In the world, where we missionaries are laboring

In the world, where we missionaries are laboring, it becomes necessary to combat a false and erroneous impression that generally prevails among the religious denominations of today, that by mere lip service men can please God, and that by simply giving their hand to the minister who, at the revival, has touched their hearts, they have then obtained religion and have passed to salvation ; or, by simply saying that they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ they then shall be saved ; or who are content to lull themselves into a sense of supposed security by repeating the words of the scripture, that "the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin." The disposition and feeling is, to get this matter of religion over and through with in as little time as possible. And then the religious person thinks he is saved. I remember while doing missionary work in the city of St. Louis, several years ago, reading at the entrance of a tent where gospel meetings were held, where a man was preaching healing by faith, as well as expounding his views of the doctrines of the gospel — a sign which ran: "Come and be healed and saved in 15 minutes." ¶

There are many in the world who believe they can be saved in 15 minutes. They remember the night theywere saved. They recall distinctlythe hour. Thev have had no experiences beyond that time. Sometimes I have attended these religious revivals, when the minister has asked ¶

those who were present who were saved to stand up, and I have never yet thought I was able to stand up. I remember on one occasion, as was usual, of a good sister coming to those who were sitting; she said to me, "Why, brother, are you not saved?" "No." said I, "I am not yet. I have been struggling for salvation, trying to obtain it, and to teach others how to get it, for many years. I do not know what I will do tomorrow, however ; I may lose it all then. I understand that 'the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.' " ¶

I have thought, as we have rather criticized the narrow view that some take of this matter of salvation, if we Latter-day Saints are not more or less affected by the same feelings, that we, once having received the gospel, having been baptized, count ourselves in fair condition for salvation. I discover occasionally, in the mission field, those who are drifting, claiming they are members of the church. They can remember that one time they were baptized, though sometimes they do not have the record of it ; but, just as long as they have been baptized, they feel that they are in a saved condition. I want to say to you. my brethren and sisters, not perhaps that you need it quite so much as some of us out in the mission field, and yet I cannot hell) feeling that, even at home, we need to be told that we must do more than repent of our' sins and be baptized. And what do we mean by repenting of our sins? We mean that we have forsaken the sins we have been guilty of. that we do not sin again, that when we have thus repented, if we have wronged or injured a man or woman, if we have it within our power ¶

to repair that injury, that we go to them and repair that wrong before our baptism will be approved of and fully acceptable before the Lord. As we have told those who repent in the world : "Have you wronged a man or woman, from which wrong the man or woman is now suffering? If so, and it is in your power to go to that man or woman and make the wrong right, you should do it. I believe that is the thing God desires of those who accept baptism at His hands. ¶

I had an experience in a northern city, a few weeks ago, where two physicians offered themselves for baptism, a man and a woman — not related, though living in the same town and following the same profession. I concluded, after investigation, that they were not ready for baptism ; so I asked them to defer their baptism. T felt impressed, as John did, when he said : "Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth fruit meet for repentance." That was my spirit and feeling toward them. And yet our hearts go out and we put forth our earnest efforts to bring men into the Church, those who are ready and prepared. In this case, however, T decided to seek the mind and will of God. Through prayer and contemplation it was revealed to me that thev were in sin and transgression. And T wrote and told them what their sins were, and told them that it would be bringing condemnation upon their own souls to offer themselves to receive the holy and sacred ordinance of baptism when yet in their sins, in their transgression and iniquity. The woman is repenting, but the man is filled with ragr. But everv word that T wrote them was confirmed by voluntary testimony from those informed about these people, that they were guilty of wrong doing, and were seeking to come into this Church to cover up their crimes and shield them from exposure, while they still continued in their sins. ¶

We are not seeking for men to be baptized into the Church unless they have truly and sincerely repented ; and when they have thus repented and gone into the waters of baptism, and have covenanted with God to serve Him and keep His commandments, I know that their sins are forgiven them. I have seen those who have sinned and done wrong, in their ignorance, repent before God, and receive the ordinance of baptism, and have their whole heart changed, and their countenance also become like that of a child. It has been a matter of astonishment to their neighbors and relatives, who would say : "What has happened to Brother So-and-So? How changed he is ! What transformation has come over his whole life !" So I know there is virtue and effect and power in the ordinance of baptism for the remission of sins. But we must know, as Latter-day Saints, that we should not stop here ; we have only put on the armor, only begun the battle when we have accepted the ordinance of baptism, and had hands laid upon us for the gift of the Holy Ghost, who will teach us what else we should do. And there is no one thing that we can do and gain salvation, as was manifest in the answer of the Christ to the voting man who came asking the Master what thing he should do to inherit eternal life, he was like some of us who feel after we have done one or two things our salvation should be granted. Not one but many things the Master required of him, he answered, "All these have ¶

I kept from my youth up ; what lack I yet?" Many other requirements were made of him, which he could not meet and we are told that the young man went away sorrowing. Do you think that you and I will have our anticipations of salvation in the kingdom of God realized on any less terms than were offered to this young man ? I tell you nay. I tell you that, to receive the ordinance of baptism, and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, is only to put on the armor, just to equip us for the battle ; and many of us have put on the armor, and it is rusty, we haven't done anything beyond receiving these ordinances.. As often happens with those who are given greater light and knowledge, like the self-righteous Pharisee ; thank God they are not like yonder poor sinner. Sometimes we discover that those who have entered into a covenant to serve God do not live any better lives as Latter-day Saints than they lived as Methodists or Baptists, and this will stand against them as covenant breakers. We covenanted and agreed when we were baptized to obey all God's laws, and keep all the requirements that He' would make known unto us for our perfection and salvation. ¶

Let me name some of the additional requirements. Peter enumerated them in his second epistle, and they are appropriate for Latter-day Saints today. I don't hope to paint any new picture of what we must do to be saved, but just brighten the old one, or make it a little more luminous. I think these conferences are splendid occasions for us to sweep the cobwebs off from our spiritual vision, and think upon the things that we agreed in our hearts to do when we were received as ¶

members of the Church, when we covenanted with God to serve Him, as we entered into the waters of baptism. We remember the price our fathers and mothers were willing to pay for salvation, with what a spirit of determination they sacrificed, when they left all to come out of the world to these valleys of the mountains, crossing the plains and blazing the way to provide more favorable opportunities for us to incorporate into our lives the splendid things necessary to prepare us to live in the celestial kingdom of God. ¶

Peter said : "And beside this [having complied with the first principles,] giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge." What is the standard of the Latter-day Saints, with respect to virtue ? You brethren and sisters know. You young men and young women know, who have been taught and reared in the Church ; we have learned it from our fatbers and mothers, that it would be better for we boys and girls to lose our lives than to lose our virtue, that we would rather die than to be despoiled, or despoil any of the daughters of God. This is the standard that has been fixed for us, and it is not a double standard : the boy must live just as pure and innocent in his life as the girl whom he would accept as his wife. We have not allowed one standard of morality for one class, or one sex, and another for another. There are those in the world, and I think some of them may be here, who seek to wrest the scriptures, and seek to justify themselves in departing from the path of rectitude and virtue. Tt is somewhat common for people to pretend to think that the old law has passed away, the law that said, though shalt not commit adulterv. But the essence of the law has not passed away, though a higher one has come. Jesus not only said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," but "He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery in his heart." ¶

I tell you there is a terrible wave of immorality sweeping over the world, stalking abroad in high places and in low places, affecting not only the single but the married, not only the married men but the married women. I wonder if Zion can stand unscathed by the influence of that wave. It will come, if it has not come already to you, and you must beware. Do not take too much for granted from your sons and daughters. Do not mistrust them, but yet live so close to them that you do know the very secret thoughts of their hearts, and the trend of their lives. Hold sacred the duty to do everything you can to prevent the loss of human souls, for this wave will sweep before it to death and destruction those who do not hold themselves clean and pure in thought, in their hearts, and in their lives. ¶

I want to tell you, if Zion shall succeed in preserving this generation from the damning influences of immorality and licentiousness, the world will yet say of the member^ of this Church, who survive the tremendous influences and forces that are seeking to push the people of the whole world into the pitfalls of sin, greater things to their honor than anything they have yet said about our fathers who founded a commonwealth, and made the desert blossom as the rose. We are still in the struggle to establish a new order of things in the world, a new race of men ancf women, whose hearts and intents are clean and pure. We are here to fulfill the words of one who said that we must live so that if our -hearts were disclosed, turned outside in, it would not show a single stain of sin ; that we should give our name and word to no document or agreement that we would not be unwilling for the angels to attest as witnesses ; that we should walk, unseduced, through life, within arm's length of that which is not ours, and nothing between us and the gratification of our desires, but the indomitable law of rectitude, and stand forth in the world as pure and clean as if we were in the presence of God Himself. This is what we should strive for, and it is the standard of virtue that we must attain. I must tell you that the men or women who think they can go into the sacred temples, and receive the blessings there to be obtained, can commit sins of this character, and escape the consequences will come up missing when they meet the examination that men and women will have to pass before entering into the kingdom of heaven, for no unclean thing can go there. And so we have to struggle with this power that is aimed at frail humanity. ¶

And then we are to "add to our virtue knowledge." You know we believe in knowledge. "The glory of God is intelligence" was one of the favorite sayings of the Prophet Joseph Smith ; and we believe in study, we believe in learning. We are not afraid to investigate anything ; but I believe that every boy and girl, before they go away from home to school, and especially before they go out of our own circles into the world elsewhere, should gain for themselves an undying testimony that God lives, and that Jesus is the Christ ; that the gospel ¶

is indeed the very truth of God. Men must have a true measuring rod to determine whether knowledge which comes to them is true or false. They must have a true balance or rule that is always reliable, always dependable, by which they can weigh or measure every particle of information that comes to them. What will this rule be? I have discovered that the sure action of my soul is the knowledge I have that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that our Father in heaven has spoken, that those truths contained in the revelations of God in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants, are the very eternal truth. I have accepted them as my measuring rod, and I have not accepted as the final truth anything that does not square up to those eternal truths, that does not harmonize with the truth I have from God. Truth will harmonize with itself. Let us adopt this standard when we go out into the world, and seek the world's knowledge, its science, and everything pertaining to the world and the world's work, and we shall be saved from shipwreck. ¶

We have heard from our childhood that the day would come when the Latter-day Saints would be the leaders of the world. I proclaim to you that within one hundred years, and perhaps before that time, the men who will be standing in the very vanguard in directing and piloting the world's thought, knowledge and power, shall come from the Latter-day Saints. Any people who are possessed of the truth w< have, who will live up to the doctrines we have received, will come to be the light of the world, I don't care who they are, they will come to the top just as sure as the sun ¶

shines. So we are not afraid of true knowledge. ¶

And we are to "add to our knowledge temperance." I thank God that Idaho where so many of us live can say, as Brother Hart has just advised us, has taken a great step in adopting prohibition towards an end so dear to the heart of every Latterday Saint. We have received in the Word of Wisdom the higher law of temperance, and it is after all the thing that is necessary to be secured, to eradicate out of the hearts of men the spirit and disposition to drink intoxicating liquors. We believe that it is necessary for mankind not only to abolish the saloon, but we should abolish the very desire for it, we should spurn the desire for strong drink, crush it out and destroy it, that it may not contaminate our souls, that we transmit to our posterity no longing for that which will defile their bodies. What a shame that some of us do not appreciate the blessed heritage we have received from our fathers and mothers, who a generation Or two ago, left these things in the old world, and banished them from their lives. We know that the eye of the world is turned on Utah, and the "Mormons." We have told them of our high standard of temperance, and that we believe in prohibition. Many of them have been watching us. We have told them we would be true to the cause and destroy the whole damnable evil. I can't tell you how our hearts sank, and how we were shocked to know that when, apparently, we had it within our grasp to clear the balance of our state, the opportunity has slipped. I hope you will not abandon the cause, that you will espouse it so loyally that you will get it next time, and make it just as strong as ¶

Idaho has. In the meantime, we stand for temperance in all things. ¶

This is the time for men to repent. You will discover that there are appetites and desires to conquer, and this life is the molding time ; this is the plastic age, and the material welltempered ; and when fashioned we become brittle and hard. It will be difficult for us to change the old vessel when it is once moulded. Let us see to it, while the material is pliable, we incorporate into our lives those precious truths that our bodies may be beautiful to look upon, and we will love them, that we will desire to receive them again, and that they will not be to us a hideous monument, but full of all goodness and beauty. ¶

We are to "add to our temperance patience." , Do you think that one though he has lived up to all these other requirements of the gospel, but. when mad rage strikes him, yields to the wiles of the evil one, — is a fit subject for the celestial kingdom of God? Do you suppose our Father in heaven will allow a scene like that in His presence? I tell you such a one will go outside, and stay there until he has acquired control of his temper, until he has mastered his viciousness. We must have patience with ourselves and patience with others, and not try to make everybody else measure up with our standard. We will discover there are those who will set us an example in some things, while we can set them an example in others. ¶

"Add to your patience godliness." Godliness, we know, is cleanliness and purity, not only outside but inside. ¶

"Add to godliness brotherly kindness and charity." If you want to know what true charity is, read what Paul says, "Charity vaunteth not itself," "desireth no evil,'' and so forth. ¶

O, my brethren and sisters, there is work yet for me and for yon to do. I do not want to make it appear that it is not possible to accomplish all this. It is, and I want yon to understand that not one single requirement that has been made is non-essential. The men or women who' become candidates for celestial glory must come np to these requirements, or they will not get in. James said, "He that keepeth the whole law, and yet offendeth in one thing is guilty of breaking all." What did he mean? He did not mean that the man who broke only one commandment was in the same condition as the one who did not keep any, but that when he had kept all except one he was not able to attain celestial glory until he kept the other requirement. For instance, it is necessary that specific things be compiled with in order to produce electricity, and if we neglect one particular item, do you sunpose we will o-et electricity? No. We are as though Ave had not done anything so far as final results Right] is concerned ; although we had done nine things required, and yet lack one. So I say to you that not one of the gospel requirements is non-essential. Thev are not given out of caprice of the mind of Jesus, they are eternal truths, just as eternal as the heavens are eternal, and as the law of gravitation is eternal ; we must observe them if we will gain celestial glory. ¶

Confucius said that those who know the truth are not as great as those who love it. I would like to paraphrase his words, and say that those who know the truth as we do are not as great as those of us who love it and obey it, for "he that ¶

knoweth the Master's will and doeth it not shall be beaten with many stripes." I do not want the Latter-day Saints to lose their opportunity. Shame upon us Latterday Saints if it can be said, truthfully, that in the Christian Scientist church a more beautiful spirit prevails than among the Latter-day Saints. While I recognize that the Christian Scientists make a hobby of this doctrine of brotherly love, it cannot and should not be said that there exists more brotherly love in that church than with the Latterday Saints. Suppose the Seventh Day Adventists, who have copied from us the doctrines of the Word of Wisdom, should set us an example in the matter of abstaining from intoxicating liquors, tea. coffee and tobacco, shall we who have received these laws from the Almighty, long before our advent friends adopted them, submit to being outdone in the matter? If the doctrine of tithing is adopted by other churches, shame upon us, who have received the word of God upon this matter, and know it to be divine, if we shall allow them to outdo us. We shall have to live the Law of Enoch before we get into the celestial kingdom of God. You know, the Prophet Joseph stated that the law of tithing was a school master to bring us to live that higher law. I am sorry that many of the Latterday Saints have not come up to the requirements of the school master. How shall we attain salvation except we can be honest It is just as necessary that a man shall be absolutely honest as it is that he shall be baptized, to obtain the celestial kingdom of God. ¶

My brethren and sisters, we are here reaping the reward of our former labors, and we are going ¶

hereafter to reap the consequences of our lives and works here. We know, from the doctrines that we have received, that men and women have existed before coming into this life, for countless ages, and that we have been developing certain qualities, and the reason we are separated into great classes, as the Negro race and the other races on the earth, is not a matter of caprice. God did not take three beautiful children yesterday morning, and say to one, You go to the Negro woman, and to another one, You go to that Chinese mother, and to another, You go down to that beautiful Christian home. In my opinion, there were classes and races, and separation into different groups and conditions before we came to this world, and all are getting what they are entitled to receive here. But tin's is as far as we will travel together, for after this life, some will get a celestial glory, and some a terrestrial glory, and some a telestial, and we will no longer journey in a great class, or in a great company, made up of all classes. I believe that, while there will be classes in the spheres to which we will belong, we shall be grouped on separate planets. If we comply with all requirements we will be prepared to go into the highest places for further advancement, and that is celestial glory, and it is gained by obedience to celestial law. The celestial abode will be upon this redeemed earth, for God has declared that it will fulfill the purpose for which He has created it, and it will no longer need to have the light of the sun by day nor moon and stars by night, but will have power to emit its own light. Tt shall be the home of those who overcome, and who have kept the law. and ¶

who have measured up to all the requirements. ¶

Thank God, there is a chance for those who struggle and do the best they can ; we come up and offer ourselves as candidates for admittance, and are found wanting, in a few things, there is a chance to become perfect. I tell you, we will have to examine ourselves, and we will be examined, and see if we are fit, and many will be turned back again and again until they do become perfect in all that God has required. Some of us may fail entirely, and will lift up our eyes in sorrow, in the terrestrial or telestial w orld, beholding the celestial world and not able to enter it. Where will these be? I think, perhaps on Jupiter, or some other planet, when this glorious orb shall shine as a resplendent sun. It may be that they will look up and say, Yes, I was born in that place ; it was my privilege to stay there, but I have lost it. We will know then the full meaning of those words : ¶

"Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these, It might have •been." ¶

"I might have been there, and I am not !" O, my brethren and sisters, let us struggle that we may attain the celestial glory. But, we cannot get there by lip service. It is a life's business, and then a continuation of effort, and a continuation of struggle. But, O, it is worth it. It is worth ten thousand times more than has been required ; and we would never cease our effort, if* we once had the taste of that joy that belongs to those who come into the presence of God. I am willing to give my all of means, heart, mind, and sacrifice to attain it. ¶

We teach the doctrine that "as God is man may become." Not that all men will become what He is, but may become; how may we? By obedience to these requirements. While men will grow in the telestial and terrestrial kingdoms, they never can attain the perfection, felicity, and development of those who enjoy the celestial glory. If we get into that glorious place, we have got to walk in the light as He is in the light. And after all we have done, it will still be by the grace of God that we enter, and we will then cry unto Him, and blessed are we, if His answer is, "Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many." If He will only name my poor name, and say. "Of me thou hast not been ashamed, come into the joy of thy Lord," I shall have my heart satisfied, and feel repaid ten thousand times for all God has asked me to do. ¶

God give us the strength to be more faithful six months from today than we are now, and to accomplish those things that He has required. Amen. ¶