Prest. Smoot: [I] have always looked upon the Deseret News at the standard paper – its terms have always been easy – we always turn out for pay that which we could earn or raise by our hands – you will recollect that when the Lord pointed out the centre stake of Zion he gave a plan for a Temple that would cost from 150 to 200 thousand dollars – the Lord required Joseph to build the Temple – the people looked around and found that all the property would not amount to more than 50 thousand dollars they thought that the revelation was preposterous – the Presiding Bp and leaders construed the meaning of the Rev[elation/ to mean when they were rich enough, consequently they concluded a Block House would answer for the present so they built it – after a while the Lord caused them to be driven from that country and on looking back they found that enough property had been destroyed to have built that temple – they did not consider that the Lord was able to put plenty of property in their hands to carry out his designs – we are not so /poor/ as we feel – we could have all that one can never desire if we was /were/ not so blind as to see what was for our good. The Lord will cut his work short is righteousness – we have not got 300 years to work in nor 12- year; the time of the ark was being built, but the time is short.