had become corrupt and debased. Nowadays nobody expected any thing from public servants but corruption. These things were well known to every body. The Saints had been molested and could get no redress. The Prophet Joseph, moved by the Spirit of the Most High, told their enemies there that they would see mobbing to their heart's content, for the measure that they meted to the Saints should be meted to them back again.
The Saints could now see the distracted state of the nations, and the confusion of all governments. If they were wise men and women, they would appreciate the blessed inheritance that the Lord had brought them to. He had but one request to make, and that was, that the people should not only believe in the counselings of President Young, but be diligent, and see that his counseling prospered.
President Heber C. Kimball got up with the invocation of "God bless the Saints, and peace be multiplied unto them." He respected and loved good men and women who were striving to do the will of Heaven. The Mormons were united, and he wanted them to continue so, and be of one heart and of one mind, and to do as they were told. The South had seceded from the North, but the Mormons would never secede from either. He had sometimes a kind of notion that North and South would secede from them, and if they did so the Mormons couldn't help it, and the Lord would yet make a great people of them, just as fast as they were able to bear it.
Heber had a fling at "the miserable creatures who had been sent here one time and another to rule and judge them." The yoke was off their neck; they were away out from the confusion, and the yoke was on the neck of their enemies, and the bow-key was in. Many were engaged in trying to have the Mormons associate with them in a national capacity; but they would have nothing to do with them. "No, gentlemen and ladies, we are free from them, and will keep free." Heber was satisfied with their position in the mountains. Brigham was their governor; had always been so, and would always be so. He went around about with his hands in his pocket, and governed the people. They had the Lord for ruler, and the men whom he delegated could govern the people. He had no fear, for he lived above the law; he transgressed no law, and had nothing to apprehend. With an exhortation to go to and make themselves happy and independent by their own industry, Heber's racy discourse terminated with a hearty amen from the congregation.
President Brigham Young was much pleased to meet with the Saints. The Church was that day thirty-one years old—it seemed but a short time, yet a great work had been done. He remembered when he had a great anxiety to see some person of foreign birth embrace the faith. For the first few years it was only Americans who received it, but he could now gaze upon tens of thousands from the nations of the Old World. He discarded miracles as being any evidence of the divinity of any man’s mission: men might be astonished by them, but the spirit only could convince and satisfy the mind. Referred to Aaron's operations: turning his stick into a serpent, filling the air with life, and turning the rivers into blood, did not satisfy. He alluded to the troubles in a States, and warned the people
