Good morning, brethren and sisters! I am very happy to meet with you. We have the privilege of coming here occasionally and seeing you. We would like to give every one of you a hearty shake of the hand, but we desire to do it in a wholesale way, and we wish you to consider yourselves heartily shaken hands with (and suiting the action to the word); God bless you all for ever. We have come here to bear testimony of the things of the kingdom of God, and to stir you up to diligence in performing your duties, and to perform the duties of our callings as ministers of the Gospel of Peace. We feel a little annoyed, necessarily, at the slow progress which is being made, yet we have a great many things to be thankful for, and a great many reasons to rejoice. We have very little reason to fear our enemies, provided that we, as Latter-day Saints, do our duty, but if we fail to obey the commandments of God, and the revelations which he has given for our salvation and guidance we have reason to fear, for unless we take such a course as to make God our friend and protector we are likely to fall into the hands of our enemies. King David Was requested, once to take his choice of three years' famine, three days' pestilence, or be driven three months before his enemies. David said he preferred to fall into the hands of the Lord; and when the scourge came David plead with the Lord to let the blow fall upon him and his house, and to spare Jerusalem. God heard his prayer and turned away the scourge, though it is written seventy thousand persons fell with the plague between Dan and Beersheba. In all ages of the world in which the Lord reveals himself to the children of men, he requires obedience, and promises them great blessings on rendering the same; but if they are not obedient he has invariably promised and poured out curses upon them.