Mormon History, Feb 11, 1847

[Brigham Young Sermon] President Brigham Young spoke on this wise: Brethren and Sisters, you have met here today to join in the dance, in a recreation that all people participate in except such as have been traditioned to believe it to be an evil. To some it is an evil. The prayers of some men are abominations before the Lord because they pray for evil things, but for a saint to pray or dance is not sin. Why? Because they seek to do the will of the Lord and not their own will. Since this council room has been finished I have heard the music at all hours of the night and upon reflection I remembered that I had heard the axes throughout the city in building houses for the widows and fatherless at all hours of the night. How then could I find fault? So I then concluded inasmuch as they would labor all night, now they may dance all night, but the hours of recreation will soon be over with us here, when this room will be converted into preaching, organizing companies and preparing for what is before us. -- Winter Quarters, Nebraska [Journals of John D. Lee 1846-47 and 1859. Charles Kelly, ed. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1984. 71]

[source: The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009)]

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