On Priesthood

Verily thus saith the Lord unto you, my servants, concerning the parable of the wheat and of the tares: behold, verily I say, that the field was the world; and the apostles were the sowers of the seed; and after they have fallen asleep, the great persecutor of the church, the apostate, the whore, even Babylon, that maketh all nations to drink of her cup, in whose hearts the enemy, even satan sitteth to reign: Behold he soweth the tares: wherefore the tares choke the wheat and drive the church into the wilderness.

But behold, in the last days, even now while the Lord is beginning to bring forth the word, and the blade is springing up and is yet tender, behold, verily I say unto you, the angels are crying unto the Lord day and night, who are ready and waiting to be sent forth to reap down the fields: but the Lord saith unto them, pluck not up the tares while the blade is yet tender: (for verily your faith is weak,) lest you destroy the wheat also: Therefore let the wheat and the tares grow tegether [together] until the harvest is fully ripe, then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat, behold and lo! the tares are bound in bundles, and the field remaineth to be burned.

Therefore, thus saith the Lord unto you, with whom the priesthood hath continued throngh [through] the lineage of your fathers, for ye are lawful heirs, according to the flesh, and have been hid from the world with Christ in God: therefore your life and the priesthood hath remained and must needs remain through you and your lineage, until the restoration of all things spoken by the mouths of all the holy prophets since the world began.

Therefore, blessed are ye if ye continue in my goodness, a light unto the Gentiles, and through this priesthood, a savor unto my people Israel; The Lord hath said it: Amen.

Appearances of trouble among the nations became more visible this season than they had previously done since the church began her journey out of the wilderness. The ravages of the cholera were frightful; in almost all the large cities on the globe; and the plague broke out in India, while the United States, amid all her pomp and greatness, was threatened with immediate dissolution. The people of North Carolina, in convention assembled (in November) passed ordinances, declaring their state a free and independent nation; and appointed Thursday, the 31st day of January, 1833, as a day of humiliation and prayer; to implore Almighty God to vouchsafe his blessings, and restore liberty and happiness within their borders.

President Jackson issued his proclamation against this rebellion; called out a force sufficient to quell it, and implored the blessing of God to assist the nation to extricate itself from the horrors of the approaching and solemn crisis.

On the 27th of December I received the following: