A portion of this congregation have been brought up in America, and are more or less acquainted with the Constitution, with the Constitutional rights of the people, with the institutions of the country, with the State governments, laws, &c.; and if they have paid particular attention, and have heard brother Bullock read my written discourse, so that they could understand it, they know whether their minds, feelings, and judgments coincide with mine, upon the views that have just been presented.
For one, I can say they are true; they are the sentiments of this people, so far as they are acquainted with the principles of the government of the United States; though a part of our present community have not been reared under the benign influences of the institutions of our parent government. But as far as they understand, I will venture to say that these are the sentiments of all the Latter-day Saints.
In my conversation, I shall talk and act as I please. Still I am always aware, when speaking in public, that there are those present who are disposed to find fault with this people, and to try to raise a prejudice against them; and they will pick up isolated words and sentences, and put them together to suit themselves, and send forth a garbled version to prejudice the world against us. Such a course I never care anything about; for I have frequently said, spoken words are but wind, and when they are spoken are gone; consequently I take liberties in speaking which I do not allow when I commit my sentiments to writing.
The discourse that has just been read, pointing out the path this people have walked in, is merely a brief summary of our experience, of what we have borne, and of what we believe.
Before the Book of Mormon was printed, and immediately after Joseph Smith obtained the plates, and the revelations he received concerning this record being the record of the Nephites, and of the Lamanites, who are the fathers of the present aborigines of our country, and in which the Lord told him that He was about to set to His hand the second time to gather Israel, the war commenced against him; this was long before the book was printed. I will now tell you all a secret, although it has already been read to you; it is this, Christ and Belial are not friends, they are enemies. We ask where Christ's Church is. My conclusive answer is, if the Latter-day Saints do not constitute the Kingdom of God on the earth, the Church of Jesus Christ, it is no where to be found upon it. It is easily proved by the Scriptures that no other church, professing to believe in the Old and New Testament, bears hardly a resemblance to the ancient true Church in the fulness of the doctrines of the Lord Jesus.
So far as morality goes, in many instances I have no complaints to make. Thousands and millions of people live according to the best light they have, but the Holy Priesthood is not on the earth, unless the Latter-day Saints have it. It is the Priesthood again given to the children of men—shall I say it out? ["Yes."] That raises the devil, and makes all hell angry; and the servants of the devil will run to and fro, and publish his lies about Christ and his Church on the earth. They are not angry with me or with you; and the professors of Christianity, the priests, are not angry with us, but they are filled with wrath and indignation with themselves, and with the Almighty. Why are they angry? Because they are men, and like other men. If a man sees his house about to fall, if he sees something or other continually gnawing, and gnawing, and picking, and operating upon the foundation, and discovers that by and bye his house must fall, perhaps when he is asleep, or when he is gone from home, and destroy his women and children, he is all the time worried, and in a stew; all the time watching with a fearful looking for the time when it will crumble to pieces. This is the difficulty with the professing Christian world. Is it so with the Infidel? No, he does not care anything about the matter; but those sweet, loving, blessed Christians, the priest in the pulpit, and the deacon under it, and the sage followers of their own nonsense and the traditions of their fathers are the ones who are at war with the Eternal Priesthood of God.