A prophet of Almighty God came in the full sunlight of this great nineteenth century to lead men back to the glory of their Creator. His open enemies sought his life; but for years their murderous effort was in vain. He continued his sacred ministry upon the earth, with a power which was divine, until the hour for the traitorous kiss. When Bennett sinned and then through hate betrayed, the shadows of martyrdom began closing around our grand Prophet and Patriarch. When the Laws and the Higbees, the Fosters and the Cowles, became traitors and gave their efforts to aid the assassin persecutors of their sworn brother and leader; then, indeed, was the fate of Joseph and Hyrum sealed. A governor of a sovereign State betrayed them to a cruel death; and Carthage repeated the divine tragedy of Calvary. The Prophet and Patriarch have passed to their glorious immortality; their names shall fill a thousand hymns of praise on earth and welcome in the heavens. But the traitors--miserable reptiles--will be scorned through countless ages. It is always the same--prince or peasant, apostle or soldier--if a man be a traitor he is remembered for that and nothing more. If his station be lowly, he will seek in vain to hide his shame in his native obscurity; for it will burst forth in lurid, bloody letters to the sight of all the ages that shall come. If his station be exalted he may try and try again, but vainly, to cover his treason with the glory of his rank or wealth; for it will blacken all his brilliance and leave his place a plague spot; his fame, a grinning skeleton of dead despair; his career, an undying infamy. But whatever may be the varied circumstances and results attending the wretched lives of traitors, there is this lesson which all humanity may draw: Successful or unsuccessful in their treason, betrayers are always execrated; successful or unsuccessful in their treason, they always live long enough to repent; successful or unsuccessful in their treason, they may never in this life know a waking moment when their own coward fears do not make them doubt the fidelity of every soul about them; successful or unsuccessful in their earthly treason, when they shall stand in that other world face to face with their betrayed friends, they will know that the blackest of all offenders are _cowardly_, assassin traitors. At that great day Judas Iscariot will not be the only traitor to cry: "It had been good for me that I had not been born!" Every crisis at every period and with every nation exposes traitors just as it exalts to view patriots. This Church has seen at every critical point of its career, the betrayer as well as the savior springing to the front. The present emergency with the people of Utah is no exception to this rule.