I feel happy for the privilege of again speaking to the Latter-day Saints in this city; and I am also happy for the privilege of being a member of this Church. In this I am exceedingly blessed, and I can say of a truth, that my soul drinketh of that "river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High." I am full of peace by day and by night—in the morning, at noon, and in the evening, and from the evening until the morning. I am extremely happy for the privilege of living with those who are seeking to do the will of God. We are gathered together in the tops of these mountains for the express purpose of building up Zion, the Zion of the last days, the glory of which was seen by the prophets of the Almighty from the days of old. "And they shall call thee," says Isaiah, "the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel." "The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory." We are removed far away from those who bore rule over us and oppressed us, and who deprived the Saints of their constitutional rights. The Lord has led His people to a land where they can enjoy as much liberty as they are disposed to live for. There is no oppression here; there is no people on earth who have as few encumbrances upon their spiritual and temporal rights as the Latter-day Saints in these mountains. We have all liberty, yet we are not at liberty to do wrong in this community, and have it sanctioned, although many do wrong, which wrongs are in many cases overlooked and forgiven.
The law of liberty is the law of right in every particular—that is, if we understand it to mean the privilege of doing anything and everything to promote the peace, happiness, and well-being of mankind, whether in a national, State, Territorial, county, city, neighborhood, or family capacity, with a view to prepare them for the coming of the Son of Man, and to have a place in the presence of their Father and God. Shall we say that we enjoy this law of liberty to the fullest extent? We do, in fact, and no power can deprive us of it. We have a good and wholesome government, when it is administered in righteousness and equity, and its laws scrupulously obeyed; and it guarantees to all their political, religious, and social rights. We have the privilege of worshipping God according to the dictates of our own consciences, and according to the revelations of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is true our consciences are formed more or less by circumstances and by the effects of early teachings, until we enter upon the stage of action for ourselves. Parental influences upon the growing organization of the unborn infant have much to to [do] in giving character to conscience. But we always have the privilege of answering a good conscience. We have the privilege of praying as many times a day as we please; we have the privilege of praying from morning until evening and from evening until morning without anyone to molest us. We have the privilege to meet in a congregational capacity in our great public meeting-houses, or in our ward meeting-houses, to attend to our sacraments and fasts, and there to tarry, when we are thus assembled, as long as we please without any restrictions whatever.
There are circumstances in which it would be right to restrict a person even in prayer and worship. For instance, if a man should hire another to work for him so many hours a day, for which he agrees to pay him so much, the employed is thereby bound by the conditions of the agreement to work the number of hours stipulated, that he may justly collect his pay, for he is not paid for praying, nor for holding religious meetings and religious conversations with his fellow-workmen. If this may be called a restriction upon the free exercise of religion, it is a just one, for the restriction itself becomes a religious duty in order that mistaken notions of religious freedom may be corrected. In such a case we would not say that a person is in the least degree abridged in the free exercise of his religious privileges, but rather, by keeping him to a faithful observance of his agreement, he is made to exemplify one of the foremost principles of true religion—namely, honesty. If a man has sufficient to supply his wants, and the wants of those who depend upon him, and can, without infringing upon the rights of others, afford to pray all the day long and then all the night long, he is free to do so.