Those things which we have been listening to are of very great importance to the Latter-day Saints. Situated as we are, entertaining the views that we do, in possession of the light and intelligence that have been communicated unto us, we stand, in these respects, in an entirely different position from that of the world with which we are surrounded; and, as has already been stated, it is necessary that we begin to reflect a little upon that which has been revealed to us, that we may understand our position and relationship to each other, the duties and responsibilities that devolve upon us as fathers, as mothers, as children, as Elders of Israel, and in all the various relationships of life, and that we may comprehend the requirements made of us by our heavenly Father. Some of those things which have been presented before us are obvious to every reflecting mind, there is nothing strange, anomalous or peculiar about them; they are things which have been more or less advocated by different statesmen among the various nations of the earth, and, according to circumstances, they have been adopted, more or less, by a great many people, and we, the Latter-day Saints, have approached nearer to them than many of us seem to have any idea of. There would not be time, at present, to enter into an elaborate detail of the various plans, ideas and workings involved in the principles which have been presented before us this morning; but in taking a cursory view of our position, we shall find that it is very different from that of any other people. We have already carried out a great many of those things which have been referred to, that is, a great many of us have; not all. The position that we have occupied in this nation, in the States of Missouri and Illinois, and in the various countries of those States, and the history of this people has been a very peculiar one. It is true, as has been said that if we would give up our religion, and act and feel as others act and feel, we should be hail fellows well met with the world, and we could have the fellowship of the devil and all his imps. We could have this all the time if we would conform our ideas to theirs. But what are their ideas? Who can describe them? They are simply a babel of contrarities, contradictions, confusion, ignorance, darkness, speculation, mystery, folly, vanity, crime, iniquity and every kind of evil that man can think of, and if we were willing to join in with this it would be all right, and we should be hail fellows well met. But we do not propose to do that. God has spoken from the heavens; the light and intelligence which exist in the eternal worlds have been communicated, the heavens have been opened and the revelations of God given to man, and we have participated in them in part, and the light thus received has enabled us to look at the world as it is; it has opened to our view the visions of eternity; it has made us acquainted with our God, with the principles of truth, and we would not barter that for all the world has to give us. We rejoice, therefore, and thank God for the light and intelligence that he has communicated to us, and so far we have measurably been one, and we could not have helped ourselves and prevented it, if we had desired to, for the world was determined to make us one, or make hypocrites of us, like themselves; one of the two. We had either got to be one, or deny the principles that God has implanted in every honest man's soul, and we would not do that. No man will barter his independence, no man will barter his convictions, no man, who is intelligent and honorable, will barter his religion or his politics at the caprice of any other man. God has implanted certain principles in man, and as long as manhood is retained they can not be obliterated, they are written there as in letters of living fire, and there they will remain so long as we retain our manhood and standing before God. What has been the result of this, so far as it has gone? Why, when the people in Missouri proposed that we should live among them in peace if we would leave our religion, did we do it? Not quite. What did we do? We clung to our religion. And what did those honest, generous, gentle, intelligent, Christian people do? Robbed us of nearly all we possessed, and with the balance we agreed to help one another to get to some place where men could worship God according to the dictates of their conscience, if such a place could be found in republican America. Well, we left. Did we unite? Yes, we did; and every man that had a team, a wagon, two, three or four horses, two, three, four, five or six yoke of cattle, or bread, money or clothing, distributed among his brethren, and we helped one another out until every man who wanted to leave had left.