Wilford Woodruff, Fourth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: History of His Life and Labors, as Recorded in His Daily JournalsWoodruff, Wilford
Religion
Wilford Woodruff, Fourth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: History of His Life and Labors, as Recorded in His Daily Journals
Woodruff, Wilford
Woodruff, Wilford, 1807-1898
"It mattereth not whether we live long or short after we come {163}
to a knowledge of the principles of the gospel and obey them. I know
that all men will be damned if they come not in the way which God has
ordained. Concerning the resurrection I will say merely that we will
come from the grave as we lie down, whether we die old or young. Not
one cubit will be added to or taken away from our stature. 'Blessed are
the dead which die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors and
their works do follow them.'"
"The Prophet," says Elder Woodruff, "then called upon the people to
assemble themselves in prayer before God and call upon Him in mighty
faith, prayer, and fasting that the inhabitants of the city might
escape the power of the destroyer which rageth upon the face of the
earth, and that the earth might be sanctified under their feet." Here
the Prophet clearly sets forth the principle that the blessings of
our spiritual lives, the blessings of the world hereafter are the
result of obedience to spiritual laws, or divine command, just as
the consequences in the material world are based upon God's laws and
so-called laws of nature. "All," says the Doctrine and Covenants,
"who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was
appointed for that blessing and the conditions thereof as they were
instituted from before the foundation of the world."
After this discourse, we are told that the Prophet went into the river
and baptized about eighty persons for the remission of their sins.
Among them was L. D. Wasson, a nephew of the Prophet's wife. He was the
only one of her kindred thus far who had accepted the faith.
"At the close of this interesting scene the Prophet lifted up his hands
to heaven and implored the blessings of God upon the people, and verily
the spirit of God rested upon the multitude to the joy and consolation
of our hearts." At various times, at intervals between the meetings,
large numbers received at the hands of the Twelve in the Temple font
the ordinance of baptism for the dead.
During these times the emigration from England brought to Nauvoo a
great many people. Lyman Wight had just returned from the East with
one hundred and seventy Saints, and brought with him three thousand
dollars worth of property for the benefit {164} of the Temple and the
Nauvoo House. The annual conference of that year was full of interest
to the people, though the season was a rainy one. On the second day
of the conference when Elder John Taylor was addressing the assembled
multitude, other elders were baptizing in the font and elsewhere.
Elder Woodruff and six others of the Twelve were ordaining elders. "We
ordained 275 elders, the most that we ever ordained in one day before
in the Church."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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