[Apostle Wilford Woodruff Journal] 23d I called upon Br Richards in the morning. Soon President Young came in. We went into the office & attended to some Business. Br Brown Came in & requested one of us to go & preach the funeral sermon of his daughter who was dead. Presidents Brigham & Joseph Young & myself went to his house. We found not ownly his daughter dead but a number sick in the House.
The meeting opened by singing & prayer By Joseph Young, After which President B. Young Arose Addressed the meeting & said that he had A few remarks to make & desired that he might have the Holy spirit while He spoke. Said it was better to go [to] the House of mourning than to the House of feasting for that was the end of the living & would force upon our minds the truth of the desolution which we must all pass through.
We mourn for the loss of our friends when they die but if they die in the Lord they are better off than the living for they have gained one victory which the living have not. They are beyound the reach of pain, sorrow, wicked men, devils, and devlish spirits which we are not, for we are daily in the midst of all the suffering that mortal man is heir to & when will this suffering end? When we die & not before unless we should live untill Satan is bound. But all must pass through death. Yet I would be glad to live to assist in binding Satan.
As to the Saints we are being worn out according to the wor[k?] of the Lord. We have been driven & persecuted in such a manner that there are but few constitutions among us except such as are broaken to peaces & ready to fall into the grave & we are burying up the saints vary fast whareever we go. Over four Hundred are laid in the grave in this place & many in all places whare we have stoped.
But all of this pain, sorrow, death & affliction will work to gether for the good of the Saints for these things must needs Be in order to work out the purposes of the Almighty & give the Saints there exhaltation and Glory in the Eternal world. The sectarian world with the knowledge they have would if it was in their power sweep the fall of man, death, pain, sorrow & Afflictions with all their attendant evils into oblivion & caused man to have lived eternally as he was before the fall that he might never have seen death. But such a course would in the end have been the greatest Curse that Could have been heaped upon man for by so doing it would entirely have frustrated the design of the Almighty in the Creation of man & blocked up the way for his exhaltation glory & greatness & the Lord understood the subject so well before either the world or man was formed that A Saviour was provided in the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world to redeem man from Eternal death So that by man paying the deabt of the fall by passing through the temporal death, they recieve the power & glory of the resurrection by Jesus Christ which gives them an Immortal body which will recieve A far greater glory and power than the mortal body ever Could have obtained unto had it not have been for the fall.
And I suppose If I had power With the limited Knowledge I have I should sweep from the midst of this people sickness, pain, sorrow poverty & persecution & mobing. I dont suppose I should ever have suffered this people to have been driven at all by a mob but as the Lord knows so much more than we do He has suffered it so to be & it is for a wise purpose in God. It is for our good & will finally prove for our exhaltation & glory in the eternal world, & gives us experience in this life which we otherwise should not have had. "Adam fell that men might be, men are that they may have Joy, but if they knew no Joy they would have no sorrow, And if they did not know misery they would not know happiness." For man must experience one in order to comprehend & know the other. Jesus had to descend below all things in order to ascend above all things.
I am fully convinced that all our sorrows & troubles will work out for us a far more exeeding & eternal wait of glory. Hence we ought nought to murmer or complain at our fate. It is true we mourn at the loss of friends but not as those with out hope for blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from hence forth saith the spirit for they rest from their labours (& if their friends are faithful) their works will follow them.
But what is the time of our suffering in this life in comparison with Eternity After we have spent millions of Ages in Eternity & we look back upon our time here & it will ownly look like the twinkling of an eye in comparison. And so it will be in the waiting for the resurrection of our bodies. It will be for A moment as it were before we shall stand in our immortal bodies. But no person can have power to raise the dead except he holds the Keys of the Resurrection & no man can hold the keys of the resurrection or be ordained unto that power untill he has died & been raised from the dead himself. No more than A man has power to Baptize A man legally & lay hands upon him for the Holy Ghost & ordain him to the office of an Elder who has not been baptized or ordained himself.
Michael the Ark Angel (Adam) Holds the Keys of the resurrection And After A man is raised from the dead has an immortal body & recieves An ordination to hold the keys of the resurrection from under the Hands of Michael or those Having authority He then has power to raise the dead & not before.
Jesus was the first fruits of the Resurrection. "He had power to lay down his life & power to take it again" When He had lain in the grave three days An Angel, some person who was Appointed to this work appeared rolled back the stone & Called Jesus forth.
We have power here through the Priesthood to lay hands upon the sick & they recover, to east out devils open the eyes of the blind & unstop the ears of the deef according to the faith of the children of men. It is just as easy to raise the dead for one who is ordained unto this power as it is for us to administer in the ordinances of the House of the Lord here. Some times we lay hands upon the sick & they are healed instantly. Other times with all the faith & medicine they are a long time getting well, & others die.
The spirit of devils who are deprived of Having tabernacles are constantly making war with men who have tabernacles & they strive to take up their abode in the tabernacles of men because they have none of their own, & when they can get a chance they will many of them croud into one man & try to reign there & some times they will kill the body & then the spirit of the man & devils all have to leave it. Some times in sickness & weakness the spirit of deavels get possession of the body whare the spirit of man is pure & overcomes it but the moment the spirit leaves the Body it is beyound the power & reach of the devils. Some children are killed in this way for the devil is making war with every thing that has A tabernacle esspecially the Saints, & the devil rules a great deal in the hearts of the Children of men. And if He cannot go in any other way He will go into A Barrel of whiskey & run down their throats. And when the saints get into the valley away from the gentiles the deavel will get into the Half mormons Hickery mormons & will plead with them to get into them.
But when we consider how little time we have to spend in this life in comparison to Eternity we ou[gh]t not to consider it a hard matter to be faithful to God & keep his commandments for when we obtain Celestial glory we shall have to exclaim that it is through the grace of God after all, for the glory far exceeds our suffering in this life.
Many other remarks were made by President Young And meeting was dismissed by W Woodruff.
[source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
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