| 540 the sake of harmony with that few. If this could be done, a compromise thus effected, and peace be established upon that basis, where and whence the next crisis of a similar character. The entering wedge driven home, the precedent established and it seemed as if it were easy to foresee that it could be but, a few years, possibly a few months at best, when a few other men might be led to make a similar demand for similar reasons, and the church again be called upon to make concessions for the sake of oneness and unity of belief. If to the demands just made upon us we could yield, and as a body abandon a belief in the revelations of Joseph Smith, contained in the book of Doctrine and Covenants; which belief has so often and so persistently been avowed by the church since 1852, it must inevitably follow that upon a like demand, the same body should abandon a belief in the Book of Mormon, and as a sequence there could be no declaration of belief so sound or so well grounded but that it must be put into the same list and be abandoned at the demand of discontented disbelievers.
If the church could consistently yield one well accredited and commonly received teaching, or tenet, of which the majority were satisfied as to its validity, there could be none, not one, which they might not be called on to give up. It would be but a question of time as to when the church would be indeed not only without a creed but without a faith.
It can then be seen that the crisis was a grave one. Personally we confess that we never entered in upon the work of a conference session more bowed down with the weight of responsibility, more impressed with a sense of danger, more certainly aware of possible consequences of disaster than we did the work of this last session. To us it was not a session to "have a good time," to enjoy the "preached word;" to "feast" upon the "fats" of prophecy and tongues, to spend the pleasant hours of recess in chat and visit. It was a crisis in which the welfare of the whole work was at stake; it was a season for faithful devotion to truth, for fervent prayer, for the exercise of the "best gifts," for wise counsel, wiser action, and patient endurance. Those who came for a spiritual "holiday," may have gone away disappointed; those whose anticipations were high may have gone away sad and discouraged; but those whose prescience and wisdom enabled them to foresee and estimate the gravity of the issues have gone away settled and grounded. Those who have been worried and fretted, fearful lest there was not sufficient certainty of belief with the mass of the leading men to act decisively when the emergency came, are gratified to discover solidity of purpose and ability and disposition to decide and face the consequences of decision. Those who held the banners neither wavered in the crisis, nor suffered the standards to be lowered.
None regret the action of Elders J. W. Briggs and Z. H. Gurley more than we do. We think none would have been willing to concede more to have healed the breach between them and the rest of the elders than we. But when they publicly stated their withdrawal from their association
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