I am persuaded that the subject last referred to by President Young—the prolongation of life and the preservation of health cannot be over-rated. This is one of the subjects relating to our temporal welfare that received the early attention of the Prophet Joseph, and the revelation commonly called the Word of Wisdom has been before the people for over thirty years. I feel assured that a word on this subject kindly spoken by our President is a prompting from on high, and I believe that every true Elder in Israel will bear witness that this is the word of the Lord to us at this time. I exhort every Bishop and presiding Elder in this city as well as throughout the country to lay this matter to heart as one subject requiring their special attention. Not to make it a hobby to the exclusion of everything else, so as to disgust the people, but in the true spirit of the Gospel seek to bring this matter home to the hearts and understandings of the people of their respective wards and settlements. Feel after those who may be stupid and ignorant, who do not come to meeting, and do not receive the spirit of this Conference. Let the Bishops and others in authority endeavor through their teachers and otherwise to search out such individuals, and dig round about them, and prune them that they may perchance bring forth fruit. In relation to matrimony—one of the texts before the Conference—perhaps there is not so much a lack of disposition on the part of the ladies as there is on the part of the gentlemen. The latter sometimes feel themselves unworthy or unprepared, and in many instances, perhaps, they are so. And if you ask why they are unprepared to assume these responsibilities as husbands and heads of families, it is mostly because they have neglected the word of the Lord which they have heard from this stand. They have not given their hearts to prayer sufficiently; they have not read the scriptures and educated their spirits; they have not drunk in the spirit of the Gospel. Every young man who has been taught by his parents to pray in secret, to mingle with the family in devotion, to attend meeting and receive the counsels of the servants of Lord, has grown in the spirit of the Gospel, and this has given them a disposition which has impelled them, as soon as they arrive at a suitable age, to move forward in the duties and responsibilities that they have been called upon, during this Conference, to assume. And they will meet with alike response everywhere from the opposite sex who are living their religion. If there is any lack of disposition on the part of the ladies it is because they are not living their religion, for the neglect of one duty leads to the neglect of another, and if our young men and women fail to make themselves acquainted with the law of God they are liable to be led away. Young men or women seeking the society of the wicked are soon befogged and led to destruction. If the young men of Israel are not alive to their duties, the young ladies may be left to wander in the society of the ungodly. This happens many times through the neglect of parents to impress on the minds of their daughters the value of the kingdom of heaven and the value and importance of salvation, exaltation and glory. Through the neglect of parents in properly educating their children many of them are now, perhaps, unable to discern between saint and sinner, and they would as soon associate with the wicked and unbelieving as with the righteous. It is a grievous sight to those who have laboured twenty-five or thirty years travelling over the world to preach the gospel and to gather the people to see the rising generation without that culture they so much need to develop within them a love of righteouness, truth, and every holy principle. There is a[s] great a field for missionary labor in Utah, as in any part of the world. There is as great a necessity for preaching here at home in our settlements, even in some parts of Great Salt Lake City, as there is in any part of the world. There are those here who neglect the opportunities offered them and they need to be felt after personally.