General Conference.
The Forty-Ninth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints met in the Large Tabernacle, on Monday, October 6th, 1879, at 10 o’clock a.m., as per adjournment….
Elder Orson Pratt rejoiced in the privilege of again meeting in a General Conference in peace. Made reference to the rapid progress of this people during the period of nearly fifty years, since the organization of the Church. He then contrasted the discouraging results of the preaching of the Prophet Noah, while delivering the message that God sent him to deliver to the people of his day, with the success that has attended the labors of the Elders of Israel in our own times. Although most of our converts are among the poorer classes, from the United States and the nations of Europe, notwithstanding the indigence of the people, especially on arrival in these western wilds, the building up of settlements and cities, of school houses and meeting houses, the conversion of the waste lands into fruitful fields and orchards, turning this vast Territory from a desert into a fruitful field has been the result of the labors of the Latter-day Saints, and not of the outside population that have come here for speculative purposes.
We came here as a religious people and established a civil government and an ecclesiastical government, under which there were no grog shops, gambling halls or houses of ill fame. We could have our doors unlocked and our windows unbolted at night; we could leave our washed clothes on the lines without any fear of them being stolen. But how is it today, since the introduction of Gentile civilization in our midst? Every species of evil has been fostered, making both life and property insecure, and in many instances the Federal officials have shielded the evil doors, and let them loose in our midst. There were many honorable exceptions to these characters referred to, and these remarks had no reference to them.
He then adverted to the injustice of the effort now being made by the high officials of this nation to bear down upon the Latter-day Saints on account of the religious views practiced by the people, especially plural marriage; although sanctioned by the Bible Congress has seen fit to pass a law making it a crime, the violation of which subjects the individual to fine and imprisonment. He himself was a firm believer in the great and glorious principles of civil and religious liberty, comprehended in the Constitution of our country, and therefore he could not as an individual, endorse the action of Congress as having anything to do with a man’s religious belief or practice so far as it did not interfere with the liberty and rights of others.
The object in meeting in Conference was to impress the great truths of our religion upon our minds, to appoint missionaries to go to the various nations of the earth, to preach the fulness of the everlasting Gospel, which also embraces the doctrine of plural marriage, and he did not think the advanced nations of modern times had become so lost to the principles of civil, to say nothing of religious liberty as to adopt measures to prevent this work and the gathering of the Saints, no matter who might recommend such a course.
[Deseret News, Oct. 15, 1879]
[transcribed and proofread by David Grow, Aug. 2006]