Moses Thatcher

Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (April 9, 1879 – April 6, 1896)

General Conference Talks

• October 1885 General Conference
  • The Lord is Teaching Us Valuable Lessons
    • “Men, communities of men, governments, nations, powers, and principalities have never yet been able to build walls so strong, or make iron doors so thick as to prevent the prayers of a righteous man ascending unto his God.”
• April 1884 General Conference
  • Hatred Towards Saints—Its Cause
    • “Let the youth of Zion contemplate the character of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and see how evidences of prejudice, hatred and malice were heaped upon him until those that were prompted by it, succeeded at last in slaying him. They perpetrated this deed without mercy, without pity, innocent and guiltless as he was.”
    • “I am perfectly satisfied there are thousands of good and honest men and women in our nation who, if they knew our true status, and understood the facts as they are, would defend our rights to the uttermost of their power. But they have been hedged about; and reports misrepresenting and belying our true character have been so widely circulated, that they have been led to believe them; but as we are becoming better known we may expect to find men and women with a high degree of moral courage, here and there, defending us, and speaking favorably of us.”
• April 1883 General Conference
  • Fate of Those Who Oppose God’s Work
    • “Mens’ convictions, religious beliefs and just religious practices cannot be persecuted out of them. The nearest approach to success in this direction was, perhaps, the massacre of St. Bartholomew in France, wherein seventy thousand defenseless Huguenots perished miserably, victims of the malice and cruelty of Roman Catholicism.”
  • A Few Questions Every Latter-day Saint Can Answer for Himself
    • “Excessive love for the things of time has led men in all ages to forget their God, and indulge themselves in things wherein there is no profit.”
• April 1882 General Conference
  • The Mission of the Holy Ghost
    • “No man has authority to preach the Gospel and administer its ordinances without a commission from Jesus Christ; and the seal of such commission has always been, and always will be the gifts, blessings and endorsement of the Holy Ghost, which, not only leads to the form, but also to the power of godliness.”
• April 1880 General Conference
  • Missionary Work in Mexico
    • “I cannot hate man and at the same time love God; therefore I pay little attention to what those evil disposed persons may do. They are in the hands of the Almighty, who will meet to them a just punishment. Let us pity rather than despise them.”
  • Reflection and Testimony
    • “Would it not be well to ask ourselves the question whether we shall be prepared in the future to receive that measure which we have meted out to others; whether we shall be satisfied with that judgment with which we have judged others; whether we have followed the whisperings of the Spirit of God; whether we have been humble, prayerful, faithful and true?”
• April 1879 General Conference
  • Manifest Blessings of God to the Saints
    • “I believe, my brethren and sisters, if we take proper pains in the education of the young, employing the right kind of men and women to be their preceptors, that instead of the seeds of infidelity being sown in their minds, we will have faith, and in that faith we will have the manifestations of power.”
    • “All will readily agree with me that immorality is more easily acquired than the virtues, and hence we may conclude that we are in a fallen world, and that we have the battle against sin to fight.”

Other Reported Addresses

• The Speaker’s Dependence Upon the Holy Ghost, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Logan, Utah, Aug. 28, 1885
  • “Nothing to my mind can be greater sacrilege in the sight of the Almighty than to undertake to speak in His name without the inspiration of His spirit.”
  • “God so loved the human family that He gave His only Begotten Son to die for the sins of the world, and in all the dealings of God with the human family, the careful student will find that the deepest, the strongest, the chord that gives forth the sweetest music, is that which vibrates under the touch of this infinite, almost incomprehensible, love of the Almighty. The chief corner stone, the foundation of our faith is built upon the doctrine of vicarious salvation, founded in the deepest philosophy of love. The doing by others the things that we are not able to do for ourselves, is a divine principle the practice of which saps the very foundations of human selfishness, and it exalts, glorifies, and so far as understood and practiced, brings those who obey it into a nearness with God. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is in no sense narrow. It is broader than eternity, deeper than earth, higher than the heavens. Note the affection of earthly parents. Their child may stumble and fall, his feet may traverse bye and forbidden paths, he may do ten thousand wrong things, but in the midst of all, the love of father and mother reaches out and yearns for the reclamation and redemption of the wayward one. This love, implanted in the human heart, is of divine origin. It is the mainspring that prompts saving efforts. The plan of salvation being permeated with it, strikes unerringly at human selfishness, and bidding us do unto others as we would have others do unto us, cannot possibly be narrow.”
  • “Whatever may have been the efforts of Satan and the hosts that follow, whatever they may do in the future to destroy, a merciful and loving heavenly Father’s plan is broad enough to save and will save, in some degree of glory, every human being that has or ever will breathe the breath of mortal life except the sons of perdition who, sinning against light, put Jesus to an open shame by denying the efficacy of His atoning blood after knowing of its power. Thank God these will be few in number.”
  • “God will forgive whom He will forgive, but for us it is required that we forgive all men. Whether they ask forgiveness or not? Yes, whether they ask it or not! This doctrine is founded in the deepest philosophy and leads up to final victory for all who through obedience to the commandments, have gained for the spirit ascendancy over the passions of the body and are thus enabled to love even their enemies. Scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites love each other. The distinguishing characteristic of a Saint is that he can do more. And his ability to do more comes of the knowledge that the love of God abides not in the heart that harbors hatred of a single human being. He who preaches and practices the doctrine of hate knows not God. As we judge of the quality of a tree by the fruit it bears, so also may we judge of the quality of a religion by the fruit it bears and not by the professions of its adherents.”
  • “True religion refreshes the heart as gentle rains the parched and thirsting soil. The law and prophets hang upon perfection-the doing unto others as we would that others should do to us, under the practice of which the grinding monopolies, cruel wrongs and awful sacrifices known throughout the Christian world would melt away as snow before the rays of the sun. Millions may profess to follow the meek and lowly Jesus, but if the misery and sorrow of Christians is the fruit they produce, their religion is lifeless, untrue, or has failed to act upon their hearts. Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, and few there be that find it. Simple, unmistakable, yet how few, how few indeed, seem to understand that unchangeable declaration of Christ.”
• The Speaker’s Pleasure, Remarks in Logan, Utah, April 13, 1885
  • “Gold, when compared with the riches of eternity, becomes almost valueless, and yet it is the creation of God, and no man has ever brought an ounce of it into the world, nor can he take a grain of it out of the world.”
  • “You, my brethren and sisters, know what constitutes a “son of perdition.” To become such, a man, by the testimony of the Holy Ghost, must know that God the Father and Jesus the Son live, and are the authors of salvation. Belief is insufficient, positive knowledge is necessary. I say that this which I hold in my hand is a book. Do I base the statement on belief or knowledge? I do not believe it to be, I know it to be a book. And my testimony to the fact would be taken everywhere, because if required to state how I know this to be a book I could say I see the binding, paper, and imprint of the type. I tap the lids and leaves and hear sounds. I smell the binding, paper and ink. I put them to my lips and tongue and taste them, and with my hands and fingers feel them. Thus all my senses combined furnish evidence that together give indisputable knowledge; and yet the testimony, the turning away from which, and thereafter denying the efficacy of the atoning blood of Jesus, putting him, after having positive knowledge, to an open shame again, is as much stronger than my testimony that this is a book, as God is stronger than man. In the one instance, knowledge is founded on the evidence of the five senses—seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling; in the other, every faculty of the soul, every fiber of the body, receives testimony direct from God, through the Holy Ghost, and he who after having received, denies it, sins against light just as much as Satan did when his ambition and pride led him to rebel against God; and no power in heaven, on earth or in hell can keep such a man out of the realms of the damned, where he has, in the exercise of his own agency, elected to go. People without this knowledge cannot be damned; those with it should be if they turn away and deny it. Those who persecute and hate this people, have it not, and while they may have to dwell without the gates of the holy city, among dogs, liars, thieves and whoremongers, they cannot be damned in the literal sense, as we understand eternal condemnation, forever hid from the face of a merciful but just Father.”
  • “Love of God banishes or consumes hatred as electricity consumes iron.”
• Prohibition Advocated, Discourse in Hyrum, Utah, March 7, 1883
  • “Those who advocate strict prohibition as a means of checking intemperance among our people, seem firmly impressed with the idea that every possible safeguard should be thrown around the youth and those of mature age who have not, within themselves, the power to resist temptations that are fast sapping the foundations upon which have rested the prosperity, morality, and purity of great Christian nations, that are now wallowing in the filth and degradation of intemperance. Holding that there are some, even among the Latter-day Saints, too weak to resist the tempting cup when pressed to their lips by the hands of false friends, yet who are too good to be left to destroy peace and happiness, desolate home, and die, perhaps, in the gutter, I am an uncompromising advocate of prohibition. No man is permitted to sell poisoned food. Who does so knowingly, to the destruction of life, answers the law on the charge of murder. Why should any be held less guilty of crime for dispensing liquid poison?”

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