What we have heard from our President is most heavenly, and it is truth. We many times say it is "God's truth." I want to know if there ever was any truth that was not him? Now, just reflect and see if ever there was a truth that we received or heard, or if there ever will be, except what is God's truth. No—there never was; for truth proceedeth from him.
Those ideas are according to my feelings—my desires, and they are according to the Spirit that has been given unto me. I have sought in my simplicity to produce the most simple things that I possibly could, to show this people the propriety of becoming one. You know I have brought up the apple tree, the peach tree, the grape and all the variety of vines the cucumber, the water-melon, and every other simple thing, to show unto this people that we have to become like those vines and those various bodies which I have mentioned,—like unto the apple tree, for instance, which is a corporate and independent body, just as you and I are independent, inasmuch as we act in concert with the truth and with the personage that produced us.
Did God produce us. He did, and every son and daughter of Adam upon the face of this earth; and he produced us upon the same principle that we produce one another. And so it is with the fruit of creation.
The ideas advanced by brother Brigham about the manufacture and conducting of gas afford a good illustration of the operations of the Holy Ghost through the Priesthood. The place where the gas is manufactured may be called the fountain head; then, by a power at head-quarters, it is carried by pipes and propelled through every avenue, even to the extremity of the city.
When that gas is conveyed to a city, it gives light. It is so also with the Holy Spirit. There is sufficient of it to be conveyed to every man and woman according to their necessity; for Jesus says that every son and daughter that cometh into the world receiveth of his light, and it proceeds from head-quarters.
I have spoken upon these things before, not using this figure in particular, but upon the same principle.
A Bishop has power to dictate and control his Ward, even as he is dictated by those over him. When a family or that portion of the city who receive their light from him, reject that pipe, or that authority, they reject the authority, or the pipe, that conveys the light to them. It is so with the Seventies and also with every Quorum in this Church
There are seven Presidents of the Seventies; then there is one man that presides over the six. Are the six to be subject to the first of their number? They are; for he is the head of that limb; and if the six reject that man they reject the authority or the pipe that conveys light to them.
If the Quorums of the Seventies reject their limbs or Presidents, who are, even to the seventieth Seventy, connected to the main limb of the Seventies, they also shut off the light which would flow to them: Whom are the Seventies amenable to? They are amenable to the men that preside over them; and it is so with every department of the Priesthood, from the authority of the Apostleship down to that of the Teacher.
"What a strange doctrine," says one, "that we should be taught to be one!" I tell you there is no way for us to prosper and prevail in the last day only to learn to act in union.
As to the holy Priesthood and the government of this Church, I can say that we shall, as a people, prevail in the name and by the authority of Jesus. If we will take this course and be one, we shall rule the house of Israel, and everything on the earth will be subject to us. This is the doctrine that has been taught us all the time.
I will acknowledge that I am sometimes eccentric. There is no man who has not, at some periods, eccentric feelings. These feelings correspond with the feelings of this people; and I believe and know that they control me in my speaking, or else I should not say a great many things that I do. I have heard brother Brigham say a great many times, "Why, I have spoken thus and so, and I believe that the people feel as I have spoken."
To be eccentric in speaking means to occasionally depart from the point of argument—to run off to the east and then come back—to run off to the north, to the south, to the west, and return again to the centre. This feeling is in every man at times, and the Elders who speak from this stand have to speak so as to answer the queries and dispositions of the people, otherwise they would talk right in a bee-line.