My dear brothers and sisters, I desire that you will lend me your faith and prayers that I might be able to, in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gather together the many and rambling thoughts that have been going through my mind. and pleased in listening to the remarks that have been coming to us to this point. I feel that this people has come to a time that you might say an awakening. It strikes me both from center to circumference, my brothers and sisters, when I think of the restoration of the Holy Gospel well over a hundred years, and yet the Lord is still laboring and trying to establish a people upon whom he can place the responsibility of the kingdom. I trust you will not criticize me, my brothers and sisters, when I try to illustrate

We feel, I'm sure, that we are the Lord's people and he's laboring with us and is placing some confidence in us. And yet, I feel that in one respect that we are much like the church of which we find ourselves many times trying to criticize. You can approach many members of the church, and they will say, yes, I believe in plural marriage, but the time is not yet that we are not good enough or strong enough to live such a principle, and they have been excusing themselves away from a saving principle of the eternal gospel. And certainly you say that you can't.

criticize me, Brother Doc Steder, in this respect, but I have been associated with this work over 20 years, and I can criticize myself in this respect when the scripture is very plain that the Lord is going to require of us both in blessing and in judgment in all things, for he can't be left without excuse, that his servants, his handmaidens and the bearers of the holy priesthood must so understand the eternal gospel that they can require both in blessing and in judgment. And I am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that we're living in a time, it is so with me, that I look upon my daily activities, that I am living by the grace of God. And if you are not, I feel that you soon will be, for it is the only way that one can live and grow in this work. Now, to continue my comparison of our being like those in the church, we pray.

but we do not pray in earnestness. I'll give you a strain of earnestness that I do not always, and I don't know that my family can remember this particular strain, but with my brethren in my own private prayers, for some time, as Brother Irwin expressed himself, I pray to the Lord, to send his judgments according to his need of cleansing the earth of all wickedness. And I feel, as Brother Fisher expressed himself, that if we are not in a proper attitude of receiving the consequences, we are not faithful subjects in the kingdom of God. As an illustration, I've been traveling with Brother Horst Lee of late, and we've been reading a little bit in the life of Brigham Young by Tullidge, I believe, is the author. You say, well, you're reading a volume that is edited by an apostate, but there's some real good in it. Brother Tullidge has been very careful to give the truth.

And I hear among our people, if you'll permit me, my brothers and sisters, endeavor to make a correction. We can't do this, and we can't do that. One of the sores that I can open here this evening that will bleed very profusely to some is the attitude that some takes, but I find that the priesthood is directing.

that you can't build up our unit in the south. There's a great storm coming, and what are you going to do? I say we have to build up our faith, and I'll take the condition of George A. Smith at the time the saints were driven out of Nauvoo. When Samuel Brennan, supposed to be a...

Latter-day Saint and friend of our people was in league with the President of the United States in bringing pressure upon our people as they were being forced out of Nauvoo. A group of brethren were together discussing the whole affair and what they should do and the thing that was being discussed that pressure was being brought to bear on people who were being forced.

from the confines of the United States and that they were being required when they got to where they were locating to give up a portion of the property in which they would acquire to the government and to Mr. Brennan and others. And George A. Smith, in his characteristically humorous way, arose and said, If there be no God, we are a sucked-in bunch of people. As for me, I will take my family across the river and depend upon the Lord. Now that's the attitude that we must take, my brothers and sisters. We can do nothing else as a people but live.

As the holy priesthood directs, I'm not trying to justify myself in the things that I do, but I'm trying, my brothers and sisters, to live that the Lord might bless us and bless me. For I know, in my experience, I may have been a very slow character and a rough stone to polish up.

But I know in my experience that the duties of a patriarch in this work be blessed. For I am sure as I am standing before you that I know the way for those that the Lord has entrusted into my care. There is no question in my mind. I know that we must live. Brother Horsley, excuse me in robbing him of one of his expressions.

that we must live as a people, that we can bend the back, bend our back and receive the lash. I'm grateful that the priesthood can call upon me, either in public or in private. I feel that I must have an opportunity to do what is required of one. possessing the holy priesthood. Now I am thankful, my brothers and sisters, and rejoice daily to be a part of this work. As has been said, there is no place that we can turn. There is only one way, and that is to follow the holy priesthood as we know it. Now may the Lord bless us as a people, and we be comforted. We have nothing but rejoicing to think of.

at this time, that we are a group of people that the Holy Priesthood is laboring with, and that the Lord has confidence in, sufficient to encourage this people to their salvation. May the Lord bless us, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.