have melted away before you, and how unanimously at last has come the victory after so
many years of injustice and oppression, I have been forced to feel that the spirit of a
higher power than that of man has been controlling in the movements and destiny of your
people and in the final judgment toward them of the whole American people. All of us as
we grow older learn to value more and more highly the gifts that come to us through dis-
cipline, and it is a strange part of human life that nearly everything that is dearest
to us, most to be treasured, and most preservative of our liberty, comes to us dearly
bought by suffering, sacrifice, and often longtime oppression. Nearly everything dear
to human life has been gained along these high lines, where human endurance has been
tested, where character and patience have been put to bitter test, and where all that is
good and noble in a people has been developed under storm and trial. Neither in this
generation nor in any soon to come will the strange blessing of final independence which
has come to you and your people be fully understood. But for the spirit that drove you
into the wilderness to combat with the savage elements among men and the more savage
elements of nature, but for the necessity of industry, courage and patience, made necess-
ary by your battle for life in a country so wild and unfruitful at first as to be un-
friendly, but for the strange experiences through which practically the first two genera-
tions of your people have passed, your Church would never have been rooted and grounded
in the everlasting strength which I believe it now holds, and the strong men you have
developed would never have been discovered to you. So it may come out at last that a
Providence has been in it all, a Providence apparently unfriendly for many years, but
with the final proof that it was a loving Providence in the care of you all the time.
Yours will be a very fortunate people as time shall come and different generations shall
follow, if those who come after you shall prove as worthy, as true to everything that is
right in human life and aspiration, as courabgeous in the performance of duty, as the
strong and fearless men and women who first set up the standard of your Church in Utah
and who so loyally and fearlessly upheld it in the first generations of your experience
in the Rocky mountains:

While I never was among the American people who are intolerant toward the

have melted away before you, and how unanimously at last has come the victory after so many years of injustice and oppression, I have been forced to feel that the spirit of a higher power than that of man has been controlling in the movements and destiny of your people and in the final judgment toward them of the whole American people. All of us as we grow older learn to value more and more highly the gifts that come to us through discipline, and it is a strange part of human life that nearly everything that is dearest to us, most to be treasured, and most preservative of our liberty, comes to us dearly bought by suffering, sacrifice, and often longtime oppression. Nearly everything dear to human life has been gained along these high lines, where human endurance has been tested, where character and patience have been put to bitter test, and where all that is good and noble in a people has been developed under storm and trial. Neither in this generation nor in any soon to come will the strange blessing of final independence which has come to you and your people be fully understood. But for the spirit that drove you into the wilderness to combat with the savage elements among men and the more savage elements of nature, but for the necessity of industry, courage and patience, made necessary by your battle for life in a country so wild and unfruitful at first as to be unfriendly, but for the strange experiences through which practically the first two generations of your people have passed, your Church would never have been rooted and grounded in the everlasting strength which I believe it now holds, and the strong men you have developed would never have been discovered to you. So it may come out at last that a Providence has been in it all, a Providence apparently unfriendly for many years, but with the final proof that it was a loving Providence in the care of you all the time. Yours will be a very fortunate people as time shall come and different generations shall follow, if those who come after you shall prove as worthy, as true to everything that is right in human life and aspiration, as courageous in the performance of duty, as the strong and fearless men and women who first set up the standard of your Church in Utah and who so loyally and fearlessly upheld it in the first generations of your experience in the Rocky mountains:

While I never was among the American people who are intolerant toward the