Salt Lake City, .
REPORTED BY GEORGE F. GIBBS.
I feel thankful that I have the
privilege of assembling in this Tab-
ernacle with my friends, the Latter-
day Saints, to partake of the Lord's
Supper, the emblems of His body
and blood, His body which was
broken for us and His blood which
was shed for us. I regard this as a
great privilege. While meeting
with the Saints upon occasions of
this kind I often reflect upon their
spiritual condition, and hope and
pray that those of us who are thus
favored to commemorate the death
and sufferings of our Lord and Sa-
vior by partaking of the Sacrament,
may so live that we may be worthy
to eat and drink with Him at the
great marriage supper of the Lamb,
in company with the prophets and
patriarchs and Saints of God of form-
er and latter days whom the Father
hath given unto Him—those who
have obeyed the law, received the
truths of the Gospel and kept His
commandments.
I wish to say to the Latter-day
Saints that every man holding the
holy Priesthood, every man called
to preside over the Church or any
branch of it, is dependent upon the
Lord for His Holy Spirit to guide
and sustain him. We have found
the exhortation of the Savior to the
apostles of His day applicable to our
own labors and experience, wherein
He said, "And when they bring
you unto the synagogues, and unto
magistrates, and powers, take no
thought how or what ye shall
answer, or what ye shall say: for
the Holy Ghost shall teach you in
the same hour what ye ought to
say." [Luke 12:11-12] We differ from many people
in this regard. We very often call
upon the Elders from among the
congregation to come to the stand
to speak without any preparation.
We all, in a measure, occupy this
same position before our fellow men.
I never know when appearing
before an assembly of the Saints
what I may say to them; I leave
entirely all these matters with the
Lord. If the Lord gives me noth-
ing, I shall certainly have but very
little to say to the people. And this
is the position that the Elders are
placed in as teachers in Israel. My
feelings and views are that the
Lord never did have a people from
Father Adam to the present time
that were called upon to build up
His Kingdom and establish His
Zion in the world, or to preach the
gospel of repentance to the children
of men, but what they were de-
pendent entirely upon the God of
heaven for their support.
The Lord has told us by revela-
tion to speak as we may be moved
upon by the Holy Ghost. When a
man speaks as he is moved upon by
the Holy Spirit, what he says is the
word of the Lord; it is the mind of
the Lord, it is scripture, it is the
will of the Lord, it is the power of
God unto salvation to every one that
believes. [Romans 1:16] Why? Because the Holy
Ghost is one of the personages of the
Godhead. God the Father and God
the Son possess tabernacles, and
God himself has created man after
His own image; but the Holy Ghost
is a personage of Spirit, which bears
witness of the Father and Son unto
the children of men.
With regard to the rights of the
human family I wish to say that
God has given unto all of His chil-
dren of this dispensation, as He
gave unto all of His children of
previous dispensations, individual
agency. This agency has always
been the heritage of man unto the
rule and government of God. He
possessed it in the heaven of heav-
ens before the world was, and the
Lord maintained and defended it
there against the aggression of
Lucifer and those that took sides
with him, to the overthrow of
Lucifer and one-third part of the
heavenly hosts. By virtue of this
agency you and I and all mankind
are made responsible beings, respon-
sible for the course we pursue, the
lives we live, the deeds we do in the
body. I will repeat here what I have
often remarked as the words and
sentiments of the Prophet Joseph
who once declared it in my hearing.
Said he, "If I were ruler or emperor
of the world, and I had power over
the whole human family, I would
make every man, woman and child
free in the enjoyment of his or her
religion, be that religion whatever
it may." These are my sentiments.
All people under heaven by virtue
of their agency, whether living un-
der a republican, a monarchical or
any other form of government, are
entitled to religious freedom to wor-
ship God according to the dictates
of their own conscience, they being
held accountable to God alone for
the use they make of their agency.
And while we, as a community,
accord this right and privilege to
man the world over, we claim the
same right ourselves. For we pro-
fess to believe in the fullness of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ which God
has revealed through the ministra-
tions of angels sent unto the serv-
ants of God in the dispensation in
which we live. It was made known
to John the Revelator and to others
of the Prophets and Apostles that
in the last days, among the many
great events which were to take
place before the coming of the Son
of Man, the everlasting Gospel
would be restored to the earth. Re-
ferring to this event the Apostle
says: "And I saw another angel
fly in the midst of heaven, having
the everlasting gospel to preach
unto them that dwell on the earth,
and to every nation, and kindred,
and tongue, and people, saying
with a loud voice, Fear God,
and give glory to Him: for
the hour of his judgment is come." [Revelation 14:6-7]
As Latter-day Saints we believe that
angels visited Joseph Smith whom
God raised up, and delivered unto
him the fulness of the Gospel; and
that he was ordained under the
hands of heavenly messengers who
held the keys of the Holy Priesthood
and also the Priesthood after the
order of Aaron.
Nearly sixty years have passed
and gone since this Church was or-
ganized. It has fallen to my lot to
be associated with this people for the
last 56 or 57 years of my life. I
traveled with Joseph Smith and the
Apostles and with many who are
now in the spirit world, hundreds
and thousands of miles laboring for
the salvation of our fellow men.
We are very differently situated to-
day from what we were in the early
days of this Church. We now oc-
cupy permanent homes in the val-
leys of these Rocky Mountains.
I came here with Brigham
Young when the country was a
barren desert. The record of our
lives for the last forty years, during
which time we have been here, is
before the world as history. The
aim and object of our lives today are
what they were in the beginning,
namely the building up of the
Kingdom of God upon the earth.
And I wish to bear my testimony to
the Latter-day Saints and to the
world that this Gospel of the King-
dom which the angel of God de-
livered unto Joseph Smith will be
preached as a witness to all the
world before the end come. It is the
same Gospel that was preached by
Christ and the Apostles, and which
the Jews rejected. There is but one
Gospel plan of salvation, and it is
eternal and everlasting in its char-
acter; it cannot be perverted or
changed with impunity; hence the
Apostle Paul has said in this con-
nection, "Though we, or an angel
from heaven, preach any other Gos-
pel unto you than that which we
have preached unto you, let him be
accursed." [Galatians 1:8] What was the Gospel
taught by Paul, and by Peter,
James and John? The first princi-
ple of the Gospel they taught was
faith in God; the next was repent-
ance of sins, and then baptism for
the remission of sins. Jesus Him-
self was baptized of John, that he
might fulfil all righteousness, be-
cause baptism was a righteous law,
and one of the ordinances of the ever-
lasting Gospel. At first John de-
clined to baptize the Savior, recog-
nizing the fact that He was without
sin, and that baptism was for the re-
mission of sin. But Jesus answer-
ing said, "Suffer it to be so now: for
thus it becometh us to fulfil all
righteousness." And He baptized
the Savior and Redeemer of the
world. As soon as this ordinance
was attended to the heavens ac-
knowledged the act by the manifes-
tation of the Holy Ghost. [Matthew 3:13-17] And the
next ordinance after baptism is the
laying on of hands for the reception
of the Holy Ghost. This was the
Gospel taught by the Apostles while
they lived. The Holy Ghost gave
unto men a testimony that Jesus was
indeed the Christ, the Redeemer of
the world; and it was a guide to
their feet and a lamp to their path
during their whole lives. The
Church at first was organized upon
the foundation of Apostles and
Prophets, Christ Jesus being the
chief corner stone. We are told that
Christ has set in the Church, "First
apostles, secondarily prophets;"
that "He gave some apostles; and
some prophets; and some evan-
gelists; and some pastors and teach-
ers;" [Ephesians 4:11] and they were to be standing
