We'll hear from President Musser. Before the meeting, we were trying to determine where the trees could be planted to make shade for everyone so we'd be more comfortable. I remarked to Brother Johnson that Brigham Young and the Saints met under the Bowery for a long time, and as soon as the tabernacle was finished and several of the wardhouses, They face the problem of giving them up or signing a manifesto. And Brother Woodruff said, instead of giving up all these wonderful things that we've struggled so hard to build, we'll sign the manifesto. That's what he said. And I take it that's why I'm not so interested in building a chapel, because I know that we'll either have to sign a manifesto or abandon it. And I see no reason to...

give our laborers money and time to abandon something. I think that we can show our faithfulness without nailing some boards together and build a chapel. Now, I'd like to approach a subject for a few minutes for our enlightenment. And in doing so, I don't want you to feel that I'm discounting the value of people going to prison.

or that it has a place in, that it doesn't have a place in the work of the Lord. The scriptures tell us that persecution is the heritage of the faithful, but there's hardly anyone who understands this principle. And when you mention the word persecution, your mind immediately goes to the physical martyrdom that has taken place by Christian people.

I suppose there's as many martyrs in the world today in behalf of religion as there has ever been. We hear very little of it. In Spain, the church is prohibited from holding public meetings. There are many Catholic priests in prison for life. All throughout the civilized world, men are being punished today for their religious beliefs.

and for preaching. Even in the United States, there are religious martyrs outside of this particular group. And yet, outside of this particular group, can anyone point to any good that is coming from such persecution or has it sanctified the Catholic priest or the Christian missionary to die for his beliefs?

No. When the Lord said that persecution is a heritage of the faithful, he meant something else. And that's what I'd like to dwell upon for a few minutes. In the first place, we were born of goodly parents in the spirit world. And they're tutored and trained and brought up to a fine degree.

of intelligence relating to the plan of our Father in Heaven. We were taught that we would be able to become like Him and have power to perpetuate ourselves and continue our seeds. And upon that principle was the reason that we rejoiced and was willing to turn against each other in the spirit world.

and do battle. After having accomplished the purpose, the purposes of our labors there, we have been sent into this lone and dreary world that we might prove ourselves herewith, that we will do all things whatsoever Father tells us to do, as we did there. We find ourselves in this favorable position here because we did that very thing. Now, what condition do I find myself in here upon this earth? I find a fine, tender, intelligent, God-like spirit clothed in an imperfect body filled with the customs, and traditions, and sins, and failures of 6,000 years, I find that this fine spirit has had prepared for it this type of a physical body. And then the Lord says, Now my son, I want you to take this body and dwell in hell and perfect it.

and bring it up to a celestial condition where, as a living soul, you can dwell in my presence. Now this is a problem that faces me. This is a telestial world. My fine, sensitive, godlike, native spirit has been encased with this faulty body. And I have been asked to walk. as a stranger in hell. And I have found that there has been no condition, there has been no provision in any sense of the word made for my comfort here in hell. This is a teletral world or it's hell. On the other hand, I find that where they could, They have legislated against me in every possible way. So there's no provision made for my comfort. They have made no provision for my sensitive feelings in regard to a marriage relationship. They have made no provisions to help me provide for a family.

if I were to have a large family. They have made no provisions to assist me in administrating to the needs of those about me under the order of the Lord. You can't think of anything that has been provided for the benefit of a celestial being here in hell. Everything that has been made and developed is for the benefit of telestial characters. And yet I am to bring my celestial spirit, place it in a telestial body, and take the two in a perfect condition back into the presence of the Lord. And there is a problem. And that is why...

Persecution is a heritage of the faithful. For the moment, that moment that your spirit first expresses itself in this little earthly infant body, you begin to go through the process of persecution if you are a saint and if you have a saintly spirit. And as you grow, and begin to manipulate this body after the order of godliness by the use of the priesthood, the greater the persecution blows against you, and the less provision is made for your personal welfare. If I should go over here tomorrow morning to my work with the railroad, there has been no provision there made.

Among those men, so do they say. Now when Brother Musser comes to work this morning, he has a very sensitive spirit. He actually believes that men and women can live in a pure relationship sexually. Now because of his belief, and because he thinks that this is possible, he has this right and we should respect his feelings.

So we don't want to swear or to bring up sex or to speak disrespectfully of sex around him. We want to protect him and help his feelings. It's quite laughable, isn't it? So there's no provision at all made for my sensitive feelings. So I go to work, and the moment that I strike my employment, I begin to be mentally persecuted. I have to listen to obscene jokes. I have to listen to men talking about their filthy relationship with their women and their children. I have to listen to all of that without upraising. And so it's persecution. It's mental.

persecution. And here's a man with four or five women and 30 or 40 children, and they give him a job for $500 a month at this fine institution over here, and think that they're doing him a favor. Why, they're not doing anything for him. They're doing him a favor if he only had one wife, yes.

That's plenty of money and means. But they're not doing anything for his order of financial life or for his economic needs. They haven't said, well, now Mr. So-and-so has more than one family. And because of that, we must provide a greater income for him. so that he can keep these children and these women in the same respectability that we keep ours. So, because of that, we're going to have to pay him $2,000 a month to look after his affairs. That'll happen under the direction of the perfect economical conditions of the celestial law. But it doesn't happen now.

So here is this man, goes out, and they pay him the prevailing wage for his labor and expect him to keep 50 people on it. And if he were to raise one accent of displeasure or protest, they'd want to drive him out of the country. So there has been no provision at all made for him to live that portion of the law of God. And so we could go down the human scale of activity, and there is no provision. Brother Hammond has spoken of the school situation. Is there any provision in the school situation that would protect the...

tender and sensitive feelings of a celestial spirit. Of course not. The things that go on in the schoolroom causes the devil to shudder. But he's the father of it all, and be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, the same shall he reap. So he can't do anything but shudder. He's reaping what he's sown.

But it even frightens him what goes on. Now this is where the persecution comes. So that any man or woman who desires to be a saint inherits persecution. Do you see it? Inherits persecution. Sometimes it comes to the physical body. in the way of imprisonment or other things. But this other persecution is more general and certain than that. And so anyone who is making a saint out of themselves, you can be sure is suffering persecution in every manner there is to suffer it. They have to suffer persecution from their own people, from their own family, from their own brethren, from their own associates. There's no place along the line where they don't have to suffer persecution. They may as well make up their minds that they have to endure it if they're going to live and become a saint.

There's no way for you to get out from under it until Satan is bound. And this is the persecution that tries men's soul. Imprisonment? Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to belittle it. My mother, both grandfathers, my father and myself have suffered imprisonment for the sake of this work. But as my father said, And as he said, both of my grandfathers said, I have found out one thing, Guy, it doesn't necessarily make a saint out of a man. And we have sure seen that illustrated from our earliest dawn of history. But this other persecution, if suffered, and if we rise above it, will make the saint out of us.

These are the things that brings the crisis as to whether to compromise or not. These mental and moral persecutions that they've been talking about today. What are you going to do when your associates at your employment begin to persecute you mentally? Are you going to compromise and fall in with them?

or are you going to resist them mentally? If you do, you've got a battle on your hands of constant resistance, constant resistance in trying to get and keep the Spirit of the Lord. Now you all find yourselves in the same position I find myself. I have come as a sensitive celestial spirit.

and had given to me a faulty physical body, which the council has told me I must take through this condition of hell, overcome hell, the grave, and the devil, and prepare it to go through the veil back into the presence of my father. That's what I've been told to do. And you have been told to do the same thing. And so that's why the moment that I first cried in this life, I begin to inherit persecution. And it has never ceased. And the greater that my character draws and becomes assimilated into the character of my Father in Heaven, the greater will be my persecution, even though no one will see it. And few might not realize it, might realize it, but the greater will be the persecution heaped upon me. And as President Kimball said, so great will it be that the more faithful among us will pray day and night.

until we are delivered. Delivered from what? This condition of hell and taken and placed in a condition of celestial life from whence we have come and where we want to return, where our native feelings are protected, the place we love and understand and are understood Good and so persecution is your heritage, my dear brothers and sisters. You're living in hell. You are faithful and true, and some of you were ordained and consecrated and set apart and dedicated by the laying on of hands to come here to perform a certain work at this time.

But this is a condition you find yourselves in, that you have been asked to take this faulty body and take it through this condition of hell and finally overcome this condition of hell, the grave, and the devil. So you cannot expect any rest or any peace. Peace is not a word with a saint.

There's no such a thing as peace. Our Lord and Savior does not have it. Father Adam is still watching his children behind the veil, fighting and contending and falling. We find that we can have a condition of peace, and that is our relationship with our Father in Heaven and with our associates.

That's where our peace comes. But any person who comes to this earth prepared and willing to take sainthood upon themselves must realize that they are out of their element, and the higher they rise out of their element, the greater will be their moral and mental persecution until sometimes they will cry day and night.

that they might be relieved of this terrible condition that exists around them. So, brethren and sisters, with this explanation of these things, let us go to and realize that we are engaged in a great warfare. And this warfare will continue. It is said of Jesus Christ that he will not have accomplished his work until he goes before the Father and says, I have trodden the winepress alone, Father. Here's the work that you gave me to do, fully completed. Now, aren't we in the same condition? We have to return and say, I have trodden the winepress alone. I have accomplished the work you sent me into hell to do, brethren.

And now I have returned to receive my blessings. That's what we have to do. There's much said about men having to have experience in order to learn. If that's the only way we can learn is through suffering, it's certainly better than nothing. But in the spirit world, we were taught the doctrine of learning by faith, not by suffering.

And it's possible for a man to go through this world by faith and not have to undergo the suffering that we speak of in regard to learning obedience. Does it mean that he's going to have lifted this heritage of persecution? No, he has that. It means that he doesn't have to steal.

He doesn't have to go to jail to learn obedience to the law of not stealing, of not committing murder, or of not doing other things. It means that he'll live by faith and that he'll do what Father tells him to do through faith, not have to get burned to do it all the time, and learn through his suffering principle of obedience. There shouldn't be a man here sitting today who shouldn't be able to turn to his son and say, Son, I can take you through this life so that they don't have to learn obedience by suffering, degradation, and punishment. If you will do everything I tell you to do, I have walked this path.

I have been through this world and I know exactly how to guide you. Does it mean that he's not going to be persecuted? Why, of course not. I can't lift that. My father can't lift that. The moment that I take that little tender spirit in my arms, I know that I can't lift it. That the more celestial it becomes, the greater...

the persecution will be against him or her. I know that. But I can keep him or her from going below all things. I can keep her or him from being punished, from becoming degraded, by losing their usefulness, trying to learn obedience by the things they suffer. That's an outmoded way.

of learning. That's why men say, I don't want my son or daughter to go through what I have. I want them to live by faith so that they can finally say, Father, I have done all things whatsoever you have commanded me to do. And by doing that, they will inherit persecution, but they will become useful.

at a youthful age, and will live out their lives servants of the Lord. And they won't have to spend this first four years trying to pull up some wild oats. They won't have to be penalized this next four years by the priesthood because of their disobedience. This woman won't have to live with this devilish, telestial man for ten years, before the Lord will give her relief and have her divorced and seal her to a good man. Those are the things, the experiences, that we don't need to have. And the only reason we have them is because of our disobedience. They're not inherited. We receive them because we have failed to do what our Father has asked us to do.

And we come under the law of condemnation and fail to repent. But this matter of persecution cannot be lifted as long as you are in a celestial world and try to become celestial in your nature. But all these other things we can do away with. Our Father in Heaven told us in the councils when all these things were explained to us.

I have been on an earth like this, and I have worked out my salvation, and I know just what is necessary for you to be happy and how to lead you and how to govern you after the order of heaven. That's what he told us, and that's what we can tell one another. But it's disobedience that causes us to suffer.

to learn how to be obedient. And we can overcome that and do away with it entirely. How wonderful it would be if a man had a family of children who were willing to live entirely and learn entirely by faith. Or the priesthood had a group of people that would learn and live entirely by faith.

and would accept everything the Father asked them to do, even though they may not understand why, until long after the events transpire. And you look back into your lives and see if when you suffered penalty and learned obedience through your suffering, It wasn't because you were disobedient and you came under condemnation. But this principle of persecution you will carry on your shoulders regardless of how godlike you are as long as you walk through this telestial or hellish world. When Jesus Christ was here, although he was a god, he had to inherit this load of persecution. And there was no good said of him. And so it was with the other member of the Godhead, Joseph Smith. No matter what office he held or how perfect he might have been, he walked and talked with the ancients all the time. He had to carry this load of persecution, mental and moral.

persecution. He had to carry it and bear it. And those are the things that bore him down. And those are the things that he had to choose between good and evil in. And that's the thing that we have to choose. There's no choice. There's hardly any choice with any of you as to whether you would go to jail or not if you were called upon to. Why, it isn't It isn't sensible to even think that there's anybody here that if they were faced with the problem and couldn't get out of it, they wouldn't do it. But there is a question in everybody's mind as to what they will do to relieve this mental and moral weight of persecution in dealing with the sons and daughters of men here in hell. And that's where the crisis comes.

What are you doing? Are you relieving your persecution? Or are you adding to it through becoming more godlike? Now may the Lord bless and strengthen us and look after us and help to prepare us for this great battle that is raging over our heads. I humbly pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.