It was this consciousness of having walked truly before his God, which, when the word of the Lord came to him, that he should surely die, enabled king Hezekiah to turn to the Lord, in confidence, and say: "Remember, now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done good in thy sight."[A] And before Isaiah had left the house of the king, the word of the Lord came again to him, bidding him to return to the king with the glad message that his prayer had been heard, and fifteen years had been added to his life.
[Footnote A: Isaiah xxxviii.]
It was this consciousness, coupled with a belief in God's existence and a knowledge of his character, that enabled the ancient saints to endure their sore afflictions, taking joyfully the spoiling of their goods. By combining these elements of faith they produced a power by which they "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being, destitute, afflicted, tormented. Of whom the world was not worthy, they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth."[B]
[Footnote B: Heb. xi: 33-38.]
Such is Paul's testimony respecting the faith and the power thereof among the saints on the Eastern hemisphere; and if we turn to the sacred pages of the Book of Mormon, a like record of sacrifice and heroism could be drawn up to the credit of the saints living on the Western hemisphere.
And so also with the Saints in this present dispensation. It was through faith that the Prophet Joseph Smith had the heavens opened to him and received a glorious vision of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ; it was through faith that he received the gold plates on which were engraven the history and scriptures of the Nephites, and translated them into the English language; it was by the power of faith that he organized the church and the quorums of the priesthood. It was by the power of faith, too, that the Saints endured the persecutions heaped upon them in Missouri, the land of Zion, taking joyfully the spoiling of their goods, being whipped, imprisoned and murdered. It was by faith they gathered at Nauvoo and converted its swamps into a beautiful city, its wilderness into fruitful fields and erected the beautiful temple in the days of their poverty. By faith they restrained their anger when their prophet and patriarch were murdered while under the plighted faith of the State of Illinois, and committed no depredations on the ungodly within their power in retaliation for the cowardly assassination of their leaders.
By faith they followed the prophet Brigham into the desert, going a thousand miles beyond the borders of civilization among savage Indian tribes, their only hope of protection being in the God of Israel. By faith they subdued the sterile soil and made it yield them the bounties of life, and filled the once barren wastes of the Rocky Mountain valleys with towns and villages; farms, gardens, orchards and happy homes for an extent of more than five hundred miles; and by faith they have calmly endured fines, confiscations, exile and imprisonment—persecution under the forms of law—at the hands of the United States government, rather than be untrue to their God.
Such experiences as these I have referred to in the history of the Saints, both of ancient and modern times, demonstrates to the heavens the strength or quality of faith possessed by the Saints, and also exhibits faith as a principle of power, for such it is; who can doubt it when we are told that through faith the worlds were framed by the Word of God;[C] and through faith the saints in all ages of the world have been able to perform the works already set down to their credit.
[Footnote C: Heb xi: 3.]
Another result flows from these experiences— these sufferings, trials and sacrifices of the saints. They bring to the faithful who endure them the assurance—nay, the knowledge of their acceptance with God. This knowledge occupies an important place in religion, for it is through that knowledge and through that alone, that men will be able to endure the trials that ever have and ever will, in a state of probation, beset the pathway of candidates for the celestial kingdom of God. "Such was and ever will be the situation of the saints of God, that unless they have an actual knowledge that the course they are pursuing is according to the will of God, they will grow weary in their minds, and faint; for such has been, and always will be the opposition in the hearts of unbelievers and those that know not God, against the pure and unadulterated religion of heaven (the only thing which insures eternal life), that they will persecute to the uttermost all that worship God according to his revelations, receive the truth in the love of it, and submit themselves to be guided and directed by his will; and drive them to such extremities, that nothing short of an actual knowledge of their being the favorites of heaven, and of their having embraced that order of things which God has established for the redemption of man, will enable them to exercise that confidence in him, necessary for them to overcome the world, and obtain that crown of glory which is laid up for them that fear God. . ."