It's good to be here and be in such circumstances that we can look into your faces again. For truly you are an inspiration to us. It says our hearts are good to see you. For the things we've heard. For the God is being brought back to language that we've used and heard in the spirit world. Something was regenerated in me. Our hearts are warm. That's our duty is to break this.

covenant with death. The urgencies that get upon us at times are fearful, lest we fail, and we drive you people unmercifully. We have a job to do, and this world is painting such a scene of relaxation and vacationing and ease and luxury that it loves us into our carnal security and makes us sleep away our lives.

We're interested in everything but what we ought to be. And I certainly would like to urge these people to get their affairs of life so that you can carry on this work. You understand it as well as we do. And you ought to govern your affairs and not let them govern you. You ought to submit yourself to the peaceable things of the kingdom of God rather than send up this constant warfare in our midst.

over the principles of life and salvation. My Sunday school this morning announced that we were going to take up the life of Joseph W. Musk. I said, well, that's timely. I think we better take up the life of every good man who stood in the gap in our day and time and began to understand their labor. These sentiments of gratitude have gone through me time and time again for the labors of our brethren who have gone on.

I tried to take a moment and express them this morning. I tell you, brothers and sisters, we haven't risen yet to our might and power and to the grandeur for which we were sent. And we can't do it as long as there's bickering and strife in the midst of this peace. Finding some peace in the priesthood. But until the priesthood can find peace in their lives and in their homes, we're not going to be...

brought up and blessed like we ought to be. And I urge you to begin to listen to the things that's been taught to you and try to apply these things to your life. So many of us are so mighty and big in our conception of our lives. I've watched men rise and just work within this congregation today. I've seen some of them reach the zenith of their power and they start to go back. We hunger and thirst like those.

Like the Babylonians, we'll recognize the blessings of power and dominion over our fellow men. And I'll tell you, it can't come until we're actuated by the principles of eternal life. I was thinking not long ago of the 121st section of the Doctrine and Covenants, where no power can be maintained except by love. You women, folks, will never exert any influence in the kingdom of God.

and in the kingdom of your husband, until it's motivated by love, by a love for your husband, by the love for the work of God, and the love for the servants of God. And if you try to maintain it on any other principle, you'll lose out in the end, for you'll find yourself worthless and useless in the hands of your husband. The same thing is going to be true of you, Brett. Dave, I get to feel warm about this congregation, for you're the only friends we have. We learn to get their joy.

I see the damn despicable way that you live and try to go on year after year. I get so discouraged with the sight of you. People that rise in intelligence, children, the best we've had. And yet you don't seem to rise. Bless the work of God like you are. Why is it that this agitation continues in the midst of this people? The thought of the things that have been reviewed before.

I feel like this has been a fine thing for the money. I don't know if the sermon you speak for many, many billion months, years, is going to have the effect on the people that you have. It's for you, for us. The reasons why we're here. Why did you come? You figures, you eschewers, you people, name yourselves. Why did you come to this world? Why did you answer the call of John and Joseph?

and long those fields were left. For there wasn't to accomplish this very thing that's been reviewed before our eyes. And yet you go so weary, and you stumble along. And we get men coming along, and first thing you know, we've lost them, and they peter out just like the water in the sands of church. We go up there in the mountains, and we're expressed by the sights. We see the water running over the rocks, and by the time we get home, we see it sink into the sand.

That's about the way of the labors of this people. I can't hardly get one of you brothers to mature to where your hair can turn gray in this work. Might and power comes upon you and you start to accusing or something to set you. It robs you of the grace and gift of the spirit of God. So I feel that we ought to repent and renew ourselves. I don't know how your...

Feelings are entirely, I know what their hopes and aspirations are, but I wonder how far you feel to dedicate your life. But I know that mine's dedicated to this proposition. While I sojourn and live upon the earth that I'll never live until I set my fainting, upholding life in labor of brother Taylor and break him down to death like grift that's been placed upon him. I know, brothers and sisters, that we're the people of God.

There springs in the lives of this people a love for freedom. I know that. I know it manifests in the lives of my brethren and sisters. And we long and hope and yearn for the day when we can enjoy this most priceless gift where we're truly embodied. But it's going to come with a price, a high price. I don't think it's an impossible thing, but just lingering in the world.

clinging on to its institute i don't know where where all our places are yet but i tell you we've got to get away from it as much as we can get our vocations and so forth in such a manner that that we can spend as little a time with him as possible and as much as we can spend our time in the work of god i think today is past when we ought to yearn and labor over great quantities of money i don't think the lord is It's impressive. It may have had its time in the days of our poverty, but those days are gone. There's not a poor family left in this world. You're all rich. When I get out of the atmosphere that we live in here and I get in the land of the South and I see how little it takes to make me happy, then I begin to understand that they take the Spirit of God. Then I begin to understand the life of Brother Johnson and the life of the brethren who've gone on.

who accomplished such phenomenal things in their lifetime with so little it worked. Simply because they had the dictates of the Spirit of God and they were buoyed up and carried on and they didn't waste and spend their energy hungering and thirsting after the things of this world. And I know you can't get it. I know you can't get it to keep your religion. The last time I spoke, I made some remarks that I thought that I ought to try to correct, but I didn't.

Can't temper it very much when I was talking about working for pensions. I don't want to discourage any man from taking a pension. I wish you were all on one. The thing that I wanted to impress upon your minds is that you sacrifice your religion and the things of your life to get a pension. You'll apostatize and you will. If you can get it in conjunction with your life and set yourself free from financial worries, then that's a blessing to you. But to forsake your religion.

to cling to an institution that'll give you attention someday will cost you your life in the kingdom of god we've got to have free men you've got to have able and intelligent i was rounding the corner here this morning going back to my home after doing defending these very sentiments went racing through my mind how we ought to thank god for the lives and labors of these men to establish this thing in our hands with no center There's no sense of gratitude that can spring up in the human bosom. It's too great to throw upon a man who has finished his labor and established a course. I feel like I could worship him. I'm going to dictate to the Spirit of God I could worship him. All the brother Hammond has is to turn to the priesthood of God. I know that. I know that as firmly as I know anything in this life. But all my blessings have come

See the priesthood of God and outside of it there aren't any left. Only cursing and heartache and sadness and sorrow. Every association that I look back upon in this thing called our youth, that you young people, some of you old people, yearn over and suppose were so great. Now as I look back on it still with nothing to say. I might have been carried away at some party or some school dance, some church function and thought that I, Had a good time, and momentarily I probably did. But now when I look back at the panorama, there's nothing but stars. Because now life is empty. Because I hadn't found my bedding. The tail of my eyes fell on Joseph Musser, and I took him by the hand. Something took him in. He was the first man of Jordan. He was a remnant. Let's not lose sight of these things, bedding. Let's not lose sight of this course. We've been pushed and pushed and pushed.

trying to get us to renovate our lives. And I cling to the thought yet that there must come into our lives some inspiration to cause us to desire these things and want to make them before we'll ever pay the price and make the change. Maybe this is it. Maybe this refreshing that we've had today over the most favorite and least subject will be the thing that will cause us to make another effort.

to revitalize our strength whereby we might move forward, might cause the big elders in our group to humble themselves and to do the work that's at hand and not lay charges against their fire leaders. This work and this priesthood comes from the bosom of God. We know, we know who paid the price for our priesthood and we might have been called up, but we know that our elder brother Jesus Christ is the man that bought our priesthood and paid for it.

And we've done it from him, through God Almighty. He owned it and possessed it in his own bosom. And our elder brother, Jesus Christ, through his labors and sacrifices and atonement, has bought it and paid for it and bestowed it upon his brethren in what literally is, for he bought it with a price. For that's the fear and the senses and the magnitude and the grace in the eyes of such suffering and sacrifices as he's gone through. And you're following him.

heard about his sacrifices upon this earth and had children get it from their mother's knees. But there wasn't where the great price was paid in my opinion. I think the great price was paid in the spirit world. That's where he paid the price. There's where he rose to prominence and grandeur in his father's family and earned the right and the privilege of becoming our savior. And there's where we learned to follow in his footsteps.

to become associated with it, and learn to love and labor in this work. As I said, it's the opposite. Nothing sprung in my mind of the brother muscle of God. If you don't go through and read it, this is the language that I've heard before. This is my duty while I sojourn here in this life, to be an instrument in the hands of the brethren and associated with them in embracing this situation, this yoke that's been placed upon us by our Gentiles.

brethren and sisters to embrace this work. While we like to deny it, and I'm probably foremost among them, in denying that we're a Gentile people, yet if it wasn't so, I would have been cursed long ago. If we were the pure blood of Israel, God would have had to spew us out of his mouth long, long ago because of our background. But it would have Joseph Young and others have taught us because of our birthright. Lack of some natural information on the part of the people to respond to these things has merited the long suffering and patience of our fathers. But even they have gone far beyond any point of propriety. My conscience is ready now for the scourge. Situations have turned amidst an inter-mountain area of certain influences of evil are swelling in around us.

choking out the very life blood out of his feet. Unless we rally forth and keep the commandments of God as Brother Johnson has dictated to us, we're going to be crushed. Just as sure as you're drawing breath, we're going to be crushed. Unless we rise to these duties and responsibilities that's been placed upon our heads in this world. Just like this church has joined hands with the wicked, and the wicked's going to use them.

The Mormon Church is going to be an institution in the hands of the wicked to crack this work until they've had enough and tried for mercy. I think I'll express a thought that came to my mind the other day. I hope the Lord will grant me a spirit to present it and enlarge upon it in such a manner that it will not be misunderstood. I was thinking of the remark that someone has...

I've been quoting around that Brother Johnson said that this people is going to need the faith of the Brother of Jared, which I heartily agree, and I don't want any misunderstanding. The Brother of Jared was the prophet of God. He was the mouthpiece of God. And I think it's a little bit far-fetched for this people to aspire to such a position when we have the office of the Brother of Jared with us. And it's in my heart, brethren, to aspire to the office of Jared, to be a doer of the Word.

and try to help carry on the work that's been placed upon our final leaders. And I think if we get that spirit in our heart that we'll have a little more harmony among us. For the brother of Jared was a lawgiver to the people. He was the prophet. He was the one that went to the Lord and received the oracles of God and bestowed them upon the people. And that's why Jared went to him. What office Jared held...

Hasn't been entirely revealed. I suppose that he was a prophet too. But certainly his brother was his senior. And he went respectfully. But the priest didn't receive his instruction. And what else did he do? After he performed the work of building the barge and so forth, but to go to his brother. They're not here to work this time. Ask the Lord to prepare the life. If this people will partake of that kind of a spirit, I think we'll have a better spirit.

We truly have a prophet in our midst, one that's been carved out specifically to fit our needs. He's able to get the Spirit of God and able to get the revelations in the mind and will of God. But if people just as often as they need it and just as often as they'll receive it, if we feel like that we're lacking in revelation and lacking in stimulation by the dictates of the Spirit of God, all we need to do is repent of our stiff mechanism, step forth and do, because there's plenty to do.

I still hear, I still hear dropped conversation here and there. It indicates to me the nature of many of this people, and it's not pleasing in the eyes of God. It wasn't not within the womb. Someone come to me and said a certain man said that he would be very glad to help the brethren and do anything they asked him to do. And I'll tell you that man's lab lips swelled in hell a long time before someone come and asked him to do something.

If he hasn't got energy enough and vitality enough and hope enough and investment enough and courage enough to step forth and try to find something to do, I don't think he needs a job. And I hope he never gets one. I'd be glad to see a house cleaned. And this work of some of these men that feel like they have to have a special revelation from God Almighty to find a work when there's so much to do. A little too strong? Out of temper. That's the way I see it. Because there's plenty to do.

Is this thing that has been reviewed to our minds to do? That's what's to be done. Here's a multitude of young people that's coming up, depending on their elders, to find a way through this work, to map the course, to make way for them, that they might get a firm hold upon this thing and live their lives. I've often reviewed, I was called on one time when I was a priest, first counseling the priest for them, which meant that I...

I stood next to the bishop and I preached for him. They called on me to preach in St. Louis. I didn't think that I had it in me, but when I got up, I made a few remarks that even I haven't forgotten. I tried to remind the parents that while they were worrying about their kids going to hell, they ought to look to their own lives. We had just been come to our little group of people, that the people in Rexburg had had social parties going all winter long, and the men and women had been trading wives.

You want your children to be good, but how good do you want them to be good? Do you want them to be good like Brother Lorenzo Snow said certain people were good? They were good, but what were they good for? The only person that's good for anything in this work is the person that has the courage to step forward and perpetuate the laws of God under the direction of the Spirit of God and the servants of God. That's the only person that's good in this work. And if you can't quite do that, then the only other person that's any good will try to sustain those who are trying to do that. That's why they're good to be done. Some of you men have...

He's risen here and performed herculean efforts and works and performances that will bless you as long as you live. Now that's why you can do good. It doesn't seem to matter how thick your hair is or how you're combed or whether you wear glasses or anything else. It just seems to be how willing you are ready to put your hands where your heart is. We used to say when we were so hard up here in this group, we used to judge a man whether he could get his hands on his toes.

His mouth and his purse in the same place. And so it is with this mouth. It's whether we can get our labors and our faith and our hearts in the same place. And all this goodness that we're talking about is broader off unless we bring it to an application of the release of this work. Talk about the character of God. I think I could read you a few things about this character that are not written. He never obtained the Godhood by some hocus-pocus.

He was faithful in the spirit world in which he was born. And when he got to the earth upon which he worked out his probation, he put his hands and his heart in the same place. And that's the way he obtained the attributes of his father, diligently working at the things that he was trying to do. And I don't think it's possible for a man to acquire the attributes of God with one foot in the world and another foot in the work of God. I don't think you can acquire the attributes of God that way.

Because God's affidavit cannot be bothered. I'll tell you, we've got to bring ourselves to be more closely associated with this work and carry its burden and share in its trials and labors. Fully. Brethren, the Lord is blessed with brethren with a lot of ability and power to do that. It's the state of the men here. If you want them to get all the blessings, you don't. I know you don't. So the thing for you to do.

As I advise our southern people to do, is to get a chunk of this work and call it their own. Work at it. Whether it's here or there or wherever it is, it's a work of it. Some might have been discouraged in thinking that we don't need a project in this work. Why, the last labors of the troops would be the project. I've had one before me for 20 years in this work. Whether Jeff has had a project, Roy Johnson's had a project, Guy Musser's had a project, we've been working at it.

And it isn't possible for a man to participate in the spiritual blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ and not put his hands and his heart and his feet into the work. Coming here and sitting for two hours every two weeks and being preached to, that isn't going to save you. That isn't going to renovate the church. It's not saying that you can't live where you are and do what you ought to do. But you've got to have a piece of this work.

And if we find out that we're up against a stone wall and look like our labors are not appreciated, well, maybe our labors are not just as they ought to be. And so we ought to change them just a little bit. Watch. Many men, and I have to be careful not to name things too close, or some will have their feelings hurt. But I constantly feel alert, just as Brother Barton, Brother Muster, and these other brethren do, to the expression, to counsel these people, and the spirit that emanates from them.

You see and feel and know just how you are. I tell you, I don't want to discourage you. This is our neighborhood. This is where the business ends. I don't know why I seem to thrive physically and personally in our southern atmosphere. I appreciate what I am supposed to do. Before I moved out, I took a five-difference home to give people a place to live. Folks felt like it was a little bit hard on them.

I felt good to me. What does a house, temple, things you have around you really count? I like to be where I can clean up. Family tries to prepare something to eat, but they can have a clean place to do it, so that I don't have to wear my teeth off. I need to eat it. I often think of Isaiah. He's a man of the Father's hand. Driven, driven, and driven. And finally, when they driven, drove him to his last extremity, he crawled into a hollow log.

I wonder what all this falter all meant to Brother Taylor when he was out there in center. impression that made upon his mind. I wonder how much it meant to Joseph Smith and Hyland when they mounted their horses and started to park. I wonder if they were concerned whether they were going to have a nice house to live in, good clean bed to live in. I suppose Joseph's mind was dwelling upon such trivial matters. It never entered his mind that he had the work of his father to do.

I suppose that when Jesus was kneeling in the garden of Gethsemane, that he was concerned about all these men. And I suppose that that's what caused him to cry out, My God, that's not the case. Because as he said, the foxes have holes, and the birds have their nests, but the Son of God hath not a place to lay his head. I suppose that was the final cry. I suppose that Brother Johnson spends his time continually worried.

about these temporal matters that people are barely able to get themselves over where they can get a handhold on the work that they're trying to cling to. And then he worries about our temporal foundation, which I don't worry about. I'm put where I have to deal with it. But I'm concerned about the promotion and understanding and hope and desires and aspirations of this people. That's what defects me.

It's what besets my own life. I'm looking for the spirit of God and the inspiration and the energy and the vitality and the life and the love and the labor that will finally subdue this character and make of me a man of God. I'm not going to get it all done on my knees. I'm not going to get it all done by sitting in these meetings. I have to go out and contend with the elements. I often think of the story that a guy told about his...

tells about his missionary life. How the Lord just let him have enough. We haven't had many brethren come in our day and time and tell us about living, about purchasing. All we get to do is read about it. And I feel that the remarks in this story that I've heard him tell is how the Lord is just providing enough. And yet, we all require some money. I think that there's many things that we need to do if these things are around us. We need to grace our lives.

and then our families and bring our children up enough comforts and graces that they feel the urgency to excel and have. To let them be the things that we worship and long for and spend our life for is something far beyond what a Latter-day Saint ought to be doing. Thank you, brothers and sisters. Sustain this work and sustain one another. I thank you that you women sustain your husbands.

I'm anxious you husbands get in such a position that you can be to change. A woman asked me not long ago, she said, Brother Hammond, how can a woman please a man? It's possible. I don't let him please her. I had to tip my weight one way to say which way the balance would go. I'd say that there's more women to please than there are men willing to be pleased. Knowing my own character, I want to be.

But I pray that you women, for the sake of this work, that no matter what discouragement that you face, that you ought to praise your husbands. Because I have difficulty finding my Heavenly Father, is that a sign that I should cease striving? If I go to bed tonight brokenhearted because of the hardships of the day, and the discouragement that I face, I need to retain the Spirit of God to get it, or get some warmth and encouragement from the other side to give me...

I hope to carry on. Is that an indication why I could keep striving? A man comes in the house weary and tired and possibly brokenhearted, and he's a little bit hard to get along with. Is that ample reason and proof that you women shouldn't strive any further? When he's your Lord and Master and the priesthood of God to you, is that an indication that you shouldn't try to obtain his favor and soften his heart and mellow his disposition?

And there's some responses that you better need to make and get off on your high horses. Because your Hammond's got a very high one actually to ride on. You ought to be very easy to please. Consider the lowly manner in which you're living. You ought to be really easy. Your Hammond's getting more easy to please all the time. Easier and easier to see a little clearer when I see him in the mirror. Getting to forget a lot of the things that used to make me haughty and proud. I find out there was nothing but a stinking pair to rip it.

But I've brought some generations of past, and on and on and on. The only thing that'll ever give me any right to tell you to raise up my head is when my father takes me by the hand and sets me down in the council of my brother. Then maybe I'll have some reason to rejoice over my personal labor. Until then, I am very humble and lowly. So if you don't remember that, you feel a little cocky and proud, especially you young ones.

Just remember you're not dead yet. You've got a long, long ways to go. Just remember you dear women, and I know that you don't know all there is to know, but Aunt Josephine, May here, and some of these other women have been through the house of God. They know very well that there comes a time when a man has to take the woman by the hand and put his affidavit upon her. There's no compulsion in the way you reflect on it for most of you. Still reflect it further.

If you can't forsake your husband, go wandering off among the goats, the Gentiles, muster yourselves up and then come back and expect to be given a good bath and brought in and set down of all the graces of the Queen of Israel. Because as a priest muster, earn grace, merit so much of the Queen of Israel. So these things should be very sobering and encouraging. God's a just God.

After we've earned these things, we'll be amply rewarded. I feel very good in this work. I've never felt any better. Strength is reviving year by year, and my health improves gradually, and I'm encouraged. I encourage the lives of my brothers who are working at Parapay. These people work at yours. I'm encouraged at the positions of the young people in this work. It looks like what we're going to do is bring them along.

accomplish more with them than we can accomplish with the past. If that's fitting and proper, if I start a house on here and I get the foundation built, and they're setting up and they roof on it, enough around for a windbreak and pass on, then let my son come and add his labor to the day and generation in which he lives to this country. And after he dies, let my grandchildren come and add their grace and beauty to the labor.

That's the way it is not to do with the latter-day saints. The parents have got to lay some structure here. They're not to think that because they took the hands of John and Joseph and said, yea, Lord, that they've got it wrong. Maybe we haven't got it. What we need to do is get this work into our personal character as far as if we can get it. Because we will not be renovated. We will not have the character of God without working at these matters. We'll have to have the spirit of God.

The Spirit of God will not strive with us unless we're striving to build up the kingdom as effectively as we possibly can. I pray the blessings of God upon us. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.