"If we would be sober and watch in fasting and prayer, God would turn away sickness from our midst." (Joseph Smith, HC 6:2)

"The speaker, before closing, called upon the assembly before him to humble themselves in faith before God, and in mighty prayer and fasting to call upon the name of the Lord, until the elements were purified over our heads, and the earth sanctified under our feet, that the inhabitants of this city may escape the power of disease and pestilence, and the destroyer that rideth upon the face of the earth, and that the Holy Spirit of God may rest upon this vast multitude." (Joseph Smith, HC 4:32)