I know you are in grief and heaviness; and if it were not so, you might be afraid, because then your way would not be so like the way that our Lord saith leadeth to the New Jerusalem. Sure I am, if you knew what were before you, or if you saw some glances of it, you would, with gladness, swim through the present floods of sorrow, spreading forth your arms out of desire to be at land.
Men use to reason with themselves: It will not always be health, let us lay up for sickness; it will not always be youth, for age; and why not, saith St. Paul, it will not alway be this life, nor alway present life, lay up for yourselves against the life to come.
The Great Being saith: Human utterance is an essence which aspireth to exert its influence and needeth moderation. As to its influence, this is conditional upon refinement which in turn is dependent upon hearts which are detached and pure. As to its moderation, this hath to be combined with tact and wisdom as prescribed in the Holy Scriptures and Tablets.
In revenge a man is but even with his enemy; for it is a princely thing to pardon, and Solomon saith it is the glory of a man to pass over a transgression.
Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.
President Wilford Woodruff is a man of wisdom and experience, and we respect and venerate him, but we do not believe his personal views or utterances are revelations from God; and when Thus saith the Lord, comes from him, the saints investigate it: they do not shut their eyes and take it down like a pill.
Pray to yourself, because I'm in your self and you're in My self. We are one Spirit, saith the Lord.
The proverbe saith that many a smale maketh a grate.
Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you.
If you ask, what is the first step in the way of truth? I answer humility," saith St. Austin. "If you ask, what is the second? I say humility. If you ask, what is the third? I answer the same - humility.
"Body am I, and soul" - so saith the child. And why should one not speak like children?
There is an Italian proverb which saith, From my enemy let me defend myself; but from a pretensed friend Lord deliver me
"Ego," sayest thou, and art proud of that word. But the greater thing - in which thou art unwilling to believe - is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not "ego," but doeth it.
Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for, as Virgil saith, It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.
And so one may be without connection with any church, and even without connection with any established religion, and yet be in spirit, hence in reality, a much truer Christian than hosts of those who profess to be His most ardent followers, as indeed Jesus Himself so many times says. "By their fruits ye shall know them," said He. "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. "
One of the fathers saith. . . that old men go to death, and death comes to young men.
For as saith a proverb notable, Each thing seeketh his semblable.
One said he wondered that leather was not dearer than any other thing. Being demanded a reason: because, saith he, it is more stood upon than any other thing in the world.
It is better, saith the law, to suffer a mischief that is peculiar to one, than an inconvenience that may prejudice many.
"There is no God," the foolish saith, But none, "There is no sorrow. " And nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow: Eyes which the preacher could not school, By wayside graves are raised; And lips say, "God be pitiful," Who ne'er said, "God be praised. "
