robust babes leap merrily; Behold our boundless seas, as chare Of sails as yonder peaks are bare! ¶

Then give us babes, babes of our own, My meddling, congressmen and men Of cloth, with great brains in the chin; Glad babes like these to plow the seas. Strong babes like these to plow or spin, ¶

And let this Bedouin alone Yea, give us babes at home, where now Ye hide and house on every street Such things as 'twere a shame to meet — ¶

Glad babes to build and guide the prow, ¶

Possess the isles, protect and bear The star-built banner here or there! Till then, hands off, my Pharisee, And tend your own affairs, as they, Of Utah tend their own today, Lest from the mouths of babes ye be Condemned and damned eternally! ¶

This condition could not have been brought about if our mothers had thought more of aping the fashions imported from decadent France than they thought of home-building and of child-bearing. ¶

It was a very timely rebuke that was given by our President yesterday and I thought is it possible that any complaint will be made, as was suggested, at his stand upon this important subject? Yet I remember that all those who stand for important reforms in the world have to bear the criticism of the world. If a high official has the courage to omit the wine-cup from his banquet, setting a great precedent in favor of temperance, there will not be wanting the thoughtless ones who will criticize him for this act of courage and of reform. So men may expect, when they set their faces like flint against the evils of the world, to have some criticism directed towards them. We are not ashamed of this work that we are seeking to perform, such work as indicated in the splendid review of the organization, and of the work and labors expected of the brethren, just given us by President Lyman. We are seeking to develop men and women who will be an honor, not only to the Church, but to the nation ; strong men and women, strong in their integrity, strong in their love of truth and of righteousness and of virtue. ¶

Mark Twain, the humorist and philosopher, realized the dangers that were warned against yesterday when he said : 'When one thinks of the tremendous forces of the upper and the nether world which play for the mastery of the soul of a woman during the few years in which she passes from plastic girlhood to the ripe maturity of womanhood, we may well stand in awe before the momentous drama ! What capacities she has of purity, tenderness, goodness ; what capacities of vileness, bitterness, and evil. Nature must needs ¶

be lavish with the mother and creator of men and center in her all the possibilities of life. And a few critical years can decide whether her life is to be full of sweetness and light, whether she is to be the vestal of a holy temple, or whether she will be the fallen priestess of a desecrated shrine." We would have all our young girls to garnish their thoughts and their lives with virtue, casting a glorious halo and light about them, just as the electric lamps from the beehive upon the Hotel Utah cast a soft, brilliant glory upon the Temple of our God. We would have our young people know that sin is the barbed wire that cuts and scars, and sometimes leaves the poison of its rust within the wound, to destroy the body and to contaminate the soul, and we would safeguard them from all these dangers and evils that threaten them. ¶

May the Lord bless us in this work of conserving the youth of Zion, and of training them up so that they shall .be men and women of whom the Church and our nation may be justly proud, I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶