I rejoice very much, brethren and sisters, at the opportunity we enjoy to-night of meeting together to worship the Lord our God, and to wait upon him, that we may renew our strength. It is the desire of my heart to do all I can to inspire in you a living faith in God, and I am sorry to say that there are those in our midst, against whom I have no particular charge to make, but who, by reason of the favors which fortune or this world has bestowed upon them, have become weak and sick in the faith, and who, I may say, have almost no faith at all. I feel on this occasion that if wealth would destroy what little faith I have I would rather that it would take to itself wings and fly beyond my reach. I have no faith to boast of, but what little faith I may possess I think more of than I do of the wealth of this world, for the wealth of this world will not carry me successfully through the dark valley of the shadow of death; it will not open to me the portals of bliss, but real and genuine faith in God will accomplish this. I remember once, in Nauvoo, when we felt ourselves happy and fortunate if we could get half a bushel of meal to make mush of, the Prophet Joseph Smith, talking to some of us at the house of brother John Taylor, said—"Brethren, we are pretty tight run now, but the time will come when you will have so much money that you will be weary with counting it, and you will be tried with riches;" and I sometimes think that perhaps the preface to that time has now arrived, and that the Saints will soon be tried with riches; but if riches, would kill our prospects of eternal life by alienating us from the Priesthood and kingdom of God, I say it would be far better for us to remain like Lazarus, and that all our fine things should perish like the dew, and we come down to the bedrock of faith, and trust in the true and living God. The question is whether we have to come there in order to inherit eternal life. I will read a little of the words of our Savior, as recorded in the 6th chapter of Matthew. Said he—"Take no thought, saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed, for after all these things do the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knoweth ye have need of these things, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
There are many Saints at this time who are laboring to acquire wealth; and the kingdom, in the hearts of a good many, has become a secondary consideration; if we were to reverse this order of proceeding and seek the kingdom of God first, we could then put our heavenly Father to the proof whether all these things shall be added to us, and thus also test the truth of our religion, and I believe that this would be a legitimate way to test it to our satisfaction.
I have heard several very able discourses, by good men, showing that unless our exports equal our imports, we are not making headway financially. This is all very good so far as it goes, but reasoning of that kind is not our Savior's, it is the reasoning of this world, and so far as this world is concerned, their reasoning, if correct is just as good as any other reasoning; but if it is not correct, and we are swerved by its force and power from the line marked out for us to walk by, we shall become the losers. I wish now to refer you to certain events that have transpired in days gone by, and then any of you may tell me by what financial calculations these things happened, and whether they were brought down to the very nicety of worldly reasoning, or whether they were left open to the providences of our God.
