I feel great pleasure in meeting with the brethren and sisters, having just returned from a mission. I do not speak of this because of a feeling that I am now relieved from a mission, for I feel that I have been on a mission all the time, and I expect to remain a Missionary from this time henceforth and for ever. This is the height of my ambition, that I may have the pleasure of laboring to build up the kingdom of God on the earth.
The instructions we have had today have been joyful to my heart, for they are those principles that are calculated to save, to exalt and to prepare us to dwell with the Gods in the eternal worlds. I have often said that of all the people upon the face of the earth the Saints of the Most High God have the greatest reason to be thankful. This is my feeling and has been ever since I embraced the Gospel; and the longer I live, the more I see and experience, the more I feel and know that we are the favored people of the Lord. If we can appreciate this as it is, it will lead us continually to take that course that will be right and proper in the sight of Heaven.
While I have been absent from this Territory I have been laboring wherever my lot has been cast to convince the inhabitants of the earth of the truth of the principles of our holy religion, and to point out to them the path of life, and how far I have been successful I shall leave for a higher power to judge.
I find that we are all like children, so far as knowledge is concerned: that is, we know nothing, excepting what we have learned from others or by observation, and inasmuch as we do not now know anything but that which we have learned, the prospect is that what we may know in the future we shall have to learn. We are in a school, one which our Father has prepared for us, and in which he designs to instruct us, to give us counsel and point out the course that we should take day by day, in order that we may be saved. If we adopt the principles that have been revealed they will bring to us happiness and an abiding joy, and that, too, at the time and in the place where we are in need.
One reason why I consider that we are so much more highly favored than other people is simply this, that in generations that are past and gone there was no man capable of rising up and pointing out the way of life and salvation—there was no man to dispense the blessings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them that were willing to embrace the truth. But it is not so now, for the kingdom of God has been established upon the earth, a knowledge of the ordinances of the kingdom has also been committed to man upon the earth, and the keys of that kingdom have been given, and the principles which pertain to that kingdom can now be taught to us. We have now the power to embrace the principles of life, because they are presented to us by those having the authority to teach. The principles of our religion have emanated from our Father and God, with whom there is no variableness, nor the least shadow of turning; and these principles have been revealed for the express purpose that we might embrace and practice them and thereby bring about our own salvation and secure that happiness which is promised to the faithful sons and daughters of God.