Keep your follies that do not concern others to yourselves, and keep
your private wickedness as still as possible; hide it from the eyes
of the public gaze as far as you can. I wish to say this upon this
particular point in regard to people's confessing. We wish to see
people honestly confess as they should and what they should. 8:362.
{245}
If I have injured any person, I ought to confess to that person and
make right what I did wrong. 8:361.
But if you have stolen your neighbor's cattle, own it, and restore the
property, with fourfold if it is requested. If you have taken your
neighbor's spade, own it, and return it, with fourfold if he requires
it. I believe in coming out and being plain and honest with that which
should be made public, and in keeping to yourselves that which should
be kept. If you have your weaknesses, keep them hid from your brethren
as much as you can. You never hear me ask the people to tell their
follies. But when we ask the brethren, as we frequently do, to speak in
sacrament meetings, we wish them, if they have injured their neighbors,
to confess their wrongs; but do not tell about your nonsensical conduct
that nobody knows of but yourselves. Tell to the public that which
belongs to the public. If you have sinned against the people, confess
to them. If you have sinned against a family or a neighborhood, go to
them and confess. If you have sinned against your Ward, confess to
your Ward. If you have sinned against one individual, take that person
by yourselves and make your confession to him. And if you have sinned
against your God, or against yourselves, confess to God, and keep the
matter to yourselves, for I do not want to know anything about it.
8:362.
_Baptism_--We, the Latter-day Saints, believe in being baptized
by immersion for the remission of sins, according to the testimony of
the disciples of Jesus and the revelations of the Lord given in these
last days. Infants are pure, they have neither sorrow of heart, nor
sins to repent of and forsake, and consequently are incapable of being
baptized for the remission of sin. If we have sinned, we must know good
from evil; an infant does not know this, it cannot {246} know it; it
has not grown into the idea of contemplation of good and evil; it has
not the capacity to listen to the parent or teacher or to the priest
when they tell what is right or wrong or what is injurious; and until
these things are understood a person cannot be held accountable and
consequently cannot be baptized for the remission of sin. 13:237.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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