From the January 17th Mormon Odditorium

I have been remiss in posting worthwhile quotes from the Mormon Odditorium. This one was for January 17th:

Why is it that our spirits are not always joyous? There may be many different reasons. One reason is that we do not always live our religion. We give way to vanity, frivolity, and nonsense too much, and sometimes to dishonesty and fraud; we do things that are not right and adopt practices that are not good; and when this is the case, the Spirit of the Lord is grieved, and it wanders from us, and we are left to grope in the dark; the visions of eternity are shut out from our minds, and we see through another medium than that of the Spirit of God. . . . We forget, sometimes, that we are the Saints of God; we forget that we have dedicated ourselves to the Lord, with all that we have; and we forget our high calling and our future destiny. We forget, sometimes, that we are engaged, with many others, in establishing righteousness and planting the kingdom of God upon the earth; and we condescend to little meannesses, and become forgetful of the great and glorious calling to which we are called. . . . We forget that God and angels are looking upon us; we forget that the spirits of just men made perfect and our ancient fathers, who are looking forward to the establishment of the kingdom of God upon the earth, are gazing upon us, and that our acts are open to the inspection of all the authorized agencies of the invisible world. And, forgetting these things sometimes, we act the part of fools, and the Spirit of God is grieved; it withdraws from us, and we are then lefft to grope our way in the dark. But if we could live our religion, fear God, be strictly honest, observe his laws and statues, and keep his commandments to do them, we should feel very different; we should feel comfortable and happy; our spirits would be peaceful and buoyant; and from day to day, from week to week, and from year to year, our joys would increase. (John Taylor, January 17, 1858, JD 6:165.)