Prophecy and Revelation

I am sure we all appreciate very much the splendid meetings we have enjoyed during this conference and the excellent words and music we have just heard. Singing is a fine accomplishment that our people greatly appreciate, and we have good music in all our communities. ¶

I am pleased to be at conference again, though not altogether with the position that I now occupy. I once heard a man ask another, what a vacuum was. The man was called upon to address a congregation, and answer the question. He said: "A vacuum, I have it in my head, but I can't explain it." ¶

I am wondering if we all believe the statement in the hymn, that "an angel from on high," has visited us, and revealed the gospel in its fulness, so that we might better understand it than we could have done by reading ancient scripture. I speak of this because I come from the far north, Canada. ¶

We have in course of erection a very beautiful temple. Over five thousand people have passed through that unfinished building, thus far this year, from all over the world. I think of that particularly, since I am in the presence of Brother Smoot, of the Council of the Twelve, and our respected senator from Utah. His house in Washington is visited by many strangers who speak of him, (often when he does not hear them) and the good he does by the courage he manifests in always standing before the people as a Latter-day Saint. Only recently some people coming through the country said they at- ¶

tended meeting at his house in Washington. Brother Smoot did not know of this. They did not belong to the Church, but they admired the man who is always an apostle. I thought of that this morning, while reading in the paper that in Washington the members of the Church thought of renting a hall instead of holding meetings in the residence of Brother Smoot. We little know the good we do in entertaining strangers. ¶

Let me read just a little from the Doctrine and Covenants of our mission. I am pleased to see so many of our brethren and sisters here this afternoon. I notice, however, the absence of young people. I believe I address mostly this afternoon the parents, and without desiring to take up much of your time, I wish to draw your attention briefly to our mission here. I with you have spent many years in the mission field, aside from presiding with one of my brethren in one of the stakes in Canada. I believe on us rests very largely the responsibility of the carrying on the work of the Lord; and I believe our sentiments, our true feelings and beliefs are reflected largely in our children; and when we hear the fear expressed that young people are not quite as much interested as they should be, I turn critically to myself, and I hope we will all do the same to ourselves this afternoon. We have had very little trouble, however, in that great country, Canada, where we have some of the finest, most stalwart young men and women in all the land of Zion. I believe that as a child is trained, not necessarily taught, he will be, to a great degree, when he becomes mature. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he grows old he will not depart from it." There is quite a difference between training a child and teaching it. Teaching is telling, training is not only to tell, but to get the child to do, and to know how to do. I read from the first paragraph of Section I of the Doctrine and Covenants: ¶

Hearken, O ye people of my Church, saith the voice of him who dwells on high, and whose eyes are upon all men; yea, verily I say, hearken ye people from afar, and ye that are upon the islands of the sea, listen together. ¶

I think of this in connection with my missionary experiences in the islands of the sea. ¶

For verily the voice of the Lord is unto all men, and there is none to escape, and there is no eye that shall not see, neither ear that shall not hear, neither heart that shall not be penetrated. And the rebellious shall be pierced with much sorrow, for their iniquities shall be spoken upon the housetops, and their secret acts shall be revealed. And the voice of warning shall be unto all people, by the mouths of my disciples, whom I have chosen in these last days. And they shall go forth and none shall stay them, for I the Lord have commanded them. ¶

I wish to tell you a short experience of my own. I was called on a third trip to one of the islands, in the days of President Joseph F. Smith. I think of this special prophecy as I remember the many ob- ¶

stacles placed in our way in going to the islands. I was called to take a special mission to Samoa and the South Seas. I am a British subject by naturalization. I could not leave Canada without a passport, but the President of the Church had called me to be in Salt Lake City by an appointed time, and asked if I could come. I should have obtained my passport before answering the letter, but I said, yes, I will be there. Then I set to work to make good my promise by applying through all the means available for my passport. The time approached for my departure, and I could not get across the line without the passport, but it did not come in time for me to leave. I presented the matter to the Lord in prayer. I told him my difficulties, and I felt that I must make good my word, and at least make the attempt to come. So I boarded the train bound for Salt Lake City without any passport. When I arrived at the boundary line, the emigration officers asked for my passport. I thought all the time, "They shall go forth and none shall stay them." I thought of that, and I wished that the emigration officer believed as much as I did of its truth; but he did not. However, I was somewhat acquainted with him. He said, "I will let you go provided you furnish the passport after." "All right," I said, "I shall be pleased to do it." When President Smith set me apart, he told me that I should go. Now he did not know anything about my not having a passport. I knew it would be more difficult to get out of the United States than to get in -- leaving the port of San Francisco and getting to an American possession in Samoa. I knew, or thought I did, that I must have my passport. President Smith, laying his hands upon my head, said: "Brother Wood, you shall go upon your mission to perform the business to be attended to, and return in safety." He never mentioned any appointed time. All the time he was blessing me I was wondering about my passport. I did hope it would come. I was promised by our attorney that it should be registered to me in Salt Lake City to be here the day after my arrival. I waited, and the next day it did not come. The time came for us to leave. At the Oregon Short Line office I wired home, to learn if any news had been received from Ottawa, the Washington of Canada. I did not get any reply. But President Smith said I should go; here was the. prophecy and revelation that none should stay the disciples from preaching the gospel. As it mentions in the next verse: "Behold, this is mine authority, and the authority of my servants, and my preface unto the book of my commandments, which I have given them to publish unto you, O inhabitants of the earth." "And they shall go forth, and none shall stay them, for I the Lord have commanded them." The Lord had commanded me, not the emigration officers at all. So, I set out on the train without my passport. But I received a wire at the station that my passport would be in San Francisco before the steamer left. I felt all right again. Well, we arrived in San Francisco, and went down to the emigration office the day before the steamer sailed. I was there without my passport. I expected it would be there that evening, but ¶

it did not come. And the steamer was to sail, and I was there without my passport. When the time came to answer at the emigration office, I got in line, and felt fine, knowing it would be all right, but I did not know how. When I saw the official ask the passengers for their passports, and some were refused, some were asked a lot of questions, and I did not have my passport, I stood there just as if I had it, and he did not know anything different. When my time came, he said, "Sit down a little while, Mr. Wood; I will talk to you later." Well, I knew it would be all right. Did you ever feel that way, when you have just had the elders come in to administer to a sick child, and you knew positively that the child would be healed? I felt these promises running through my mind, but how should they be fulfilled? When it came to my turn, the emigration officer said, "Well, the time is up, you must come to the office tomorrow at 9. The steamer sails at 1, and you come up, Mr. Wood." The time arrived for me to meet again, in the morning, and I was in line. I felt all right, though I did not have any passport. The emigration officer finally said, "Let's see, Mr. Wood, you have got your passport, go right on board the steamer." I said, "Thanks," and I did not have any passport at all, though I had the commission from President Smith, which was worth more than all the passports from all the governments in the world. But I had yet a great many difficulties. I thought, "Now, I am on the steamier, how am I to get off?" The most important part of all is to present your documents or passports before you leave. I had three long weeks to wear away before I should land. The Purser takes a kind of genealogy of each of the people. When he came to me, he asked me to sit down; and said, "Of course, you understand you must present your passport, Mr. Wood." I said, "All right, I understand it." "Where did you come from?" I said, "From Canada." He said, "Sit down, Mr. Wood. I am delighted to see you people from Canada so willing to go down and preach the gospel to those natives." And I spoke of the gospel with him; and he asked for no passport at all. Well, I had other difficulties, too, but I felt all right. ¶

When I arrived at Honolulu, I escaped another very difficult situation by making a pleasant gospel conversation with the emigration officer at that port. Then we made two thousand more miles to the south. I knew the most difficult time was yet to come, that is, when we arrived at Tutuila. How in the world to work it there I did not know. But I prayed to the Lord, not only twice every day for those several weeks, but several times every day, that other avenues would be opened up so that no one could stay my passing. ¶

I remember when that steamer entered that most beautiful harbor which Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson named Pago Pago, I went up on land, and many of the natives that I had seen before met me, and made their characteristic salutation. They were glad that I had come. I saw one of our boys from Canada leading a splendid band, and they had come to welcome me. Then again I began to wonder ¶

when I would get off again, and yet whenever I would remember these promises, I would take courage again. The steamer only stayed there six hours, and we were lined up again. Now this was the final getting through without a passport, and I had to buoy up my spirit to meet the emergency. They came within one of me, when the emigration officer said, "Sit down, I want to ask you a question." And he said to me, "Mr. Wood, get your passport ready." "All right." I had the missionary appointment from President Smith, I had the promise, and the prophecy in this revelation, that "none shall stay them." When he had called me, and it was my turn to present my passport, he turned to the man next to me and said, "Why, you are a New Yorker." And this officer went over and had a conversation with this man he called the New Yorker. When he came back, he said, "Let me see, Mr. Wood, I have had your passport all right, you may go on." ¶

My fellow parents, we are all just like one large family, regardless of places of residence; we are all Latter-day Saints; we are all interested in one another. What is a success in Canada is courage to you, and what is your success here may make us feel well in Canada, because, not like other peoples of the world, we are all members of one large family. I say to you, that if, as parents, we can win our boys and girls to righteousness around our family hearths, it is far better than to place them in the hands of the Purity League, or even the ward teachers, or any one else. Let me, as the father of my children, and my wife as their mother, win the hearts of our boys and girls at home, win their confidence, and others will have very little trouble over them. I think of it when I see the mothers with their babies on their knees. Why they would not think of letting the little baby fall, not for all the world. They watch over its every movement, fearful that it might fall. Far easier it would be to heal the broken arm of the infant than the injured mentality, the perverted heart of the grown child who often leaves his home with very little concern of his parents. We are not concerned enough as parents over our children. When I think again of the Islands, of how those people there teach their children to respect their parents, it is marvelous in the extreme. You call those natives uncivilized. I have seen a young man wild, almost uncooth in his habits, taken into the council of chiefs, at the death of his father, and at once he becomes dignified, almost majestic, feeling the responsibilty of his father upon his shoulders in the council of chiefs. It is because the boy was taught when he was young, aye more, he was trained, how to act when he became a man, how to act the chief that his father was before he died. ¶

O the faith of those natives, if we only had it! If we simply knew, if we had the knowledge (more than faith) of the mission of our Church itself, in which we are taught that when I go into eternity with my wife to whom I am sealed, my joy, our joy, will not be com- ¶

plete until we have in our circle some, yes, every one, of our children. Let us not wait until it is too late. ¶

I remember once a woman on the Islands -- to show you how the Lord goes before and with us, his elders and servants, and after us, on those Islands -- a lady had a very sick child, and when they are sick they have faith in the power of the Priesthood to restore. We had only been there a few weeks. Nobody knew us there, did not know that we had arrived. A man came up to the house where we were holding service. He did not understand us; he had to speak through an interpreter; and he said to me, "There is a lady on the other Island with a sick child. She wants you three men to go to her, and heal her child." It was right on the verge of the war there. The first edict made by the king under the German government was that a "Mormon" missionary who preached was to be find $100 for the first sermon, and for the second he was to be banished from the Island. They made that edict, and we thought we were in trouble till this man said, that that woman had asked that we three men go unto her and lay our hands upon her child and the child should recover. We went out to a palm tree and talked to the Lord as I am talking to you, wanting the inspiration of his Spirit. Soon we decided we would go. After going across a strait some three miles in a little canoe, expecting almost every moment that the canoe would be overturned, we arrived. The woman was standing in front of her house. She had her handkerchief to her eyes, and said, "I am glad that you have come. It is all right. Here is my child." And under the sheet was the body of the child. We lifted that up and saw the child, and we said, "the child is already dead, and we covered it up again; and she hastily said, "No, it is not dead at all. You do what I saw you do last night in my dream, and he will be well." We asked the Lord, "suppose we administer to this child, and it does not get well, and they will say you are all evil spirits. They are a superstitious people." We had no faith that the child would recover. But the unprecedented faith of this native woman inspired us to do it. And she said, "Have you authority to do what I saw you do? You anointed that child with oil; you laid your hands upon his head." Yes, we had that authority. And then I thought of that passage that "my servants must go forth, and my authority shall be with them, and none shall stay them." I said, "Yes, we have that authority." Said she, "have you the authority to refuse?" I said, "no." We anointed the child, laid our hands upon it, covered it up, and went away. The cyclone came on, the social condition of the natives was upset; we never heard of the woman and child for a long while. I didn't expect to hear from it, until about a year after when I saw a number of natives under trees, with long knives. I saw them running along beneath the trees in their half-clad condition. Then I thought again that none should stay the preaching of this gospel So I buoyed myself up as best I could, and marched on. I saw the natives surrounding me on all sides. and as I ¶

came to a house in that tropical forest, they commenced to get closer to me, when all at once a woman marched out, and I said, "How do you do, Brother Wood?" I rather sank back, and said, "I don't know you." "O yes, you do," and she turned and called a child about nine years of age. She stood the child upon the trunk of a tree, and then she bore this testimony to the great crowd of natives: "This child is a living testimony of the great power of the gospel, and the power and authority held by Brother Wood and his associates. They administered to this child over two years ago. I have never seen them since, but I know they have the power of God with them, and all of you must listen to their message. I am the daughter of the high chief of the island, and you can come to my house and have everything you want." ¶

I went, and the natives followed along, and I sat up nearly all night preaching to them. We had a good spirit. I mention this to you to prove that the divinity and power of the Priesthood is with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today. But the evil one is ever present. ¶

One morning, on one occasion, when I was dressing, I felt something alive on my neck, and I hit it at once, and I was bitten by a centipede, one of the most deadly of insects on the Islands. My arm commenced to swell. The natives came and said, "Give us your last message; you will die within an hour." I felt excruciating pain. Then up came the woman. The natives had told her that I was killed by the deadly insect, and I was there with them. The woman came up very leisurely. She shook my hand showing she expected consolation. She said, "That is all right, Brother Wood. Have you got any of that oil with you?" I said, "Yes, get my valise. "Now," she said, "Do what you did to my child, and you will be all right." I felt when she said that, that I positively knew it would be so. I anointed my hand, and the swelling left, just like taking a glove off my hand, and she turned to the natives who had gathered around, and said, "As I told you, the Lord is with this young man, and his Church, and his people." ¶

Brethren and sisters, let us inspire this faith, this confidence, in the hearts of our growing children, and never get away from the fact that we are responsible for them in their future life. God bless you. Amen. ¶