[Brigham Young Sermon] We are exposed to the severe winds - cold and dreary autumn and spring - I propose to have a shade here that we can be comfortable in hot weather - will it not be best for each bishop to lay it before each ward that it may be soon done - a shade may be built here very quick - the shade wants to be built of boards so as to be clean and nice - we would be glad to have it before 24 July and have a dinner - it will then be two years since the pioneers landed in this valley - we hauled up here and went to raising grain - we can have fat beef and mutton and have a good dinner - Water the grain, build your fences, and this shade and then I'll stop preaching there are may of our brethren in the gold mines they have a right to it - and now the United States have a [-] they will be willing to empty their purses for a morsel of bread. I saw go ahead Mormons but don't come back again, some will stay there for it will be a complete slaughter yard - saints lay up your treasures in heaven where moth and rust cannot corrupt - finite man does not understand it - mountain cant destroy or decompose it - the gold - ye who go to the gold mines get gold but take care of the thieves who steal - if saints love gold they will be damned - you who know not God - I say get gold prosper on as long as you can - we found the gold for them - I would as soon give it out as a prophecy it will prove a curse to the United States and not a blessing - if I was to walk on streets of gold and had not a morsel of food I should be cursed. I had better have a cup of this city creek water than a mountain of gold. There is gold enough here - I wont look for it and you cant find it (laugh) thousands have past over the gold in California but never knew it was gold until a Mormon told them - I could tell some of my old New York neighbors where there is more gold than all the mules could carry that vein will run out when it has accomplished its end - it is dispersed throughout the earth but who brings it on the earth - who makes the wheat grow yonder - as the grass on yonder mountains - he that will let gold corrupt his heart is a fool - for he who organized them can bring them where and when he pleases - it is the foolery of religion in the world that makes Deists - a Deist said there were an eternity of organized and disorganized matter between here and the nearest planet - the room was filled with matter beyond dispute - give me the power of the Almighty which is revelation - when the eyes of a man's understanding are opened he can behold angels by the eyes and hands of the spirit and can be handled by the spirit - there is a book that proves there is a printer - and a desk proves there is a joiner - and I laugh at a man who says there is an eternity of worlds without a being that brought them into existence - there is not a people that has proved themselves to lay up their treasures as LDS - who have been kicked out of doors and their lives almost exhausted - there is not better proof - by their works they shall stand or fall - he who sacrifices all to be prepared to dwell in all eternity they will get where no thief or mobocrats can kill them, Joseph's spirit will remain until gold mine after gold mine is disclosed and the earth revolutionized - and by and by the trump shall sound and our bodies go to sleep and our spirits go to be at rest - bless your soul there is nothing but weeping, sorrow, and lamentation and although they may get mountains of gold it fleeth away as the dew of the morning and is not more seen. I calculate to preach Mormonism for eighteen years again through death and pestilence and everything why if we were to go to hell we would kick up a row, turn out the devils and have a heaven after all and be happy - man is fallible and sinful - but we shall soon overcome all - we shall have a host of a community here and it will not do to see them starve - if our neighbors come from the states we must feed them - let us have something for them to eat - we did not expect to meet civilization here - but they come and we must feed them - for they expect civilization here - all is right. -- SLC Bowery [Thomas Bullock Minutes, LJA; Thomas Bullock—LDS Church Reporter, 1844-56.C, Archives, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.; GCM, Archives, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah..; Leonard J. Arrington Papers, Special Collections, Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University, Logan.. (A reference reading LJA 12-55-5, 10, means LJA Series 12, Box 55, Folder 5, page 10.) 9-12-6, 125-127]
[source: The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
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