We assemble together in the capacity of a conference for the purpose of being taught concerning our duties as Latter-day Saints, as members of the Church of Christ, and it is of the utmost importance that when we thus meet, that we should have the presence and assistance of the Spirit of God. I should not dare this morning to arise with the intention of speaking to you if I did not hope that I should have the assistance of that spirit. I could not of myself tell that which is best adapted to you and to your circumstances. It requires the all-searching Spirit of our God to reveal unto us, his servants, those items of doctrine, of instruction, of counsel, and if need be, of reproof and warning, which will be of benefit to the Latter-day Saints who are assembled as we are to-day.
We are living in a momentous time. At no period in the history of the children of God in this dispensation have events been of more importance than those which are now taking place in our midst and around about us. I have been exceedingly thankful for one thing. Amid the threats and menaces and all the attempts which have been made against us to curtail our liberties, to embarrass us, and if possible destroy our religion, one feeling has been uppermost in my mind, a feeling of thankfulness that the Lord our God in this manner is permitting us to see the fulfillment of the words he has spoken through his servant the Prophet Joseph Smith, and through others who have also been inspired of him. Among the earliest predictions that were made concerning this work by the servants of God, was one to this effect, that the time would come when we should not only be opposed by a small circle, a few individuals confined to a neighborhood, but as the work should spread and increase the opposition to it would be in proportion to its growth and its expansion, until it would not be the act of the mob, or the acts of mobs confined to counties or confined to States, but that the time would come that in a national capacity blows would be aimed at us by the nation of which we form a part. To-day, my brethren and sisters, these predictions are being fulfilled in our sight. Not one word that God has spoken concerning this work will fall to the ground unfulfilled, and the very enemies of this work,—those who are most anxious to destroy it, and to prove the falsity of its claims are the very instruments in the providence of our God, used to fulfill his word and accomplish his designs. Do you think for one moment that Senator Edmunds in framing the bill called by his name, or in presenting it to the Senate for its action, had any idea in his mind that he was an instrument in fulfilling the predictions of God, through his servant Joseph? Have you any idea that the House of Representatives in passing that bill, after it had passed the Senate, supposed for one moment that they were helping to establish the claims of Joseph Smith as a prophet of the living God? Or do you imagine that President Arthur, in selecting the five Commissioners to go to Utah Territory to act in accordance with the provisions of this same law, supposed that he was helping in any manner to establish the claims of what is called "Mormonism" to divinity, or that the Commissioners themselves, in coming here, have once thought that they were playing a part in the great drama of the last days, that they in their sphere were helping, or are helping to establish the truth of this work, the downfall of which is sought to be accomplished? And yet these are the truths connected with this work; these are the facts. The man who framed that bill, the man who introduced it in the Senate, the judiciary committee who passed upon it, the Senate who adopted the report of its committee of judiciary and passed the bill, the House of Representatives who took the bill up and made it law, so far as their action was concerned, and the President of the United States who signed the Act and who appointed the Commissioners under it, and the Commissioners themselves who were thus appointed—all these men in their official capacity have helped, though they thought they were doing the very opposite, to establish the truth of the predictions of the Prophet Joseph, and of President Young and of the Apostles who have been inspired of God from the commencement of this work until this time, and who have predicted that these events would most assuredly take place.