I love to speak to the Saints, when I am blessed with ability to speak in a manner to please myself. I have proved that when I can become fully satisfied with my own actions and am well pleased with myself, then I please and satisfy my neighbours. People ought always to be pleased with themselves when they do the best they can.
It is fully proved in all the revelations that God has ever given to mankind that they naturally love and admire righteousness, justice and truth more than they do evil. It is, however, universally received by professors of religion as a Scriptural doctrine that man is naturally opposed to God. This is not, so. Paul says, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, "But, the natural man receiveth not the things of God," but I say it is the unnatural "man that receiveth not the things of God." Paul, in another place, says, "if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." That which was, is, and will continue to endure is more natural than that which will pass away and be no more. The natural man is of God. We are the natural sons and daughters of our natural parents, and spiritually we are the natural children of the Father of light and natural heirs to his kingdom; and when we do an evil, we do it in opposition to the promptings of the Spirit of Truth that is within us. Man, the noblest work of God, was in his creation designed for an endless duration, for which the love of all good was incorporated in his nature. It was never designed that he should naturally do and love evil.
When our first parents fell from their paradisaical state, they were brought in contact with influences and powers of evil that are unnatural and stand in opposition to an endless life. So far as mankind yield to these influences, they are so far removed from a natural to an unnatural state—from life to death. Adam and Eve did not sin because it was in their nature to love sin, but, as Paul says in his Epistle to Timothy, "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in child bearing, if they continue in faith, and charity, and holiness, with sobriety." The enemy of all righteousness deceived the woman, and Adam went with her that man might be, and that she might be saved in child-bearing.
I hold that it is easier to do right than wrong, and that it gives more real satisfaction, more sterling happiness, and more self-respect to any person to do a good deed than to do an evil deed. "Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward," and that in consequence of sin's being in the world.
Brother G. D. Watt has exhorted us to let truth be the standard to all our sayings and actions. While he was so fervent for the truth I thought of the harlot Rahab who, by faith, perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace. It appears that this ancient harlot told the king of Jericho that the two spies went out of the city when it was, dark, about the time of the shutting of the gate, while at the same time she had hid them on the roof of her house under some stalks of flax. This is an instance where a slight departure from the truth produced more real good than a strict observance of the facts in the case would have done, for by screening the two spies from the custody of the King of Jericho the harlot saved herself and her father's house. We call simple facts, truth; but the truth must be held in righteousness. "Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them but the transgressors shall fall therein." It is more natural for a person to tell the truth than to lie. All the works of God are founded in truth, and that truth must be held in righteousness.
You remember that a few weeks ago the Elders of Israel were advised to practice what they preach, and not do a thousand things they are glad the people do not know. There are many acts of some of the best of mankind that they are thankful are not known in the streets and in their families. I would not be willing to say that this is the case with all men, or that it is so in the midst of this people, because the best of this people do as well as they know how, and live lives they need not be ashamed of before God and the hosts of heaven and hell. A great many wrongs are committed more from mistake and ignorance than design; and in judging of wrongs done it is more just to judge according to design than according to the exterior appearance or the sight of the eye.