In rising to address you this afternoon, brethren and sisters, I crave an interest in your faith and prayers, that I may be led to speak upon those subjects and to advance those ideas that shall be instructive to you and adapted to your circumstances and condition.
I have acted in the ministry since my boyhood, but whenever I am called upon to speak I do so with great diffidence and fear. I do not know that the feeling can ever be conquered entirely, in fact, I do not know that I wish that it could; for if a man could arise and feel perfectly capable, in and of himself, to speak to the edification of the people, judging by my own experience in the matter, I imagine that he would have but very little aid from the Lord. But if he rise depending upon the Lord, and not upon his own strength, the Lord has promised to render that aid unto his servants that is necessary to enable them to testify to the truth, and to cleanse their garments of the blood of this generation.
There is no lack of topics or subject matter in dwelling upon the work we are engaged in; the range is an extensive one; but it needs the Spirit of God to select, out of the variety of subjects which it presents, those points, doctrines, and counsels that should be touched upon to edify the people in the circumstances which surround them. The older I grow, the more convinced I am that we as a people and as individuals need practical instructions in what may be termed our every-day duties. It is delightful to reflect and speak upon, and to sit and have held up before our minds the course pursued by those who were our predecessors in the Gospel. It is also equally delightful, when inspired by the Spirit of God, to contemplate the future with its great events, which the prophets foresaw, and concerning which they have written so much.
As a generation, we live in a busy, stirring time—a time that is full of important events, one treading upon the heels of another so rapidly that we have scarcely time to contemplate the past—even the past of our own history; and we have but little time to look forward to the future, only as it is necessary to comfort and to cheer us. The work of God is rushing forward with extraordinary speed, and the Lord is operating in a most signal manner to bring to pass his great and marvellous designs and purposes; and to no eyes are these things clearer than to those of the Latter-day Saints, especially those whose minds are enlightened by the Spirit of God, and who seek for the inspiration thereof to guide them in their every-day affairs.