I take pleasure in meeting with the Saints. I like to break bread with them in commemoration of the broken body of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and also to partake of the cup in remembrance of his shed blood, and then to reflect upon the associations connected therewith: our relationship to God through our Lord Jesus Christ; our relationship to each other as members of the body of Christ, and our hopes concerning the future; the second appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, when, we are given to understand, he will gird himself and wait upon us, and we shall eat bread and drink wine with him in his Father's kingdom. I like to reflect upon all these and a thousand other things connected with the salvation, happiness and exaltation of the Saints of God in this world, and in the world to come.
We have one day set apart in seven for the worship of God, and I think it a very great mercy we have, for we can thus draw aside from the world, its cares, perplexities and anxieties, and, as rational, intelligent, immortal beings, reflect upon something pertaining to the future. We are very much engaged, generally, in relation to things of time and sense. Our hearts, feelings and affections seem to be drawn out in this direction, and these are the only things which a great many people have in view. Jesus, in speaking to his disciples, tells them not to take any thought about what they shall eat or drink, or wherewithal they shall be clothed, for, said he, after all these things the Gentiles seek. We, of course, must take this as being specifically addressed to his disciples under the circumstances in which they were then placed; the principle involved in his words is nevertheless true. Says he, "Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Again, he says, reflect upon the fowls of the air, they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father takes care of them, and will he not also take care of you, O ye of little faith?
There is something beautiful in reflecting upon many of these subjects, and something, very frequently, that is quite in harmony with our feelings when they are in accord with the Spirit of truth and the light of revelation. We feel, then, that we live in God, and as the Scriptures say, that in him we move and have our being. If we have life, or health, or possessions; if we have children, and friends, and homes; if we have the light of truth, the blessings of the everlasting Gospel, the revelations of God, the Holy Priesthood, with all its blessings and government and rule, all these and every true enjoyment that we possess come from God. We do not always realize this, but it is nevertheless true that to God we are indebted for every good and perfect gift. He organized our bodies as they exist in all their perfection, symmetry and beauty. He, as the poet has expressed it,
"Makes the grass the hills adorn, And clothes the smiling fields with corn, The beasts with food his hands supply, And the young ravens when they cry."
He is merciful and kind and benevolent towards all his creatures, and it is well for us to reflect upon these things sometimes, for we thus realize our dependence upon the Almighty.