[Brigham Young]

[CD 4:2157-2159]

[Reported by G. D. Watts]

I wish your faith and prayers to be exercised in my behalf that I may have strength to speak to you a short time.

The subject I shall lay before you is naturally interesting in consequence to the relationship it bears to Joseph the Prophet.

You have heard that Young Joseph Smith, the son of Joseph Smith the Prophet, has presented himself as the leader of the Latter-day Saints. I will take this for my text.

In the first place I will say to the saints that I know more about Joseph Smith, the prophet of the last days, and his family, than all the apostates that ever did or ever will leave this church.

My remarks will be few on this subject for I shall merely make a few declarations and perhaps call for some testimony and evidence.

It has been told you what Joseph the Prophet said with regard to the keys of the priesthood. Here are men sitting around me that sat in the Prophet Joseph's secret councils year after year; I refer to the twelve apostles and some others; they heard Joseph say thousands of things that the people have never yet heard. Among a great many other things he said, and he had a foreboding that he would be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. "I will give you a key to govern your actions if I should be slain by my enemies. If ever this transpires, some persons will stand forth who honor and hold the keys of the holy priesthood, and the main body of the people will follow that individual. You may depend upon this." Many of you are witnesses with regard to the truth of this saying.

Have the people called "the Josephites" any gathering place? They have not. What has the Lord revealed through his servant Joseph over this point? "Behold it is my will, that all they who call on my name and worship me according to mine everlasting gospel should gather together and stand in holy places and prepare for the revelation which is to come when the veil of the covering of my temple and my tabernacle which hideth the earth shall be taken off and all flesh see me together." Book of D & C, 4th European Edition, page 278 paragraph 5. [D&C 101:22-23]

They will tell you that Joseph the Prophet never gave a revelation on marriage in Nauvoo July 12th 1843. There are scores of persons in this congregation who have heard Joseph say, I should think hundreds of times, that "if ever there was a truth revealed from heaven through him, it was revealed when that revelation was given, and if I have to die for any revelation God has given through me I would as readily die for this one as any other. And I sometimes think that I shall have to die for it. It may be that I shall have to forfeit my life to it and if this has to be so, Amen."