| 307 the land should be observed; that great care should be used lest too many of the poor should be brought into the country
This might have been done had such as had property been prudent. It seems as though a notion was prevalent in Babylon that the Church of Christ was a common stock concern. This ought not so to be, for it is not the case. When a disciple comes to Zion for an inheritance it is his duty, if he has anything to consecrate to the Lord, for the benefit of the poor and the needy, or to purchase lands, to consecrate it according to the law of the Lord, and also according to the law of the land; and the Lord has said that in keeping his law we have no need to break the laws of the land. And we have abundant reason to be thankful that we are permitted to establish ourselves under the protection of a government that knows no exceptions to sect or society, but gives all its citizens a privilege of worshipping God according to their own desire.
Again, while in the world, it is not the duty of a disciple to exhaust all his means in bringing the poor to Zion; and this because, if all should do so, there would be nothing to put in the storehouse in Zion, for the purpose which the Lord has commanded.
Do not think brethren by this that we would advise or direct that the poor be neglected in the least; this is not the desire of our hearts; for we are mindful of the word of our Father, which informs us that in his bosom it is decreed that the poor and meek of the earth shall possess it.
The welfare of the poor has always a place in our hearts; yet we are confident that our experience, even had we nothing else to prompt us to advise on this point, and that wholly for the good of the cause in which we labor, would be sufficient in the minds of our brethren abroad to excuse a plainness on this important part of our subject.
To see numbers of disciples come to this land destitute of means to procure an inheritance, and much less the necessaries of life, awakens a sympathy in our bosoms of no ordinary feeling; and we should do injustice to the saints were we to remain silent, when, perhaps, a few words by way of advice may be the means of instructing them that hereafter great difficulties may be avoided.
For the disciples to suppose that they can come to this land without aught [ought] to eat, or to drink, or to wear, or anything to purchase these necessaries with, is a vain thought. For them to suppose that their clothes and shoes will not wear out upon the journey, when the whole of it lies through a country where there are thousands of sheep from which wool in abundance can be procured to make them garments, and cattle upon a thousand hills to afford leather for shoes, is just as vain.
The circumstances of the saints in gathering to the land of Zion in these last days are very different from those of the children of Israel after they despised the promised rest of the Lord, after they were brought out of the land of Egypt. Previous to that the Lord promised them, if they would obey his voice and keep his commandments, that he would send the hornet before them and drive out those nations which then inhabited the promised land, so that they might have peaceable possession of the same, without the shedding of blood. But in consequence of their unbelief and rebellion they were compelled to obtain it by the sword, with the sacrifice of many lives.
But to suppose that we can come up here and take possession of this land by the shedding of blood, would be setting at nought the law of the glorious gospel, and also the word of our great Redeemer; and to suppose that we can take possession of this country, without making regular purchases of the same according to the laws of our nation, would be
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