you who have flour and meat, deal it out

The first year that I came into this valley I had not flour enough to last my family until harvest,… and persons were coming to my house every day for bread. I had the blues about [it] one day; I went down to the old fort, and by the time I got back to my house I was completely cured. I said to my wife, “Do not let a person come here for food and go away empty handed, for if you do we shall suffer before harvest; but if you give to every individual that comes we shall have enough to last us through.

I intend to keep doing so, that my bread may hold out, for if I do not I shall come short. Do you believe that principle? I know it is true, because I have proven it so many times….

You who have flour and meat, deal it out, and do not be afraid that you will be too much straightened, for if you will give, you will have plenty, for it is God who sustains us and we have got to learn this lesson.


Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, p.332, 3333 as found in Prophetic Statements on Food Storage for Latter-day Saints by Neil H. Leash. Cedar Fort. 1999. p.124, 125