THE DESERET WEEKLY.
Truth and Liberty.
No. 19. SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, . VOL. L.
THE POWER OF EVIL.
Discourse delivered at the General Con-
ference of the Church, in the Taber-
nacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday, April
7th, 1895, by
PREST. WILFORD WOODRUFF.
-[REPORTED BY ARTHUR WINTER.]-
I ask and desire this morning the
faith and prayers of the Latter-day
Saints in my behalf while I stand before
you. This is not merely an idle cere-
mony, for if I possessed all the oratory
and learning of the ancient Greeks and
Romans it would not give me power to
edify one immortal spirit in the children
of men or to point any immortal soul to
the way of salvation. I am entirely de-
pendent upon the Lord. I always have
been during my life, and in my travels
and pilgrimage, preaching the Gospel of
Christ to my fellow men. It does not
make any difference what age a man is
in the preaching of the Gospel, whether
he be twenty-five, ninety, or five hun-
dred years of age, if he is only inspired
by the Spirit and power of God. Many
of the ancients lived to a very great
age. Father Adam up to the last speech
he ever made to his children, according
to the revelations of God, was filled
with the Holy Ghost, and he was nearly
a thousand years of age.
I have some things upon my mind I
would like to present to the Latter-day
Saints if I can get the spirit of them.
I think it would be profitable to us to
spend a little time in reflecting and
meditating upon the powers that be—
the powers that exist today on the earth
and have existed from eternity unto
eternity—good and evil, light and dark-
ness, Christ and Belial, or Lucifer, the
son of the morning. When we look
over the history of the world we can
see from the creation of Father Adam
down to our day the operation of these
two powers. And these powers will
exist until the end of time, and from
that time henceforth, until there is a
change in the destiny of the spirits of
men. It seems that from the time
of the great rebellion in heaven,
when one-third of the hosts of heaven
were cast down for their rebellion
against the great Eloheim and Jehovah,
the Creator of heaven and earth, there
has been a warfare against God, against
Christ, against His Church, against His
Priesthood, and against everything that
would tend to salvation and eternal life.
And in looking over the history of the
world, from the revelations of God to
us, we can see in the peopling of the
earth and in the building up of cities by
the inhabitants of the earth, the powers
of evil, of darkness and of sin have had
great control over the children of men.
Men were led to sin and to do evil until
those ancient cities, like modern ones,
were filled with iniquity. The Lord
raised up prophets and inspired men in
all those dispensations, when cities and
nations became ripened into iniquity, to
give them commandments, to warn them
of the judgments of God, and to tell
them what to do to escape those judg-
ments. And when these cities and na-
tions were fully ripened in iniquity and
would not repent, all that those proph-
ets proclaimed unto them came to pass.
You may take all the ancient cities—
Thebes, Nineveh, Tyre, Sidon, Babylon,
Jerusalem, and others—and they had
prophets raised up among them. They
were warned of God, and were told
what awaited them unless they repented
of their sins, and all came to pass as the
prophets spake unto them. My mind
rests upon Jeremiah. The Lord called
him in his day to go and warn King
Zedekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusa-
lem, and the prophet told them what
would come to pass. The king and the
inhabitants were wroth against him and
they persecuted him, and he had so
many trials to go through that a man in
reading of them would not be surprised
if Jeremiah felt like saying, "You may
all go to destruction for what I care; I'm
not going to stay with you." [Jeremiah 37-38] But the
Lord had said unto Jeremiah, "Before I
formed thee in the belly I knew thee;
and before thou camest forth out of the
womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained
thee a prophet unto the nations." [Jeremiah 1:5] All
that Jeremiah said to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem came to pass, and the history
of Jerusalem is terrible. The whole
house of Israel had warning; prophets
were raised up among them, and they
prophesied unto them. All the judg-
ments that visited them were foretold.
I speak of these things because they
are on my mind, and we are in a some-
what similar condition ourselves. Take
the days of Christ. As soon as Christ
was born how quickly Herod sought
His life! Joseph had to take Mary and
the young child into Egypt in order to
save the child. [Matthew 2:1-16] The power of evil was
after Him for His destruction. And did
the Savior, when He was grown to
manhood, escape that power? Was
there anything about Him in this re-
spect that differed from others of the
human family? There was not. He
was tempted, He was tried, and the
enemy labored for His destruction
through His whole life. His mission
was a short one. It was only three
and a half years from the time he en-
tered into the Priesthood until He was
crucified, and that, too, by this power.
And the sorrow that has come upon the
Jewish nation in consequence of this
act of theirs, and the bill that they have
had to pay, has been indeed great, and
all that the prophets said concerning
that has come to pass to the very letter.
Nearly nineteen hundred years have
rolled around since the death of Christ,
and that yoke has been upon the neck of
the Jews from that day until this. They
have been trampled under the foot of
the Gentiles, in fulfilment of the words
of the prophets of God, and because
they shed the blood of the Savior, their
Shiloh. And it has not yet come to an
end with them.
John, while upon the Isle of Patmos,
clothed with the glory of God and
wrapt in the visions of heaven, por-
trayed, prophesied and wrote concern-
ing the events that should take place
down to the coming of the Son of Man.
He told us concerning the restoration
of the everlasting Gospel. He 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.
Saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give
glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is
come. [Revelation 14:6-7]
That has come to pass. The time has
come when the Lord has set His hand
to fulfil the flood of revelation contained
in all the records of divine truth. The
Lord raised up a man, ordained and
prepared from the foundation of the
world, to stand in the last dispensation
and fulness of times, to receive the Gos-
pel and the Priesthood, to organize the
Church of God, and to prepare the way
for the coming of the Son of Man. We
know that these two powers were mani-
fested with the Prophet Joseph as they
were in the days of the Savior. The
very moment that he received these
revelations from God and proclaimed
them, it seemed as though all earth and
hell were let loose for his destruction.
It appeared as if the devil was afraid
that he would live to carry out these
prophecies. You know his history. Some
of us have been associated with that
Prophet. We have seen this spirit of
the evil one manifested. The Prophet
Joseph was never let alone by the pow-
ers that exist until he, like the Savior
and others, sealed his testimony with
his blood. But during the short time
that he dwelt in the flesh he accom-
plished all that he was ordained to
do. He not only organized the Church,
but he brought forth this book of revela-
tions that I hold in my hand—the Book
of Doctrine and Covenants, which con-
tains some of the most sublime revela-
tions God ever revealed to man on the
earth. The Lord also chose Twelve
Apostles, High Priests, Elders, Priests,
Teachers and Deacons, and set in order
the whole organization of the Church of
God as it exists today. And what has
been the consequence of this? I desire
to bring the minds of the brethren to
those days. Just as quick as the Twelve
Apostles were appointed and the Church
was set in order, the devil labored with
all the power that he possessed to turn
aside these men and inspire them to
leave the Church of God. Because of
this it seemed to be very hard work
many times for men who had received
the Priesthood and even the Apostleship
to magnify that Priesthood and to stand in
their calling until they could finish their
work in the flesh. I have made a re
mark once or twice in my teachings with
regard to the great apostasy in Kirtland.
I passed through that scene, as did
some others who are now with us, and I
wish now to refer to it because it is
something we should lay to heart.
Even Apostles took occasion to rise up
and endeavored to dictate and direct the
Prophet of God. Here, brethren and
sisters, was a manifestation—and a very
strange one, too—of the power that the
devil had over the leading men whom
God raised up to assist in laying the
foundation of this Church and in bring
ing forth the Book of Mormon. Those
who testified to the Book of Mormon
were led away through not keeping the
commandments of God and thinking
that they themselves were great men.
Some of them were learned men; some
of them considered themselves very
smart men, and they were so smart
that they wanted to dictate and direct the
Prophet of God. The consequence of
all this was that they turned aside from
the commandments of God. Some of
them had been true and faithful in their
labors in the ministry. I have heard
Oliver Cowdery testify of the Book of
Mormon by the power of God when it
seemed as if the very earth trembled
under his feet. He was filled with the
Holy Ghost and the power of God
while he was faithful; and so were many
of these men. But Oliver Cowdery
yielded to the temptation of the evil one,
and we may say he apostatized. So did
Martin Harris, and several others con-
nected with them. They left the
Church, they turned against Joseph, and
they said he was a fallen prophet, and
they themselves wanted to direct the
Church. I have remarked that there
was a time when there were but two of
the quorum of the Twelve Apostles
then in the town of Kirtland who stood
by Joseph Smith and upheld him as a
prophet, seer and revelator. I was not a
member of that quorum at that time; I
was a Seventy. Several of these men
called upon me in the time of this apos-
tasy and asked me to join them against
the Prophet; the Prophet was fallen,
they said. Now, I had seen enough
myself of the Prophet of God, and I had
read enough of the revelations of God
through him, to know that he was a
Prophet of God and not a fallen prophet.
I saw that these men were yielding to
the devil, and I told them so. Said I:
"You will all go to hell unless you
repent. Joseph has been raised up by
the power of God; he has organized this
Church, he has been true and faithful to
God and to the Church and kingdom of
God here on the earth, and you will fall
and go to perdition unless you repent
of your sins and turn from the position
you are in today." A good many of
them did fall. I will here name one
instance. I saw one of these apostles in
the Kirtland Temple, while the Sacra-
ment was being passed, stand in the
aisle and curse the Prophet of God to his
face while he was in the stand, and
when the bread was passed around he
reached out his hand for a piece of bread
and flung it into his mouth like a mad
dog. He turned as black in the face
almost as an African with rage and with
the power of the devil. What did he
do? He ate and drank damnation to
himself. He did not go and hang him-
self, but he did go and drown himself,
and the river went over his body while
his spirit was cast unto the pit, where he
ceased to have the power to curse either
God or His Prophet in time or in etern-
ity. I may say that David Patten was
not in Kirtland at this time; he was in
Missouri. He never apostatized, but
died a martyr.
Brethren and sisters, I have passed
through these scenes, and it was a
serious time. And I will tell you the
devil is not dead today, but will war
against us and against this Church, as
far as he has power, while we dwell in
the flesh. I thank the Lord, however,
that I know for myself that this Church
will stand, and the Lord will bear it off
triumphant. We have passed those
days of affliction and sorrow; but I want
to say to my brethren, one and all, we
still have got to watch unto prayer. If
there is any place where the devil can
lead us astray he will do it. We are not
safe until we get through with this pro-
bation. I thank God for one thing:
I am satisfied for myself that those days
are passed and gone. There is no man
in heaven or on earth will ever live to
see such a day again. We are too near
the end; we are too near the coming of
the Son of Man. The Lord Almighty
has called a class of men upon whose
shoulders He has laid the responsibility
of this great work. He has chosen the
weak things of the world, and we have
these responsibilities resting upon us.
I am satisfied for myself that the ser-
vants of God whom He has chosen will,
as a rule, be true and faithful unto
death. How dark a man must be in his
mind to get into such a condition as
these Apostles were. I heard some of
them bear testimony before God, angels
and men that they had received the
ministration of angels, and having that
knowledge, what a condition they must
have been in when they apostatized!
We want to guard ourselves with
regard to these matters. We have got
to look to the Lord to assist us in the
cause in which we are engaged. I hope
and pray that I may live to see the per-
fect union of the Twelve Apostles
with the Presidency of this Church and
the union of the whole Church. We
have this work upon our shoulders, and
the Lord is watching over us. I will say
to all the nations of the earth, you can-
not turn aside or overthrow the designs
of the Lord; they will come to pass in
the earth exactly as they have been
promised to the children of men.
We are here upon a mission, and it is
a great mission. We are blessed in
living in this day and generation. We
ought to try and make the most of it we
can. We ought to try and improve our
time, magnify our calling and do our
duty. I will say to the Latter-day
Saints, the Lord has called and chosen
us to stand as the leaders of the people
—the Presidency, the Twelve Apostles
and the various quorums and positions
which we are in, and we are responsible
to God for the course we pursue in
these matters. True, we need the faith
and fellowship of the Saints; we need
their assistance; but inasmuch as we do
our duty the blessings of God will be
with us. I know for myself that the
Lord has set His hand to carry out His
great purposes and prepare the way for
the coming of the Son of Man. We have
passed through a long period of time,
as men count time, in our history. I will
here refer to one incident: When Christ
and Peter, James and John, went into
the mount, Moses and Elias were mani-
fest to them, and Jesus was transfigured
before them. [Matthew 17:1-3] The last time the Apostles
ever met with the Prophet Joseph
Smith, there were eleven of us present
—nine Apostles, himself and his brother
Hyrum. He likewise was transfigured
before us, as far as mortal man can be.
The room which he was in was filled as
with consuming fire by the power of
God. His face was clear as amber, he
was clothed with the power of God.
We did not know he was going to leave
us any more than the Apostles knew
the Savior was going to leave them in
that day. But he told us what our
duties were. He laid before us what
God required at his hands and the or-
dinances unto which he had been
ordained by the power of God. He
said the Lord had sealed upon his head
every ordinance, every key and every
power belonging to this dispen-
sation of the fulness of times; and,
he added, "I have sealed these things
upon your heads; now you must go forth
and bear off this kingdom or you will
be damned." That was a very strong
remark to us. I have never forgotten
it from that day to this. I realize that
God was with him. And He has been
with His people. He is with Zion to-
day. He will continue to be. Though
all the powers of darkness may war
against us, the Lord is our Friend, and
He will sustain us and give us power to
build up Zion and to carry out this
work until the coming of the Son
of Man. Therefore, let your hearts be
comforted. These Apostles, I am
satisfied, are of one heart and mind.
I know they are united with us; I know
we are unit[e]d with them. This is a
great joy and consolation to me. We
all should be united in the cause in
which we are engaged. Inasmuch as we
do this we shall come off [t]riumphant.
I have no fear about Zion; I never had.
It is written, as with a pen upon a rock,
and is the voice of God, that Zion shall
stand. All the prophecies that the Lord
has given as contained in the Bible,
the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine
and Covenants will be fulfilled to the
very letter. Not one jot or one tittle
will fall unfulfilled. Zion will arise and
flourish, and the glory of God will rest
upon her. When I cast my mind over
the signs of the times, when I look at
the fulfi[l]ment of prophecy and observe
what is taking place in the earth I see
the hand of God manifest and the fulfil-
ment of prophecy and revelation.
These angels of God that have been
standing in the temples of heaven
holding sharp sickles day a[f]ter day plead-
ing with God to let them go forth to
reap down the earth have been com-
manded of the Lord to wait until the
wheat was gathered into the garner, and
then they might go forth and reap down
the eart[h]. If the world wants to know
what is coming to pass, let them read
the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the
Doctrine and Covenants; let them read
these revelations of St. John. As God
lives they will come to pass. Not one
of them will fall unfulfilled. And the
hand of God is beginning to be mani
fest in the earth. Judgment is at the
door; calamity awaits the nations of the
earth; but we ourselves should be pre-
pared to stand in holy places while the
judgments of God are manifest in the
earth.
Now, brethren and sisters, let us be
humble before the Lord; let us remem-
ber our prayers; let us try to do our
duty; and when we do this, the blessings
of God will be with us. I felt yester-
day that I wished I could see all the
young men in Israel before Brother J.
E. Talmage while he spoke to us for
half an hour (it ought to have been two
hours) on the evil of this tobacco busi-
ness. We should let alone all these
evils, and our children should also, that
they might be prepared to go forth as
holy vessels and servants of God to
bear record of this Gospel]]. We are
not yet through preaching the Gospel.
We send our sons abroad, and many of
them go before they know whether this is
the Church of God or not. I need not
stand up here and testify before this
congregation that this is the Church of
God on the earth. Thousands of you
know that for yourselves. You have
been abroad; I have been abroad; these
Apostles have been abroad; and we
have administered the ordinances of the
Gospel of Christ. We have laid hands
upon the sick, and the sick have been
healed; devils have been cast out, the
lame have leaped, the deaf have heard,
the dumb have spoken, in this Church
in our day and generation. Can men
go through and experience these things
and not know for themselves whether
the work is of God or not? No. Any
man that has gone forth and adminis-
tered in the ordinance of the house of
God knows that these things are true,
if he has kept the commandments of
God.
Before I sit down I want to say a word
to the Elders of Israel on another sub-
ject. I am called an old man; I guess I
am. I was thinking just now, in speak-
ing of the apostles and prophets, that
were with Joseph Smith when he made
his last speech, I am the only man living
that was with him at that time. The
rest are today in the spirit world. How
much longer I shall talk to this people
I do not know; but I want to say this to
all Israel: Cease troubling yourselves
about who God is; who Adam is, who
Christ is, who Jehovah is. For heaven's
sake, let these things alone. Why
trouble yourselves about these things?
God has revealed himself, and when the
121st section of the Doctrine and
Covenants is fulfilled, whether there be
one God or many gods they will be re-
vealed to the children of men, as well
as all thrones and dominions, princi
palities, and powers. Then why trouble
yourselves about these things? God is
God. Christ is Christ. The Holy
Ghost is the Holy Ghost. That should
be enough for you and I to know. If
we want to know any more, wait till we
get where God is in person. I say this
because we are troubled every little
while with inquiries from Elders anxious
to know who God is, who Christ is, and
who Adam is. I say to the Elders of
Israel, stop this. Humble yourselves
before the Lord; seek for light, for
truth and for a knowledge of the com-
mon things of the kingdom of God.
The Lord is the same yesterday, today
and forever. He changes not. The
Son of God is the same. He is the
Savior of the world. He is our advo-
cate with the Father. We have had
letter after letter from Elders abroad
wanting to know concerning these
things. Adam is the first man. He
was placed in the Garden of Eden, and
is our great progenitor. God the
Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Ghost are the same yesterday, to-
day and forever. That should be suffi-
cient for us to know.
I pray God to bless these Apostles,
and to bless us all, and to give us wis-
dom and power to magnify our calling
and to do our duty before the Lord,
that we may be prepared to give an
account of our stewardship while dwell
ing in the flesh. I pray that the Lord
will be merciful to us as a people, and
give those who bear the Priesthood
power to build up Zion and prepare the
way for the coming of the Son of Man,
which may God grant, for Christ's sake.
Amen.