In Mission of the Mormons.
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Salt Lake City Utah Ter.
7 Jan 1869
Editor of the Religio-Philosophical Journal.
Dear Sir:-
A few days ago a stray number of your interesting journal chanced to fall in my way. In its editorial columns I noticed an article headed "The true Latter-day Saints Herald, which closed with the query "What is the Mission of the Mormons is the question. Who will answer? I now desire, with your permission as a Mormon, and from a Mormon standpoint to state what we esteem to be our mission and that of our holy religion.
The mission of Mormonism is distinctively one of peace and good will to the world. Its object is man's salvation, its basis is truth. All truth emanates from God, and is guaged by his word. The scripture says "Thy word is truth." We not only regard all improvements marked in man's history as the result of inspiration, but also that all true religion is based upon continued divine direction. Those truths which more especially belong to man's religious nature are generally termed the Gospel. The Gospel is God's plan for man's salvation. It teaches the perfect fatherhood of God and the perfect brotherhood of man -that we all are the children of God, all the subjects of His care. It teaches us that as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive, and that through the grace of God all by obedience to His word can become inheritors to His promises, and that all His laws are in perfect harmony with man's nature, as he was created in the beginning and pronounced by the Creator "very good." Further, that these laws teach men to be truthful, honest, chaste, sober, industrious, frugal and to love and practice every good word and work, consequently they elevate and ennoble man. Not only is man's spiritual part regarded by the Gospel, but his temporal nature also. He who called into existance the spirits of man organized his body also, and the laws of the Gospel if fully obeyed bring health and strength to the body, clearness to the perceptions, power to the reasoning faculties as well as salvation to the soul.
This is the Mission of Mormonism; what have the Mormons done to fulfil it?
It is now not quite thirty-nine years since our Church was established by revelation from heaven to Joseph Smith. The church then numbered six members. Since that time it has continued to grow and increase spread, notwithstanding the floods of persecution that have time after time threatened to overwhelm it. At last driven from Illinois amidst untold privations and sorrows the Mormons journeyed to the Great Salt Lake Valley, then one of the most desolate and barren portions of the great American desert. By industry and frugality they have caused this desert to blossom as the rose, have filled its valleys with thriving towns and villages for hundreds of miles, and brought into cultivation the most feasable portions of the land.
This, of itself, difficult as the task has been, is not by any means our greatest labor of our chief success. A people possessing great enterprise, industry and frugality might have brought about these same results, the most conspicuous of our toil; but when we turn to other phases of our mission and prove that Mormonism has sent forth its teachers to the ends of the earth, has gathered people of almost every tongue and creed under heaven, of the most varied educations and the most opposite traditions and welded them into one harmonious whole, one in faith and in practice, with the same hopes, desires and aims, it is then we see, the results that prove its divine inspiration, and its affinity to the Gospel taught by Jesus and his Apostles. A creed that can take the heterogeneous masses of mankind and make of them a happy, contented and contented <united> people has a power within it, that the nations know little of. That power is the power of God.
This labor to unite the world in all that is good and praiseworthy is the mission of the Latter-day Saints, and with the help of the Lord they intend to continue their labors until the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters now cover the mighty deep, and His name shall be one in all the earth.
Such is our mission, and God will give us strength to fulfil it.
Very Respectfully Yours.
Brigham Young