| 682 "THE MEASURES OF THE PRESENT; WHAT ARE THEY?
"This is one of the most vital questions to be considered; and might give rise to more controversy under ordinary circumstances than we would be willing to originate; but as we have heretofore written, we have proposed to make this outlook as comprehensive as we have the ability to do, and the consequences must care for themselves.
"We may not in the following enumeration please some, who believe that any theory of an elder of the church is a measure, and belongs to the policy of the church; but we shall give such as we feel assured are the measures to which our indorsement [endorsement] and our support are pledged.
"The establishment of an efficient corps of gospel ministers; the holding of local and general conferences; the organization of branches; ordaining men to the offices of apostle, high priest, seventy, elder, bishop, priest, teacher, and deacon; the appointing and sustaining a presiding officer of the church, and localizing a center of a religious government; and the realization of sufficient temporal means to carry on the affairs of such government. The foregoing measures we regard as directly appertaining to our spiritual affairs; or to be better understood, they are the direct measures necessary to the successful administration in spiritual things for man's redemption and salvation.
"As auxiliary and effective measures necessary for the well-being and happiness of the people of the church, as individuals and as a body, we regard the following: the gathering, as a result of the preaching of the word; the building of a temple, as a necessity growing out of a gathering; the establishment of schools, those schools to be of various kinds, but all for the diffusion of knowledge among the people of God; the building of cities, to be stakes; the building and operation of mills, workshops, and manufactories; the settlement of new lands, and the opening of various branches of industry thereon; the setting up and operating of printing presses, and the publishing and issuing of newspapers, periodicals, and books. As a means to
(page 682) |
