Have met, and both have record borne;
Thus Zion’s light is bursting forth,
To bring her ransomed children home.
Apostle Lorenzo Snow offered prayer, and the choir sung, “Praise ye the Lord; ’tis good to praise.”
Apostle Benson was first invited to address the Conference. “Brother Ezra” is generally called a son of thunder—great preacher, I suppose. On this occasion he aimed at being modest, and after expressing his gratitude for the privilege of being permitted to attend Conference, to come and see the Prophet, his counselors, and the twelve apostles, and the good brothers and sisters, he was prepared to bear his testimony.
He knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet; that his predictions had been fulfilled, and were daily fulfilling, to the joy of all the Saints. He would not stop there in his testimony; he would bear testimony to the teachings of President Brigham Young. His counselors—Heber C. Kimball and Daniel H. Wells—were also true as the revelations of Joseph, and he rejoiced in them. Oh, what a joy it was to know that they had such men to lead them! What would be the condemnation of those who rejected their testimony? Ezra was quite serious—yea, serious to shuddering.
The fearfulness of apostasy was eloquently portrayed. False spirits attending it, and false revelations bestowed on the backslider, and every other ugly, disagreeable business was the certain lot of the apostate, and from which the brethren were decently warned.
President Daniel H. Wells was much pleased with the Latter-Day work; it was a great blessing to live in the light of the Gospel. It had been but a few years proclaimed to the world. The channel of communication between heaven and earth was again open to the children of men. Brother Wells referred to the state of the nation. The present trouble was the result of bad treatment to the Saints. The people of God had been driven into the wilderness—thousands might have perished, and the government was indifferent. It was a political axiom, that when governments ceased to protect, the people were released from their obligations. The government had never protected the Saints as other citizens. They had been driven from place to place, and the murderers of Joseph Smith had gone unpunished. Fault had been found with the Mormons because they had asked the government to appoint good men as federal officers—men in whom they had confidence. They were for this called rebels; but they were probably the only people that would yet stand by the Constitution and uphold it.
The government had fallen in the eyes of the civilized world; it had become corrupt and debased. Nowadays nobody expected any thing from public servants but corruption. These things were well known to every body. The Saints had been molested and could get no redress. The Prophet Joseph, moved by the Spirit of the Most High, told their enemies there that they would see mobbing to their heart’s content, for the measure that they meted to the Saints should be meted to them back again.
The Saints could now see the distracted state of the nations, and the confusion of all governments. If they were wise men and women, they would appreciate the blessed inheritance that the Lord had brought them to. He had but one request to make, and that was, that the people should not only believe in the counselings of President Young, but be diligent, and see that his counseling prospered.