President Heber C. Kimball got up with the invocation of “God bless the Saints, and peace be multiplied unto them.” He respected and loved good men and women who were striving to do the will of Heaven. The Mormons were united, and he wanted them to continue so, and be of one heart and of one mind, and to do as they were told. The South had seceded from the North, but the Mormons would never secede from either. He had sometimes a kind of notion that North and South would secede from them, and if they did so the Mormons couldn’t help it, and the Lord would yet make a great people of them, just as fast as they were able to bear it.
Heber had a fling at “the miserable creatures who had been sent here one time and another to rule and judge them.” The yoke was off their neck; they were away out from the confusion, and the yoke was on the neck of their enemies, and the bow-key was in. Many were engaged in trying to have the Mormons associate with them in a national capacity; but they would have nothing to do with them. “No, gentlemen and ladies, we are free from them, and will keep free.” Heber was satisfied with their position in the mountains. Brigham was their governor; had always been so, and would always be so. He went around about with his hands in his pocket, and governed the people. They had the Lord for ruler, and the men whom he delegated could govern the people. He had no fear, for he lived above the law; he transgressed no law, and had nothing to apprehend. With an exhortation to go to and make themselves happy and independent by their own industry, Heber’s racy discourse terminated with a hearty amen from the congregation.
President Brigham Young was much pleased to meet with the Saints. The Church was that day thirty-one years old—it seemed but a short time, yet a great work had been done. He remembered when he had a great anxiety to see some person of foreign birth embrace the faith. For the first few years it was only Americans who received it, but he could now gaze upon tens of thousands from the nations of the Old World. He discarded miracles as being any evidence of the divinity of any man’s mission: men might be astonished by them, but the spirit only could convince and satisfy the mind. Referred to Aaron’s operations: turning his stick into a serpent, filling the air with life, and turning the rivers into blood, did not satisfy. He alluded to the troubles in the States, and warned the people against too great anxiety; thought the nation was breaking up quite fast enough. All he was anxious about was the Saints being prepared for every event in the providence of the Lord. He sometimes wondered if the great men of the nation ever asked themselves the question, “How can a republican government stand?” There was but one way in which it could endure—as the government of heaven endures upon the basis of eternal truth and virtue. Had Martin Van Buren redressed the wrongs committed against the Saints—had he ordered the State of Missouri to restore them to their property, the nation would be stronger to-day than it is. He mourned to see the corruption, and he sometimes felt a blush for being an American. He had been reared by the green mountains of Vermont, and could look down upon the nation and mourn that he had no power to save it. Although he had no reason to doubt that President Lincoln was as good a man as ever sat in the chair of state, he had little hope of his accomplishing much. He was powerless, because of the corruptions that had been introduced and fostered by the chief men of the nation. “Abraham’s” authority and power was like a rope of sand: he was weak as water. The governments that had been had put aside the innocent, justified thieving and every species of debauchery, and had fostered every one that plundered the coffers of the people, and said let it be so.
The choir sung, “Arise, oh glorious Zion,” and with a benediction from President Joseph Young we got home for dinner.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
At 2 P.M. the choir sung,
“Great God attend while Zion sings,”
and Bishop Lorenzo D. Young prayed.
The choir sung,
“All hail the glorious day, by prophets long foretold.”