The Gospel -- Its Scope, and the Responsibility

"Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel." ¶

So wrote the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians. I think I sense in some degree the weight of the responsibility that Paul found himself under. Tt is a responsibility resting upon any people who have received ¶

a like commission from on high, a commission to preach the everlasting Gospel That responsibility rests upon the Latter-day Saints. We have received the same Gospel that Paul received, and are under a similar obligation to preach it in all the world, as a witness to all nations, before the end comes. There is nothing so important, so imperative, as the delivery of the divine message that has been entrusted to us. ¶

But what is the Gospel? Do we mean by that term faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, with other principles of the religion of Jesus Christ — do we mean these, and these alone? Is there nothing more to the Gospel than the laws and ordinances thereof, and the preaching and performing of the same for the salvation of mankind? ¶

Last summer I stood upon what is called the Land of Zion — Jackson County, Missouri, the spot that has been consecrated as the site for the City of Zion, the New Jerusalem, and the gathering thereto of a people who shall be prepared for the glorious coming of the Lord. I stood, in a local sense, upon the Land of Zion ; but in a larger sense T did not need to go to Jackson County, in order to be upon the Land of Zion. I was standing upon it here in Utah, before I went down to Missouri. The whole of America is the Land of Zion, according to the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Even so, while we refer specifically to the Gospel, including in that reference such principles as faith, repentance, baptism, and the laying' on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost — while these, in a specific sense, are the Gospel, in a larger view the Gospel means everything connected with the work of the Lord in which we are taking part. ¶

The very word "Gospel" teaches this truth. It springs from an Anglo-Saxon term— "Godspell," signifying God-story, or the story of God. When we speak of the Gospel in this greater sense, we mean the career of that divine Being who left His glorious throne in heaven and descended upon this planet to die that man might live, who became the author of salvation and the giver of eternal glory to all who would believe on Him and obey Him. The God-story includes the choosing of the Christ in the councils of eternity, the creation, and the fall of Adam and Eve which prepared the way before the Savior and His great upliftingwork. It includes His death upon the Cross, and His resurrection, concerning which He said : "Because I live ye shall live also." It includes all the dispensations of the Gospel from the days of Adam to the present time. It covers this great and final dispensation, which will gather to its bosom all former dispensations of God's dealings with man, and bind them together in one harmonious whole. It comprises the work of Joseph the Prophet and the latter-day restoration of the Gospel. It extends over the future, over the Millennium that is to come, the reign of universal peace and good will, and over the glorification of our planet and its conversion into a heaven, the abode of the righteous forevermore. These are all parts of the great God-story, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. ¶

The Latter-day Saints have been criticised and even ridiculed because the Church to which they belong has had so much to do with temporal things. Men have apostatized in ¶

times past, and have tried to justify their defection from the truth on the plea that the Church was engrossed with temporalities — with the construction of canals, the building of railroads, the extension of telegraphs, the founding of co-operative stores, mills, and factories, the institution and promotion of industrial enterprises of various kinds. As if these things had no connection with the work of God and were no part of the divine plan for the building up of His kingdom. As if a desert could be redeemed by prayer and prophecy alone ! As if colonization and empire-founding could be accomplished merely by sitting in meeting and singing hymns, or by preaching and listening to sermons. The Latter-day Saints realize that the Gospel embraces temporal as well as spiritual duties ; that it is intended to save the souls of men ; and that the soul is not spirit alone, nor body alone, but spirit and body combined. The two priesthoods under which this Church was organized and by virtue of which it carries on its work, are an object lesson, teaching the Latterday Saints that they are expected to interest themselves in temporal affairs as well as in spiritual concerns — which, after all, include the temporal, as the greater includes the. less. All God's commandments are spiritual, and as such they cover all things, the temporal as well as the spiritual. Those same apostates, if they were here today, would complain about the water reservoirs, the sugar factories, the knitting works, and the various other enterprises that have been carried on or assisted with means voluntarily contributed by the Latter-day Saints for the building up of Zion. I wonder they did not grumble because our people in early ¶

days found it necessary to battle with crickets and grasshoppers and even to fight Indians, in order to save themselves from destruction. About the only temporal activities they did not find fault with were gold and silver mining, in which they themselves were engaged. ¶

Our missionaries, our boys, our fifteen hundred to two thousand striplings who go forth into the world to testify that Jesus is the Christ and that Joseph Smith is His Prophet — they are not the only ones who are preaching the Gospel in this dispensation. Their fathers and mothers who send them means to enable them to travel from place to place, they are preaching the Gospel by the assistance thus rendered to their sons in the mission field. And behind them also — as Brother Roberts reminded us in a recent meeting — is the great Church that sends them forth — a vast spiritualtemporal machine for the preaching of the Gospel, the saving of souls, and the preparation of the world for the Savior's coming. Those who receive these missionaries into their .homes, who feed them and help them on their way, are likewise preaching the Gospel ; for it can be preached in many ways, and by example as well as by precept. We can all be preachers of it — can all tell some part of the great story of God and the building up of his kingdom. They who pay tithes and offerings or otherwise contribute to the revenues of the Church, are helping to proclaim the message of salvation. The larger view need only to be taken, and our course is vindicated, whether it deals with things temporal or things spiritual. There is a work for every man, woman and child in the preaching of the Gospel, and woe unto those who ¶

have had this commission put upon them, if they neglect it! We need not worry about temporalities ; all we need concern ourselves over, is whether we are doing our duty where God has placed us, and holding first in our hearts the interests of His work. Never aggrandize yourselves at the expense of the Kingdom of God. ¶

We cannot safely substitute anything for the Gospel. We have no right to take the theories of men. however scholarly, however learned, and set them up as a standard, and try to make the Gospel bow down to them ; making of them an iron bedstead upon which God's truth, if not long enough, must be stretched out, or if too long, must be chopped off — anything to make it fit into the system of men's thoughts and theories ! On the contrary, we should hold up the Gospel as the standard of truth, and measure thereby the theories and opinions of men. What God has revealed, what the prophets have spoken, what the servants of the Lord proclaim when inspired by the Holy Ghost, can be depended upon, for these are the utterances of a spirit that cannot lie and that does not make mistakes ; while the teachings of men are often based upon sophistry and founded upon false reasoning. Uninspired men are prone to judge by outward appearances, and to allow prejudice and plausibilities to usurp the place of divine truth as God has made it known. ¶

The Savior declared : "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations ; and then shall the end come." And He gave, as one of the signs of His second coming, "wars and rumors of wars," which He said "must come to pass." Joseph Smith supplemented this divine prediction with the prophecy that war would be "poured out upon all nations ;" the Lord declared through him that those who gathered to Zion from the various nations would be the only people under the whole heaven that would not be at war one with another, and that they who would not take up the sword against their neighbor must needs flee unto Zion for safety. But last summer, as I am told — for I was not present — but I am informed that a learned gentleman, not of our faith, though a very estimable man, a scholar, a philosopher, a good and wise teacher, stood up in Salt Lake City and declared it to be his conviction that there could not be another great war upon this earth. The peoples of the world were too refined, too civilized, too cultured, to permit or tolerate anything of the kind ; the financiers would not stand for it, would not furnish the "sinews of war," would, not finance the armies and the military movements, and consequently such a war could not be. Since then the greatest hell of conflict that the world has ever known has burst forth and now wraps Europe in flames. In the light of such developments, which are you going to depend upon — which can you afford to tie to — the theories of men or the revelations of Almighty God? ¶

What more eloquent preaching of the Gospel has there ever been, in this or any previous age, than the great gathering movement which has been going on since Joseph Smith lifted up the standard of the restored Gospel in this dispensation? There is no more eloquent preaching than when men and women will forsake their native land, their homes, their parents. ¶

their children, their material posr sessions — every earthly thing, and cross the stormy ocean, the heated plains, the frosty mountains, many of them laying down their lives, to be buried in lonely graves by the wayside ; pulling hand carts, wading rivers, crossing deserts, climbing mountains, and settling in a barren waste — all for what? Was it for gold and silver, houses and lands, flocks and herds, and the betterment of their temporal condition? Was it for the honors of men and the applause of the world that they did these things ? No, it was because they loved God and wanted to build up His kingdom. They had heard the voice of the Shepherd; they were' His sheep, and a stranger they would not follow. Yet these people, our grandfathers and grandmothers, our parents, who came from Scandinavia, from Germany, from Switzerland, from England, Scotland, and Wales, from Australia and the islands of the sea, from Canada and the States of the Union, braving every hardship, facing every peril, laying their all upon the altar, coming out and fighting for God and His divine purpose — they are called by some "the offscourings of the earth," "the scum of creation!" Perhaps it is because they "came out on top !" (Laughter.) But cream also rises, and if I were asked to characterize and describe the Latter-day Saints who have made such sacrifices, I would say they are the cream of God's creation — the heroes and the heroines of modern times. There is no more eloquent preaching of the gospel than is found in their toils and privations, in their struggles and achievements. ¶

All men will not receive the Gospel. Some hate the truth, and turn ¶

from it instinctively. A man who is wallowing in sensuality, giving himself up to the gratification of his base appetities and desires, he does not love the person who comes to him and warns him to stop these evil practices ; he hates him — hates him for the message that he bears, for he wants to be let alone to continue his wallowing in the mire. Such men will not receive the truth — unless God puts His Spirit into their hearts ; for after all men are not converted by preaching, nor by anything else than the Spirit of the Lord. Some people hate the truth, and love darkness rather than light, "because their deeds are evil." ¶

There are others who are clean of conduct, and who love the truth, or would love it if they could only see it. But they are spiritually blind. They have listened to lies and slanders about this work, until they are filled with prejudice and cannot see clearly. We are surrounded by such people here in Salt Lake City and elsewhere, and we must be patient with them. President Smith says that he can love any honest man, no matter how much he differs from him in opinion. We can all afford to follow that example, and be patient and kind and forbearing to those who do not see just as we see. ¶

There are still others, who love the truth and who recognize it, but they dare not espouse it ; they are afraid of the social consequences. This whole broad land, this whole broad world is sprinkled with such people. Our boys meet them, and our girls, not only in the mission field, but in the colleges and universities of East and West. When the principles of the Gospel are presented to them they say, in surprise and astonishment: "Is that 'Mormonisrn?" I never dreamed it. Why, ¶

that is true — I believe it with all my heart." And the tears spring to their eyes as they acknowledge it. But they don't come out in the open and fight for it. Why not? Judge ye. Brother Smoot truly told us that the crying evil of this generation is moral cowardice. ¶

"They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth thfey needs must think; ¶

They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three." ¶

I thank God that I belong to a people who not only love the truth, but who recognized it when it came to them and were not ashamed to stoop and pick up the diamond from the dust. ''Truth is truth, where'er 'tis found," and a diamond is a diamond, whether it sparkle in the dust at your feet or glitter in the diadem of a queen. I thank God that I am numbered among a people — that I am descended from parents and grandparents who not only saw the truth, and loved it, but also dared to come out and fight for it and suffer for it. "Scum of creation," forsooth ! Where, then, will you find your heroes and heroines? ¶

Some day "Mormonism" will be popular ; the whole world will followafter it, shouting its praises and eulogizing those who were brave enough to befriend it in the days of its obscurity. There will be no lack of friends and followers in that day ; but now is the accepted time, when the world is being tested, to see whether it will befriend the truth in its poverty, and without waiting for it to become popular before bowing down to it and rendering the homage that is its due. ¶

"Then to side with truth is noble ¶

When we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, ¶

And 'tis prosperous to be just; Then it is the brave man chooses, ¶

Wrhile the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, ¶

Till his Lord is crucified, And the multitude make virtue ¶

Of the faith they had denied." ¶

May God keep us steadfast in the truth, and help us to preach the Gospel and discharge the great responsibility that rests upon us, the proclaiming of the message of salvation, by example as well as by precept, and may we all endure faithful to the end, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. ¶

A duet entiled, "Music of the Pines," was sung by Sisters Lizzie Thomas Edward and Agnes McMillan Bolto ; words and music by John Chamberlain. ¶