The organized spirit which God gave us is the one which conceives through the revelations that are given from on high. The nature and the character of those teachings that come from the Priesthood are such that we comprehend them: the Spirit manifests them unto us as they are. By it we learn our duties to God and man. We are taught by it to shun the evil and cleave unto that which is good. We understand this, if we are in the path of duty.
It is not miracles that produce within us that living faith of which President Young so frequently speaks; but we learn the nature and character of our religion. We learn that which is calculated to enable us to shun all evil power and to make us happy.
When a man receives knowledge, he is prompted to impart it to others; when a man becomes happy, the Spirit that surrounds him teaches him to strive to make others happy. It is not so in the Gentile world. If a man attains to any important position, he does not strive to elevate others to participate in the same blessings. In this respect there is a great difference between the Latter-day Saints and the world of mankind. The object of the Priesthood is to make all men happy, to diffuse information, to make all partakers of like same blessings in their turn. Is there any chance of a man's becoming happy without a knowledge of the Gospel of Christ? A man may make the thunders roll, the lightnings flash; but what has that to do with making a can happy? Nothing. Though in the world they try to make themselves happy, still they are not successful in what they strive to accomplish. They cannot be happy except upon one principle, and that is by embracing the fulness of the Gospel, which teaches us not to wait till we get into eternity before we begin to make ourselves happy; but it teaches us to strive here to make ourselves and those around us rejoice in the blessings of the Almighty.
Lorenzo Snow, Journal of Discourses 9:22
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