Friday, July 15, 2022

Brigham Young on the Value of Zions’ Camp

  

January 18, 1845:

 

Since [then] we [Brigham and Heber C. Kimball] have never turned to the right or to the left. Neither of us was ever an enemy to Joseph smith; we never pulled him back; we have always been ready to push him forwards; we never dictated to him in the first things, but we assisted him in carrying it out. (Minutes of Young Family Meeting, Nauvoo, Illinois, 18 January, 1845, Brigham Young Papers, as quoted in Susan Easton Black, Joseph and Brigham: An Eternal Bond [Santaquin, Utah: Aspen Books, 2021], 86)

 

October 23, 1853:

 

Brother Kimball referred to Zion's camp going to Missouri. When I returned from that mission to Kirtland, a brother said to me, "Brother Brigham, what have you gained by this journey?" I replied, "Just what we went for; but I would not exchange the knowledge I have received this season for the whole of Geauga County; for property and mines of wealth are not to be compared to the worth of knowledge." Ask those brethren and sisters who have passed through scenes of affliction and suffering for years in this Church, what they would take in exchange for their experience, and be placed back where they were, were it possible. I presume they would tell you, that all the wealth, honors, and riches of the world could not buy the knowledge they had obtained, could they barter it away. (JOD 2:10)