President Hammond will now speak to you. This is certainly an inspirational sight. We have counted the number of present, and there's 338 people here. We still have more. I thought maybe a little levity wouldn't be out of order, especially when I tell a joke on myself. When I heard the president telling about what victims of habit we are, it reminded me of an experience.

I had yesterday. My car went bad on my car. I picked up it in use. I got on my horse, got it up the street to take care of some duties that I felt that I could do. And I heard a strange noise coming up behind me. I didn't know whether it was a tractor or a pickup or some worn-out outfit or what it was. And I looked up in my rearview mirror to see what was coming.

I certainly pray for the Spirit of God to dictate my remarks what few times I, few minutes that I occupy. I am anxious to see this people impressed and inspired to begin to perform. I think so vividly when I look on this congregation with so many young people in it the day that I walked into the Lincoln Street house and found Brother Bono.

sitting at his table when he turned to me so earnestly and said, Brother Hammond, if we're going to have a people, we're going to have to wear one. I don't know of words that ever settled upon me with such solemnity, yes, and such despair in my life. The only reason that I was filled with despair is because I was so young and inexperienced. I've had pitiful conditions.

We got their way till we were a people. But here they are. If they'll just give us 10 more years. That was about 14, maybe 14 or 15 years ago that we made that remark. If they'll just give us another 10 years, it's fair going to be on the other side, in the other business, because this people is going to grow and multiply. I can see more vividly when I look into your faces and contemplate their lives and circumstances surrounding this people.

The work that lies before the priesthood. I recognize to quite a marked degree that it doesn't lie within the third year capacity of the people to take their children from their infancy to adulthood and marriage and provide for all their wants and needs. And it's lawfully, I presume, so I try to keep pushing the burden as much as I can upon the people. Much of it's going to fall upon the council of the priesthood. And so I...

People looking with favor and delight upon the prospect of us having our school. I've been somewhat discouraged the last ten days or two weeks because of this intense heat. It seems to bear on me a little harder than usual. I've spent so many years away in the shelter of the dead. It's pretty hard to face this heat in the work. And having compassion for myself, I have it for my dead. But I pray now, earnestly, spirit of God and the grace of God will be upon us and we will have the zeal and the courage and fortitude to prosecute our work to its completion. I can't help but feel that there are more effective ways to do our work. Brother Steve and Brother Doc Taylor just came from New Mexico. It's a glowing story that a Mexican and two Hucky boys put out over a thousand babies in seven hours. We have

A thousand boys and we put up with them. Anyway, I'd like to get the ratio a little better. I haven't met one sour note in all the brethren that I've dated yet about using Adobe's for our building material. So we've got to find a quicker way to measure. It's piling up, but not fast enough. I wonder if I'm not a bit poor sometimes when I think so much of our temporal condition.

and not dwell more on our spiritual condition. But I've never seen a corrupt body possess a free spirit. And I can't conceive of a people to send their daughters into poverty and enjoy the spiritual growth that they need. I'm confident, I'm honestly confident that our children need to grow up in more healthy and inspirational surroundings. We often go back to our pioneer leaders, both here in the Valleys, in the mountains, and in the nation at large, and bring our great men out of some large army. And God has certainly used some of his poor servants to perform great works. But I don't recall ever finding any of them remaining in poverty. I'm sure that Abraham was a poor boy, his father was a worshipper of idols, and because of his...

Love for Abraham in spite of his religion, he sent him back to the papyrus that they might kill him and wear him to manhood, and I suppose that's because of the pleadings of his mother. And he lived as an orphan in the family of Melchizedek and our great father Noah till he attained to manhood. But I suppose that he died one of the greatest, one of the wealthiest men of the earth, undoubtedly one of the great princes of the earth, Joseph Smith.

born and reared in hardship and poverty, but he died a wealthy and a great man. He is surrounded by people and influence in the festivities of life. We find President Jones coming out of hardship and splendor and grandeur and grandeur that is inspirational to the people. And I don't want us to feel that we've got to remain in abject poverty in order to be saints of God.

What we've got to do to be saints of God is get ourselves in the condition that we can bring ourselves as children up in good spiritual surroundings and provide them with services, tools to work with that they can move on to greater heights and ambitions. It's an absolute necessity. I've often thought about my own poverty, and yet I can no longer consider myself a poor man. I fear that I have all the wealth that God can justly bestow upon me.

I have the understanding and the principle to return to life in my mind and in my business. I have some knowledge how to control the elements and use them for the building of my life and my death wants and needs. And that same condition dwells in the bosoms of my brother. And consequently there is nothing that can come from such conditions but wealth. And we should prepare our minds to begin to acquire these things and use them for the building of the kingdom of God.

I hear men and women deploring their lives around me so very often about the fact that they're growing old. And maybe they are. But I don't feel that I'm growing old. I wouldn't change the conditions that I live in today for any of the days of my youth. To me, they were the most despicable of all the years that ever surrounded me. I deplore ignorance and drunkenness and lack of understanding and all the things that go up.

around the people that are lacking in the forest the gospel of jesus christ and the trade the knowledge that i have for any of this world's good would be one of the most ridiculous things that could cross my mind i would rather have my understanding and to have the continuation of my life upon this earth and so i feel that in conjunction with my brethren and many of you that i find the soul of jesus and become a wealthy man I've lived in this community under varying circumstances and never once did I ever feel that I was poor. I want us to begin to lay plans to improve our surroundings and our circumstances. You've heard me plead from this stand now for nearly a year to have to use the resources that are at our disposal. And I dare to predict now that many of you people a year from now will have well-established homes in this community.

And your children will be growing and prospering and their lives will be extended and enlarged to a very marked degree. I don't know how God is going to shelter us unless he is lulling our enemies into a condition of kind of security. I like the propaganda that they're sending out. I think it's wonderful. This article has come out in the Phoenix paper not long ago saying that when the highway went through practice, it would mean the obliteration of the community. It's the only way that this...

place to thrive was in isolation and when that was done away that we would gradually fade away and i hope they thought of us here i think it's wonderful we'll just get a few more concoctions up like that and take it down and i'll be a happy man we're right on their highways while they're taking them i can see more clearly than i've ever seen before in my life the necessity of this place and i brought it to this stand and i've seen The wind blow to them hard that they covered up my tracks before I got my feet out. I wondered why I was there. I've seen men's work blow away year after year and day after day. And they're threaded towards the sand and never make a mark. And I've wondered why. I can't help but think of this man. Man with the gift. How this man is poor. Poor. Poor. I know that he wasn't calling for a place. He was calling for a principle.

to call just the same that's most fearful of but i can begin to see the necessity of the place now for this people this multitude of children that's coming in the multitude has only started if they'll just give us 10 more years there'll be 10 000 people in this community 10 years but they don't know how we need the people to be managed i don't want to build up a time for the gentiles to come and direct and manage i told you this before It's just a good rule. I think it's one of the most unjust things for us to contemplate, building a city for the thanks of the Most High God and then turn it over to their chief officers to manage. And I think it's high time that we are making our influence felt and begin to organize a city here. I don't know why in this county that they have got to take that pride in having the county managed by commissions and so forth and no city government existing in the Mojave County.

But I think it's time for us to organize a city in this place where we might make some legal barrier and means whereby we might manage ourselves and establish our own offices and have our own laws whereby it will be necessary for them to send officers in here to manage their people. And I might just as we begin to live above the laws of this nation. As I go home today after the precept meeting I have that constant continuous reminders as I drive down that street and turn that corner in the lowly condition that this people has. And I think it's, I think it's all right that we can be better. But just let it remind you every day that you ought to be better. That you ought to make such an impression upon the mind of our Heavenly Father that we will make it possible for us to manage our own affairs. That's what we want. And that in the most just and efficient manner possible.

I don't know why we have to rely upon the Egyptians and the Gentiles and all the other outcasts of the house of God to manage our civil government and to build our cities. Ancient Israel and the subsequent days of Moses lived in bondage with the Egyptians and built their cities. And I suppose that they were living in mud huts and no opportunity, no capacity, no will to step forth and...

Well, it's not neat in the eyes of God that those conditions prevail today. But they're prevailing. Our people in Salt Lake City is being managed by the civil government there that's corrupt as hell. And our people in Salt Lake are being managed by a government that's corrupt as hell. And we're powerless to help ourselves. Either when we get up a little ways, we become efficient and get slapped down or something goes wrong.

Joseph Smith had this vision and this picture in Nauvoo. But our people couldn't remain humble enough. And I suppose that he said in his final words that it's not proper to reveal unto the Gentiles and to the outside people their weaknesses and to declare their rights. And so I'd be inclined to go around here and tell you. I told you about that sleeping dog. Well, let's let him lie. If we do any mapping, why, let's just map around our...

our contemporaries and not impress them about our great ambitions. But we've got to have them. Well, if Steve put on some demonstrations here last night, it would reveal to me something that's bubbling in his heart. Activities and expressions that speak to the abundance of the heart. And when he dreams, dreams and has ambitions, it's only a result of the things that he can see. And if this people refuse to dream, and have ambition, then we're helpless and powerless in the hands of our enemies, and we can't be any better than we're doing. So we've got to dream dreams, and we've got to have hope, and we've got to lay a foundation, and we've got to build a character that's simply skeptical to the spirit and power of God, to manage that which falls from the lives of the people. And I know, I know that the power of God is with us. That I know.

But I know that we've got to develop these capacities and this integrity that's so vitally necessary for the development of this people. How many Brighams and Hebrews and John Taylors there are in this congregation, God hasn't shown me. But you must be there someplace. And I pray to God that you're preparing your lives well. That you might step forth in the hours of your days and lead and guide this people into fulfillment of the dreams and ambitions that's been planned.

and for the great millennium. Where, where, oh, where does this expression come from? That's why the guy says it's God that found the sword of Laban, instead of Brigham, and Oliver Codwell, and Joseph Starr, and I suppose Gilder, and a few others. Laying the cross up in Matthew's chiefest field. This sword shall never be used again until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our God. Please, you must not flee from me. And what's this? It wasn't.

And I think of the marvelous ladies that he performed on behalf of his children. I'm humbled to read this. And I think of the integrity of his heart, of his soul. He was able to choose like this and acquire God. and given us life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and a knowledge and understanding of eternal life, love, and charity. I am thankful for those men that they heard the truth, and passed on down to me in my day and time a correct knowledge and the understanding of the character of my Father, and that I know that he lives. I thank him that I know that God lives, and is no longer a myth.

In the life of Brother Hammond. Yes. I haven't known. That God lives. But I know that we're here. For this blessed person. To testify of his character. And his humility. And his capacity. To bless and prosper the lives of these children. And to redeem them. Through the grace and power of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our elder brother. He is right outside at home. And by the sacrifice.

Those are the things that I know. And those are the things that spring up and fill my soul with jealousy. When that old superintendent in my high school stood up before that congregation and said, I want you people to know that when you leave this life, if you can count your friends on one hand, it will be fortunate for you to do that. And I'm talking about me to come now.

But what do we have in the work of God? A hundred and thirty-four thousand friends are the most found integrity that can be produced from the bosom of God. Friends, we have the order of friends, and we have the principles of nature. And hold them true, and we fall, and we fall, and we fall, and we fall, and we fall.

that men will come to the limit of God or of man. And I get worried with you people when I see you doing that. And I want you to listen. I want you to endure. I want you to observe. And I want you to dream dreams. And I want you women to plant dreams in the hearts of your sons and daughters. All the dreams under the direction of the Spirit of God and fill them with your faith that they will never, will never be forgotten.

When this poem of peace that is gone, it'll fall into stalwart hands, I say. I try to make these remarks, but there's something strange in the life of Edward Hammond. Through all the hardships and trials and vicissitudes of his life, he feels kindred with the prophet Joseph Smith. I do, and I want it in there. And I want to say that his life shall not have been in vain. And that noble blood is spilled upon the ground. I...

Feel the bleed with Brother Taylor and Brother Brigham and Brother Bieber. I've had the tears roll down my face like you and you and all the rest of you. And I've read the glories of their lives. And in those moments, I could have gladly let my blood flow with them. And in the fourth one, they're on the floor now. Brigham's day one day and mine another. They're not there the same day. That day was created in the presence of God Almighty.

We were all sent forth to turn this body up the gate. If our enemies are willing to sleep, God bless them. I hope they have a long night. I want this people to have ten years. And I want you women to work, teach them, to hold them in store in the bosom of their children, that they'll never depart. And quit idling away your time, consuming and partying with your husband. For there's work to do.

And your ladies will be in vain unless you perform them in conjunction with the creatures of Almighty God. When you go to gather up your jewels, you'll find they've lost their lepers. Unless you raise them to the glory of the creatures of God. Please remember that. And if this attitude will begin to predominate in the lives of you women, this work is absurd. I've got faith in your son. You are potatoes!

And God is going to hold you responsible just as much as he has restricted for the spirit that's committed to your care. And if you can't receive the gift, you'll perish it. And you'll not be able to help yourself. If I go wild, I'll have him to help me. And that's the only stop that I have. And if you run and fall to death, that'll be your reward and God Almighty's going to stop it. So let there rise our slumbering minds.

And try to count the vision of the work that's been begun in these last days to us in the most sacred and holy period of time that this world has been able to dream about. That we might get our temple work done. That we might have our way to God. That the Lord Jesus Christ come and live with us. And dwell in our presence. And bless our children. And instill inside our hearts a love for God.

That's why the devil's holding us down, because if he knows we ever get our heads up, we've won the race. And we're playing right into his hands with this slothful and sleepy and indolent attitude that we live in. So let's wake up and run and build with a spirit of gratitude in our hearts and an eye to the glory of God. And I lay this on that and see him came. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.