(President of the Cache Stake of

(President of the Cache Stake of Zion.) ¶

My beloved Brethren and Sisters: I can assure you that I feel very humble and dependent upon the Spirit of the Lord in standing before you here this afternoon ; and from the bottom of my heart I desire that the Lord may prompt me in the words that I may utter in your hearing. We are living in an age when God has again spoken from the heavens, and established his work upon the earth. That work will remain ; it will not be taken away, and it will not be given to another people, because it has been established of our heavenly Father. It matters not what we might or might not do; it matters not what influences may be brought to bear in the world, my testimony is that the gospel of Jesus Christ has been established in the earth and it will remain to accomplish the full purposes of God, our heavenly Father. I have a testimony that is burning in my bosom which declares to me that God lives. It declares to me that Jesus is the Christ. It declares to me that Joseph Smith is indeed a prophet of God, raised up in our day as an instrument in the hands of God to accomplish divine purposes. ¶

Today we say there are a great many prophecies going into fulfilment. The prophets have said that there would be a change of seasons, the seasons would be changed, that mens' hearts would fail, that all the former signs would be changed, and the peoples of the earth would change in their opinions, and that wars and rumors of wars would agitate the hearts of people in the world. My heart goes out today to the people in the world. ¶

A number of years ago I was called to go upon a mission, and in the commencement of my mission I was assigned to labor in the little kingdom of Belgium, in the little city of Liege. I was afterwards appointed to travel without money and without price in all the cities and hamlets in that little ¶

country, and had the privilege of bearing my testimony to a great many people in that land. With all my heart I am thankful to my heavenly Father for the privilege that I had to go to that land, and to raise my voice of warning unto that people, to declare unto them that the heavens had again been opened, that the gospel of Christ had again been established upon the earth in our own day. It was indeed a great pleasure to me, and I want to say, that during my labors there I found a good people. I found them to be hospitable. They have taken me into their homes. They have given me a bed to sleep in, food to eat, and clothing to wear, and many of them have accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ and I believe that the testimonies of the elders who have traversed that land stand out before those people today, even as the handwriting on the wall. They remember the testimonies, and they are burning in their bosoms. ¶

I want to testify to you that it is not alone the testimonies and the acceptance of the gospel; it is not alone the fact that you received the gospel and that you went down into the waters of baptism and were born again ; but the great question for me and for you to know is, that we have accepted that gospel with clean hands and with repentant hearts, and that we came out of the waters of baptism and received by the servants of the Lord through the laying on of hands the Holy Ghost. I testify to you that though you go into the waters and come out of the waters, if you have not repented in your souls, your baptism will not be accounted unto you for righteousness. Therefore, I say it is important for us to realize and understand that when we ¶

enter into these sacred covenants we have not finished, but have simply commenced the great work that lies before us. ¶

After laboring a short time in Belgium, I was called to labor in the Swiss-German mission, to preside over that mission, and I had an experience during my time in that land, in France, in Switzerland and Germany, and I want to say to you that my heart is filled with gratitude to our heavenly Father that I did have the privilege of bearing my testimony in all the provinces of Germany, in Austria, in Hungary, in France, in Switzerland, in many of the homes of the people. I feel thankful for the privilege that I had of going into those lands and bearing unto them a warning testimony of the establishment of the Church of Christ in our day. It was not without a great deal of opposition that the gospel was preached in Germany. I remember many times of attending meetings in the great city of Berlin, the capital. Many times before we met, in fasting and prayer, we implored the Lord that he might protect us in the secret meetings that we were about to hold, that we might not be molested by the hands of those who were our enemies, that they might not overtake us and banish us from their land. We had the message of peace and of love, and our souls were filled with love and our desires were to deliver our message to that great people in the land of Germany. Ofttimes the secret officers entered our meeting houses, dressed as civilians, and there they have taken our missionaries, thence to prison, and many times our elders have served days and weeks behind the bars for the gospel's sake, but I want to testify to you that our elders did not murmur. They sang praises to God, and the testimonies of the gospel burned in their bosoms. There was no doubt in their souls that God lives, no doubt in their souls that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, and that God was able to take care of them and protect them. They were always ready and willing to go where they were called to go, it mattered not what the danger might have been. And I believe today there are thousands of people, yes, I was going to say there are millions of people directly and indirectly who have heard the testimonies from the lips of our elders as well as from the many tracts that they have distributed in those lands, I believe, today, that their hearts are pricked. They believe in their souls that they rejected the message of life and salvation which was delivered unto them. I remember at one time in my travels throughout the mission, I went up to attend a conference in Koenigsburg on the Baltic, near the borders of Russia, and we held a splendid conference, and the Spirit of the Lord was manifest, although we were in secret, and our house of worship was filled with strangers. The Spirit of God was made manifest in great power. And I believe that in my broken German I stood before that congregation and bore my testimony to them, and for the first time during the six years that I was in the mission field, after the services were ended, the officer of the law tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Come with me." Those were indeed trying moments', but there was no fear in the souls of our elders. We knew that we were engaged in the work of the Master, and that he had the power to protect his servants. I went with this man to the court of justice, and for many hours they questioned and cross-questioned, and then sent me from one department of the court to another, and finally, for the first time in all my experience (this I have never told before), the judgment came, and I was banished from Posen. I did not make it known to my brethren in Zion. And those few who were with me, I told them, this shall not go further. But on my dismissal I continued my labors, and I visited all of the large cities in that land, and notwithstanding the fact that the officers of the law were watching for us, our enemies were on the lookout for us in all the cities of that land ; yet from time to time we visited those cities, and we preached the gospel of Christ unto them unmolested. I want to say to you here, when I came out of that house of judgment I was directed to the American Consul, and if ever in my life my heart was touched, it was when I passed before that building where was located the American consullate, and there I saw the Stars and Stripes unfolded. If ever my heart went out in gratitude to God that I was born under the Stars and Stripes, I felt then like bowing my knees and thanking God for the flag, which declares peace and liberty to all men ; and in my soul I felt that the time sometime will come when freedom will reign in that great land of Germany, when they will, in the providences of our heavenly Father, have a land of freedom in that country, when men can go and proclaim their belief in God according to the dictates of their conscience, and proclaim it in that land as they can now do it in the land of America, the land of the Stars and Stripes. ¶

That was my thought and desire when I visited that splendid people, and I want to say here that the masses of the people in Germany today are not responsible for the conditions that exist in their land. There is the blood of Israel in their veins. The handdealings of the Lord will be meted out in justice unto the rulers of that people, and the time will come, and is not far distant, when the meek and the lowly, the humble, in that land will have the privilege of hearing and embracing the gospel of Jesus Christ. In all my experience in the German mission — and in my experiences I met some sad ones — it was my privilege, my duty, I will say, to lay away two of our elders who were overcome in sickness. We sent the body of one of them to his native land. The other one today lies in the cemetery, near Berlin. It was indeed a sad time in my life when I laid his remains to rest in that foreign land. But I have burning in my soul a testimony that, on that great day which we commemorate today, the spirit which actuated the body of Brother Coombs who lies there will again take up its abode, and he will have a part in that glorious resurrection of the just. ¶

My brethren and sisters, I testify to you that this is God's work, in which we are engaged, and the only things that can prevent us from enjoying the blessings and the promises of the gospel are our own sins and transgressions. ¶

Of all those trials that I have borne in the mission field, there was one more trial that was harder to me than them all, that was the time when one of our elders — only one in all the time that I was in that mission — transgressed the laws ¶

of God, and when I had to send the recommendation for his return dishonorably. My brethren and sisters, there was a trembling in my heart and in my hand when I had to sign the dishonorable release of one of our elders. ¶

God bless you, my brethren and sisters. May the spirit of this conference go home with you, and may it be disseminated in your hearts. May your little ones, your sons and your daughters, partake of that good spirit and influence that has been made manifest here in this conference. God bless you, is my prayer and testimony, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶

An Easter anthem was sung by Don Priestly and the choir: "Hozanna !" ¶

President Melvin J. Ballard of the Northwestern States mission presented the names of the General Authorities of the Church, as presented in the session at the Tabernacle. Each and all were sustained by unanimous vote, in the positions named. ¶