| 33 receive. Shall we permit this work-this word-to bless or curse us. If they bring us blessings, that blessing will be characterized by steadfastness and assurance; if they bring a curse, who shall tell the depths to which we must fall.
Henceforth let it be the aim, the object of our daily efforts, our strife, our labor, and our all, to make our lives resplendent with the light which shineth down from God out of heaven into our hearts, reflecting from our altar fires the steadfast word-hope- and work.
Let us mark the places that we "occupy till he comes," with the characteristics of the "word made flesh and dwelling among men."
Brethren, "Be ye steadfast." Then, when these shifting, changing scenes of our earthly warfare are for ever past; when the rhythm of the murmur and motion of the brooklet is forever still; when the full river has ceased its steady flow, and its music of peace is hushed and still; when the pulses of the grand old ocean have ceased to send its heaving waves to thunder against the rocky bounds which must hold them until the Master says, "It is enough;" when the stars shall wax pale and cease their twinkling, shining motion; when the moon shall hide her face in brooding blackness; when the sun shall veil his burning brightness in the gloom of the night before the dawn of the millennial morn, then shall you for ever abide in the steadfastness of truth, faith, hope, and charity.
Brethren, let us abide unto the end.-The Saints' Herald, vol. 20, pp. 649, 650.
Under the head of "Free Education," President Smith discussed in an interesting manner some of the issues of the day. He wrote as published in the Herald for December 1:
It would appear that President Young is decidedly averse to the institution of free schools; but upon what principles of right or common sense he bases his objections, we are at a loss to know.
So far as we now remember anything about the sunny days of the prosperity of the church at Nauvoo, and the policy of the then leaders, there was a manifest tendency to encourage the education of the people.
When the necessity for a change in this policy occurred, we are not informed; but so late as January, 1841, President Joseph Smith, in an "Epistle to the Elders in England," published in the Times and Seasons for January 1, 1841, congratulates the church upon the fact that there was then a bill before the legislature of the state of Illinois for the incorporation of a seminary of learning. Elder D. C. Smith, then editor of the Times and Seasons in his editorial for that number, says that General Bennett had just returned with a charter for the "University of Nauvoo."
In this charter, certain trustees were to "have all the powers and privileges for the advancement of the cause of education which appertain to the trustees of any other college or university of this State."
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