let me remind you how, when they lived here, years ago, they lived upon your scanty substance. Did they make any such improvements as you see I have made? Did I not ocome here and find you without a father, poor and discouraged? Did I not gather you together here, and make all these improvements that you to-day enjoy? Now you, my red-skinned friends, mus decide who your friend and father is, whether it is these strangers or I who have so much for you."
When he took his seat, PResident Benson requested Brother Joseph F. Smith to talk, rather initmating that it was desirable to speak on general principles, and that he need not feel bound to notice all that Mr. Gibson had said.
It seemed impossible for any man to speak with greater power and demonstration of Spirit. He refered the Saints of Brother George Q. Cannon and the first Elders who brought them the Gospel. He reminded them of facts with which the odler memebers were well acquainted--the great disadvantage the Elders labored under, and the rpivations they suffered in first preaching the Gospel on the island. How they slept in their miserable huts and lieved as they lived; how they traveled on foot in storms and in bad weather, from village to village, and from house to house, exposing health and life. How they went destitute of clothing and what they had been in the bagit of considering the necessaries of life, to bring them the blessings of the Gospel, without money and without price.
He asked by what right Mr. Gibson called himself the father of the people, and the Elders who faithfully labored to establish them in the Gospel, strangers.
The spirit and power that accompanied Brother Smith's remarks astonished the Saints and opened their eyes. They began to see how they had been imposed upon. Every word he spoke found a response in their heards, as was plainly manifest by their eager looks and animated countences.
There was another meeting in the afternoon, in which [p. 284]
