(President of the Central States Mission.)

(President of the Central States Mission.) ¶

I greet you, my brethren and sisters, this afternoon with a realization in my heart of the great responsibility that rests upon a speaker on an occasion of this kind. I ask an interest in your faith and prayers, that I may be able to say such things as will be for our good. ¶

I have been reminded during this conference of the custom of the Lord since the beginning, according to scripture, of gathering together his saints from time to time that they might be instructed as to their duty, and have their faith increased. Yesterday, when I listened to President Smith tell of his laboring so many years in this Church, and heard him give such excellent advice, as a result of his experience, to his brethren and sisters, to those who believe in the same God that he ¶

does, I was reminded of that passage of scripture in the Book of Mormon wherein Nephi makes this statement : ¶

''And blessed are they who shall seek to bring forth my Zion at that day, for they shall have the gift and the power of the Holy Ghost: and if they endure unto the end. they shall be lifted up at the last day, and shall be saved in the everlasting kingdom of the Lamb; and whoso shall publish peace, yea, tidings of great joy, how beautiful upon the mountains shall they be" (Nephi 13:32). ¶

No greater character, I think, lives in mortality than President Joseph F. Smith. I wonder how many among us take into consideration the number of times President Smith and his counselors are called together in a day in consultation in their office, answering questions and attending to this great work of the Lord upon the earth. I wonder if we are as mindful of them as we should be. I have learned to love President Smith, knowing him by experience to be a man of God, and a man whom the Lord has chosen for this work in these last days. I believe that he was chosen in the council that was held before the world was. You will read in the Book of Abraham as follows : ¶

"Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; ¶

And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born (Abraham 3:22, 23). He said unto Jeremiah; "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee ; and before thou earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations (Jer. 1:5). I believe that Joseph Smith the Prophet stood among those spirits that the Lord showed unto Abraham. I believe that the Lord knew him before he ever came here, and I believe that when Joseph F. Smith was born in Missouri that God knew him, and I believe that Lucifer, the "son of the morning," knew him, and that he, the adversary of all good, sought to destroy him. Perhaps it is not generally known, but Lucifer knows it, that, at Far West, Missouri, in the fall of 1838, when he was but a fewweeks old the mob tried to destroy him. The leader of that mob, a minister of the gospel, in ransacking the home of the mother of President Smith and trying to find valuables for which he sought, found the child lying upon a bed, a helpless infant, and threw the bedding over him, and the infant, now our President, was nearly smothered when he was discovered. I believe that he was recognized by Lucifer, that he was to become a great leader in Israel. ¶

I know beyond a question of a doubt that God lives, and that his priesthood is here upon the earth for the good and for the salvation of men. If it were not for the authority of Jesus the inhabitants of this earth would destroy each other. The wicked would slay the wicked as they are doing until total destruction would occur. But from among the children of men scattered in all parts of the world shall come the honest in heart, and they shall come unto a knowledge of the ¶

truth. They shall come from the four corners of the world. Do you think that this great conflict that is now being waged throughout the world is not for a purpose? It is to destroy the wicked so that the gospel of the Son of Man can be proclaimed with freedom, that liberty of conscience may be enjoyed by the honest in heart in all the world. ¶

God moved Columbus to come to this land, and he labored with those who ruled over him to give him an opportunity to come here and discover this continent, and this was done that a great land of liberty might be populated by a people who love liberty and the truth. The Lord is using men in various parts of the earth at the present time to accomplish his purposes. They may not be preaching the gospel of Christ, but they are assisting in the establishment of a democracy that will give men and women liberty to act and move as the power of the Spirit of God shall move upon them. I have in mind one individual who I am sure is performing a great work, preparing the way for a democracy that will permit the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ where it has not been heard because of tyranny and oppression. He has been called to Russia as an ambassador of the United States of America. He is not a member of the Church, by any means, but he is a character who has become well known in this land, a statesman, a diplomat, and a gentleman, a man who is able to understand the conditions and the needs of the people of that land, and who carries with him the spirit of liberty and of the democracy which we enjoy. I speak of the Hon. David R. Francis, of St. Louis, Mo., who was at one time president of the world's ¶

fair at St. Louis, another time Governor of the great state of Missouri, and another time a member of Grover Cleveland's cabinet, a gentleman who has had ample experience that qualifies him for the work. I believe men like him are doing God's work in the world, and that the gospel of Jesus Christ may be carried into many lands of darkness, after the way has been opened by the establishment of good governments. ¶

We think that we are doing a great and a mighty work, and we are, in sending the gospel to the world and in enduring hardships in many ways. But there will come a time when every man and woman will be tried, for the gospel of Jesus Christ must be preached unto the children of men as long as flesh shall remain upon the earth, and the men who practice what they preach shall be the instruments in God's hands to gather the honest in heart that they may enjoy such sweets as we are enjoying today. For there are men and women in the world ready to receive the gospel; but because of wickedness, the preaching of the gospel has been curtailed. Hence the necessity of establishing a government which will allow its people to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. In many portions of the world the preaching of the gospel of Christ has never been tolerated, and those countries must be opened up, for the Savior said : ¶

"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come" (Matt. 24:14). ¶

Christ shall come to the earth as decreed, in a moment, without ¶

warning. The gospel must be carried forward unto the uttermost ends of this earth, and the people gathered together in these mountains are the ones who shall be called upon to bear the burden and the responsibility of gathering out from bondage the honest in heart in all the world. ¶

This western land has been blessed. In all my travels throughout the country this year I have never seen a land that has been blessed like the country in this intermountain region. We have been favored of the Lord, and the Lord will undoubtedly call upon us, for he has given us wealth and means to provide for the future, that we might be able to carry on his work and his purposes, for they cannot fail. The heavens and the earth may pass away but the words of God shall not pass away, and men and women will have the opportunity of knowing the truth if they desire it, for the gospel is in the earth never more to be taken away or given unto another people. His priesthood which has been established will be the power by which people may receive the truth, and those who have been prospered and cared for as sons and daughters growing up as "calves in the stall" shall be called to use their strength. And the day will come, and not far distant, when thousands of men and women shall be baptized into this Church. The purposes of the Almighty shall be fulfilled. The gospel of the Redeemer of the world will go into all the world. The Jew shall be placed back in the land from which he came, and this country in which we live and of which we are a part will play an important part in the establishment of God's purposes with regard to the Jews, and in the fulfilment of his promises to them. The men and women who live up to the requirements made of God shall recognize his power by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto every man and unto every woman and unto every child when they are baptized. They are entitled to that Spirit and power and gift. ¶

May the peace of heaven rest upon us, I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶