Kitabı oku: «Gems for the Young Folks», sayfa 4
OVERCOMING DIFFIDENCE
By G. Q. C
DIFFERENCE IN PERSONS ABOUT SPEAKING IN PUBLIC – THE LORD WILLING TO HELP HIS SERVANTS TO OVERCOME TIMIDITY – EARLY EXPERIENCE IN PREACHING – A FEELING OF FEAR AND THE SPIRIT OF GOD NOT CONGENIAL – TIMIDITY CONQUERED.
It is most interesting to listen at meetings to the different testimonies which the Latter-day Saints bear concerning the work of God. The experience of no two persons is exactly the same, and yet all are true. One is impressed with an evidence of the truth in one way and another in another way.
So also it is with the experience of the Elders; the experience of each varies according to the constitution and temperament, the bent of mind and the circumstances which surround each one.
We have met with a few men in our life who never seemed to know what it was to be timid in standing up before an audience. They always seemed to be perfectly self-possessed, and did not suffer in the least from fear; while we have known others who felt that it was impossible for them to stand on their feet and address an audience.
Some Elders in starting out, quickly conquer their feelings of timidity. They soon get into the habit of thinking and talking upon their feet. They seem to care nothing about the congregation, while others require a long time to get accustomed to speaking to audiences, and are easily embarrassed.
We firmly believe that the Lord will help every man to overcome this timidity when sent upon a mission to preach the gospel. If he does not conquer the feeling of fear, it is because he allows it to master him, and does not use that faith which he should to shake it off.
The writer started out as a missionary when he felt that he was but a comparative youth. He was exceedingly timid, and had a mortal dread of standing up before a congregation. He sometimes thought that no one could have suffered from this feeling as he did.
But there was one thing that he made up his mind to do – to never shrink from the discharge of his duty. If he should be called upon to pray, to bear testimony or to speak, he was resolved that he would do his best, and put his trust in the Lord to help him out.
With the exception of a few meetings, his first experience as a missionary was in preaching in a strange language to a foreign people. This was doubtless more embarrassing than it would have been to speak to the people in his mother tongue, because there was his awkwardness in the use of the language in addition to the ordinary feelings of timidity to contend with.
He well remembers the feelings that he had prior to the first meeting. If he could have run away, and done so honorably, he would have done it, but this would have been disgraceful.
He did the best he could, and suffered considerably from embarrassment; and though he baptized some nineteen souls in the ensuing five weeks, yet he suffered at each meeting from the same feelings of dread.
Something occurred on the sixth Sunday to arouse him and make him somewhat angry. The conduct of some preachers and opponents of the gospel was very hateful, and in attending meeting that day he enjoyed greater liberty than he had at any time previously. A fearless spirit took possession of him, and the Spirit was able to speak through him as it had not done before.
The feeling of fear when it rests upon a man, drives away the Spirit of God. The two spirits cannot exist in the same bosom. One must have the mastery. If the Spirit of God has the mastery, it drives away all fear, and enables a man to speak under its influence with power. If the spirit of fear has the mastery, the Spirit of God is checked, and the man is not able to tell the people the will and counsel of the Lord.
After six weeks' preaching in this locality, the writer visited another place, where the people were very anxious to hear. He succeeded in getting a large meeting-house to preach in, and when he arose to give out the hymns and to pray, the sound of his own voice in the building frightened him.
The congregation was a larger one than he had ever addressed before; but he prayed earnestly to the Lord for help. He knew that no power but God's could assist him and enable him to declare the truth.
After reading a portion of the scriptures, he commenced speaking, and continued to address the people for upwards of an hour. He was completely carried away by the Spirit, and fear was banished. Tears coursed down the cheeks of the congregation, and many felt the power of God to so great an extent that they came forward and offered themselves for baptism.
A great work was done in that place and the vicinity, and from that time to the present – about thirty years – the writer has never suffered from fear as he did previous to that day.
It is true that many men never can arise before a congregation without feeling some degree of embarrassment and trepidation. The writer is one of these; but that fear which paralyzes the mind, that impairs the memory and produces a feeling of dread and utter forgetfulness of everything that one knows, he has never experienced from that time.
We relate this instance in our experience to show how differently Elders are affected. Some can speak without any difficulty or fear after the first time they get on their feet. It takes others, as in our own case, a longer time to overcome this feeling, probably arising from the fact that some have by nature more of that man-fearing spirit. Others, again, may require a still longer time; but what we wish to impress upon our young readers, and upon all who read these pages, is that they should not be discouraged because the first time they get on their feet, or the second or third, they do not speak with that freedom they desire.
When the Spirit of God takes possession of a man, and he will yield to its influence, it will take away all fear, and enable him to tell the truth in great plainness; and if he will persevere, nothing doubting, we dare promise every Elder that he will be able to overcome his feelings of fear and embarrassment, and be filled with holy boldness to declare the gospel unto the people in whose midst he is appointed to labor.
THE LORD WILL PROVIDE
By C. H. B
A MOTHER AND CHILDREN IN GREAT WANT – THE MOTHER'S FAITH – HER PRAYER – IS PROVIDED WITH MONEY IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY.
In the year 1864, a little boy named Charles lived with his mother and sister in the city of C – , near the central part of the State of Indiana. His father and elder brother had enlisted in the army, then fighting for the Union. Charles was but four years of age, not large enough to earn anything, and their daily food depended upon what his mother earned by her hard day's labor.
It was in the winter season. Times were hard, and growing worse every day, and the people had but little for the mother to do. It was with great difficulty that she earned enough for herself and children to live upon.
One morning she went out in the cold wintry blast and gathered bark from the fence rails to keep her children from suffering with the severe cold, and at breakfast she gave them the last crust of bread that was in the house, not eating any herself. Then she went out into the city to seek something to do to earn some more bread for her little ones. But after a long search she returned, very tired, both in body and mind, without accomplishing her object.
The poor woman sat down and wept bitterly. Her children were crying for bread, and she had none to give them. But when they again asked her for bread she said to them, "The Lord will provide."
Presently she knelt down, her bosom swelling with grief, and asked the Lord to spare her children's lives.
Then rising to her feet, she thought of some carpet rags she had put into a barrel just the day before, and decided to take them to a store and see if she could sell them for some bread.
Just as she turned the barrel up-side down, to empty out the rags, she said in a tone of motherly kindness: "Dear children, do not cry; the Lord will not let us starve." Then she turned the barrel back, and, on looking into it, what do you suppose greeted her eyes?
It was something that made her countenance beam with gladness and her eyes dance with joy, and she exclaimed, "The Lord will provide! Blessed be the name of the Lord!"
It was a dollar bill. It had never been lost there, because she had washed out the barrel the day she put the rags into it. But how it got there I will leave you to form your own opinion. Suffice it to say, that it was neither in the rags nor barrel the day before.
It purchased bread enough to last them a few days, till they received seventy dollars sent them from the army.
DIALOGUE ON RELIGION
Which occurred at Healdsburg, Sonoma Co., Cal., in 1857, between Doctor Bonham, a Methodist Minister, and a "Mormon" Elder
By H. G. B
DR. BONHAM. – I understand that you are making some prosylytes to your Church in this country.
"MORMON" ELDER. – Yes, we have some fifty or sixty members that have been added to the Church lately, on this side of Sacramento River.
DR. B. – Nine-tenths of the religious portion of the community in this country look upon your people as being deceived, and your ministers as deceivers, and your doctrines as being false and pernicious.
M. E. – Yes, I am aware of this fact, and also of another fact: that is, that the same opinion prevailed among nine-tenths of the Pharisees and Sadducees, eighteen hundred years ago, about our Savior and His apostles and prophets, and the doctrines which they taught. The same kind of religious sentiment was arrayed against the gospel then, as now.
DR. B. – But you must know that the doctrines of a new revelation, and of apostles and prophets are a delusion, and that you are leading astray many of the people.
M. E. – Then the Bible must be a delusion, and it must be that it is leading many of the people astray, for the Bible teaches the same doctrine that we teach, namely, new revelation, apostles and prophets.
DR. B. – I deny that it does. "The law and the prophets continued until John, after which the kingdom of heaven was preached."
M. E. – Would you prove by this quotation that there were to be no more revelation, nor apostles and prophets after John? Then, indeed, was Jesus Himself a false prophet, and His apostles were false teachers, and all that was revealed to the world through Him and them was also false. Such a conclusion is impossible. What, then, are the facts? The kingdom of heaven was really preached afterwards, and that, too, by apostles and prophets, with a continual flow of revelation.
DR. B. – Yes, I will agree that new revelation and apostles and prophets were necessary till the kingdom was established; but after that time, they were no longer needed, and were rightly done away. They left us a perfect pattern in the New Testament, which is all that is needed to guide the church in all things.
M. E. – And, according to this perfect pattern you allude to, you have elders, bishops, priests, teachers and deacons in your church, have you?
DR. B. – Yes; to be sure we have. And these officers are in our church according to the perfect pattern given us in the New Testament.
M. E. – I suppose, then, you have apostles, prophets and seventies in your church, thus following out the perfect pattern to its completeness.
DR. B. – No; we have no apostles nor prophets; nor have we any seventies. They are all done away with.
M. E. – Now, can't you see that you are inconsistent? If the New Testament pattern requires elders and bishops to be organized in the church, it also requires apostles and prophets just the same. If this pattern is authority for an elder, it is just as good authority for an apostle. If authority for a bishop, it is just as surely authority for a prophet. Your assertion that they are done away with, and no longer needed, is a palpable contradiction of the plainest truths of the New Testament pattern.
DR. B. – Does not Paul, in the 8th verse of the 13th chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, say, "Whether there be prophecies they shall fail?"
M. E. – Yes, and in the 10th verse of the same chapter Paul plainly tells them when prophecy shall fail, that is: "When that which is perfect is come." Paul, in his 4th chapter to the Ephesians, 11th to 13th verses, also refers to the apostles and prophets as being necessary in the church to bring about this perfection, also for the work of the ministry, and to continue "till we all come in the unity of the faith."
The work of the ministry is not or ought not to be done away. The perfecting of the Saints, and that unity spoken of, are works that belong to all time, as surely as it was necessary in Paul's time. Therefore, your quotation from Paul is certainly a very strong proof in favor of our doctrines.
DR. B – I cannot see the necessity of apostles and prophets; nor do I believe that God intended that they should be continued in the church. Is it not written in the last chapter of John's Revelations, 18th and 19th verses, that if any man shall add to or diminish from the words of this book, that a heavy penalty shall rest upon him? If God did not allow any more revelations to the world than they at that time possessed, then the necessity for apostles and prophets no longer existed, as they were the only mediums through whom He revealed His will to mankind.
M. E – What you see, or cannot see, or what you believe, or do not believe in this connection, does not amount to a pin, unless you see and believe the truth.
In the 12th chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul compares the church of Christ to the body of a man, placing the apostles and prophets as the head of that body; other officers and members composing the other portions of the body.
There were many members, yet but one body. God had set the members in the body as it pleased him; first, apostles, then prophets, etc., down to the feet. The head could not say to the body, "I have no need of you;" nor again, could the feet say to the body, "We have no need of you." The body could not live an hour without the head. Therefore, the church of Christ could not live without apostles and prophets, these constituting the head of the Church.
DR. B. – But you have not answered my quotation from John, forbidding any addition to the word of God, thus cutting off the necessity of new revelation, and the channels or mediums through which it was given, forever after.
M. E. – That was just what I was going to come to when you interrupted me. God did, indeed, forbid any man to add to, or diminish from His word, as you correctly quoted. Also in Deuteronomy, 4th chapter and 2nd verse, we find a similar prohibition, given through Moses. Now what do these passages prove? Simply this: Man shall not add nor diminish, but the Lord can do so at His pleasure. A few days after the death of Moses the Lord began to reveal more of His word to Joshua, the successor of Moses. And it is recorded in history that the Lord did the same thing in St. John's case, for he wrote his narrative of the gospel and his three epistles after his Book of Revelations, from which you made your quotation.
DR. B. – Your doctrines are the most dangerous that I know of, and the best calculated to deceive the ignorant and the unwary. And your preaching ought not to be allowed in this country, and I shall try to prevent all that I can have any influence over from going to hear you.
M. E. – I have not done with your quotations yet. No man in our Church has ever added to or diminished the word of God. We have never violated those restrictions in the least, but the Methodists and many other sects of the present day have both added to and taken from the word of God. They have added the practice of infant baptism, and substituted sprinkling for the ordinance of baptism by immersion. They have heaped to themselves teachers, having itching ears, who have turned from the truth and have added their fables; they divine for money and preach for hire. They have added the mourner's bench to what they call the worship of God. The fear of God is taught by the precepts of men, and nearly all that is preached or believed in by them is of their own adding.
They have diminished from the word of God in that they deny new revelation, apostles, prophets, seventies, the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the ordinances and power of the gospel, and all the grandest, best and most glorious promises contained in the great plan of salvation.
And I warn you to beware that the plagues John spoke of be not added to you, and that your part in the book of life and your part in the holy city be not taken away. For you have "transgressed the law, changed the ordinances and broken the everlasting covenant."
DR. B. – I understand that the government is sending an army to Utah, to exterminate you "Mormons." And I think it will serve them just right. Such gross impostors ought not to be allowed to live. No such delusion should be tolerated among civilized communities.
M. E. – That's right; come out in your true colors! Like the Pharisees of old, when you cannot bring any arguments to prevail against the truth, you would resort to the sword – you would have recourse to arms – to violence, and destroy all those that love and sustain the truth. And you, Doctor Bonham, would have been first among the men that crucified the Redeemer, had you lived then. You would have been the man to have beheaded John the Baptist, and for the same reason; and to have slain the apostles and prophets. Your antipathy to apostles and prophets prove it. "Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers," the Pharisees.
TESTIMONIES FOR THE TRUTH
By BENJAMIN BROWN
CHAPTER I
THE AUTHOR'S BIRTH AND PARENTAGE – EARLY RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS – MARRIAGE – VISION OF HIS BROTHER, AND OF THE BIBLE – THE AUTHOR DREAMS OF PREACHING – ATTENDS A "PROTRACTED MEETING" – HIS IMPRESSIONS WHILE THERE – HE MEETS WITH THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS – VISION OF TWO NEPHITE APOSTLES.
I was born on the 30th of September, in the year 1794, in the town of Queensbury, Washington County, State of New York. My father, Asa Brown, belonged to the denomination of "Friend Quakers." His business was that of a farmer. I worked with him chiefly until I was twenty years of age.
During my boyhood I was much deprived of the benefits of education, owing to my father's removing from place to place, in new settlements, they affording him greater facilities for the purchase of cheap land than older ones. By these means he was enabled to have his children settle around him.
Being thus brought up, far from the abodes of the religious sectaries of the day, my ideas of religion were just those which are naturally instilled into the mind by the statements of Scripture, where no priestcraft exists to pervert them, diminish their force or cloud their meaning; consequently, I believed in the Bible just as it read, where the self-evident rendering of the context did not prove it figurative or parabolic.
The idea that revelation from God was unattainable in this age, or that the ancient gifts of the gospel had ceased forever, never entered my head, until I gathered the notion from the creeds of churches with which I became acquainted in after years. I can remember many times, on occasions of sickness among my relatives, while yet quite a boy, retiring to some barn, or other convenient place of the kind, and their being suddenly restored to health, in answer to prayers offered there, by me, in their behalf.
I continued thus until about fifteen years of age, when circumstances caused me to live in settlements where the sects of the day had established some of their churches, and I was unfortunate enough to hear their preaching.
I soon began to lose my pure, simple ideas of God, and imbibe those more generally received; and, shortly after, by listening to the contending opinions of these parties, I found the hitherto simple Bible a perfect mystery.
I had previously been seriously and religiously inclined, but the jarrings and uncertainty of my new ideas shook that simple faith which I had reposed in the Scriptures, and in God, until I began to mix with light or vain company. I at times thought little about such matters, but, in moments of reflection, the Spirit of the Lord would often show me the folly of my conduct, and bring to my remembrance the goodness of God manifested to me in past times.
The Universalist system appeared to me the most reasonable of the various denominations I came in contact with. The horrible hell and damnation theories of most of the other parties, in my idea, were inconsistent with the mercies and love of God.
However, I did not actually join the Universalists. But their doctrines, with respect to the eternity of punishment, etc., savored to me of a more generous and God-like nature, than the contracted notions held by the other denominations, concerning God's purposes towards the human family.
Amidst all the folly which, for short periods, I gave way to, a deep anxiety possessed me to find the truth, and I visited, and, to some extent, mingled with, the religious professors of many of the sects, at their meetings, and took part in the same.
About the age of twenty-five, I married, and settled on a small farm of my own.
About nine or ten years later than this, after a fatiguing day's labor, I returned home one evening, and, having partaken of my supper, turned my back to the fire, as my custom was, and leaned, with my head on my arms, on the chair top, to rest myself, and dry my clothes, which were moistened with the perspiration caused by the heat. My wife retired to rest, expecting me shortly to follow.
Thus left alone, I was musing on things generally, but not particularly on any religious subject, when a vision of my brother, who had died some fourteen of fifteen years previous, appeared before me, praying. I heard his voice clearly and distinctly, and listened attentively.
In the course of his prayer, he referred to the great work to be done on the earth during the last days, quoting several Scriptures. I did not, however, fully comprehend the meaning of them, until, coming into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, years after, I saw the applicability of his words to the views of that people, with regard to the restoration of the gospel gifts, the great work of gathering the Saints of all nations in the last days, and the fullness of the latter-day glory, for he particularly prayed for the hastening of these things.
Soon he disappeared from my view, when suddenly, to use a Scripture phrase, a sound, as of a rushing mighty wind, with some accompanying influence, seemed to fill the house and myself, and I heard a voice saying: "This is the spirit of understanding." An open Bible appeared before me, so peculiarly placed, that I could see portions of several books of the prophets and apostles at once.
Directly I heard the above words, I began to read, understanding and intelligence burst upon my mind, and the glory and beauty that seemed to shine forth in the subjects treated upon, no language can describe. The despatch with which I read, astonished me, for I seemed able to read a chapter in the time usually occupied in reading a verse, and the contents of a whole book were laid before my mind about as quickly as otherwise I could have perused a single chapter.
With the rapidity of lightning, various truths of the Bible were presented to my mind, and what each prophet or apostle had said on each particular subject met my eyes, in consecutive order, concentrated and connected, showing that each and all of those men were inspired by the same Spirit, and had a distinct knowledge of the same grand events and glorious truths, particularly those which I had heard my brother pray about. I never before saw such connection between the Scriptures. What one prophet had said on a subject met my sight, and directly, with the quickness of thought, I read what each of the other prophets or apostles had said about the same thing. I saw the whole at a glance, brought as it were to a focus.
Such a chain of testimonies, and an interweaving of evidences, accompanied with that perception and comprehension which the Holy Ghost alone can give, none can realize but those who have received that Spirit and revelations unto themselves. Such persons know just how it is.
I was disturbed, apparently in the midst of my vision, by my wife's calling to me, when the vision left me, and I felt just like a hungry man who is called or snatched suddenly away from a feast. But the joy and peace with which my spirit was filled remained with me, and I glorified God.
Things went on much as usual, till something like a year afterwards, when I had a singular dream, which, as it had a bearing on my future life, I will relate:
I dreamed that I had been called to preach the gospel, and the first time I thus officiated, it was in a school-house, in an adjoining town, with which I was well acquainted. I saw all the members of the congregation, which was small, and, when I awoke, I could distinctly remember the position each person occupied in the room.
This so impressed my mind that I told my wife of it, and said I believed it would be realized; but she scouted the idea. What was I, a working man, to do with preaching? Well, at other times, it would have appeared equally foolish to myself, but it had been given to me that her mother, living at the place, knew by a dream the same thing, and I told this to my wife. At last she promised that, if it turned out to be the case, she would believe the dream to be true.
In a day or so, we paid her mother a visit, and found that she had dreamed, that night, that I was coming to preach in the town where she lived, and we learned, from her friends, that she had been entreating one of her relatives to carry her to my residence, that she might tell me of it.
Although the truth of the dream was thus proved to me, I little thought what doctrines I was to preach, and in connection with what people or church. But I was to have greater evidence of the truth of my dream, as will be seen hereafter.
Five years more passed, and I was still unconnected with any religious party. At this time, what were called "protracted meetings," or religious services, continued for days, and sometimes weeks, were very popular in America.
In common with the "Universalists," I felt unfavorable to the meetings, but such magnificent reports of their results – the wholesale "conversion of souls," led me to attend one. I humbled myself, and determined to divest my mind of all prejudice, and put myself at least in a position to receive all the good that could be obtained.
Before going, I covenanted with the Lord, that if He would reveal His mind and will unto me, whatever sacrifice or duty He might require at my hands, I would do it. Little did I think of the way my truthfulness would be tried, or possibly I might have shunned such a contract.
As soon as I began to attend, I felt the Spirit of the Lord operating upon me, so that I seemed filled to overflowing with its teachings. A continual stream of glorious truths passed through my mind, my happiness was great, and my mind was so absorbed in spiritual things, that all the time the meetings lasted, which was about fifteen days, I scarcely ate or drank anything. At other times, that which I subsisted on during these fifteen days, could scarcely have sustained life, but the Spirit of the Lord so operated on my system, that I felt full all the time, and had no desire to eat or partake of anything.
The subject of "Freemasonry" was just then agitating the public mind, so that many of the churches were divided about it, more especially the one to which most of the members attending this meeting belonged, being divided into "Masons" and "Anti-Masons." This meeting was called the "Masonic party."
The other minister of the same church held Anti-Masonic principles, and refused to meet with the Masonic party, and kept most of his party away. This caused a great deal of quarrelling and contention, and much anger and bad feeling, of which I knew but little until afterwards. I had heard of the two parties, but had not interested myself in the matter, and consequently did not care much about it.
While sitting in the meeting, listening to the preaching, being much interested in what was being said, the Spirit of the Lord came upon me, and revealed that I was to visit the minister of the Anti-Masonic party, Judge Cushing, and tell him of his foolishness and wickedness in increasing the spirit of division between those who ought to be united as brethren in one common interest.
It rained hard at the time, and feeling rather taken up with the preaching, I thought I would delay until the close of the meeting.
This mission to me was a very hard task. How was I, a man from the thrashing-floor, to reprove a minister, and, moreover, a judge? But a few minutes had scarcely elapsed, before the word of the Lord came to me again, with greater power than before, that I was to go at once! I had covenanted with the Lord, and I felt determined to fulfill, if it killed me; so I sprang to my feet, took my hat, and departed from the meeting.
I found the judge at a public inn, engaged in making some purchase. I requested to speak with him for a few minutes in private. He said he would attend to me presently. I sat down, but I had hardly done so before the Spirit of the Lord was again upon me, like fire in my bones, commanding me to deliver my message directly.
I again requested to speak with the Judge, stating that my business was urgent. He complied this time, and retired with me outside the house. The Spirit of the Lord gave me utterance, and filled my mouth with words, and I laid before him, in language which was given me, the impropriety of his conduct.
The same Spirit bearing witness, the judge acknowledged his folly, said he would amend, and told me that he had spent many sleepless nights as a result of his course. He also said that, directly I sat down, something told him for what I had come, although I was a stranger to him. In fact, he knew nearly as well before I had spoken, as after.
