DELIVERED BY
PRESIDENT GEO. A. SMITH,
IN THE
NEW TABERNACLE, SALT LAKE CITY, OCTOBER 8th, 1869.
It is a difficult undertaking to address this immense audience. If a man commences speaking loud, in a short time his voice gives out; whereas, if he commences rather low, he may raise his voice by degrees, and be able to sustain himself in speaking some length of time. But with children crying, a few persons whispering, and some shuffling their feet, it is indeed a difficult task to make an audience of ten thousand persons hear. I have listened with pleasure to the instructions of our brethren from the commencement of our Conference to the present time. I have rejoiced in their testimonies. I have felt that the Elders are improving in wisdom, in knowledge, in power and in understanding; and I rejoice in the privilege, which we have at the present day, of sending out to our own country, a few hundred of the Elders who have had experience—who have lived in Israel long enough to know, to feel and to realize the importance of the work in which they are engaged—to understand its principles and comprehend the way of life. They can bear testimony to a generation that has nearly grown from childhood since the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
The Lord said in relation to those who have driven the Saints that he would visit "judgment, wrath and indignation, wailing and anguish, and gnashing of teeth upon their heads unto the third and fourth generation, so long as they repent not and hate me, saith the Lord your God."
I am a native of Potsdam, St. Lawrence County, New York—a town somewhat famous for its literary institutions, its learning and the religion and morality of its inhabitants. I left there in my youth, with my father's family, because we had received the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as revealed through Joseph Smith; and followed with the Saints through their drivings and trials unto the present day.
I have never seen the occasion, nor let the opportunity slip, from the time when I first came to a knowledge of the truth of the work of the Lord in the last days, that I understood it was in my power to do good for the advancement of this work, but what I have used my utmost endeavors to accomplish that good. I have never failed to bear a faithful testimony to the work of God, or to carry out, to all intents and purposes, the wishes and designs of the Prophet Joseph Smith. I was his kinsman; was familiar with him, though several years his junior; knew his views, his sentiments, his ways, his designs, and many of the thoughts of his heart, and I do know that the servants of God, the Twelve Apostles, upon whom He laid the authority to bear off the Kingdom of God, and fulfill the work which he had commenced, have done according to his designs, in every particular, up to the present time, and are continuing to do so. And I know, furthermore, that he rejoiced in the fact that the law of redemption and Celestial Marriage was revealed unto the Church in such a manner that it would be out of the power of earth and hell to destroy it; and that he rejoiced in the fact that the servants of God were ready prepared, having the keys, to bear off the work he had commenced. Previous to my leaving Potsdam, there was but one man that I heard of in that town who did not believe the Bible. He proclaimed himself an atheist and he drowned himself.
The Latter-day Saints believe the Bible. An agent of the American Bible Society called on me the other day and wanted to know if we would aid the Society in circulating the Bible in our Territory? I replied yes, by all means, for it was the book from which we were enabled to set forth our doctrines, and especially the doctrine of plural marriage.
There is an opinion in the breasts of many persons—who suppose that they believe the Bible—that Christ, when He came, did away with plural marriage, and that He inaugurated what is termed monogamy; and there are certain arguments and quotations used to maintain this view of the subject, one of which is found in Paul's first epistle to Timothy (iii chap. 2 vs.), where Paul says: "A Bishop should be blameless, the husband of one wife." The friends of monogamy render it in this way: "A Bishop should be blameless, the husband of but one wife." That would imply that any one but a bishop might have more. But they will say, "We mean—a bishop should be blameless, the husband of one wife only." Well, that would also admit of the construction that other people might have more than one. I understand it to mean that a bishop must be a married man.