AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY PRESIDENT BRIGHAM YOUNG, IN THETABERNACLE, GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, JULY 31, 1853
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I wish to say a few words to the Latter-day Saints this morning, todwell upon. I said also to the brethren at Utah, "Do you make a fort,and let it be strong enough, that Indians cannot break into it." Theycommenced, and did not make even the shadow of a fort, for in some placesthere was nothing more than a line to mark where the approaching shadowwould be. They began to settle round upon the various creeks and streamlets,and the part of a fort that existed was finally pulled up, and carried awaysomewhere else. I have told you, from the beginning, you would need forts,where to build them, and how strong. I told you, six years ago, to builda fort that the Devil could not get into, unless you were disposed to lethim in, and that would keep out the Indians. Excuse me for saying devil;I do not often use the old gentleman's name in vain, and if I do it, itis always in the pulpit, where I do all my swearing. I make this apologybecause it is considered a sin to say devil, and it grates on refined ears.
I told the settlement in San Pete, at the first, to build a fort. Theydid not do it, but huddled together beside a stone quarry, without a placeof common shelter where they could defend themselves, in case of an Indiandifficulty. They had faith they could keep the Indians off. Well, now isthe time to call it into exercise. They did, after a while, build a temporaryfort at San Pete, which now shields them in a time of trouble.
When the brethren went to Salt Creek, they wanted to make a settlementthere, and inquired of me if they might do so. I told them, no, unless theyfirst built an efficient fort. I forbade them taking their women and childrenthere, until that preparatory work was fully accomplished. Has it ever beendone? No, but families went there and lived in wagons and brush houses,perfectly exposed to be killed. If they have faith enough to keep the Indiansoff, it is all right.
From the time these distant valleys began to be settled, until now,there has scarcely been a day but what I have felt twenty-five ton weight,as it were, upon me, in exercising faith to keep this people from destroyingthemselves; but if any of them can exercise faith enough for themselves,and wish to excuse me, I will take my faith back.
The word has gone out now, to the different settlements, in the timeof harvest, requiring them to build forts. Could it not have been done lastwinter, better than now? Yes. Do you not suppose people will now wish theyhad built forts when they were told? If they do not, it proves what theyhave been all the time, shall I say fools? If that is too harsh a term,I will say they have been foolish. It is better for me to labor in buildinga house or a fort, to get out fencing timber, and wood to consume throughwinter, when I have nothing else to do, and not be under the necessity ofleaving my grain on the ground to do those things. Harvest is no time tobuild forts, neither is it the time to do it when we should be plowing andsowing.
Now the harvest is upon us, I wish to say a few words concerning it.I desire you to tell your neighbors, and wish them to tell their neighbors,and thus let it go to the several counties around-now is the time for womenand children to assist in the harvest fields, the same as they do in othercountries. I never asked this of them before; I do not now ask it as a generalthing, but those employed in the expedition south, in the work of defendingtheir brethren from Indian depredations, who have heavy harvests on hand,rather than suffer the grain to waste, let the women get in the harvest,and put it where the Indians cannot steal it. And when you go into the harvestfield, carry a good butcher knife in your belt, that if an Indian shouldcome upon you, supposing you to be unarmed, you would be sure to kill him.
Tell your neighbors of this, and go to work, men, women, and children,and gather in your grain, and gather it clean, leave none to waste, andput it where the Indians cannot destroy it.
Does this language intimate anything terrific to you? It need not. Ifyou will do as you are told, you will be safe continually. Secure your breadstuff, your wheat, and your corn, when it is ripe, and let every particleof grain raised in these valleys be put where it will be safe, and as muchas possible from vermin, and especially from the Indians, and then buildforts.
Let every man and woman who has a house make that house a fort, fromwhich you can kill ten where you can now only kill one, if Indians comeupon you. "Brother Brigham, do you really expect Indians to come uponus in this city?" This inquiry, I have no doubt, is at this momentin the hearts of a few, almost breathless with fear. Were I to answer suchinquirers as I feel, I should say, it is none of your business; but I willsay, you are so instructed, to see if you will do as you are told. Let yourdwelling house be a perfect fort. From the day I lived where brother JosephSmith lived, I have been fortified all the time so as to resist twenty men,if they should come to my house in the night, with an intent to molest myfamily, assault my person, or destroy my property; and I have always beenin the habit of sleeping with one eye open, and if I cannot then sufficientlywatch, I will get my wife to help me. Let an hostile band of Indians comeround my house, and I am good for quite a number of them. If one hundredshould come I calculate that only fifty would be able to go to the nexthouse, and if the Saints there used up the other fifty, the third housewould be safe.
But instead of the people taking this course, almost every good riflein the territory has been traded away to the Indians, with quantities ofpowder and lead, though they waste it in various ways when they have gotit. The whites would sell the title to their lives, for the sake of tradingwith the Indians.
They will learn better, I expect, by and by, for the people have neverreceived such strict orders as they have got now. I will give you the pithof the last orders issued-"That man or family who will not do as theyare told in the orders, are to be treated as strangers, yea, even as enemies,and not as friends." And if there should be a contest, if we shouldbe called upon to defend our lives, our liberty, and our possessions, wewould cut such off the first, and walk over their bodies to conquer thefoe outside.
Martial law is not enforced yet, although the whole territory is ina state of war, apparently, but it is only the Utah (Indians) who have declaredwar on Utah (Territory.) Deseret has not yet declared war; how soon it willbe declared is not for me to say; but we have a right, and it is our duty,to put ourselves in a state of self defence.
The few families that settled in, Cedar Valley, at the point of themountains, were instructed to leave there, last spring. They have gone back.again, upon their own responsibility, and now want to know what they mustdo. They have been told to do just as they have a mind to.
Those who have taken their wives and children in the kanyons to live,have been told to remove them into the city; and if you want to make shingles,or do any other work that requires you to remain there, have your gun ina situation that an Indian cannot creep up and steal it from you beforeyou are aware, that you can be good for few Indians if they should chanceto come upon you.
If I wished to live away from the body of the people, my first effortshould be directed towards building a good and efficient fort. When newsettlements were made in the eastern countries, they built them of timber,and they were called "block houses." I would advise that everyhouse in a new settlement should be made good for all the Indians that couldapproach it, with an intention to tear it down. If I did not do that, Iwould go to where I could be safe, I would take up my abode with the bodyof the people. I would take my family there at least. By taking this course,every person will be safe from the depredations of the Indians, which aregenerally committed upon the defenceless and unprotected portions of thecommunity.
I know what the feelings of the generality of the people are, at thistime -They think all the Indians in the mountains are coming to kill offthe Latter-day Saints. I have no more fear of that, than I have of the sunceasing to give light upon the earth. I have studied the Indian charactersufficiently to know what the Indians are in war, I have been with themmore or less from my youth upward, where they have often had wars amongthemselves. Let every man, woman, and child, that can handle a butcher knife,be good for one Indian, and you are safe.
I am aware that the people want to ask me a thousand and one questions,whether they have done it or not, touching the present Indian difficulties.I have tried to answer them all, in my own mind, by saying, it will be justas the Lord will.
How many times have I been asked in the past week, what I intend todo with Walker. I say, LET HIM ALONE, SEVERELY. I have not made war on theIndians, nor am I calculating to do it. My policy is to give them presents,and be kind to them. Instead of being Walker's enemy, I have sent him agreat pile of tobacco to smoke when he is lonely in the mountains. He isnow at war with the only friends he has upon this earth, and I want himto have some tobacco to smoke.
I calculate to pursue just such a course with the Indians, and whenI am dictated to by existing circumstances, and the Spirit of the Lord,to change my course, I will do it, and not until then.
If you were to see Walker, do you think you would kill him? You thatwant to kill him, I will give you a mission to that effect. A great manyappear very bold, and desire to go and bring me Walker's head, but theywant all the people in Utah to go with them. I could point out thousandsin this Territory who would follow these Indians, and continue to followthem, and leave the cattle to be driven off by the emigrants, and the grainto perish, and thus subject the whole community to the ravages of famine,and its consequent evils. I have been teased and teased by men who will,come to me and say, "Just give me twenty-five, fifty, or a hundredmen, and I will go and fetch you Walker's head." I do not want hishead, but I wish him to do all the Devil wants him to do, so far as theLord will suffer him and the Devil to chastise this people for their good.
I say to the Indians, as I have often said to the mob, go your length.You say you are going to kill us all off, you say you are going to obliteratethe Latter-day Saints, and wipe them from the earth; why don't you do it,you poor miserable curses? The mob only had power to drive the Saints totheir duty, and to remember the Lord their God, and that is all the Indianscan do. This people are worldly-minded, they want to get rich in earthlysubstance, and are apt to forget their God, the pit from which they weredug and the rock from which they were hewn, every man turning to his ownway. Seemingly the Lord is chastening us until we turn and do His will.What are you willing to do? Would you be willing to build a fort, and allgo in there to live? I tell you, you would have a hell of your own, anddevils enough to carry it on. Do you suppose you will ever see the timeyou would do that, and live at peace with each other, and have the Spiritof the Lord enough to look each other in the face, and say, with a heartfull of kindness, "Good morning, Mary," or "How do you do,Maria"? YOU WILL BE WHIPPED UNTIL you have the Spirit of the Lord JesusChrist sufficiently to love your brethren and sisters freely, men, women,and CHILDREN; until you can live at peace with yourselves, and with everyfamily around you; until you can treat every child as though it were thetender offspring of your own body, every man as your brother, and everywoman as your sister; and until the young persons treat the old with thatrespect due to parents, and all learn to shake hands, with a warm heart,and a friendly grip, and say, "God bless you," from morning tillevening; until each person can say, "I love you all, I have no evilin my heart to any individual, I can send my children to school with yours,and can correct your children when they do wrong, as though they were myown, and I am willing you should correct mine, and let us live togetheruntil we are a holy and sanctified society." There will always be Indiansor somebody else to chastise you, until you come to that spot; so amen tothe present Indian trouble, for it is all right. I am just as willing therebellious of this people should be kicked, and cuffed, and mobbed, andhunted by the Indians, as not, for I have preached to them until I am tired.I will give no more counsel to any person upon the duties of self preservation;you can do as you please; if you will not preserve yourselves, I may reasonwith you until my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth, to no avail. Letthe Lord extend the hand of benevolence to brother Walker, and he will makeyou do it by other means than exhortations given in mildness.
This very same Indian Walker has a mission upon him, and I do not blamehim for what he is now doing: he is helping me to do the will of the Lordto this people, he is doing with a chastening rod what I have failed toaccomplish with soft words, while I have been handing out my substance,feeding the hungry, comforting the sick. But this has no effect upon thispeople at all, my counsel has not been needed, so the Lord is making brotherWalker an instrument to help me, and perhaps the means that he will usewill have their due effect.
Do you suppose I want to kill him? No. I should be killing the verymeans that will make this people do what we wanted them to do years ago.
There are hundreds of witnesses to bear testimony that I have counselledthis people, from the beginning, what to do to save themselves both temporallyand spiritually.
In one of our orders issued lately, the southern settlements were advisedto send their surplus cattle to this valley. No quicker had the news reachedthem, than our ears were greeted with one continued whine, which meant,"We are afraid you want them." So we did, to take care of themfor you.
When Father Allred was advised to adopt measures to secure themselvesand their property, he replied, "O, I do not think there is the leastdanger in the world; we are perfectly able to take care of our stock, andprotect ourselves against the Indians." All right, I thought, let circumstancesprove that.
Now as difficulties surround them, they say to me, "Why, brotherBrigham, if you had only told us what to do, we would have done it. Werewe not always willing to take your counsel?" Yes, you are a great dealmore willing to take it, than to obey it. If people are willing to carryout good counsel, they will secure themselves accordingly.
I have thought of setting a pattern, by securing myself; but were Ito build a fort for myself and family, I should want about a legion of angelsfrom the throne of God, to stay nine months with me, to get my folks willingto go into it. But I am so independent about it, I care not the snap ofmy finger for one of them. If my wives will not go into a place of securitywith me, it is all right, they can stay out, and I will go in and take mychildren with me. I say, I do not know but I may take a notion to set apattern by building a fort; if I do, some one in this city may follow myexample, and then somebody else, &c., until we have a perfect city offorts.
"Brother Brigham, do you really think we shall ever need them?"YES, I DO. All the difficulties there is in the community this year, isnot a drop in comparison to the heavy shower that will come. "Well,and where is it coming from?" From hell, where every other troublecomes from. "And who do you think will be the actors?" Why, theDevil and his imps. (W.W. Phelps in the stand, We could not do very wellwithout a devil.) No, sir, you are quite aware of that; you know we couldnot do without him. If there had been no devil to tempt Eve, she never wouldhave got her eyes opened. We need a devil to stir up the wicked on the earthto purify the Saints. Therefore let devils howl, let them rage, and thusexhibit themselves in the form of those poor foolish Lamanites. Let themgo on in their work, and do you not desire to kill them, until they oughtto be killed, and then we will extinguish the Indian title, if it is required.
Did you never feel to pity them on viewing their wretched condition?Walker with a small band has succeeded in making all the Indian bands inthese mountains fear him. He has been in the habit of stealing from theCalifornians, and of making every train of emigrants that passed along theSpanish trail to California pay tithing to him. He finally began to stealchildren from those bands to sell to the Spaniards; and through fear ofhim, he managed to bring in subjection almost all the Utah tribes.
I will relate one action of Walker's life, which will serve to illustratehis character. He, with his band, about last Feb., fell in with a smallband of Piedes, and killed off the whole of the men, took the squaws prisoners,and sold the children to the Mexicans, and some few were disposed of inthis territory. This transaction was told by Arapeen, Walker's brother,though he was not at the affray himself.
The Indians in these mountains are continually on the decrease; bandsthat numbered 150 warriors when we first came here, number not more than35 now; and some of the little tribes in the southern parts of this territory,towards New Mexico, have not a single squaw amongst them, for they havetraded them off for horses, &c. This practice will soon make the raceextinct. Besides, Walker is continually, whenever an opportunity presentsitself, killing and stealing children from the wandering bands that he hasany power over, which also has its tendency to extinguish the race.
Walker is hemmed in, he dare not go into California again. Dare he goeast to the Snakes? No. Dare he go north? No, for they would rejoice tokill him. Here he is, penned up in a small compass, surrounded by his enemies;and now the Elders of Israel long to eat up, as it were, him and his littleband. What are they? They are a set of cursed fool. Do you not rather pitythem? They dare not move over a certain boundary, on any of the four pointsof the compass, for fear of being killed; then they are killing one another,and making war upon this people that could use them up, and they not bea breakfast spell for them if they felt so disposed. See their condition,and I ask you, do you not pity them? From all appearance, there will notbe an Indian left, in a short time, to steal a horse. Are they not fools,under these circumstances, to make war with their best friends?
Do you want to run after them to kill them? I say, let them alone, forpreadventure God may pour out His Spirit upon them, and show them the errorof their ways. We may yet have to fight them, though they are of the houseof Israel to whom the message of salvation is sent; for their wickednessis so great, that the Lord Almighty cannot get at the hearts of the olderones to teach them saving principles. Joseph Smith said we should have tofight them. He said, "When this people mingle among the Lamanites,if they do not bow down in obedience to the Gospel, they will hunt themuntil there is but a small remnant of them left upon this continent."They have either got to bow down to the Gospel or be slain. Shall we slaythem simply because they will not obey the Gospel? No. But they will cometo us and try to kill us, and we shall be under the necessity of killingthem to save our own lives.
I wished to lay these things before the people this morning, to answergreat many questions, and allay their fears. Yesterday, brother Kimballheard at his mill, ten miles north, that I had sent word to him, that themountains were full of Indians, and he and the families with him were tomove into the city; so they immediately obeyed this report. Brother Kimballcame to me and inquired if I had sent such orders. I said, no. But it isall right, for I wanted the women and children from there. This shows theexcited state of the people.
One thing more. I ask you men who have been with Joseph in the warshe passed through, and who were with him at the time of his death, whatwas it that preserved us, to all outward appearances? It is true, in reality,God did it. But by what means did He keep the mob from destroying us? Itwas by the means of being well armed with the weapons of death to send themto hell cross lots. Just so you have got to do.
As for this people fostering to themselves that the day has come forthem to sell their guns and ammunition to their enemies, and sit down tosleep in peace, they will find themselves deceived, and before they know,they will sleep until they are slain. They have got to carry weapons withthem, to be ready to send their enemies to hell cross lots, whether theybe Lamanities, or mobs who may come to take their lives, or destroy theirproperty. We must be so prepared that they dare not come to us in a hostilemanner without being assured they will meet a vigorous resistance, and tento one they will meet their grave.
The Lord will suffer no more trouble to come upon us than is necessaryto bring this people to their senses. You need not go to sleep under theimpression that it is the north and south only that is in danger, and weare all safe here. Now mind, let this people here lie down to sleep, andbe entirely off their watch, and the first thing they know, they are inthe greatest danger. You must not desert the watch tower, but do as I do-keepsome person awake in your house all night long, and be ready, at the leasttap of the foot, to offer a stout resistance, if it is required. Be readyat any moment to kill twenty of your enemies at least. Let every house bea fort.
After the cattle were stolen at San Pete, a messenger arrived here inabout thirty hours to report the affair, and obtain advice. I told brotherWells, "you can write to them, and say, 'Inasmuch as you have no cowsand oxen to trouble you, you can go to harvesting, and take care of yourselves.'"If you do not take care of yourselves, brethren, you will not be taken careof. I take care of them that help themselves. I will help you that try tohelp yourselves, and carry out the maxim of Doctor Dick-"God helpsthem that help themselves."
I am my own policeman, and have slept, scores of nights, with my gunand sword by my side, that is, if I slept at all. I am still a policeman.Now is the day to watch. It is as important for me to watch now, as wellas pray, as it ever has been since I came into this kingdom. It requireswatching, as well as praying men; take turns at it, let some watch whileothers pray, and then change round, but never let any time pass withouta watcher, lest you be overtaken in an hour when you think not; it willcome as a thief in the night. Look out for your enemies, for we know nothow they will come, and what enemy it will be. Take care of yourselves.
Again, let me reiterate to the sisters, do not be afraid of going intothe harvest field. If you are found there helping your sons, your husbands,and your brethren, to gather in the harvest, I say, God bless you, and Iwill also.
Take care of your grain, and take care of yourselves, that no enemycome to slay you. Be always on hand to meet them with death, and send themto hell, if they come to you. May God bless you all. Amen.gra?Ø ´
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Éïä@>0´@,Ih·]Ih\J\]¦hi·i]8]@>P@Õ¦TEXTéðMATE?0@>ê´0Ù*¸@>´èhTEXTéðMATERIALwill.What are you willing to do? Would you be willing to build a fort, and allgo in there to live? I tell you, you would have a hell of your own, anddevils enough to carry it on. Do you suppose you will ever see the timeyou would do that, and live at peace with each other, and have the Spiritof the Lord enough to look each other in the face, and say, with a heartfull of kindness, "Good morning, Mary," or "How do you do,Maria"? YOU WILL BE WHIPPED UNTIL you have the Spirit of the Lord JesusChrist sufficiently to love your brethren and sisters freely, men, women,and CHILDREN; until you can live at peace with yourselves, and with everyfamily around you; until you can treat every child as though it were thetender offspring of your own body, every man as your brother, and everywoman as your sister; and until the young persons treat the old with thatrespect due to parents, and all learn to shake hands, with a warm heart,and a friendly grip, and say, "God bless you," from morning tillevening; until each person can say, "I love you all, I have no evilin my heart to any individual, I can send my children to school with yours,and can correct your children when they do wrong, as though they were myown, and I am willing you should correct mine, and let us live togetheruntil we are a holy and sanctified society." There will always be Indiansor somebody else to chastise you, until you come to that spot; so amen tothe present Indian trouble, for it is all right. I am just as willing therebellious of this people should be kicked, and cuffed, and mobbed, andhunted by the Indians, as not, for I have preached to them until I am tired.I will give no more counsel to any person upon the duties of self preservation;you can do as you please; if you will not preserve yourselves, I may reasonwith you until my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth, to no avail. Letthe Lord extend the hand of benevolence to brother Walker, and he will makeyou do it by other means than exhortations given in mildness.
This very same Indian Walker has a mission upon him, and I do not blamehim for what he is now doing: he is helping me to do the will of the Lordto this people, he is doing with a chastening rod what I have failed toaccomplish with soft words, while I have been handing out my substance,feeding the hungry, comforting the sick. But this has no effect upon thispeople at all, my counsel has not been needed, so the Lord is making brotherWalker an instrument to help me, and perhaps the means that he will usewill have their due effect.
Do you suppose I want to kill him? No. I should be killing the verymeans that will make this people do what we wanted them to do years ago.
There are hundreds of witnesses to bear testimony that I have counselledthis people, from the beginning, what to do to save themselves both temporallyand spiritually.
In one of our orders issued lately, the southern settlements were advisedto send their surplus cattle to this valley. No quicker had the news reachedthem, than our ears were greeted with one continued whine, which meant,"We are afraid you want them." So we did, to take care of themfor you.
When Father Allred was advised to adopt measures to secure themselvesand their property, he replied, "O, I do not think there is the leastdanger in the world; we are perfectly able to take care of our stock, andprotect ourselves against the Indians." All right, I thought, let circumstancesprove that.
Now as difficulties surround them, they say to me, "Why, brotherBrigham, if you had only told us what to do, we would have done it. Werewe not always willing to take your counsel?" Yes, you are a great dealmore willing to take it, than to obey it. If people are willing to carryout good counsel, they will secure themselves accordingly.
I have thought of setting a pattern, by securing myself; but were Ito build a fort for myself and family, I should want about a legion of angelsfrom the throne of God, to stay nine months with me, to get my folks willingto go into it. But I am so independent about it, I care not the snap ofmy finger for one of them. If my wives will not go into a place of securitywith me, it is all right, they can stay out, and I will go in and take mychildren with me. I say, I do not know but I may take a notion to set apattern by building a fort; if I do, some one in this city may follow myexample, and then somebody else, &c., until we have a perfect city offorts.
"Brother Brigham, do you really think we shall ever need them?"YES, I DO. All the difficulties there is in the community this year, isnot a drop in comparison to the heavy shower that will come. "Well,and where is it coming from?" From hell, where every other troublecomes from. "And who do you think will be the actors?" Why, theDevil and his imps. (W.W. Phelps in the stand, We could not do very wellwithout a devil.) No, sir, you are quite aware of that; you know we couldnot do without him. If there had been no devil to tempt Eve, she never wouldhave got her eyes opened. We need a devil to stir up the wicked on the earthto purify the Saints. Therefore let devils howl, let them rage, and thusexhibit themselves in the form of those poor foolish Lamanites. Let themgo on in their work, and do you not desire to kill them, until they oughtto be killed, and then we will extinguish the Indian title, if it is required.
Did you never feel to pity them on viewing their wretched condition?Walker with a small band has succeeded in making all the Indian bands inthese mountains fear him. He has been in the habit of stealing from theCalifornians, and of making every train of emigrants that passed along theSpanish trail to California pay tithing to him. He finally began to stealchildren from those bands to sell to the Spaniards; and through fear ofhim, he managed to bring in subjection almost all the Utah tribes.
I will relate one action of Walker's life, which will serve to illustratehis character. He, with his band, about last Feb., fell in with a smallband of Piedes, and killed off the whole of the men, took the squaws prisoners,and sold the children to the Mexicans, and some few were disposed of inthis territory. This transaction was told by Arapeen, Walker's brother,though he was not at the affray himself.
The Indians in these mountains are continually on the decrease; bandsthat numbered 150 warriors when we first came here, number not more than35 now; and some of the little tribes in the southern parts of this territory,towards New Mexico, have not a single squaw amongst them, for they havetraded them off for horses, &c. This practice will soon make the raceextinct. Besides, Walker is continually, whenever an opportunity presentsitself, killing and stealing children from the wandering bands that he hasany power over, which also has its tendency to extinguish the race.
Walker is hemmed in, he dare not go into California again. Dare he goeast to the Snakes? No. Dare he go north? No, for they would rejoice tokill him. Here he is, penned up in a small compass, surrounded by his enemies;and now the Elders of Israel long to eat up, as it were, him and his littleband. What are they? They are a set of cursed fool. Do you not rather pitythem? They dare not move over a certain boundary, on any of the four pointsof the compass, for fear of being killed; then they are killing one another,and making war upon this people that could use them up, and they not bea breakfast spell for them if they felt so disposed. See their condition,and I ask you, do you not pity them? From all appearance, there will notbe an Indian left, in a short time, to steal a horse. Are they not fools,under these circumstances, to make war with their best friends?
Do you want to run after them to kill them? I say, let them alone, forpreadventure God may pour out His Spirit upon them, and show them the errorof their ways. We may yet have to fight them, though they are of the houseof Israel to whom the message of salvation is sent; for their wickednessis so great, that the Lord Almighty cannot get at the hearts of the olderones to teach them saving principles. Joseph Smith said we should have tofight them. He said, "When this people mingle among the Lamanites,if they do not bow down in obedience to the Gospel, they will hunt themuntil there is but a small remnant of them left upon this continent."They have either got to bow down to the Gospel or be slain. Shall we slaythem simply because they will not obey the Gospel? No. But they will cometo us and try to kill us, and we shall be under the necessity of killingthem to save our own lives.
I wished to lay these things before the people this morning, to answergreat many questions, and allay their fears. Yesterday, brother Kimballheard at his mill, ten miles north, that I had sent word to him, that themountains were full of Indians, and he and the families with him were tomove into the city; so they immediately obeyed this report. Brother Kimballcame to me and inquired if I had sent such orders. I said, no. But it isall right, for I wanted the women and children from there. This shows theexcited state of the people.
One thing more. I ask you men who have been with Joseph in the warshe passed through, and who were with him at the time of his death, whatwas it that preserved us, to all outward appearances? It is true, in reality,God did it. But by what means did He keep the mob from destroying us? Itwas by the means of being well armed with the weapons of death to send themto hell cross lots. Just so you have got to do.
As for this people fostering to themselves that the day has come forthem to sell their guns and ammunition to their enemies, and sit down tosleep in peace, they will find themselves deceived, and before they know,they will sleep until they are slain. They have got to carry weapons withthem, to be ready to send their enemies to hell cross lots, whether theybe Lamanities, or mobs who may come to take their lives, or destroy theirproperty. We must be so prepared that they dare not come to us in a hostilemanner without being assured they will meet a vigorous resistance, and tento one they will meet their grave.
The Lord will suffer no more trouble to come upon us than is necessaryto bring this people to their senses. You need not go to sleep under theimpression that it is the north and south only that is in danger, and weare all safe here. Now mind, let this people here lie down to sleep, andbe entirely off their watch, and the first thing they know, they are inthe greatest danger. You must not desert the watch tower, but do as I do-keepsome person awake in your house all night long, and be ready, at the leasttap of the foot, to offer a stout resistance, if it is required. Be readyat any moment to kill twenty of your enemies at least. Let every house bea fort.
After the cattle were stolen at San Pete, a messenger arrived here inabout thirty hours to report the affair, and obtain advice. I told brotherWells, "you can write to them, and say, 'Inasmuch as you have no cowsand oxen to trouble you, you can go to harvesting, and take care of yourselves.'"If you do not take care of yourselves, brethren, you will not be taken careof. I take care of them that help themselves. I will help you that try tohelp yourselves, and carry out the maxim of Doctor Dick-"God helpsthem that help themselves."
I am my own policeman, and have slept, scores of nights, with my gunand sword by my side, that is, if I slept at all. I am still a policeman.Now is the day to watch. It is as important for me to watch now, as wellas pray, as it ever has been since I came into this kingdom. It requireswatching, as well as praying men; take turns at it, let some watch whileothers pray, and then change round, but never let any time pass withouta watcher, lest you be overtaken in an hour when you think not; it willcome as a thief in the night. Look out for your enemies, for we know nothow they will come, and what enemy it will be. Take care of yourselves.
Again, let me reiterate to the sisters, do not be afraid of going intothe harvest field. If you are found there helping your sons, your husbands,and your brethren, to gather in the harvest, I say, God bless you, and Iwill also.
Take care of your grain, and take care of yourselves, that no enemycome to slay you. Be always on hand to meet them with death, and send themto hell, if they come to you. May God bless you all. Amen.