Counsel Is Binding upon the Saints

Never, I believe, have I experienced more inspiring upswellings of thanksgiving and praise in my heart respecting the Latter-day Saints in general, than I have during this conference. Looking from my position upon the stand upon this vast body, and realizing that this multitude represents comparatively but a small part of the membership of the Church, so assembled in an official capacity, I am impressed by the sense of solidarity and greatness of the Church. I have been struck by the uniform attentiveness. I have seen no evidence of frivolity, of giving way to the consideration of matters other than those of the hour and minute. I have watched carefully ; and I have failed to see neighbors talking together. The people present have been following the remarks of the speakers; they have been attentive to what has been said. ¶

In Harmony with the Word of Wisdom and Wise Counsel

I agree most heartily with every word uttered in praise and encouragement of the Latter-day Saints, who are verily the people of God, chosen by him and unto whom is committed this gospel with all its powers and privileges, including the authority of the holy priesthood. While equally optimistic with those of my brethren who have pictured brightly the assured future of the people of God, I am also in harmony with the words of warning and wise counsel, that have been given, not in pessimistic spirit, but in wisdom;; and I say unto you, let us heed them. ¶

Counsel is Binding Upon the Saints

Do you ever think of the inconsistency of raising you right hand in solemn witness before God that you will sustain certain men who have been called and ordained, in the manner appointed of God, as your leaders, as prophets unto the people, verily as revelators, and then, though perchance you come together and hear their words, going away and pay no attention to them ? When one speaks with the power ¶

of his Priesthood, and in the authority of his office, then what he speaks is binding upon himself and all who hear. Oftimes I tremble, literally, as I consider what I am doing when addressing the Latter-day Saints, for I know that what I say unto them is binding upon me, and that I shall be judged by the precepts that I impress upon them; and what I say under such conditions is likewise binding upon those who hear. ¶

You cannot, we cannot, pass by lightly the words that come by way of counsel and instruction from the ordained servants of God, and escape the inevitable penalty of that neglect. Nevertheless, we have our agency; we may choose to disobey, but we must take the consequences of that choice. ¶

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Let Us be Genuine and Live Up to Our Professions

Latter-day Saints, let us be what we profess to be; let us be genuine ; let us live up to the religion and the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we proclaim. We profess to be a prayerful people. Do we pray? Are our homes kept pure by prayer? Prayer is the Lord's great sterilizer against the germs of spiritual disease that make their way into our homes, contaminating the atmosphere, poisoning the food we eat. I don't mean your family prayers only ; but do we individually pray? It is possibly that a mass or collective condition may exist which is very different from the individual condition. There may be a home in which prayers are said, but yet perhaps no member of that household is really prayerful. Do you feel urged at times to seek a place where you can be alone with God, where you can pray, pray unto him, not for others to hear, not to conform with some regulation or custom, or even because of counsel or advice, but because you feel the need of communication with God? Have you not read of the Christ, who, after a period of strenuous ministry, went to seek rest ; and do we not read that he arose next morning before it was day and went out where he could pray? He needed that help that prayer alone could bring. ¶

Great and grand as is this people, mighty as are the works that have been accomplished through the blessings of God through his servants in these days, there is too little real prayer among the Latter-day Saints, too many prayerless homes, and hence the spread of spiritual contagion among some of us. Thank the Lord not among many, relatively speaking. I have faith in my people, for I know that they are the Lord's people, and I am proud to be one of them ; but when the cry shall come, as come it shall : "To your tents, O Israel," for there are struggles ahead, the Lord knows where to find those who have been faithful. They are in the valleys of these mountains, by the thousands and tens of thousands. Young men, young women, men and women of mature years, who have never contaminated themselves, who are acceptable unto the Lord, who have never bowed the knee to Baal, who are the Lord's own. They are here, and though there be a few ¶

who go astray, yet the Lord will bring them back if they will but repent, and make it possible for him to bring them back. ¶

Blessings Come Through Compliance With Law

Do you know that we tie the Lord's hands, figuratively speaking, again and again, so that he can't do what he wishes to though we say he is omnipotent. He can't pour out blessings when we have not complied with the law upon which those blessings are predicated. He can't do it, or he would be unjust. He can't do it, or he would be untruthful ; and were he untruthful, were he unjust, he would cease to be God. ¶

I am glad that we praise and worship the living God, and that we know of him ; and I feel that we are living in the day of the realization of his mightly promises to Israel of old, addressed directly to Israel, when Israel as a kingdom had arrayed itself against Judah as a kingdom, and when Israel, or the kingdom of Israel, had gone off and left the choice and chosen land given unto them-. Oh, how the Lord pleaded with them. He said unto them that if they would come back and would obey him and keep his commandments, he would shower blessings upon them. Among other things he promised this: I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. Do we not live in that day, the day of the realization of that promise? ¶

"How firm a foundation, ye Saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in his excellent word! What more can he say than to you he hath said, You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?" ¶

Why Afflictions Come

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Has he not given us prophets and apostles to teach, patriarchs and high priests, elders and seventies, the Lesser Priesthood, and provisions in the auxiliaries, for the instruction of every soul from the cradle age to the age that is considered as marking the natural end of man's life? The Latter-day Saints are largely a highly educated people, in the things of the Lord ; nevertheless, we are not as well educated as we ought to be. We do not read enough, we do not study enough ; we do not pray enough ; or we would know more of the. word of God and of his will concerning the people. ¶

When trouble comes upon us, I admit that then we seek after him ; and I think we are very much like the Saints in the early days of the Church ; those who were persecuted in Missouri, while yet the Church had a center in Ohio. The Lord was telling the people in Ohio concerning his people in Missouri, their brethren, their brothers, members of their own households in many cases. He was telling them why the Saints in Zion or Missouri, had suffered as they had suffered : ¶

"I, the Lord," he said, "have suffered the affliction to come upon them, wherewith they have been afflicted, in consequence of their transgressions ;" and then with that pathos and love ever characteristic of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus added: ¶

"Yet I will own them", — I will own them. I can't let them go. I will chasten them and cleanse them, but I will own them still, "and they shall be mine in that day when I shall come to make up my jewels. ¶

"Therefore, they must needs be chastened and tried," aye, "even as Abraham, who was commanded to offer up his only son; ¶

"For all those who will not endure chastening but deny me, cannot be sanctified. ¶

"Behold I say unto you, there were jarrings, and contentions, and envyings, and strifes, and lustful and covetous desires among them; therefore by these things they polluted their inheritances. ¶

"They were slow to hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God, therefore the Lord their God is slow to hearken unto their prayers, to answer them in the day of their trouble. ¶

"In the day of their peace they esteemed lightly my counsel ; but, in the day of their trouble, of necessity they feel after me." ¶

Let Us Be Saints Indeed and not Pretenders

Many of us can't stand prosperity. We forget the Lord until we find ourselves in distress, and thereby we demonstrate that we are yet not wholly what we profess to be. I cited prayer as a simple illustration. I ask again, do we really pray? We profess to be living according to the law of the tithe ; we profess it ; we proclaim it ; yet we are not living the law of the tithe. It is a gladsome fact that there are many amongst us who are conscientiously obeying that law, many with whom God is well pleased; but, sad to say, there are many who content themselves with making a little donation to the Lord, and then they call it a tithing. I understand that the application of the term is definite. If we profess to be tithepayers, let us be tithepayers; not go around with a false face. If we profess to be making offerings for the poor, according to the order and system established in the Church, the value of the two meals from which we are supposed to abstain on fast day, let us give that food for the help of the poor. Do not pretend to do it only. ¶

Oh, what it is to be a pretender! I feel that if I preach to you and do not follow my own preachings, that my place is among the hypocrites, and I have read with trembling what the Lord thinks of hypocrites. Now I do not say you are hypocrites ; I spoke of myself ; but I know I would be a hypocrite if I profess to be living the law of the tithe and simply give a little donation to the Lord that bears no proper relation to the blessing he has poured out upon me. I am cheating him — think of it, cheating my landlord who has given me ¶

the place I call home, food for my household, clothing for my family, and many blessings of life, and who, moreover, has trusted me to keep the account, and to reckon up how much is due; who has given me those things on a graded rental, with the understanding that if times are hard and my income be thereby lessened I need not pay him so much, because I do not get as much ; and that if times are good and my income is larger, that I can pay him a little more. ¶

Have you ever found a landlord in mortality who would make any such arrangement ? The Lord has said to me in effect : "Now this has been a hard year for you. You have not had as much income as you had last year. I am going to lower your rent. You just pay one-tenth, that is all, but it will be less than you paid me last year." The landlords on earth, at least some, with whom I have had to deal have said: "Look here, times are pretty hard. I must raise your rent; and you must pay it in advance." The Lord' says: Pay when you receive the blessing. ¶

Again I say, Latter-day Saints, let us be what we profess to be. The Lord, in the passage I have read, spoke of the time in which he would come to make up his jewels. He loves jewels, but they must be genuine." No colored glass for rubies, no mere paste for diamonds, they must be the real thing; and when he comes to make up his jewels, I would rather be found a little tiny one-hundredth of a carat diamond than a glass imitation the size of the Culinam, the biggest diamond ever found. The Lord help us to be what we seem to be, before him, before our brethren, and in our own consciences, I humbly pray in the Master's name. Amen. ¶