THE CONTRIBUTOR. JUNIUS F. WELLS, EDITOR. PUBLISHED BY THE CONTRIBUTOR COMPANY. Terms: Two Dollars a Year, in advance. SALT LAKE CITY, APRIL, 1887. EPISTLE. To the Young Men of Israel: BELOVED Brethren in the New and Everlasting Covenant: This being my birthday, I having first seen the light of day on Sunday, at ten o'clock, on the morning of the first day of March, 1807, making me eighty years of age this day, and also having the honor of being appointed by the Presidency of the ...

other relatives, into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have also held the keys of the dead of my father's house, and, through the mercy of God and the assistance of my friends, I have been enabled to redeem some three thousand souls of the Woodruff, Hart and Thompson families, through the ordinances for the dead, for which I feel to praise the Lord. For as Paul says: Why are you baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? [

the darkness comprehendeth it not. [John 1:5] Neither does this generation compre- hend the work of the Latter-day Saints. I do hope and pray that you, my young brothers in the ministry, will call upon the Lord in mighty prayer, that you may be clothed upon by the power of God, that you may be able to lead the way for the rising generation in which you live to walk in the path that leads to eternal life and salvation, that you may have an inheritance in the celestial kingdom of God ...

I wish my young brethren to keep in mind that our aim is high. We are aiming for a place in the celestial king- dom of God, to obtain eternal life, the greatest of all the gifts of God to man. All the honor, glory and wealth of this world should sink into insignificance in our minds in comparison with an inherit- ance in the presence of God and the Lamb, with all the prophets, apostles and saints, including our father's house. While one is fleeting and soon passeth away, the other endureth forever. The Lord has ...