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President Heber J. Grant
Heber J. Grant, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 4-10
It does not seem possible that another six months have passed since we last had the privilege of meeting here in a general conference of the Church. Since then much has happened-in our own lives and in the events of the world. Since then, I have been privileged to complete my eighty-eighth year and to live into the eighty-ninth year of my life. The Lord has blessed and sustained us, both Sister Grant and me, and among the richest of our blessings are our brethren and sisters and our friends, whose prayers in our behalf have blessed our lives, and whose thoughtfulness in many ways has made our days happier.
JOY IN THE INTEGRITY OF THE OFFICERS OF THE CHURCH
I rejoice exceedingly in the many blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we enjoy. I rejoice in having the fellowship and the faith and prayers and good feeling of those with whom I associate, I rejoice in the integrity, the faith, and the diligence of those who preside in the various stakes of Zion. I realize that we are beset with faults and failings and imperfections, but I am convinced that almost without exception those who have the charge of the Saints in the wards and stakes of Zion, and in the missions are men of God, and that their integrity is beyond question, and that, if need be, they would be ready and willing to lay down their lives for the advancement of the kingdom of God. I believe that the elders of Israel in all the different wards and stakes of Zion earnestly desire to know the mind and will of our Heavenly Father, and that they are ready and willing to do anything that is within their power, to fulfill that mind and that will and to carry it out in their lives. It is this integrity and this desire that give me joy and satisfaction, and that encourage me in the responsibilities that devolve upon me.
THE PASSING OF ELDERS SAMUEL O. BENNION AND RUFUS K. HARDY
Since we last met, the Church has been called upon to mourn the passing of two of our brethren of the General Authorities, Brothers Samuel O. Bennion and Rufus K. Hardy, both of the First Council of the Seventy. I honored them and loved them. They were true men of God, and rendered great service in the Lord's latter-day work. We miss them and shall continue to miss them in the presiding councils of the Church-but their place in our Father's kingdom is assured. They were valiant preachers of righteousness and will receive the blessings of the valiant and of the righteous. May God our Father give his peace and comfort to their devoted wives, Sister Hardy and Sister Bennion, and to their families.
CONCERNING TITHING AND OTHER PRINCIPLES
I rejoice in the increased tithes and offerings of this people, and in the increased numbers who are fulfilling their financial obligations to the Lord, and I hope and pray that this principle and all the other principles of the gospel are being taught our children in our homes, and in our Church organizations.
It should be the pride of every bishop and of every bishop's counselor, and of the president of every stake and his counselors, and of every officer and teacher, and of every member of this Church, young and old, that they earnestly and conscientiously pay their tithing. We are capable of accomplishing this if we will only think so and labor to that end.
I realize and appreciate the fact that the Lord could pour out upon us an abundance of the wealth of this world, that he could make us all rich, because the mountains are full of wealth, and he could open up avenues to us that we could all become wealthy, but in doing this we would have no opportunity of showing our faith by our works; we would have no opportunity of developing our manhood and of fitting and preparing ourselves by actual labor to go back and dwell in the presence of our Heavenly Father.
As I understand the teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they were that it would profit no man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul. It is by the faithful discharge of the duties and the obligations that rest upon us in the Church of God that we are developed. It is by the exercise of our mental faculties that we improve upon them; it is by the exercise of our physical powers that we strengthen them; it is by the cultivation and the exercise of our spirits that we grow in spirituality, that we grow in the testimony of the gospel, that we grow in ability and strength to accomplish the purposes of our Heavenly Father upon the earth.
On the subject of tithing I heard a very splendid illustration given by a teacher in one of our children's classes: She brought with her ten beautiful red apples. She explained that everything we have in the world came to us from the Lord, and she said, "Now, if I give one of you these ten apples, will you give me one of them back again? Now, any one of you children that will do that, hold up your hand."
Of course, they all held up their hands. Then she said, "That is what the Lord does for us. He gives us the ten apples, but he requests that we return one to him to show our appreciation of that gift."
The trouble with some people is that when they get the ten apples, they eat up nine of them, and then they cut the other in two and give the Lord half of what is left. Some of them cut the apple in two and eat up one-half of it and then hold up the other half and ask the Lord to take a bite. That is about as near as they see fit to share properly and show their gratitude to the Lord.
Our children often feel that we are under obligation to them if they learn their lessons in school; they feel that they have done something that places the parents under obligation, while, as a matter of fact, they have done something, if they have learned their lessons, that for all time will be of benefit to them individually. Likewise, a great many people in the Church act as though the Presidency of the Church, or the presidency of the stake, or the bishopric of their ward are under obligation to them if they obey the Word of Wisdom or if they obey the law delivered to us regarding tithing, or any other principle of the gospel. They feel that they have done something that places the Church, or the authorities of the Church locally, or the General Authorities, under obligation to them. But every law that is given to us in the Church is for our own individual benefit.
LOOKING AFTER OUR YOUTH
I wish to impress upon the workers in all the organizations of the Church, the need for laboring prayerfully, untiringly, and diligently at this time to persuade the youth of Zion to be more faithful, more diligent in all their obligations and responsibilities, in safeguarding their virtue, and in observing what is known as the Word of Wisdom. I feel that while there are tens of thousands of our young men who are doing this, there may also be some who in order to be counted as hail-fellows-well-met, may be tempted to become careless and forgetful.
I ask our young people, wherever they are in all the world, to remember well all of their principles and ideals, under all conditions and circumstances, when they are at home, and when they are away from home.
There is nothing like looking after people. It is just the same in the gospel as it is in business. If a man does not look after his trade, it is sure to go from him. We must look after the people, our young people and all others, no matter where they may go, if we hope to keep them in the line of their duty.
TO OUR YOUNG MEN IN THE ARMED FORCES
Our hearts, our thoughts, and our prayers go out to those who are in the armed forces. It would appear from all the figures we can gather, that more than one hundred thousand of our young men are in the services of their country, in uniform. We pray for them continually. We pray for the preservation of their lives and for their faithfulness to those things which are dearer than life.
We say to you again to be clean, to keep the commandments of God, to pray, to live righteously; and if you do, peace and understanding will come into your hearts, and our Father in heaven will comfort you; and will let his presence be felt in the hour of your need.
Young men of Zion, when you return to your homes, return with clean hands and clean hearts-and great will be your happiness, your faith, and your testimony. Your brethren and your loved ones cherish you, pray for you, and await the day of your coming.
And I pray with all my heart that if there are those who have made mistakes, that they will repent; and by this we may know that they have repented-that they will confess their sins and depart from them.
TO THOSE WHO ARE IN SORROW
Into many of our homes sorrow has come since last conference. In the days ahead we must face the fact that more homes and more families will be broken by news of death and of other tragedies. May the peace and comfort of our Father in heaven bring its healing influence to all who are called upon to mourn and to bear affliction. And may we be strengthened with the understanding that being blessed does not mean that we shall always be spared all the disappointments and difficulties of life. We all have them, even though our troubles differ. I have not had the same kind of trials that others have had to undergo, yet I have had my full share. When, as a young man, I lost my wife and my only two sons, I was earnestly trying with all my heart to keep the commandments of the Lord, and my household and I were observing the Word of Wisdom and entitled to the blessings of life. I have been sorely tried and tempted, but I am thankful to say that the trials and temptations have not been any greater than I was able to endure, and with all my heart I hope that we may never have anything more to endure than we will be blessed of the Lord with the ability to withstand.
And may we always remember, because it is both true and comforting, that the death of a faithful man is nothing in comparison to the loss of the inspiration of the good spirit. Eternal life is the great prize, and it will be ours, and the joy of our Father in heaven in welcoming us will be great, if we do right; and there is nothing so great that can be done in this life by anyone, as to do right. The Lord will hear and answer the prayers we offer to him and give us the things we pray for if it is for our best good. He never will and never has forsaken those who serve him with full purpose of heart; but we must always be prepared to say "Father, thy will be done".
May the Lord bless and keep you who are away from home, and bless your wives and your children, your mothers and your fathers.
May God bless and preserve the Saints and the righteous everywhere, in all nations, in the far-off islands, and in lands torn by war, as well as here among us. To all faithful, we extend anew the hand of fellowship, and hold you in remembrance before God; and may he accomplish his purposes, overrule in the affairs of nations, hasten the end of the war and of wickedness, and bring peace on earth.
WORK, THRIFT, AND INTEGRITY
I plead with all the Saints at this time, as all my predecessors in the presidency of the Church have done, to be honest, truthful, industrious, and thrifty; to get out of debt and stay out of debt; to prepare for the time when money may not flow as freely as it does now.
Even now, we are told that there will be leaner days ahead-notwithstanding that the war has progressed as far as it has. Let all of us who can, raise what we can of our own food and sustenance. Let all of us be industrious and useful to the full extent of our strength and ability. We are told to earn our bread by the sweat of the brow. I believe there may be a disposition on the part of some Latter-day Saints to say, "Well, after we get to be sixty-five we will not have to work anymore." There should be in the heart of every man and woman, the cry, "I am going to live and work. There is nothing given to me but time in which to live, and I am going to endeavor each day of my life to do some labor which will be acceptable in the sight of my Heavenly Father, and if it is possible, do a little better today than I did yesterday." It is an easy thing to throw a dollar to a man, but it requires sympathy and a heart to take an interest in him and try to plan for his welfare and benefit.
And it is a principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ, now, as it always has been, to help every man to help himself-to help every child of our Father in heaven to work out his own salvation, both temporally and spiritually.
RESPONSIBILITY OF LEADERSHIP
I pray for the righteous among all peoples. I ask the Lord to bless those who preside in the nation; in the states, in the cities, and in the counties. I pray God to inspire the people that they will obey his commandments and elect good men to positions of public responsibility, that they will bury their political differences, their personal ambitions, and selfish interests, and seek for good men to hold office.
I tell you it is the duty of the presidency of this Church to ask the people to do anything and everything that the inspiration of God tells them to do, and you need have no fear that any man will ever stand at the head of the Church of Jesus Christ unless our Heavenly Father wants him to be there.
Several times I have gone to meetings in the old Endowment House, knowing that a certain matter was to be discussed, and my mind was as perfectly set upon a certain position on that question as it is possible for a man to have his mind set, and I believe I am as decided in my opinion as the majority of people. And although I have gone to meetings determined in favor of a certain line of policy, I have willingly and freely voted for the exact opposite of that policy, because of the inspiration of the Lord that came to give direction. And upon every such occasion the action taken was vindicated and proved by later events to be for the best good of the people.
I could also relate circumstances when the brethren have been sent out to accomplish certain labors under the inspiration of the Lord when they thought they could not accomplish those labors. They have returned and been able to bear testimony that by and with the help of the Lord they had been able to accomplish the labor placed upon them.
The Lord gives to many of us the still, small voice of revelation. It comes as vividly and strongly as though it were with a great sound. It comes to each man, according to his needs and faithfulness, for guidance in matters that pertain to his own life. For the Church as a whole it comes to those who have been ordained to speak for the Church as a whole-and I say to you again, that it is the duty of the presidency of this Church to ask the people to do anything and everything that the inspiration of God tells them to do. We as Latter-day Saints, holding the priesthood of God, should magnify it, and we should respect the General Authorities of the Church; and as we respect them, God will respect us.
THE PATH OF DUTY, THE PATH OF SAFETY
There is but one path of safety for the Latter-day Saints, and that is the path of duty. It is not a testimony only; it is not marvelous manifestations; it is not knowing that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true, that it is the plan of salvation-it is not actually knowing that the Savior is the Redeemer, and that Joseph Smith was his prophet, that will save you and me; but it is the keeping of the commandments of God, living the life of a Latter-day Saint.
I pray constantly for all the officers of this Church, whether in the priesthood or in the auxiliary associations. I am sure, in my secret prayers particularly, that I never forget, morning or night, those that have been called to preside, to direct the affairs in the priesthood quorums and in the auxiliary associations. My prayer is that each of you holding a place of responsibility shall so order your lives that they shall be examples of diligence and energy and of the Spirit of the Living God, that can be followed in every part by those over whom you preside.
If we do this, what a wonderful power we shall have with the Lord in the furtherance of his mighty purposes in the earth. If we keep his commandments, our influence will be not only with the world, but with our own young people. Their strength and power will be multiplied if we shall succeed in having them feel the necessity of observing the commandments of God, particularly concerning the principles of clean and righteous living.
I say to all Latter-day Saints: keep the commandments of God. That is my keynote-just these few words: keep the commandments of God!
CLOSING TESTIMONY
The most glorious thing that has ever happened in the history of the world since the Savior himself lived on earth, is that God himself saw fit to visit the earth with his beloved, only begotten Son, our Redeemer and Savior, and to appear to the boy Joseph. There are thousands and hundreds of thousands who have had a perfect and individual testimony and knowledge of this eternal truth. The gospel in its purity has been restored to the earth, and I want to emphasize that we as a people have one supreme thing to do, and this is to call upon the world to repent of sin, and to obey the commandments of God. And it is our duty above all others to go forth at home and abroad, as times and circumstances permit, and proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is our duty also to be mindful of those children of our Father who have preceded us in death without a knowledge of the gospel, and to open the door of salvation to them in our temples, where we also have obligations to perform.
I bear witness to you that I do know that God lives, that he hears and answers prayer; that Jesus is the Christ, the Redeemer of the world; that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of the true and living God; and that Brigham Young and those who have succeeded him were, and are, likewise prophets of God.
I do not have the language at my command to express the gratitude to God for this knowledge that I possess. Time and time again my heart has been melted, my eyes have wept tears of gratitude for the knowledge that he lives and that this gospel called Mormonism is in very deed the plan of life and salvation, that it is in very deed the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That God may help you and me and everyone to live it, and that he may help those who know not the truth, that they may receive this witness, is my constant and earnest prayer, and I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 25-26
The primary purpose of the welfare plan has always been the supplying of food and clothing, shelter and fuel. There seems to be a great deal of uncertainty today as to what the real food situation of the country is. Some tell us we are faced with the greatest surplus that has ever existed in the history of the country. Others tell us that the food supply is short and that we should raise all we can.
Under these circumstances the only safe thing is to assume a food shortage and proceed accordingly. I therefore urge you brethren to urge your wards and stakes to fill their quotas in order that we may be prepared should the predicted shortage occur.
A WHISPERING CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE WELFARE PLAN
Reports come to us that some persons, we hope not many, are carrying on what politicians call a "whispering campaign" against the welfare plan, proclaiming it a failure. At least some of these whisperers seem to have been against the plan from the first, professing to see in it some deep-laid political scheme.
I am sure you will let me say now, and I was with the brethren when the plan was first worked out, that there was not then, there has not been since, and there is not now, any political purpose or end whatsoever in the plan. Those who proclaim the contrary are either wholly ignorant or completely misinformed.
The report I have read is a full demonstration that the plan is not a failure. Of course, if the people will not support it, so that the Lord withdraws his blessings from it, the plan will fall, but to this time the great loyal body of the Church, following the inspiration of the Lord, has supported the plan which has had a truly marvelous growth both in extent and in efficiency. All of us thank the brethren and sisters who have had immediate charge of the building up and operation of the plan, and sincerely congratulate them upon the outstanding success which has attended their work.
The general committee, composed in large part of business and professional men, have given unstintedly of their time and effort without any monetary compensation whatsoever, in a service which has brought needed aid and succor to tens of thousands who needed help. The Lord has blessed and will continue to bless them in their labor and lives. To the sisters of the general board of the Relief Society, and to the Relief Society workers throughout the Church, we offer our especial thanks and gratitude for their great service, without which we should have been almost helpless.
You will remember that back in the early days of the Church, it took the people in Missouri approximately three years and four months to forfeit the blessings of the United Order. If you will read the revelations and the history of the time, you will find that it was the greed, rapacity, idleness, and covetousness of the people that caused the Lord to withdraw the principle from their midst. After they reached Nauvoo, the Prophet forbade our people then in Iowa to attempt to set it up there.
The welfare plan, which I once more repeat is not the United Order but is motivated by the same lofty and divine principles and purposes that underlay the Order, has now been in operation nine years. Through the blessings of the Lord and the faithfulness of the people, it has steadily grown and expanded its activities during the whole period; and it stands today stronger than ever before in its operation.
Its opponents have not destroyed and cannot destroy it, so long as the Lord blesses it and faithful members support it.
AID OF ALL CHURCH MEMBERS NEEDED
I might add another word:
To those opponents who are Church members, I wish earnestly to say: We need you now; we have needed you in the past; we would welcome you amongst us. Furthermore, we wish to say that if you desire or hope to keep the Spirit of the Lord and enjoy his blessings, you must cease your fault-finding and sometimes even your maligning of those doing their appointed tasks as servants of the Lord, and fall in and work with them, not against them. We need the aid of every member of the Church; we ask your help, but not so much on our account as on yours. This is a plea directed towards helping you to save yourselves from a threatened apostasy, which seems usually to follow fault-finding, disloyalty, and opposition to the Lord's plans.
However, if you refuse to aid, if you refuse to receive the blessings of joy and satisfaction which come from treading along the ways the Lord points out, we should point out to you that the welfare plan has lived, and we feel certain it will live so long as the Lord continues to give his blessings to the plan, and so long as the loyal, faithful members of the Church support it. But for your sakes we should rejoice beyond measure in your assistance.
We ask you bishops and presidents of stakes and chairmen of regions, not to substitute cash for the actual produce called for in filling your quotas. We need the produce, so please furnish your quotas in the kinds requested.
Elder Stephen L Richards
Stephen L Richards, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 27-34
I propose to use the opportunity afforded me at this general conference of the Church to read a letter which I have prepared. My thought in presenting it here is that the message of my letter may have better prospects of reaching those to whom it is addressed, and also that the sentiments which I have expressed may serve some useful purpose with my brethren and sisters in an endeavor comparable to my own. I shall be most grateful if this thinking proves to be justifiable. The letter is addressed:
To my friends and associates in various lines of endeavor who are not identified with the Church which I have the honor to represent.
TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH SET FORTH IN A LETTER
My dear friends:
For many years it has run in my mind a desire to approach you on the subject of religion. I find it difficult to justify my delay and to discover any good reason why I have been so hesitant to talk with you about spiritual matters. I suppose that it is chiefly because I have indulged the assumption that everyone's religion is to be regarded as such a personal and private thing that I have felt more or less constrained to keep off the subject, except where casual questions have arisen which have brought on brief conversations. You will wonder, perhaps, in view of such diffidence in talking to you, why I now choose this medium of an open letter to broach the subject and express my sentiments to you. The only answer that I can give, and it is not a very good one, is that it seems to be the easiest way of expressing myself to you without intruding on the privacy of your views without your consent.
I hope you will not resent my concern in your spiritual welfare. I must frankly admit, and I hope the admission will not too seriously affect your consideration of what I have to say, that I am prompted in part by an earnest desire to disseminate what I regard to be vital principles of truth among all men. You will be inclined to immediately label this as "propaganda," and unfortunately that word has come to bear the stigma of the imposition of one man's views on another. I hope you will accept my disclaimer of any attempt to force my ideas on you, and I hope, too, you will believe me when I say to you in advance that my personal regard for you is the chief motivating factor in the writing of this letter.
Without affectation, I express my admiration for the splendid virtues which I have seen in many of you. Your integrity, impeccable honor, generosity, courtesy, and ability command my esteem. I often think of you as representatives of the best types of Christian gentlemen and ladies. I have gained much from your association. I am sure that a great part of your thinking and good works is prompted by Christian ideals. I have no doubt that many of you have been schooled in and accept the almost universal Christian doctrines of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, the atonement of the Savior, the immortality of the soul, and the good life of virtue and altruism taught and exemplified by our Lord.
I cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge the beauty and efficacy of these great doctrines and teachings and the universal distribution of the spirit of God in the earth. I am sure that the Christian doctrine and faith over the centuries have been the mainsprings of the civilizing processes which have brought beauty, culture, science, and education to their present high state of attainment. Christian doctrine is also responsible for the finest concepts of liberty and justice which prevail in the world. I have profound gratitude for the great brotherhoods and congregations it has fostered and every good cause which has emanated from it.
It is needless to say also that I have the deepest admiration for many individual Christians who ally themselves with the various Christian denominations of the world. I do not question the sincerity of countless thousands who give themselves to God who strive with all the power and knowledge they have to serve him and keep his commandments. I feel sure that he accepts their devotion; that he answers their prayers of faith and humility and that he recompenses their every good act.
I have deemed it desirable to so set forth my appreciation of the general Christian doctrine and faith in order to make clear to you that it is not a substitution of these lofty Christian principles which have been disseminated throughout the world for so many centuries which we have to offer, but it is in essence, a refinement, an extension, an enlargement, and a perfection of them which I take the privilege of bringing to your attention. You will pardon me, I hope, if I venture the observation that many of you, for whose ability in normal investigation and research in the discovery of facts I have the highest opinion, have been distracted from the attainment of a real understanding and concept of the work in which I labor, by having your attention focused upon some aspects of it which seem to differ from the teachings and practices prevalent in other Christian denominations. For instance, you are all pretty well acquainted with what we call the Word of Wisdom, with the tithing system of the Church. These and other somewhat unique practices of the Church have, I often fear, stood out so prominently in your observation and contemplation of the Church and its doctrine that you may not have troubled yourselves, because you may not be particularly attracted by these unique things, to delve into the fundamental concepts and principles underlying not only these special teachings and practices but the whole body of truly Christian doctrine which we have to give to man. It is true that we regard it as important to refrain from the use of liquor and tobacco and to pay tithing, but adherence to these standards does not alone constitute complete conversion to and understanding of the latter-day work, although generally they are very acceptable evidences of it. I would like, if I can, at least, to glimpse for you what I regard as being the more basic foundation principles set forth in the latter-day interpretation and presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope I can make you see that these concepts and interpretations are not in any way antagonistic to the true Christian principles to which many of you subscribe, but that they serve to make the Christian doctrines you have accepted more vital and real and more potent in the realization of the hope and faith your Christian experience has brought to you.
Now I must proceed upon the assumption that if you have any interest in religion, and in the Christian religion in particular, your interest prompts you to want the truth and to secure for your life the best which is obtainable. I am sure you will agree that the chief objectives of the whole Christian doctrine are to improve life here and to attain a good and eternal life hereafter. Perhaps these two objectives are in reality one, for I think it safe to say that most Christians contemplate a relationship between life here and life hereafter. Now, one of the first contributions which the latter-day interpretation has to offer is in this very matter.
I do not pretend to be such a student of the exposition of Christian doctrine over the centuries as to enable me to say with assurance that the distinction between general salvation and individual exaltation was never set out in Christian teachings prior to the advent of the latter-day work, but I am certain that it has not been stressed in recent Christian utterances. This distinction between salvation and exaltation we regard as being indispensable to a true understanding of Christian truths. We, as many of you, are persuaded that the teachings of Christ fully justify the conclusion that he came to earth as the Savior to atone for the transgressions of our first earthly parents which removed men in mortality from the presence and association of God, our eternal Father. We may not be able to explain the method by which the atoning sacrifice of this one man could accomplish the redemption of all men from the original fall, but we do know that that was the purpose and the effect of the atonement, and we have full justification for believing that the atonement brought life after death to all humanity irrespective of the goodness or the badness of individuals. Resurrection from the grave is just as universal as death, and general salvation in the sense that all are saved from the effects of original sin and that all will be immortal souls is the universal gift of the Son of God. Individual exaltation, however, is something different. Through a latter-day revelation came the information that there are stations and gradations of position in the future life as in this life, and naturally there are places of preference. These various stations are referred to in the revelation as being kingdoms or degrees of glory, and their exposition serves to amplify and clarify the Savior's reference to the "many mansions" in his Father's house, and other scriptural passages. By exaltation is meant the attainment of the highest station, the most preferential position in the future world of varying kingdoms and glories. The highest place or kingdom is called celestial, and it is in the celestial kingdom that the highest aspirations of the Christian are realized. This is exaltation.
I cannot tell you in this letter all that exaltation comprehends. Our concept of heaven is a study of no small proportions, and it presupposes a considerable knowledge of other revealed theological principles. It must suffice for this writing to tell you that it contemplates not only the preferential condition in the hereafter-a coming back into the presence of the Father and the Son, but it projects into the future a state of perfection of the human soul. The immortal soul which is the union of body and spirit becomes invested with the divine nature of our eternal Father and our elder Brother, Jesus Christ. One's powers of accomplishment are unceasingly multiplied by the eternal acquisition of knowledge. As a companion of the Father and the Son, he joins and assists in their work. While it is impossible for the finite mind concretely to visualize the scope and nature of divine operations we have sufficient knowledge to teach us that they are of the highest order and satisfy the most idealistic craving and aspiration of the human soul, In purpose and scope it is a never-ending experience in eternal progression and achievement.
We learn also from the revelations that in this lofty state of exaltation we are to enjoy a perpetuation of the kinship and ties which have bound us to our dear ones in earth life. We have the assurance that the things which we have prized most here in this life-home and family-are not to be denied us when we pass from mortality. Husband and wife will still be companions, sons and daughters forever our children, and the sacred establishments of home wherein they were bred and nurtured will be spiritually perpetuated, And then we learn, too, of a profoundly sacred principle and promise held out for those who attain exaltation which I mention to you with a little hesitation because I have not yet laid the foundation for it, and that is this: That these eternal homes of the future life shall be blessed with eternal increase so that families never cease growing in number, in virtue and power, ever continuing to subserve the eternal and beneficent purposes and designs of the Creator of the universe.
I am keenly aware that much of this may seem highly theoretical and ethereal to you, and some of it I would not mention to you at this stage of discussion if I did not deem it necessary to an understanding of that which is to follow. Although it may have taxed your credulity and faith somewhat to entertain in your thinking the ideas which I have endeavored to project concerning exaltation in the celestial kingdom of God, I wonder if many a devout Christian not of our persuasion does not in his heart hope and pray reverently for some such condition as I have outlined as the embodiment of his future state whether or not he has ever consciously formulated his ideas into words. To see the Eternal Father and his Son; to enjoy something of their association and direction; to acquire more and more knowledge and more and more ability; to use increased talent in the prosecution of God's work; to continue to enjoy the dearest relationships we know on earth; to build an eternal home with never-ending posterity, may not these be the embodiment of the hopes and righteous aspirations of a Christian, although he may never have tried to visualize them concretely before?
If it so happens that you have never asked yourselves the question: What does heaven hold out to me, a Christian: what do I hope to secure in life after death? I wish you would ask yourselves this question and be frank with yourselves in answering it. If you honestly conclude that you have never attempted any visualization of a future state, it may be that the concepts I have given you from modern revelation will help you to formulate your ideas. It may be, too, that if you have heretofore entertained views on the subject, the condition which I have described which obtains in the hereafter may pretty largely embrace the hopes and aspirations which you have had in more vague and uncertain terms.
In any event I am going to ask you to accede for the moment that in Christian theology there is a preferential state in the hereafter. It seems to me that it is not difficult for Christians who accept Christ's teachings of the rewards for the good life to make this concession. If, therefore, the ultimate goal of the true follower of Christ is to attain exaltation in the celestial kingdom, not just general salvation and resurrection from the dead which come to all through the atonement of the Savior, not immortality which is the lot of every person whether he will or no, but this supreme glory, this incomparable blessing which I have tried so feebly to describe; if that is the ultimate objective, how may it be achieved?
In answering this question I am obliged to discriminate. It would be a very easy and simple answer and one that I am sure would be acceptable to many people to say that nothing more is necessary than to live a good virtuous Christian life, all of which is necessary and indispensable to the attainment of exaltation. In one sense the Christian life is all that is necessary, but it is not the sense in which it is usually construed. Through latter-day revelation we learn that the true followers of Christ not only incorporate into living all the so-called Christian virtues, but they also accept, adopt, and conform to every law, principle, and ordinance of the Gospel of Christ. They believe that the gospel in its entirety is designed and divinely instituted for the single purpose of leading the sons and daughters of God into his celestial kingdom. They recognize the fact that it has been in ages past and now is and will continue to be an immense gain for people to adopt the Christian virtues as a standard of living, but they know that exaltation, the supreme blessing, may be had only through obedience to every specific requirement laid down therefore.
Among the formal requirements, in addition to the good life, are membership in the Church of Christ, baptism, the laying on of hands for the bestowal of the Holy Ghost, the receipt of the priesthood and sacred temple ordinances revealed to and performed for those only who prepare themselves for initiation into the beauties and blessings of the celestial order. You may wonder why these formal ceremonies and ordinances are requisite. In this brief correspondence I can only tell you that they are prescribed by the Lord in his revelations to men, both ancient and modern, and that they are consistent with the principles and practices laid down by the Savior who is the Author of the gospel plan during his ministry in the flesh. There is much that might be said by way of explanation and argument in support of these ordinances and their essential symbolism and vitality in the gospel plan. I am sure that an impartial investigation would persuade you of their reasonableness and desirability, but in the last analysis their acceptance must be based on faith in the revealed word of God.
Even in this brief sketch there is one more basic principle to which I must invite your attention. I am sure you would regard it as a serious omission if I did not present it, for if you gave any consideration at all to the essentiality of the ordinances which I have mentioned as necessary for exaltation, you would surely want to know about the authority to administer them. Is this authority available?
I am sorry I have not time at this writing to give you a full account of its bestowal by authorized messengers and its derivation down to the present time. I will have to content myself by giving you a legal opinion. It so happens that I have had some training in the law, and I have some knowledge of the competency and admissibility of evidence to sustain an allegation in a judicial tribunal. I do not hesitate to give it to you as my opinion, that there has been at various times since the origin of this latter-day work, competent legal evidence available for introduction in any court of law for the establishment and verification of the claims put forth by those chosen to originate the restored gospel as to divine authority conferred upon them, and as to the transmission of that authority to the present day. I cannot reasonably expect you to rely on this opinion. The most that I can hope for is that it may serve to prompt investigation.
There are other factors inherent in the nature of this divine commission which bring irrefutable assurance to me and my associates of its genuineness. I believe some of them would appeal to you.
Now, my friends, I am forced to a quick summation. In taking the liberty of writing you, I have assumed your interest in Christian religion and your acceptance of the Christ as the Author of the gospel. I have all too briefly reviewed the Savior's atonement and its effect in bringing general salvation and redemption to the human family. All will be resurrected and secure the boon of immortality. There is an order in the resurrection of which some day I would like to tell you. I have pointed out the difference between general salvation and individual exaltation in the celestial kingdom, which is designed to be the highest and final goal of the faithful Christian. I have mentioned the requirements for admission into this preferential state and the authority essential for the administration of the ordinances. This is but a skeleton outline of a few basic principles which have come in these latter-days with the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. There are countless other arresting concepts resulting from this new interpretation which make priceless contributions to the Christian doctrine. Out of my friendship for you, I have a great desire that you might hear these concepts, enjoy them, and adopt them. I know they will bring richness into your lives as they have done in mine, and I know they are good for the world in the solution of its problems, but that is another subject, into which I must not enter.
I hope you will accept this letter in the spirit in which I write it, as one friend to another. If it shall serve to intrigue your interest in the least degree in the cause that is so dear to my heart, I shall be very grateful.
There is but one thing more. If you are prompted to give consideration to the things I have written about, I hope you will not be dissuaded in their acceptance by the deficiencies you may observe in the lives of some of us who have espoused this noble cause. We confess our weaknesses. We are trying to develop strength to overcome them. I ask you to try to look at the excellence of the message and overlook the faults of some of its adherents. Please judge it by what it has done in the elevation of the lives of thousands of our Father's children and by its inherent truth.
With kindest regards and the best of good wishes, I am
Sincerely and fraternally yours, Stephen L Richards
My brethren of this assembly:
I thank you very much for patiently listening to my reading of this letter. If perchance it should contain a thought which might be helpful to you in bringing the gospel message to some of your friends, I shall feel that your indulgence has been in some measure justified. That we may all have the urge and the courage to bring the truth to the understanding of our neighbors and associates is my earnest prayer. I ask it humbly in the name of him whose servants we are, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Albert E. Bowen
Albert E. Bowen, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 35-41
PORTRAYAL OF HOME CONDITIONS RELATED IN MAGAZINE ARTICLE
A few years ago I read an article in a national magazine written by an obviously well informed and high principled woman. Apparently she had never married and after many years of separation made a visit to an intimate friend of her college days who had by then two well grown children, a boy and a girl. Her story is mainly about the shock she experienced from the conduct of these two children. She noted that their mother, her old friend, had substantially no influence with them. The daughter's bearing towards her mother was condescending. Her mother's exhortations and protests were received with a patronizing air of wearied tolerance as if to say that this superior young lady would have to bear with what resignation she could the hopelessly old-fashioned, outmoded and impossible notions of her matured mother.
The visitor heard the worried mother protest the indelicate indiscretions of the girl in her behavior with young men without even the precaution of privacy and heard the daughter's mockery of her mother's prudery and lack of sophistication.
The boy of the household went and came pretty much as he pleased with no questions asked or answered. Home to him was a place to sleep and have meals, if convenient.
Exhibitions of this kind were a source of deep wonder and uneasy concern, as well as of embarrassment, to the guest in the house. But the climax came as the period of her visit was drawing to its close. She was awakened in the night by a disturbance in the house and was the unwilling ear witness of a family scene. The girl it seems had come home from a late party pretty thoroughly intoxicated and was leading her escort, in like condition, to her room when they were detected and intercepted by her aroused parents. There was a noisy scene before the boy was finally sent off home and the girl put to bed.
The girl made no pretense of concealing from her mother her habit of flouting the conventions so far as modesty and maidenly purity were concerned. So the author ended her visit and went home to clear her head and do some thinking. The result was the article mentioned.
Apparently she had a quite thorough-going acquaintance with the ideas and attitudes of the youth of the day, and she undertook a searching analysis of conditions as she knew them to be and as pointedly focused upon her attention by her recent visit. Her whole sense of propriety and even decency was outraged by what she had seen at her friend's home.
That friend, in the days of their girlhood association, had spontaneously, and as a matter of habit and acceptance, observed the conventions and proprieties. She had been a girl of robust health and exuberance, happy, wholesome, a delightful companion of high ethical and moral standards. She had a wholesome zest for life and enjoyed living. How to account for her children!
EXAMINATION INTO CAUSE OF DELINQUENCY
The author examined her own life and the atmosphere in which she had been reared as well as the lives of the youth of her time including the friend she had just visited. They recognized certain self-restraints which were expected of girls of good upbringing anti conformed to established standards of decorum and good breeding. They still did, now that they were come to maturity of life, and were pained by the departures of today. This naturally led back into an examination of the influences that had gone into the shaping of their characters. And that carried the examination inevitably back to the homes in which they had been reared.
The religious note was strong in those homes. The Bible was read and believed in. Families prayed there. Daily on their knees they talked to God who was revered and was a reality. They were church-going people and set apart one day a week as a holy day to hold sacred and on which to do reverence to the Author of life. The majestic hymns they sang carried messages to their expanding souls. They heard the simple, direct, soulful, and convincing words of the gospels whose grandeur somehow silently carried over into their hearts and furnished the ideals for their living. Those ideals through practice were silently woven into the pattern of their lives, and they came out with established characters, and stable guides to conduct, which made them secure against the waves of laxity which washed about them with the changes of time.
Then the author did what to me seemed a most astonishing thing. She proceeded to explain that, of course, she and her friend and their associates had in their college years given up the simple faith of their youth, had ceased to give credence to the beliefs which had sustained them, had given up their Bible reading and their church-going and their Sabbath observance and their prayers. They found that these artificial props were not necessary to their living of the good life. They didn't need the church-group practice of religion-they had their own religion which was quite sufficient, though really it was only a certain code of ethics originally rooted in their religion but now cut loose from its roots and dying because no longer nourished from the roots. With an amazingly artless simplicity, she deplored and was baffled by the barbarity of her friend's children without apparent consciousness of her own incredible failure to recognize the relations of cause and effect. Her friend's attitude toward religion and religious practices was similar to her own. Yet here she was mystified by the moral bankruptcy of her friend's children who had been deprived of the very character-forming influences upon which the strength of her own character and of her friend's character, and the characters of their generation had depended for formation and growth.
What right have parents or others to complain that children's standards are not up to their own when they have deprived those children of the very faith and practices upon which their standards have been established? By her own confession the author whose analysis we are considering and likewise the mother of the children whose conduct had provoked her study had been themselves living on the early-gathered fruits of a now discarded faith.
That might suffice to carry them through from the force of established habit. But with that faith discarded there was nothing to bear new fruit for the nourishment of the next generation. She and her friends had been living upon and had consumed their spiritual capital, and there was no inheritance left for the children.
It seems incredible that this highly intellectual woman whose penetrating insight had so unerringly led her to put her finger on the factors most powerful in the stabilization of herself and friends could have been so wholly oblivious to the need of those same influences in the lives of new generations.
Because she and her friends had been able to maintain integrity of life after they had discarded their early beliefs, she apparently thought that such beliefs and the practices to which they led were not necessary to stability, failing to discern that ethical principles lose their convincing, motivating power when divorced from the religious faith which gave them birth. It is a common error. We all, I am sure, can call to mind friends of the highest standards of character who have drifted away from the religious convictions in which they were reared and have been pained to see that their children's characters have so sadly deteriorated. It is hard for character patterns to carry over for more than one generation beyond the one which witnessed the forsaking of the faith in which those patterns were fashioned.
The lady we are speaking of deplored the degeneracy she was compelled to admit, but never once did she even so much as hint that the remedy lay in the revival in the homes of the land of the influences under which she herself had grown strong.
CHRISTIAN FAITH THE ROOT OF CIVILIZATION
Now, if religion goes into decay in enough homes, it will fade out in the nation, which after all is but the aggregate of the individual home units. That would be a change of fundamental and of far-reaching consequences. For the truth is that the whole western civilization was built upon the basis of the Christian religion. Terminology itself tells how completely this is so. Christendom is the word employed to designate that large area of the world where the Christian religion became dominant. With its establishment and acceptance in the Roman Empire, it became the most powerful influence in shaping the course of the western nations where Rome had controlled and of new nations which came into being. So important was that influence that the advent of Christ was made the new base for the reckoning of time. All events in Christendom are dated as having occurred before or after that meridian. It marked the beginning of a new era which still is spoken of as the Christian era. The whole new civilization had its roots in the Christian faith. Of course its ideals of perfection could not at once be assimilated or even grasped by the peoples who received them. They made plenty of mistakes and committed many excesses and grafted on plenty of false interpretation. Nevertheless the Christian faith remained the central idea that dominated all else. It has remained so through many centuries, and you can't cut loose from it now without effecting a revolutionary change. So long as the abstract idea is adhered to as the guiding notion, no matter how imperfectly lived in practice you can always hope for improvement, a moving away from erroneous conceptions toward the ideal. But when the ideal itself as a central controlling force is gone then a basic change has come. Christian convictions made the west dominant over the centuries. A departure from them is portentous in the extreme.
NO PEACE EXCEPT UPON A SPIRITUAL BASIS
Where does the world of Christendom stand today? Right in its heart, not in some pagan land, the present cataclysmic upheaval broke out. It was freely recognized that there was irreconcilable antagonism between the old Christian basis and the ideals of the new order. We had not only a physical war but a war of basic beliefs as well. So long as disputants profess the same basic beliefs and purposes but differ about the means of their realization you have merely a struggle for control. But when fundamental beliefs are at war, you have the inception of revolution. It is no longer a mere struggle for control but a struggle that reaches down to the spiritual depths. Any mature person who wants to take a retrospective glance must see that between 1914 and 1939 something very fundamental has happened. That first named year saw the beginning of a great war. We got into it with a fanfare of great national exhilaration. Our soldiers marched off to the blare of trumpets and the stirring strains of martial airs as the bands led them away. Everybody had unshaken faith in the soundness of our institutions and the unquestioned merits of our system. The war was but a bothersome interruption in a course of life which would pick up again when the nasty business was over. Today it is not so. There is no fanfare, no sparkling enthusiasm, but a somber, sober resignation to an ugly, unwelcome task which must be done. I am not saying that there is less of determination or of efficiency than there was before. But the spirit of the approach is different. Neither are people so sure about what will happen afterwards nor what it is all about. There is a grave anxiety and uneasiness of feeling evidenced by the voluminous talk about the postwar world. There seem even to be some who think our system is wrong-the basic concept on which our institutions have rested-and they are willing to see it all die. Others think evils have fastened themselves like barnacles upon us, and they need to be pared away. There is contrarity of opinion as to what is worth saving and what should be consigned, without struggle or regret, to the limbo of oblivion. New conceptions are thrusting themselves forward. The strong faith of half a century ago is crumbling; we are losing our spiritual basis. Dr. Sproul of the University of California has said we are in a race with catastrophe. But people don't seem to believe it, nor to know that the spiritual problem lies at the core of our trouble and demands solution if we are to recover our national health.
Look at the liberated countries of Europe. No sooner is the heel of the oppressor lifted than bitter strife embroils them anew. Self seeking, greed for power, groundworks for a new supremacy, irreconcilable differences about the spiritual basis of government, its functions and relationships to those who live under it-all clamoring for recognition and control. Unless they can be reconciled on the basis of an underlying spiritual end there can be no contentment, hence no peace.
But everybody seems still to pin faith to economic and technological reconstructions. We hear much about elevating the standard of living of peoples. But almost exclusively those improvements seem to be conceived of as providing more things-greater physical satisfactions, greater ease, more leisure, less work, more guarantees of physical security. Long ago Jesus taught that "life consisteth not in the abundance of the things one possesseth" and that "life is more than meat and the body more than raiment". Principles are pushed aside in the interest of immediate gain. When the American colonies were having their disputes with the mother country, the latter fixed it so that they could buy their tea and pay the tax cheaper than they could smuggle the tea in without tax. It was thought this would beguile them into yielding and paying the inconsequential tax. But the colonists were standing for a principle. If they could be subjected to a small tax, they could, when the custom was firmly established, be subjected to a larger tax. They resisted and took the consequences. That is the essence of spiritual supremacy. What is needed today in Christendom is a revived faith in the spiritual basis upon which it was built rather than more machines and things. Devotion to principle rather than victims of the bribery of easy satisfaction through immediate gain!
The war is not the cause of the world's trouble; it is only the outward manifestation of an inner decay. When the war is over, the trouble will not be over, which is the reason for the great concern about the postwar world. The world will still have the spiritual sickness, which is the real cause of the war, to deal with. The moods and notions which have permeated the minds of men cannot be shot with bullets. They will still be rampant when the fighting is over. We may not flatter ourselves that they are confined to the aggressor countries. In one degree or another they have penetrated into all lands. They are doing their work of corroding, corrupting, undermining, destroying.
You can't pick up peace and put it on people; it is a state of the spirit. You can't hand over liberty or freedom as a gift to people who are not spiritually prepared to receive it. Disputes about means of accomplishing ends agreed upon are of little consequence, but when the ends themselves are in dispute you have a difference that goes right into the heart and spirit of things.
And the disputes which divide the peoples of the world today are disputes about ends, about the whole spirit that governs in human relationships. Nothing but spiritual unity will work the cure.
And that spiritual essence must rest in a power standing above all to command their allegiance. It must rest in God.
THE GOSPEL THE FOUNDATION OF PEACE
You who are gathered here may properly have keen interest in plans for the curing of the ills of the world, but you may be assured to start with that there are no values which form so safe a guide as the gospel which formed the basis upon which the nations of Christendom were founded and which attained their highest expression under the Constitution of our own land. The disintegrating forces are such that no passive piety or lip service will do. It must be an active, motivating assertive faith cultivated, and fostered, and maintained in the homes and among the families of the people. It calls for a revival of the worship of God in the homes, where he is believed in, revered, prayed to-where a day is given to reverence when people assemble in worship and hear again the majestic words of the Master and gain a rebirth of the spirit. Go home and teach your people that, and you will be ministering to their salvation as well as to the good of the world. That we may all do so, I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder Mark E. Petersen
Mark E. Petersen, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 41-46
One day an ancient prophet called his son to his side and talked with him about liberty. They discussed the free agency which God has given to us all, which permits every man to choose his own course in life, whether good or bad. The father told his son that it is impossible for a man to exercise his right of choice unless alternatives are placed before him: virtue and vice, light and darkness, the bitter and the sweet. Then he said, "Man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other." Therefore, "it must needs be that there is an opposition in all things." The ancient prophet told his son that this opposition in all things had existed from the beginning of time and that even in the Garden of Eden the forbidden fruit stood in opposition to the tree of life.
THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE GIVEN TO MANKIND
When Jesus began his ministry, he also dealt with this opposition in all things. He recognized that evil is in the world, and he acknowledged that all men have their free agency and have the right to choose between the good and the evil. All through his ministry he taught men to choose the right and told them of the many blessings they would receive if they would do so.
Again he said that if men were to choose the evil they would be condemned; that their offences would bring sorrow, not only upon other men but upon themselves. Therefore, he said:
Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.
As he went about in his ministry, Jesus was met with varied reactions. There were some who gladly accepted him, followed him wherever he went and tried to live his teachings. There were some who were indifferent, and then there were others who openly opposed him. So the people of that day had before them a clear working example of the law of opposition in all things. On the one hand was Jesus preaching the way of life; on the other were the Scribes and the Pharisees who fought him at every step. Then there were the indifferent ones. Can we say that they were for the Lord or against him, or were they merely, as we say, indifferent? I call to your mind that the indifferent ones did not keep the commandments, and by their indifference they encouraged others to be indifferent, and as the others became indifferent, they also refused to obey the commandments of the Lord their God.
These indifferent ones built up a barrier against the Christ, and as they spread the example of disobedience they became a hindrance to him in his work, and for that reason the Lord said:
He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.
At another time he said, "Ye are my friend, if ye do whatsoever I command you"; and then again he said, "He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings".
His attitude regarding the indifferent ones is further shown by the message of the Lord to the seven churches as given to John on Patmos; and you remember what was said to one of those churches:
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
So with the Lord we take sides. We are either for him or we are against him. We are strengthening his work or we are weakening his work. Every Latter-day Saint should ask himself whether he is for the Lord or whether he is against the Lord; whether his deeds are sustaining and strengthening the work of God or whether his deeds, even his indifference, are weakening the work of the Lord.
MEN ARE AUTHORIZED TO CARRY ON GOD'S WORK
Then there is another lesson which the Lord taught in those days, and that lesson was this: that we cannot be for the Lord and at the same time be against his authorized servants.
Jesus well understood that he would not remain long in mortality and that his ministry would necessarily be limited, and so he planned to follow the age-old example of the Lord in raising up and calling to the ministry living prophets, authorized men of God, to carry on the work.
But in doing so it was necessary for the Lord to warn these servants in the ministry of the attitude of the people. He remembered that in the ages past there had been a tendency on the part of the people to resist, reject, persecute, and even slay the prophets of God, and Jesus knew that that tendency continued even in his own day because he had felt it. And now, as he was about to send forth his authorized servants to minister among the people, and having in mind this tendency, he said to them, "I send you forth as lambs among wolves".
What a commentary upon those who reject and resist and persecute the authorities of the Church. What a rebuke from the Lord himself to those who stand in opposition to the servants of the Lord.
He tried to comfort these disciples. He told them that whosoever would receive his authorized servants would receive him; and whosoever received him would receive him who sent the Lord. But then he said:
... he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.
Remember, he was speaking to the authorities of the Church. Then he said further:
... whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words,.. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.
MODERN AUTHORITIES ON SAME BASIS
Then with his warning these chosen servants of the Lord, these authorities of the early day Church, went forth as commanded by the Lord, and they tasted of the opposition in all things. There was opposition within the Church, and there was opposition out of the Church. Persecution both within and without increased. The spirit of apostasy spread, and finally apostasy overcame the Church. The leaders of the Church were destroyed, and taken out of the ministry. The people were left in darkness, and gross darkness covered their minds, and we had a complete apostasy from the truth.
It was decreed, however, that in the last days there should be a restoration of the Church, and we who are here are witnesses of the fact that the Church of Jesus Christ has been restored in these last days. But it has been restored upon the same basis that the Church was built upon in ancient times and is founded upon a foundation of apostles and prophets. In other words, the authorities of the present day Church were especially appointed by the Lord to represent him in these last days because he could not be here always in person any more than he could in the days of Paul. Therefore, the Lord spoke to his modern authorities in the same way in which he spoke anciently, and he said:
And as I said unto mine apostles, even so I say unto you, for you are mine apostles, even God's high priests; ye are they whom my Father hath given me; ye are my friends. Therefore, as I said unto mine apostles I say unto you again, that every soul who believeth on your words, and is baptized by water for the remission of sins, shall receive the Holy Ghost. And these signs shall follow them that believe-In my name they shall do many wonderful works: In my name they shall cast out devils; In my name they shall heat the sick; In my name they shall open the eyes of the blind, and unstop the ears of the deaf; And the tongue of the dumb shall speak; And if any man shall administer poison unto them it shall not hurt them; And the poison of a serpent shall not have power to harm them.
While speaking in these last days, the Lord remembered again the tendency of the people to resist the living prophets of God, and to persecute them, to say all manner of evil against them and to undermine the work they are doing. The Lord remembered that there were people in his own day and in earlier days who possessed such a tendency, and he knew in these last days there would be men and women who would continue to fight against the living prophets of God. But he comforted these modern living prophets and said to them, He that receiveth you, receiveth me, and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me; but conversely he taught,"... Wo unto that house, or that village or city which rejecteth you, or your words, or your testimony concerning me".
So you see, he placed the modern authorities of his Church on the same basis as that on which he placed the ancient authorities of the Church, and he again preached the doctrine that if the people receive you, the living prophets, whether you live in 1945 or whether you live in A.D. 30, "they receive me, and whosoever rejecteth you, rejecteth me." That was the doctrine of the Church anciently. It is the doctrine of the Lord himself in these days, and whosoever rejects or receives the living authorities of his Church rejects or receives the Lord himself.
DISLOYALTY TO AUTHORITY WEAKENS THE CAUSE
Now, recall the scripture I read to you earlier in this discussion: "He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad". Keeping in mind the doctrine of the Lord with respect to his servants, that if we, the people, reject the servants of the Lord, we reject the Lord, and that if we receive the servants of God we receive God, we are fully justified in interpreting this scripture, that I have just read to you, in this way: "He that is for the living prophets of God is also for the Lord; and he that is not for the living prophets of God is against the Lord." We may interpret it also in this way: "He that is loyal to the living authorities of the Church is loyal to God; and any Latter-day Saint who is disloyal to the authorities of the Church is disloyal to God." Or we may read it this way and still be within the truth: "He that sustains the authorities of the Church sustains the Church and the Lord, but any Latter-day Saint who does not sustain the authorities of the Church places himself in a position where he weakens the cause of God instead of lending it strength."
Now look at the other part of that scripture. "He that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad." When we speak of "gathering with" the Lord, or assisting him in gathering in the souls of men, gathering them into the fold of Christ, we speak of an organized effort, and we speak of an organized program. We speak of the fold of the Church of God and therefore, if we are "gathering with" him, we are working with him, working in his Church, working in his program, accepting his program and lending our strength to it.
And then there is another thought in connection with it, that if we are "gathering with" him we engage in a cooperative effort, cooperation on the part of us, the Latter-day Saints, cooperating with the leaders of the Church, cooperating with the Lord in gathering into the fold of Christ the souls of men.
Now, are we gathering with the Lord, or are we, by our efforts, scattering abroad the sheep that he is trying to gather into the fold? Are we cooperating with the authorities of the Church, are we gathering with them: are we assisting them in bringing into the fold of Christ the people the Lord would save? Are we gathering with them, cooperating with them in the prosecution of the program of the Church, or are we criticizing the authorities of the Church and undermining them and their efforts?
I call to your minds the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith in this connection:
I will give to you one of the keys of the mysteries of the kingdom. It is an eternal principle that has existed with God from all eternity. That man who rises up to condemn others, finding fault with the Church, saying that they are out of the way while he himself is righteous, then know assuredly that that man is on the high road to apostasy, and if he does not repent, will apostatize, as God lives. The principle is as correct as the one that Jesus put forth in saying that he who seeketh a sign is an adulterous person; and that principle is eternal, undeviating and as firm as the pillars of heaven.
So spake the Prophet Joseph Smith.
I ask you again, my brethren, and my sisters on the air, are you for the Lord and his program or are you against them? Are you for the authorities of the Church or are you against them? Are you gathering with them, or are you scattering abroad? Are you on the Lord's side?
Who's on the Lord's side? Who? Now is the time to show; We ask it fearlessly, Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
The pow'r of earth and hell In rage direct the blow That's aimed to crush the work; Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
We serve the living God; And want his foes to know That if but few, we're great; Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
We're going on to win, Nor fear must blanch the brow; The Lord of hosts is ours, Who's on the Lord's side? Who? -H. Cornaby
There is an opposition in all things. You have your free agency. Are you using that free agency to strengthen or to weaken the cause of God? And if you are weakening the cause of God, I say to you with Joshua of old, "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve." I earnestly pray, also in the words of Joshua, that each one of us will say, "...as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord", and this I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Charles A. Callis
Charles A. Callis, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 46-47
One of our poets put into song form this sublime thought:
The works of God continue, And worlds and lives abound; Improvement and progression Have one eternal round.
COMFORT IN THE SCRIPTURES
In this dark and cloudy day, when, like the leaves of the forest, many sad tears are falling, we can go to the holy scriptures, those wells of salvation, and draw from them peace and comfort which only Jesus Christ and his prophets can give.
The Apostle Paul eloquently declared:
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
How wonderful it is to have a finisher of our faith. There are many beginners in this world, but there are few finishers.
The Lord Jesus Christ, centuries before he came into mortality, uttered these words. They are found in that treasure house of knowledge, the Book of Mormon, and are as follows:
... for my work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever.
The work of God must be noble and grand. The Redeemer said:
For this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
I think that a Mormon elder who expects to pass away his time in the hereafter singing and amusing himself or resting is not worth his salt. God Almighty is ever engaged in the glorious work of bringing to pass the salvation of man.
FAITH IN THE PROMISES OF THE LORD
I have faith that those heroes who sink in death, paying the supreme sacrifice on the field of battle-the faithful young men, trusting in God, shall have everything made up to them. They are heirs of the promises; they shall inherit the promises. I do not know in what way God will provide the means by which these splendid men shall reach the celestial kingdom and experience all the promises fulfilled in their lives, but I have firm faith in the Lord, for his words are true; and sometime, somewhere, the power and the glory of God shall rest upon them; for the Creator will finish what he has begun.
The Prophet Joseph told a weeping mother, who had lost her baby in death, that in the resurrection she would have the privilege of rearing that baby up to its full stature, and have more joy in doing that than she could have had in mortality.
An eminent divine, nationally known, said the other day:
But my friends, I could not stand in this radio pulpit, if I did not believe that the good God takes these unfinished lives, with their unfinished work, and somewhere, somehow, in his house of many mansions, gives them the glory of going on. A just and loving Heavenly Father will keep faith with those who keep faith with him.
Thus the glorious light of heaven is spreading. Heaven's morning, with the joy and knowledge of hope and progression beyond the grave, is breaking in upon the lives of men. The notion that in this life only we have hope in Christ, we do not accept, for "if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable".
Our grief, by the power of God, the Author and the Finisher of our faith, is lifted from earth to heaven, and the tears are wiped away by a loving God. Glory, majesty, and power be unto Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the life, the Author and the Finisher of our faith, forever and forever. Amen.
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
Joseph Fielding Smith, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 47-50
As I stand here before you. I seek the guidance of the Spirit of the Lord and your help in what I may say. First of all, I wish to express my appreciation for the timely message that came this morning from President Heber J. Grant. May the Lord continue to bless him. I am likewise grateful for the fine testimonies that we have heard so far, and I hope the powerful words spoken by Elder Mark E. Petersen will sink deeply into our hearts.
COMMANDMENTS GIVEN FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE CHURCH
On the second day of January, in the year 1831, the Lord gave a revelation to the Church and in that revelation commanded them to move from the headquarters then established in New York to the Ohio. He gives the reason for it:
And that ye might escape the power of the enemy and be gathered unto me a righteous people, without spot and blameless-Wherefore, for this cause I gave unto you the commandment that ye should go to the Ohio; and there I will give unto you my law; and there you shall be endowed with power from on high.
In obedience to this commandment the people moved to the Ohio. The law the Lord gave, spoken of here in this promise, is found in Section Forty-two, in large part at least, of the D&C.; In this revelation many things are recorded for our benefit. I am only sorry that we have not always adhered strictly to these commandments. Of course, I cannot mention all of the things recorded in this revelation, for there are many, but I desire to speak of one or two that were given for the benefit of the Church. First of all, let me say that when Adam was driven out of the Garden of Eden, the Lord passed a sentence upon him. Some people have looked upon that sentence as being a dreadful thing. It was not; it was a blessing. I don't know that it can truthfully be considered even as a punishment in disguise. The Lord said to him: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread", and all down through the ages the Lord has called upon his people to be diligent, to serve him in faithfulness, to work. And here in verses forty to forty-two in this revelation I read:
And again, thou shalt not be proud in thy heart; let all thy garments be plain, and their beauty the beauty of the work of thine own hands; And let all things be done in cleanliness before me. Thou shalt not be idle; for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer.
And to this I wish to speak.
THE SAINTS ADMONISHED TO PRODUCE WHAT THEY NEEDED
In the early days of the Church in these valleys, great stress was placed upon industry by President Brigham Young and the other brethren, and it was necessary because our forefathers came here with nothing. They had to work. They had to be industrious. It was essential that they produce the things they needed, and therefore counsel to that extent and in that direction was given to them constantly that they should be industrious. They were taught not to be proud in their hearts. They came out here where they could worship the Lord their God and keep his commandments. They were told to be humble as well as to be diligent. They were to make their own garments, and they were to be plain. Oh, I wish we could remember that. I am sorry that we have forgotten. And President Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and others of the brethren in those early days taught the people and prevailed upon them to start industries throughout this country, to raise sheep, to gather the wool, to make their own clothes out of that wool, to plant cotton that they might have cotton also to make clothing, to plant flax that they might get linen, to build tanneries that they might tan the hides and make themselves leather, and a thousand other things. We used to have some of these industries here among us, and would still have them if we had been willing to adhere to these counsels that had been given to us in those early days by the authorities of the Church, which we would not do. I used to wear suits that were made at Provo, in the woolen mills. I did that as long as I could get them. The suit I have on now was not made at Provo, nor was it made in Utah-that is the cloth-but the tailor made it here, Last week at a stake conference, I made the statement that I did not believe there was in that building an individual born in this country who knew how to make a suit of clothes. If there was one there, would he please make himself manifest, and nobody made himself manifest. Then I said, "If there's a cobbler in this room, he was not born in this country. If there is a cobbler here, let him stand up." Nobody stood. There was no cobbler. And so we might go on.
Now, the Lord said, "Let all things be done in cleanliness before me". I could spend some time on that, but time will not permit; so I continue, the Lord said, "Thou shalt not be idle for he that is idle shall not eat the bread, nor wear the garments of the laborer". That is good sound sense, isn't it? Why should a man in idleness partake of the industry of the industrious-provided that this man who is idle, is in a physical condition that he can work? I am not at all in sympathy with any kind of movement that tends to destroy manhood by encouraging men to be idle, and I don't care what age that is. It doesn't matter how old he gets, if a man is physically strong and is able to perform services, he should take care of himself; that the Lord expects him to do.
The Lord said in another revelation:
And again, verily I say unto you, that every man who is obliged to provide for his own family, let him provide, and he shall in nowise lose his crown; and let him labor in the Church. Let every man be diligent in all things. And the idler shall not have place in the Church, except he repent and mend his ways.
So that is the counsel the Lord has given the Church today. And this is not merely to be applied to plowing fields, or to reaping and harvesting and engaging in industry, but it means likewise that a man should be industrious in spiritual things as well as in the temporalities by which he makes his living.
Again, here is another commandment the Lord gave:
And the inhabitants of Zion also shall remember their labors, inasmuch as they are appointed to labor, in all faithfulness; for the idler shall be had in remembrance before the Lord. Now, I, the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them; and their children are also growing up in wickedness; they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness.
If the Lord were speaking to us today, I wonder if he would not put even more emphasis upon this commandment.
And again, the Lord said of his servants who preach the gospel:
... I give unto them a commandment, thus: Thou shalt not idle away thy time, neither shalt thou bury thy talent that it may not be known.
And that means whatever that talent may be, the man should not bury it. If he is a mechanic, if he is skilled in some other direction, if he has the power and ability to preach the gospel, whatever it is, the Lord expects him to use that talent in His service.
ADVICE FROM LEADERS OF THE CHURCH
Let me present a statement here from President Joseph F. Smith:
There should be no idlers in Zion. Even the poor who have to be assisted should be willing to do all in their power to earn their own living. Not one man or woman should be content to sit down and be fed, clothed, or housed without an exertion on his or her part to compensate for these privileges. All men and women should feel a degree of independence of character that would stimulate them to do something for a living and not be idle; for it is written that the idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer in Zion, and he shall not have place among us. Therefore, it is necessary that we should be industrious, that we should intelligently apply our labor to something that is productive and conducive to the welfare of the human family.
And then, President Brigham Young, out of all the many things that he has said, let me present this:
We want you henceforth to be a self-sustaining people. Hear it, O Israel! hear it, neighbors, friends and enemies, this is what the Lord requires of this people.... Ye Latter-day Saints learn to sustain yourselves, produce everything you need to eat, drink or wear; and if you cannot obtain all you wish for today, learn to do without that which you cannot purchase and pay for; and bring your minds into subjection that you must live within your means... Who are deserving of praise? The persons who take care of themselves or the ones who always trust in the great mercies of the Lord to take care of them? It is just as consistent to expect that the Lord will supply us with fruit when we do not plant the trees; or that when we do not plow and sow and are saved the labor of harvesting, we should cry to the Lord to save us from want, as to ask him to save us from the consequences of our own folly, disobedience and waste....
Brethren, learn. You have learned a good deal, it is true, but learn more; learn to sustain yourselves; lay up grain and flour and save it against a day of scarcity. Sisters, do not ask your husbands to sell the last bushel of grain you have to buy something for you out of the stores, but aid your husbands in storing it up against a day of want, and always have a year's or two, provision on hand.
I hope the time will come when we will not feel restricted and will be able to lay up in store for a year or two in advance. The Lord bless you, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Clifford E. Young
Clifford E. Young, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 51-53
My brethren, we have just listened to what may be termed the gospel of Jesus Christ in a practical application. We have been told what it means to work and what the Lord expects us to do, and this brings to mind the fact that our forebears who came here learned well those principles and had it not been for the fact that they did work and they did struggle we would not have the commonwealth that we have here, nor would we have the foundation of faith that is a part of this great work. It wasn't in luxury. It wasn't in idleness that was made possible what we have, but it was in poverty and in hard work and in struggle, and these experiences, my brethren, and those who are listening, contributed to other things. They contributed to a richness of faith. Somehow or other the Lord has seen fit, or the human makeup is such, that it is in adversity and sorrow that we grow.
GENERAL McALEXANDER'S VIEW OF WAR
At the close of the First World War there was stationed here at Fort Douglas the thirty-eighth infantry that is credited with having stopped the second battle of the Marne in World War I. The commanding officer who had been a colonel in the infantry, was then General Ulysses G. McAlexander. While stationed here, the general became a friend of both President Ivins and President Grant. Years later he was retired and moved to the Northwest, where his wife passed away. He subsequently married again and coming back here to Salt Lake City with his wife, renewed his acquaintance and friendship with these two churchmen. On one occasion President Grant drove the general down to the stake where I reside and we had the privilege of hearing him speak in one of our school assemblies. He had a very vital message to deliver, and after his speaking there, we invited him to speak in one of our stake union meetings where the general told of his experiences in the second bottle of the Marne, and then he gave his reaction to war. At the close of the talk, one of our brethren went up to him and very frankly said, "General, do you not think this a very cruel message to be giving in a religious meeting?" His answer was very significant. "Brother Booth"-he had met him a few hours before-"I want to impress, if possible, upon you people one fundamental thing, as I would like to impress it upon all the world, and that is that war is a terrible, cruel monster, and whenever we speak of it and whenever we deal with it, we speak and deal with terrible things. Until the human family becomes conscious of the tragedy and the sorrow and the terribleness of war we'll always have war. You church people," he said, "have a very vital message and mission; namely, to try to teach the principles of righteousness in the hearts of your people and in the hearts of mankind, that war may be no more."
I have never forgotten that, my brethren, and it seems to me that that, after all, is one of the lessons that we need to learn. If we can bring again righteousness into the hearts of the people, we will be able to outlaw war, and the terribleness and the tragedy of it will be no more, but we can not do it until we put into practical application some of the teachings we have heard here today.
THE GOSPEL A HELP UNDER EVERY CONDITION
We are a practical people; we need to till the soil; we need to make a living; we need to deal with the physical things of life just as our forebears did, for they did a magnificent job in assimilating the two aspects of man's nature. They understood how to harmonize the physical with the spiritual, and in their great faith they were able to bring a harmony out of seeming chaos. God grant that we may be able to do that, that we may outlaw hatred and animosity and so live that the spirit of our Heavenly Father will be a part of us.
Someone the other day, someone who had had great sorrow because of this war, raised this question, "What has the Church to offer in times like these when it seems the very props are taken from under us?" Well, the Church has all of these practical things, and it has more. It brings to you and me faith and hope. When the shepherds stood on those Palestine hills, they heard the voices of the angels declaring the event of the newborn Babe, "Behold... born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord". Good tidings of great joy they were told, which were to be for all people. It wasn't merely the event of the Babe of Bethlehem, but it was the ushering in of the message of eternal truth that was to bring comfort and joy through the living of the precepts that he was to teach. That was the message that was to bring joy to the human heart.
When Paul stood before King Agrippa he declared his conversion and told of the appearance of Jesus Christ to him in midday, and King Agrippa being touched in his heart, turned to Paul and said, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian". "And Paul said, 'I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds". He knew that Jesus was the Christ; he had in his heart and soul what this testimony and the gospel does for us in times of trial and adversity. The Prophet Joseph came in this day and brought the same message, a message that has come through sorrow, privation and tribulation, and yet it brings the same good tidings of great joy that were sung by the shepherds two thousand years ago. It is the translating into our lives, my brethren, not only these practical things, but it is also a stimulating of the faith that comes from God, our Eternal Father, through faithful service to his cause. The lovely thing about the Church to which you and I belong is that it permits of the application of these two, the practical with the spiritual, and thus we grow and become strong.
May the Lord help us that we may appreciate in our everyday affairs the counsel given in this conference. May we appreciate the great message of peace that comes into our hearts even in time of sorrow, and may we have the power through living these eternal truths ultimately to do away with unrighteousness, so that war may be no more. God bless us, I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 53-56
A part of the obligation of the presiding officer at these conferences is that he shall take his turn in speaking to the people. For that reason I wish to fulfill my duty and try to say something to you that may be helpful and encouraging and to the furtherance of the cause of the Lord. I sincerely trust that while I speak I shall have with me the benefit of that spirit which has been poured out in such rich abundance upon us today. So many themes have been touched, that we might further discuss that it is a bit difficult to know what one might most profitably do.
THE GOLDEN RULE A SAFE GUIDE FOR MANKIND
To the man who says, what has the Church to offer, in times like these, we might perhaps, without being too cruel, say: what is to be offered to the man who jumps off the house and breaks his leg. Well, we can mend his leg, but it will always be a mended leg; but we have also to offer to the man the advice, do not jump off the house again.
And so to this war-torn world, war-torn from the beginning, we have to say to such a questioner: What has the Church to offer? The Church has to offer to you, and to the world, and has offered to you and to the world the principles that had they been accepted would have made this war impossible, and that if now accepted will make a recurrence of war impossible. We bring you that message, the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, restored in this day and age of the world. Do unto others as thou wouldst be done by contains the rule which ought to guide us as members of a community and as one of the family of nations.
GOD WILL PASS SENTENCE UPON THE GUILTY
In these days of terrible trial and stress the question is frequently repeated by those who lose their dear ones under circumstances that ten years ago were not believed possible. These dear ones sometimes write and say: I hope that God will forgive me for the things I am having to do. The parents want to know what is the answer to that fear. I would like to read to you what the First Presidency said on April 6, 1942, four months after the attack at Pearl Harbor.
In this terrible war now waging thousands of our righteous young men in all parts of the world and in many countries are subject to a call into the military service of their own countries. Some of these, so serving, have already been called back to their heavenly home; others will almost surely be called to follow. But "behold," as Moroni said, the righteous of them who serve and are slain "do enter into the rest of the Lord their God", and of them the Lord has said "those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them". Their salvation and exaltation in the world to come will be secure. That in their work of destruction they will be striking at their brethren will not be held against them. That sin, as Moroni of old said, is to the condemnation of those who "sit in their places of power in a state of thoughtless stupor", those rulers in the world who in a frenzy of hate and lust for unrighteous power and dominion over their fellow men, have put into motion eternal forces they do not comprehend and cannot control. God, in his own due time, will pass sentence upon them. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the Lord".
I have no doubt of the truthfulness of the theme developed by Brother Callis, that those who die as described by Moroni, will not be held guilty of the death of their brethren, and they will have the opportunity to go on to salvation and exaltation in the celestial kingdom.
PLANNING FOR THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIERS
I would like to say a word about the returning soldier, that being a question about which we all talk and hear so much. I said something about postwar planning at the last conference and pointed out that we could and should plan to bring our soldiers back to homes of purity, chastity, and of righteousness, and that it took no worldly position, no wealth to carry on that postwar planning. I want to add just a word along that line today.
These boys out in the field have placed before them constantly, achievements and the value of achievement in the destruction of human life. The thing for which they now receive praise, the things for which they work to get commendation, are unknown to us in our lives of peace. When they return they will bring back with them, of necessity, something of those urges that led them to their achievements, and we are going to be cold, however warm we try to be, to those achievements, which do not fit in with the gospel, nor with our methods of life.
To bridge over the time when they return as heroes for achievements in war, until they may resume their peacetime occupations and become heroes in peace and in peaceful occupations, to bridge that over is one of the tasks we shall have to undertake and to which we must give our best effort and best thought. I am not thinking of the temporal side of the bridge-over, I am thinking of the spiritual side, and what that means; and in that connection it seems to me that they who are to play the greatest part are the mothers, the wives, and the sweethearts of those who return.
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE WOMEN
When all is said and done it will be our sisters who must take on that great load and that tremendous responsibility. Radio programs, magazines, and newspaper columns are more and more filling with instructions about how to treat our returning soldiers. All the deductions of modern psychology, and its kindred mental sciences are paraded for the guidance of the wives, the mothers, the sweethearts, in meeting, winning, and holding the boy back from the war. But I would not exchange the unerring, inspired instinct of a good woman, fired with mother love, or wife love, or the love of a loyal, chaste sweetheart, for all that men have ever written. The boys say they do not wish to be regarded as problem children. They want to get home and enter again the family circle, and in its sacred precincts again to take up life and forget hate, carnage, and death. I believe their cry will be, "Let us live again in love"; and you mothers, wives, and sweethearts can bring to them this blessing. None other can. So in this crisis we turn to the women of the earth to save them and to save us men from ourselves. So it has been, in reality, in every great world crisis, however much it may have seemed otherwise. Yours, you sisters, has been the loyalty that has never wanted; your courage has not failed, has not been daunted, whatever the odds. You have often recognized a lost cause long before your men folks; you frequently have seen victory long before it came within the vision of those who battled. Your joy and tenderness and fortitude have succored the wounded and eased the passing of those who are called beyond. You never fail in kindness and mercy; your love endures forever. May God bless you, for you are angels of mercy. So, you mothers, wives, sweethearts, take into the sacred precincts of your heart around the altars of your homes these souls wounded in body, in mind, in spirit, and heal them as you alone can.
THE LEADERS OF THE CHURCH INSPIRED OF GOD
I had intended to say something, but my time is past, along the line that Elder Petersen spoke. He used even the scriptures that I had intended using; but I would like to endorse all that he said, and I would like to say to the priesthood of the Church, among whom there are many who are steadiers of the ark-please do not be too much concerned. The Lord will take care of the Church, if we shall but take care of ourselves. He has laid down the appointed way; he is the head of the Church. President Grant is his representative on earth. The Lord declares his will through his representative here.
There is much talk nowadays about democracy. I do not know of any democracy in the world. There are liberal monarchies, and there are republics. We are democratic in our concepts of the Church, but we are not a democracy; we are a kingdom, the Church and kingdom of God on earth; and our guidance and our direction comes aria must come through the head of the Church, who always has been possessed of the Spirit of the Lord and of his inspiration, and his revelation. So it will always be.
President Joseph F. Smith said to President Grant, shortly before President Smith died, "the Lord knows whom he wants to be president of the Church, and he never makes a mistake." The Lord has laid down the rule and the regulation by which that president of the Church is chosen.
It is for us of the priesthood and for us the members of the Church to hearken and to obey in matters which the president of the Church directs, and to see to it that we do not modify in any way the holy laws which the Lord has laid down. God grant that we may all be faithful to the end, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 57-61
My beloved brethren here and brethren and sisters of the radio audience: It is a great privilege and inspiration to be here in this conference of the Church of our Lord, Jesus Christ. May the peace of heaven be with you and us.
THE ADVICE OF A BRAHMAN TO A MOTHER
A woman in the Far East who had lost her boy went to the Brahman and said: "You must give me back my boy, you must, you must." The Brahman with calm dignity said to her: "Come, daughter, you must go out and get the leaves of a plant and make a tea of the leaves, and drink the tea, and I will give you back your boy. But the leaves must be gathered from the dooryard of a family that has never known sorrow."
The woman traveled from village to village, and from province to province, and finally heartsore and footsore, she returned to her leader saying: "Father, I have traveled all over the land, but I cannot find one home where sorrow has not been." She had returned, not to get her son back, but to be content with her lot.
Yesterday we were told in conference that about nine hundred of our stalwart sons had been sacrificed in this diabolical world holocaust. It has seemed to me even more than that, for as I have gone about the Church I have been confronted with such sorrow in all parts of the country.
These tragic stories of sons killed in the training fields and theatres of war have not been limited to any individual, or locality, but everywhere our relatives and friends weep in their loneliness and sorrow.
A LETTER WRITTEN TO A SORROWING MOTHER
May I read to you a letter which I wrote some time ago to a mother of my acquaintance whose son had just been killed in battle? I do earnestly pray that some thought contained therein might have brought to her and may bring to others a bit of hope and comfort and courage.
Dear Sister:
Very recently I have been entertained in the homes of parents who have lost young sons, still in their teens and early twenties; sons who were as clean and sweet in their lives as their mothers; sons who had ability and had developed their talents and possessed also the spirit and desire to use them for the advancement of the work of the Lord. It has caused me to ponder deeply.
One particular mother who poured out her soul to me was inclined to be bitter. She said:
Why would the Lord take my son from me? Why didn't the Lord answer my prayers and save him? I know my son has remained clean; why should he be taken? Not only he, but the entire family has always been faithful; why is our worthiness not recognized? Why should he die so young when he was so righteous?
Well, you know the responsibility I felt in attempting to answer her. With all my soul I prayed that the Father would help me to bring her comfort.
As I sat in meditation my mind went back to a little hill, far away, on which were silhouetted against the deepening shadows of a black, tragic day, three crosses on which were human beings writhing in the agonies of death, and the central One cried out:
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!.
And I seem to see at the foot of the heavy cross the crouching figure of a mother torn in agony, saying:
Why should he die? So young, so pure, so able to teach the world a better way? Why, oh, why?
Then I seem to see another more modern picture of a mother grief-stricken, watching the approaching caravan which was bringing two beloved sons home from a foul martyrdom in a jail some distance away, and I can almost hear her through her sobs:
Why should they be killed? Why should they be taken from the infant Church which needs them so much? Why must they die, so young, so pure, so strong?
Then I realize that God does not take these lives. It is permitted because men have their free agency.
Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!.
Was there frustration in the martyrdom of Joseph Smith? Joseph was protected and his life saved in every instance of persecution until his work was finished and he had done his part in the restoration of the gospel and the priesthood and all other keys of the dispensation, and until the organization of the kingdom was effected.
He could not be killed before that time, though all hell raged against him. He wanted to live. Life was sweet to him. It held promise of sweet associations with his family, his brethren, and the satisfaction of seeing the work blossom into a full-blown flower. But his work was done; other strong leaders could now carry on; he was needed in other fields. Only in his thirties, a very young man, he died, and commenced his work in other realms.
Was there defeat in the crucifixion of Jesus the Christ? If so, all creation were doomed and man would have remained in sin. If so, the crucifixion would not have taken place until a later date-until his hour had come. His life was not taken from him-he gave his life. To Peter, who smote off the ear of one of the mob, he said:
... the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? and thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?.
He was young, only 33. He loved life also. He wanted to live for the richness that he could see in it-his friends, his growing kingdom, his brethren, his mother. Life was sweet to him. Did he not pray in Gethsemane:
... O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
Then as the time passed, and no positive answer came to his supplication, he cried out again in his torture:
O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
In the first prayer he still seemed to have a glimmer of hope that something could be done about it, but in the latter it seemed to have been definitely settled in his mind that no adjustment could be made, and in order that the purposes of God might not fail he must drink the bitter cup.
He was taken from his mother, though it broke her heart. His prayer, perhaps the most sincere and worthy ever uttered, was not answered as she would have had it. His was the perfect life, clean, guileless, divine, and yet he passed. His mother was devout as also were some of his people, yet his life ebbed. He was young and had not had time to establish himself in life. His first thirty years were spent in preparation; his next three years in originating and developing his program, and now when he could have turned over to his followers much of the detail of the work, and could have perhaps enjoyed family and other associations, he was crucified. Why? There was a definite reason. Being divine and mortal, he had a work to do which could not be done in mortality, which required his transfer to other spheres of activity. Was his work frustrated? It did leave a sorrowing mother. There were brethren who were numbed. There were perhaps many loved ones who doubted and questioned. But in his death, and in his resurrection, came a boon to mankind that only this Son of God could bring. Would we have had it different? Would we have saved his life, if we could, now that we know that he through this very circumstance brought redemption to the world? Would his agonized mother today have it otherwise as she looks back on the entire program? Would the apostles on whom the burden of the kingdom fell have it otherwise?
And I am sure that the thousands of our Latter-day Saint mothers, who like Mary, the mother of the Lord, today stand grieving helplessly at the foot of a heavy cross, shall come in time to see clearly and may even bless the day when their clean, talented, stalwart sons went forward into other spheres.
In death do we grieve for the one who passes on, or is it self-pity? To doubt the wisdom and justice of the passing of a loved one is to place a limitation on the term of life. It is to say that it is more important to continue to live here than to go into other fields. Do we grieve when our son is graduated from the local high school and is sent away from home to a university of higher learning? Do we grieve inconsolably when our son is called away from our daily embrace to distant lands to preach the gospel? To continue to grieve without faith and understanding and trust when a son goes into another world is to question the long-range program of God, life eternal with all its opportunities and blessings.
God is good, so good in fact that we can hardly conceive the depth and richness of his goodness. He is just; so just that we mortals cannot comprehend the fairness of his justice. I am sure that no mortal will ever fail to receive every blessing and glory which he merits. Mortal death cannot rob him. There will be a way, and every promise of God will be fulfilled. A virtuous, progressive, active young man will sacrifice no blessing to which he was entitled by his premature passing into eternity. We may not understand fully just how it will be accomplished, but we may know that it will be. Remember what the Lord himself said:
... Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
Can we not trust in the goodness of the Lord? Remember that he is the Father also of this son. He is the Parent of the living part, you of the tabernacle only. Will he not be infinitely more concerned with the welfare of this son than we mortals could ever be? Can we not know this: "His purposes fail not, neither are there any that can stay his hand"? There is no tragedy except in sin. Let us know therefore that life is eternal, and that God doeth all things well; and this righteous son, the offspring of God, was not born for a day, a decade, or a century, but for eternity. Only his own lack of righteousness could ever deprive him of any blessing promised by the Lord. "Thy Son liveth" and continues to radiate life, not death; light, not darkness; commencement, not termination; assurance, not uncertainty; joy eternal, not sorrow; sweetness, not bitterness; youthful maturity, not senility; progress, not stoppage; sunshine, not clouds; clearness of vision, not confusion and dimness; fulfilment, not frustration; an open gate with light ahead, not barred windows with darkness beyond.
May our Heavenly Father bring his peace to all of you who are now passing through your Garden of Gethsemane.
Sincerely your brother,
Spencer W. Kimball
Elder Nicholas G. Smith
Nicholas G. Smith, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 61-64
My brethren, as I look into your faces I endeavor to place you. I have visited half of the stakes of Zion, up to the present time, and should know half of this congregation, but I have only been able to pick out about two dozen faces. As I walk amongst you, if you will just punch me one in the ribs I shall know I have been in your town.
AN INCIDENT ABOUT JUDGE ELIAS A. SMITH
As Brother Joseph Fielding spoke yesterday of the sanctity of work, I could not help thinking of Judge Elias A. Smith who celebrated his eighty-eighth birthday just about two weeks ago. Thinking, of course, that a man eighty-eight years of age would be resting in his home, I went over to his place, only to discover that he was at work, about two o'clock in the afternoon. So I wended my way down to his office, but he was so busy that he was unable to stop to have anyone congratulate him on his eighty-eighth birthday. The following day I met him on the street and said, "Judge, I went to your home and your office yesterday to wish you many happy returns." "Well," he said, "I am a busy man."
"Yes, I noted that. I couldn't get to see you in the office. I thought you would be home. I didn't know you were working." "Why," he said, "working, earning my own way. I am so much happier doing that than I could possibly be in any other way." I wish a lot of folks could follow Judge Elias A. Smith's way of life, and the way of life which our President has followed. Day before yesterday morning, down in back of the Church Office Building in his car, sick and afflicted, our worthy President sat and signed the letters that he had dictated to go out to different parts of the Church. He isn't too old to work, nor too sick, nor feeble to work. God bless him.
THE KEEPING OF THE SABBATH
Brother Mark Petersen brought to my mind the words of our Savior:
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
And then our President's message, speaking of the many commandments and reminding us of our responsibility as leaders, to keep the commandments of our Heavenly Father, made me think of one commandment especially. As I have traveled about attending your conferences, of necessity I have had to travel on Sundays throughout the intermountain states, and I have seen men in the fields plowing, and hauling their hay, and putting their grain into the stacks. I have seen lined up on this sacred Sabbath day many people in front of the moving picture theatres waiting to purchase their tickets. I have noted crowds lined up at sporting events, buying their tickets that they might go in and participate in that recreation upon this holy day. It may surprise you when I say that my grandfather, George A. Smith, was one of the first men to break the Sabbath day here in Utah. Being rather a practical sort of man, he felt that it was just as necessary that hunger should be appeased as that we should lift the sheep out of the pit upon the Sabbath day, and according to his journal, on July 24th, 1847, you remember, the Saints came down into the valley. Grandfather's diary records that:
... it was cloudy but quite warm. Potatoes were planted. I planted the first. At about two o'clock President Brigham Young and his company came up all better. Water was let on the ground on the twenty-fourth. Toward evening there was a slight shower. Sunday, July 25th, it was clear and warm. Meetings commenced at half past ten. In the morning, I, in company with some others, planted some corn, beans and peas. Meeting again at two p.m. That afternoon Brigham Young chastised me, directing that the brethren must not work on Sunday. He said they would lose five times as much as they would gain by it. None were to hunt that day, and there should not any man dwell among us who would not observe these rules. They might go and dwell wherever they pleased but they should not dwell amongst us.
Grandfather must have taken that lesson to heart after he had been plowing and planting seeds upon that Sunday morning, for he got into the soul of my father the great ideal that Sunday was the Lord's day, the day that we should observe and rest and refrain from all types of work.
While we had horses and our whitetop, we couldn't use them on the Sabbath day. I remember on one occasion when my brother, Winslow, and I went to our father and asked him if we might have the whitetop, he said, "Boys, we must follow so-and-so's example, and you can't take the horses and the wagon out." That afternoon we saw so-and-so's boys out in their whitetop, so the following Sunday we came to father and said, "Father, may we take the whitetop out today?" "What did I tell you last Sunday, boys?" "Well, you said to follow so-and-so's example, and last Sunday we saw them out in their whitetop." Father said, "Well, we won't follow anybody's example. We will set one of our own. You can't have the whitetop."
ADVICE FROM CHURCH LEADERS
Some years later, after Brigham Young had spoken about the Sabbath day he was again called upon to speak of it. Apparently they hadn't moved away, those who desired to break the Sabbath, for he said, "Now remember, my brethren, those who go skating, buggy riding, or on excursions on the Sabbath day-and there is a great deal of this practice-are weak in the faith. Gradually, little by little, the spirit of their religion leaks out of their hearts, their affections and in time they begin to see faults in their brethren, faults in the doctrines of the Church, faults in the organization, and at last they leave the kingdom of God and go to destruction."
He felt very seriously about this subject, as have all of the men who have presided over this Church. All of them have stressed this important matter. I think that perhaps the greatest and finest expression was by President Grant when he said, "The Lord's day is a holy day and not a holiday. It has been set apart as a day of rest and worship, and we accept the Lord's day as the first day of the week in accordance with the instructions given by the Prophet Joseph Smith. A sacred Sabbath begets reverence for God." And how essential that is. "It is not pleasing in his sight that the day be given over to pleasure-seeking in places of amusement or elsewhere. Sunday Schools and meetings have been so arranged that they meet the convenience of the people and leave a considerable portion of the Sabbath day without Church appointments. We earnestly appeal to the people to keep their appointments faithfully and to utilize that part of Sunday not appointed, for meetings in promoting family association in the home, with the purpose of stimulating and establishing greater home fealty, a closer companionship among parents and children; and more intimate relations among all kindred. We believe it is unnecessary for families to go beyond their homes or those of their kindred for the relaxation and associations which are proper for the Sabbath day, and we therefore discourage more traveling than is necessary for this purpose and attendance upon appointed meetings. Let all unnecessary labor be suspended, and let no encouragement be given by members of the Church at places of amusement and recreation on the Sabbath day. If Sunday is spent in our meetings and in our homes, great blessings will come to our families and to our communities."
So I would appeal, my brethren, to you who are the presiding officers in the Church, that in your actions nothing can be laid at your door that would cause anyone to start on that path of desecrating the Sabbath day, and I would bring to your minds that message which was written by the finger of God upon tablets of stone:
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Amen.
President Levi Edgar Young
Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 64-66
We first see him in the woods on the frontier of America praying as a child might pray and the Lord appearing to him. Using the words of the Psalmist, "Grace is poured into thy lips, therefore God hath blessed thee for ever more".
JOSEPH SMITH'S FIRST VISION
With the Father was Jesus the Savior. Joseph heard the voice of God and the divine words: "This is my Beloved Son". A new day was at hand. From that moment he was heart and mind to the word of the Lord. What a message for our missionaries of today!
He learned that day that the divisions of Christendom are its most conspicuous reproach and the chief cause of its inefficiency. They present a moral affront to the enterprise inaugurated by Jesus Christ, and constitute the outstanding limitation of its progress. Christianity is weakened by its division in facing the problems of today, among which are class hatreds, race antagonisms, blindness to social justice, the lure of vicious literature, crime-instigating narcotics, and the spread of military spirit in the world.
The supreme test of religion is revelation. No religion can be persuasive unless it relies on the principle of revelation. The living Church of Jesus Christ must be revelatory. One readily sees that the very lifeblood of the Church is the principle and potency of redemption. Christianity in its pure sense is the religion of redeemed personality. While all true men reveal God, the completest carrier of revelation can be no other than a chosen personality.
THE MESSAGE OF THE RESTORATION
By the power of the Holy Priesthood which he received from heaven, Joseph established our true relationship to God. Out of this grows the salvation of man-his true immortal life. The nations all bear witness to the need of a light that is not of man. We can give our word to the world that the forces which are to make the world the world it ought to be are now within it. The Prophet Joseph Smith gave a new idea of the duty of man toward God; of man's duty to man in religion, politics, and society; of the duties of nations towards one another. His message was for the fireside, for we are taught that the gospel must be in the home; it is "pure religion breathing household laws." The father holds the priesthood of God; the mother is heir to the same influence of the priesthood. It brings the truest conception of home life, which lies at the root of civilization. Here are the children born and reared. Here are the teachings of faith expressed in prayer. Every child is taught faith, hope, charity, and love, with an eye single to the glory of God. Reverence for God is the basis of morality.
Joseph Smith's concept of government and law was divinely enlightened. Government was instituted by Almighty God, and the Constitution of the United States was written by men inspired of God to bring just civic life to the world, for there is a sacredness of citizenship which we all should know. It requires the faithful use of political rights. He saw the wrong of slavery and advocated that the government buy the slaves from their masters, and give them the opportunity to develop their own lives adapted to them. What a tragedy this could have averted. There must be a revival of civic pride in America, a keener respect for law and order. All the written laws in the world cannot bring back that fine old love of justice and the ways of God. There must be the spirit of consecration, of self-discipline, of devotion to the righteous teachings of God. Far back in the ages, Isaiah, six hundred years before the Savior of mankind came, wrote: "Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in". There is a conscience of nations as there is of individuals. We had once a national conscience, as expressed by the Puritans, Quakers, and the many other religious devotees who settled these shores. They knew moral integrity, moral purpose, moral restraint.
THE MEANING OF CIVILIZATION
Our civic ethics, our social idealism should rest securely on what an eminent lord chief justice of England said:
Civilization is not dominion, wealth, material luxury. Not a great literature and education, good though these things are. Its true signs are thoughtfulness for the poor and suffering, chivalrous regard and respect for woman, the frank recognition for human brotherhood, the doing away with war, the love of ordered freedom, abhorrence of what is mean and cruel, ceaseless devotion to the claims of justice.
Yes, we need the old-fashioned ethics, "when it was taught that every man should give account of himself to god."
The vision of the boy Prophet revealed two mighty truths: the reality of the spiritual life-the divine life; and the divinity and sanctity of the human body. The proper knowledge of the personality of God and of Jesus Christ gave foundation for the redemption of the world from sin.
BODY AND MIND CLOSELY RELATED
The connection between body and mind is a commonplace of thought with us, but it is not a commonplace of practice. The relation of mind and body is a very close one in which each affects the other for good or evil. We are more dependent on physical conditions for our happiness, and even for our goodness, than we perhaps like to admit. The keenest brain and the spirit of man need a foundation of physical health to do their best work. The treatment of the body must be put on a moral basis. Every act of intemperance of whatever sort, every sin against the physical constitution, every wilful neglect of the laws of health and moral life, is injuring the self in ways too delicate to estimate, and is dimming the radiance of the soul. There is such a thing as physical morality.
Beautifully has the Prophet depicted in the D&C; that God reigns in heaven and in earth. He is the rightful King of nations, and the source of supreme good to man. It is through forgetting God and forsaking him that spiritual and moral degradation and all the sorrows of this war-torn world result. It will be by mankind acting for God and responding to his call that a new age will come. More majestic are his words: "Man must be called of God to administer in his holy ordinances and to teach his eternal word". Must be called of God! Do we of the priesthood of the Lord deeply feel and deeply know what this means? "It administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God". "In the ordinances the power of Godliness is manifest".
If the priesthood is a living reality in our lives, all thought and action will be regulated by our relation to God. Through a knowledge of God alone can human life assume its true destined significance. All duties will become in the highest sense duties to God; morality will become holiness.
Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
Joseph L. Wirthlin, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 67-71
I sincerely trust, my brethren and my sisters of the radio audience, that I might have an interest in your prayers and faith this morning as I stand before you to express one or two thoughts.
GRATITUDE FOR BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL
As I listened to the Lord's anointed, yesterday, there came into my heart a feeling of profound gratitude-gratitude to my forebears who left the Alps of Switzerland and the villages of England and came to the valleys of these mountains where their posterity might enjoy all of the blessings and gifts of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am profoundly grateful to them because it has brought me under the direction of the Lord's prophets. And anyone who listened to President Grant's message yesterday couldn't help feeling that he was speaking to us as God's mouthpiece and servant. It is my firm conviction and testimony that if all of us will heed the advice and counsel of these men who guide and direct the destiny of this great work that God will sustain us and bless us through all the vicissitudes, trials, and tribulations of life.
As I grow older, I become more convinced in my heart and spirit that this is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. One evidence to me that it is his work, is that the Lord is not only mindful of those who live, but he is mindful of those who passed on without having had the opportunity of hearing the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh. The Lord ordained his Son to be the judge of both the dead and the quick. David, who transgressed sorely, understood fully that there would come a time when he, too, would have an opportunity of repenting and enjoying the good will of our Heavenly Father. He said:
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
BAPTISM A NECESSARY ORDINANCE
With the advent of the Savior upon the earth, there came to him one of the learned Pharisees, Nicodemus. Nicodemus was interested in the miracles the Savior performed, and finally out of the discussion that ensued, the Savior said to Nicodemus, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God". Nicodemus could not understand this statement. Thinking that once a man had been born of woman that was enough, and then to clarify the statement the Lord said:
... Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
The Savior here laid down the mandate of baptism that applies to every son and daughter of the Lord that is born in the flesh, that if they expect entrance into the kingdom of our Heavenly Father they must be born of the water, or baptized of the water, born of the spirit or baptized of the spirit. This declaration was so important that the Savior himself submitted to the ordinance of baptism. We all recall the time when John was baptizing by the Jordan and then cometh Jesus from Galilee unto John to be baptized of him, but John forbade him saying:
... I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him. Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Christ not only inaugurated the initiatory ordinance into the kingdom of heaven, but he also placed upon his followers the mantle of authority. For said he this to Peter:
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Then there came Calvary Hill when the Savior of the world was crucified between two sinners, and upon the cross he conversed with one of these men, Christ making him this promise:
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
This statement has been confusing to the Christian world, in view of the fact that the Savior said unto Nicodemus, "Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God". There is no question but that the thief had never heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ until the Savior preached it to him on the cross, and yet the Savior promised him that he would be in paradise; the world in its confused thinking believes that paradise is heaven. The Apostle Peter clarifies this misconception of paradise when we read his statement found in I Peter:
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust; that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
After the Savior was resurrected and meeting Mary, he said to her, "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father", which is an indication to us that during the time his spirit and body were separated, he was in paradise, preaching the gospel message to those who, as Peter tells us, sinned in the days of Noah and were swept from the earth by the great flood.
Another very important statement with reference to baptism was made by Paul when he was preaching the resurrection. He said:
Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?.
CHANGES MADE THROUGH APOSTASY
Thereafter, according to prophecy, there came the great apostasy. It was only a matter of a century or two after the apostles had disappeared from the earth until the ordinances and doctrines of men were substituted for those of the Lord Jesus Christ. The words of the old prophet Amos were fulfilled wherein he said:
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.
We find one of the world's greatest ecclesiastical leaders making this statement in a book that he wrote, the book written by Cardinal Gibbons called The Faith of Our Fathers, wherein he said that the ordinance of baptism was changed from that of immersion to sprinkling for convenience's sake. Said he:
There are those who are ill. There are those where there may be but little water found, consequently there being little water it is right to sprinkle them, and that sprinkling is just as efficacious as immersion.
The important thing is that this great ecclesiastical leader admits that baptism was by immersion just as Christ indicated, and as he was baptized by John the Baptist, and as he indicated to Nicodemus, that if a man must be born again he would have to be born of the water, completely submerged and come forth, symbolical of the birth.
With the apostasy there came into the world many doctrines, There came into the world erroneous doctrines that there is no place in the kingdom of our Heavenly Father for those who have not heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ; but the Lord said in the beginning he ordained his Son to be the judge of not only the living but also the dead. The world has lost sight of this concept, and the great churches teach the following:
There is nothing any human being can do to change the condition of the dead. After one dies there is no more that can be done or that he can do.
Another one declares:
Don't believe we can help those who have died, neither believers nor nonbelievers; no ordinance for the dead that recognized intercession for the dead as well as for the living. Man cannot help those who have died. We have no form of work for the dead. After the death, the judgment.
Another one:
We are powerless to do anything for those who are dead. Don't believe in any form of work for the dead. We are powerless to aid those who are dead.
I am sure that if these great religious organizations understood the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ, they would not declare to the world nor to their followers that nothing can be done for those who have passed on. Without having heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and those who have not submitted themselves to the ordinance of baptism, they would have us believe that they are lost forever and ever.
Then Cardinal Gibbons makes another father pertinent statement in his book wherein he said this:
For if baptism by immersion only is valid, how many sick and delicate persons; how many prisoners and seafaring people, how many thousands living in the frigid zone, in the depth of inclement weather, though craving the grace of regeneration would be deprived of God's seal or receive it at the risk of their lives. Surely God does not ordinarily impose ordinances upon us under such a penalty. Moreover, if immersion is the only form of valid baptism, what has become of the millions of souls in every age and country that have been regenerated by sprinkling of water in the Christian churches?
PROMISES OF THE RESTORATION FULFILLED
When the Lord, through his servants, predicted that there would be a famine for his word in the land, knowing that men would change the ordinances and substitute their own, he also gave the world a promise that the day would come, as he said, when:
Behold; I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the
great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
That promise has been kept. John the Baptist appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery upon the banks of the Susquehanna River bestowing upon them the Aaronic Priesthood, the same priesthood that John the Baptist held when he baptized the Savior They immersed one another just as Christ was immersed by John the Baptist. Later there came three other heavenly beings, Peter, James, and John, who bestowed upon these men the Melchizedek Priesthood, that priesthood which Christ himself bestowed upon Peter and his associates, giving them the right to bind on earth and to bind in heaven and to loose on earth and it would be loosed in heaven.
Elijah conferred upon Joseph Smith the keys of this great work, the work for the dead, wherein children perform the ordinance of baptism for their dead progenitors, which is a vicarious form of work just as was Christ's atonement for the sin of Adam of a vicarious nature wherein he represented all of us upon the cross. Furthermore, President Joseph F. Smith in 1918 indicated that he had been caught up by the spirit and was permitted to see what was going on in the spirit world. The sight he beheld was one wherein the brethren were preaching to the spirits in paradise just as the Savior nineteen centuries ago in spirit form preached them the gospel. By performing the ordinance of baptism here in proxy form for the dead, there are no obstacles in their way whereby they might embrace the gospel in its entirety though they be in paradise. I wish to declare that with the appearance of Elijah to the Prophet Joseph, the restoration of the priesthood, baptism for the dead, and the preaching to spirits as President Joseph F. Smith indicates, constitute an answer to Cardinal Gibbons with reference to those who have not been born of the water and the spirit, as the Savior indicated to Nicodemus a man must needs be before he can enter the kingdom of heaven. Think, if you will, of the millions who have died without the performance of this ordinance and the acceptance of the gospel during the period when the gospel was not upon the earth. To me it is only justice that our kind Father in heaven would institute a plan whereby all his children, be they alive or dead, might have the privilege of accepting or rejecting the gospel of his beloved Son. I could not worship a God who would permit some of his children to enjoy the blessings of the gospel and deprive others who for some reason or another had not heard the gospel because of some circumstances over which they had no control and were denied the privilege of accepting it. I do not believe in that kind of a God, and neither do you. We believe in a God who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to suffer, to bleed, and die to the end that everyone of us might enjoy salvation and exaltation in his kingdom.
This is the philosophy of Mormonism, a plan of salvation so broad that it provides an opportunity for everyone of the Lord's children to gain entrance to his kingdom as was prescribed by the Savior to Nicodemus.
This is my testimony to you, and I am grateful beyond words of expression to know that I enjoy membership in God's Church, the same Church that Christ established upon the earth with apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers, for the purpose of teaching us the gospel in its fulness and to the ultimate end that we may all come to a unity of faith. And we may come to a unity of the faith if we abide by the counsel given to us by the Lord's anointed, and that unity of faith will exemplify to the whole world the destiny of this great organization-a destiny of leadership to direct men from the paths of error into the paths of truth, salvation, and exaltation, which I pray will be the blessing of every one of the Lord's children, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Milton R. Hunter
Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 72-75
President Grant, President Clark, President McKay, members of the priesthood, and all the radio audience: I stand before this assembled group today in deep humility, in trembling and weakness. I have no words to express the intense feelings that have completely filled me during the past twenty-four hours. The more I contemplate the call which has been made upon me the greater the responsibility looms before my mind, and the more I recognize my weakness and incapability in filling this position. I knew that without the help of God the task will be too great, but I do trust and pray with all my heart that I might have his Holy Spirit to be with me, that in this new call I may be a worthy servant in helping to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. I do covenant before my Heavenly Father and before you that I will put forth my very best efforts, that I will give all of my time and talents and anything that God has blessed me with for the upbuilding of his Church and kingdom here upon this earth.
I hope you will pardon me this morning if I say a few things that are personal, but during the past twenty-four hours with such a sudden change coming into my life, my mind has been going back in retrospect over the events of my past life and also of my future. I desire to express, with the help of the Lord, a few of my feelings, a few of my hopes.
EXPERIENCE IN SEMINARY WORK
I have always loved the gospel of Jesus Christ more than anything else in life. I have continuously labored in the Church from my boyhood up, willingly and happily. The gospel and the opportunities to serve in the Church have been the greatest blessing and joy in my life. When I was attending high school seminary under one of our very excellent teachers, Brother William Tew, I made up my mind that if I ever had the opportunity I should like to be a seminary teacher and devote my time and my entire life to teaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. With that thought in mind I went on through school. Elder Joseph F. Merrill offered me the opportunity, which I gladly accepted, and in happiness I undertook the work.
I have had the great privilege of spending seventeen years in the Church system of education in the high school seminaries and in the institutes. They have been years of much happiness to me, years I know that have furnished me wonderful opportunities. Throughout that time I have never lost opportunity on any occasion to bear testimony to the students of the truthfulness of the gospel and to try to help them with all evidence possible to gain a testimony of the gospel; and to gain facts and the proper spirit which will sustain this great Church of our Master to which we belong.
I would like on this occasion to remark to the parents of the young people of the Church and to the First Presidency and to the officers of the Church, that I have found through working with the young people that they are great; they are wonderful; they are filled with the testimony of the gospel; they are just as staunch, just as true, just as faithful, I am sure, as were their parents or their grandparents. I have never seen more faith exhibited in my life by any group of people than I have seen among the young people of our Church with whom I have had the privilege of working. I do not fear for the future of the Church so long as our young people are of this splendid type, and so long as they are filled with the spirit of the gospel and continue living their present type of lives. I am sure that they will take leadership in the Church in due time and carry it on very effectively. I accept the promise made to the Prophet Joseph that the gospel is upon the earth never to be taken from the earth again and never to be given to another people.
We should thank the Presidency of the Church and all those working for this great cause who have made possible our educational system. They foster the great opportunities that we have therein. I speak of that subject definitely this morning because of my close contact for many years with that particular work. I am convinced that the educational program is completely in line with the gospel as revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith-that man "cannot be saved in ignorance"; that "we are saved no faster than we gain knowledge"; that "the glory of God is intelligence". The educational program is also definitely in line with the practices of the Church from the beginning, during pioneer days, and on down to the present time. We are a group of people who know that we must gain knowledge of truth in order that we may progress on to godhood. So I do express my appreciation to the First Presidency and their associates for the privilege I have had of spending seventeen years in that very excellent work and also for all the opportunities that I have had in the Church.
When I completed my doctor's degree in California, I was given the opportunity to teach at the institute in Logan. I was delighted; but when I went down to California and told the professors under whom I had taken my graduate work, they tried to persuade me to not come back to Utah to teach. They wanted me to teach in history, the field that I had taken my special work in, but I talked to my wife-who is a very faithful and devout Latter-day Saint and a splendid companion-and her feelings agreed with mine. We recognized that we had a great opportunity at Logan to help the young people of the Church, and we felt that we wanted to rear our family in Utah, and so we turned our backs upon that suggestion and returned to our home state. We have been very happy in our decision.
PERSONAL TESTIMONIES
Before closing my remarks, I would like to bear my testimony. I know that God lives. I know that Jesus the Christ is his Beloved Son. He is the Savior of the world, the Redeemer, the author of the eternal plan of salvation. I know that God, the Eternal Father, through his only begotten son, restored the gospel upon the earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith in our dispensation; that it is the true gospel; that it is the power of God unto salvation. I know that if we live by these eternal principles we shall gain a great reward, even that of eternal life in the kingdom of God. I know that our Heavenly Father is good; that he hears and answers prayers; that he is gracious and kind even beyond our comprehension; and that he delights in blessing those who keep his commandments. The Holy Ghost has borne this testimony to my soul so strongly that I am as sure of these facts as I am that I live. I pray that I may ever live worthy enough to retain this testimony.
Everyone in this audience no doubt has had many experiences which to them have testified to the goodness of God and which have given them a testimony of the truthfulness of the restored gospel. Herein lies the strength of Mormonism. I would like to give an experience or two of mine.
At least twice in my life I was at the point of death and was brought back to life through the power of the priesthood, through the goodness of God. One June day when I was twenty-one years old, I had climbed the hay pole to thread it in order that we might harvest our crop. Just as I had finished, the guy wire broke, and the pole came crashing to the earth. It splintered into many pieces. The hayfork lit with the tines straight up just a few feet from where I lit. Although I fell nearly fifty feet, the only injury that I received was a broken foot. Of course the shock was terrific. I went to bed, and the next day I thought I could get up. I crawled out of bed and immediately everything went black, but through the power of God I was restored to health and strength.
Eleven years later, when I finished my doctor's degree, my physical condition was poor because I had worked very hard. I was teaching seminary in Provo. In November I went to Salt Lake City and had my wisdom teeth extracted. On the way home a storm arose and within twenty-four hours I was seriously ill. A streptococcus infection had settled in my throat, and for the next three weeks I lay at the point of death. The doctor had no hopes that I would recover. The bishop came to our home, and as kindly as he could, told my wife I should not be able to recover. But the seminary teachers I worked with came daily and administered to me. Never once did I have the thought in my mind that I would not get well. I knew there were many things in this world that I was to do yet. In three weeks' time I got out of bed and went back to my schoolroom. It took a year, however, to get the infection out of my system. I am sure that it was through the help and blessings of God that I was restored to life. Upon returning to my school, the students asked me to what I attributed my recovery from such a severe sickness. I testified to them on that occasion, and have done so on many occasions since, that it was through the power of the priesthood and because of the goodness of God that my life was preserved.
I want to bear my testimony today that I know these things are true and that my Heavenly Father has been kind and good to me, blessing me more abundantly than I have deserved. I sincerely hope and pray that I have the full support and the faith of all the members of the Church and the same help from God in the performance of my duties as a member of the First Council of the Seventy. This is my humble prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder John H. Taylor
John H. Taylor, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 83-86
I am very happy, brethren, to have the opportunity of being at this conference and of speaking to you for a few minutes. As has been stated, we recently lost two of the members of our council, men who were great missionaries, men who had good judgment and good inspiration. I am sure that we will miss them; our associations with them have been long and satisfying. Men who have been intimately associated in a common cause become very close to each other. Separations like this come to all of us, but with the blessings of the Lord, other good men are given to us to carry on the work. We are grateful to have two such good men as Brother Young and Brother Hunter associated with us in the First Council of the Seventy. I am quite certain that we shall love them and hope that they will love us and that with the blessings and inspirations of our Heavenly Father, we as a council may be helpful in his great missionary cause.
SOME OF THE PRIVILEGES OF CITIZENSHIP
Some time ago I was in court where there were a number of people being examined as to their qualifications to become citizens of this great country of ours. The judge asked one of the men this question: "What can you receive as a citizen of this country that you cannot receive without being a citizen?" As an alien, a man could reside in our country, could move about in freedom from place to place, could have the advantages of our schools, could have police protection for himself and family and his business, irrespective of the fact that he was not a citizen. But with all these privileges, he was always an alien, having no part in the feeling and enthusiasm and love of country that belong to us as citizens. One all-important thing that he was unable to enjoy was the right of suffrage-the right to vote and to participate in the government, in its laws and regulations. He could not go out and represent or speak officially for the country or for the officers who might be elected. Therefore, he failed to have one of the great things we value so much.
BLESSINGS THROUGH MEMBERSHIP IN THE CHURCH
We are often asked, "What is there in your Church that I cannot receive without becoming a member?" Well, as a non-member of the Church, he could get all the blessings and all the rewards that have to do with obedience to certain laws. He could be clean and receive from our Heavenly Father all of the blessings that we receive because of our being clean. He could receive the blessings that come to one who is honest, one who is a good neighbor, one who is willing to live up to the obligations of his country. He could participate with us in the blessings of the Word of Wisdom and could have for himself that health and strength and vitality that can come to one who obeys the rules pertaining to this law.
He can have all the blessings that come from keeping the Ten Commandments. By living in harmony with the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, he can receive all the blessings promised by the Savior.
That is the thing about the Church and kingdom of the Lord. It gives rewards to those who merit them. It is stated in the Doctrine and Covenants that upon every law there is a blessing attached; and all people, provided they can live up to the laws and regulations, will have the promised blessings given to them. But as in the case of citizenship, there are some things that simply cannot come to a man without his becoming a member of the Church and kingdom of our Heavenly Father.
The priesthood of God is one such thing. This priesthood can come only from God himself or from those who are delegated to hold the priesthood and give it to somebody else. You remember the case of the lame man, sitting in front of the temple. When Peter and John came along, he asked for alms. Peter said to him:
... Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.
No man has the authority to speak in the name of the Lord unless he holds the priesthood of God.
You remember the occasion when the seven sons of Sceva trying to do the things that Paul had been doing said unto a man who was afflicted, "... We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth." and the spirit returned the answer, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?". God has always limited the power and the right to speak in his name to the men who hold his Holy Priesthood. Because of this priesthood we have a number of blessings that no one else can have. Others may wish them; they may desire them, but the only way they can have them is by becoming members of his Church.
One blessing of membership is that men and women when entering into holy matrimony may be sealed for time and eternity and not only have each other, but also have their children. Only in the temples of the Lord can this work be done. Another blessing of membership is the constant direction by men who speak and act and are called by God to preside over the Church. We are never left without guidance and without help to meet life's changing problems.
As members of the Church, we have the privilege and opportunity of doing missionary work. Men and women can go out in the name of the Lord as they may be called. Men have the right to act in the name of the Lord, and when they teach, they teach correct doctrine. When they perform certain ordinances they perform those ordinances according to the laws and regulations of our Heavenly Father, and they are done right, and when these things are performed men and women are truly members of the Church and kingdom of our Heavenly Father.
MISSIONARY WORK IN THE STAKES
Just in passing I would like to say a word about our missionaries. In the hands of the brethren who have met together today rests the responsibility for the amount of missionary work that will be done in the Church. You men are the leaders in our stakes and in our wards, and it is through your recommendations that members are called to become missionaries. When we have a ward or a stake that thoroughly believes in the great work that God has given us to do as a Church, we find that we have a great missionary corps of men and women preaching the gospel. Where presiding men are not thoroughly enthusiastic or converted to the missionary cause, we have stakes and wards where not much is done in the missionary line. It is quite true, brethren, that all the priesthood of the Lord can be used in preaching the gospel. Those holding the Aaronic Priesthood can be authorized and sent out to preach the gospel, if necessary, and women can be called to go out and preach the gospel; but to those holding the special calling of seventies there has been given the obligation that they shall preach and teach the gospel. We are in hopes, brethren, you leading men who have this great responsibility in your hands will see that our seventies shall have the opportunity of magnifying their calling through preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, that, if necessary, they may be released from other duties so that they may preach the gospel either out in the world or in the missions of your stakes. I am quite certain if we could get the seventies necessary for missionary work that we would be able to bring men and women into the Church who are at present running to and fro and cannot understand the gospel of Jesus Christ because there is no preacher or no teacher.
UNDERSTANDING INCREASED THROUGH STUDY
Through membership we have a right to understand more about the work of the Lord. Because of the additional things that have come to us by way of revelation, instead of having only the Bible we have in addition, the Pearl of Great Price, the Book of Mormon, and the D&C.; These enable us to understand what God expects us to do here upon the earth, that we may walk more uprightly and more sincerely than we could without the additional evidence and the additional testimony that come from these great revelations of the Lord. In addition, because of our faith and membership, we have the privilege of understanding doctrines that are not generally understood by the world, such as pre-existence, salvation for the dead, and the resurrection with its three glories. Our understanding is increased, and we gain strength from many things that the Lord has revealed to us for our consolation, for our blessing, and for our encouragement.
May the Lord bless us and help us to value our membership in the Church and our citizenship in the great kingdom of the Lord, that we shall not only use the things that are easy for us to understand and to use, but that we shall search deeply into the ways of the Lord and make use of all the principles and the doctrines and live by all of the standards of the Church, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Marion G. Romney
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 86-91
As a preface to what I would like to say this afternoon, I read the following from President Grant's message:
I believe that the elders of Israel in all the different wards and stakes of Zion earnestly desire to know the mind and will of our Heavenly Father, and that they are ready and willing to do anything that is within their power to fulfill that mind and that will and to carry it out in their lives.
It is a great responsibility to address a general conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I feel that responsibility keenly. I pray that I may be responsive to the Holy Spirit and that what I say will bring comfort to the hearts of those who listen, and at the same time stimulate us all to examine ourselves and determine more fully to do our Father's will, which, if we do, will bring us peace in this world and finally immortality and eternal life in his presence.
DOING THE WILL OF GOD BRINGS PEACE
To seek to know the Father's will and to comply therewith does not mean abject submission to an arbitrary superior force, but rather bringing ourselves into harmony with the laws and principles prevailing in an orderly universe. It is the only way by which we may be at peace in the earth and eventually rise to our high destiny as the children of God.
It is the path trod by our Savior. He is our great example. The earliest words spoken by him of which we have record were, as recorded in the Pearl of Great Price: "... Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever". You are all familiar with the setting. It was in the spirit world when the Father's plan, whereby his children would be advanced to their second estate, was submitted.
The plan required a redeemer. Two of the Father's sons presented themselves for that important role-Jesus and Lucifer. The offer of Jesus was sublime in its simple grandeur. "Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever." This statement reveals at once the greatness of his soul and also the source of his strength and power.
Lucifer's offer was not in the same sweet, humble spirit. He was conscious that he had a brilliant intellect, and he wanted to be independent in the use of his own intelligence. He could not bring himself to consecrate his powers to the doing of the Father's will; he wanted the Father's glory; and so he proposed a substitute plan of his own. It was, of course, unworkable because conceived in darkness, as is every plan which is contrary to the Father's will, and was rejected. Jesus was chosen to be the Redeemer. Lucifer and his followers, instead of submitting to the decision and bringing themselves into harmony with the will of the Father, rebelled, waged war in heaven, and were cast out. They have never since enjoyed peace and contentment and they never will, for they cannot say, in the spirit of Jesus, "Father, thy will be done," and there is no one in heaven, whether heaven is thought of as a place or a condition, who is not in harmony with the Father's will.
In fulfilment of the Father's plan, Jesus came to earth and here, as before, taught by precept and example the truth that the way to peace and happiness and union with God is to learn his will and do it. He taught us to pray unto the Father:
... Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
And in the Sermon on the Mount:
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
When the Jews marveled at his teachings, he declared:
My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
Urged by his disciples to eat, he said:
My meat is to do the will of him that sent me. I can of mine own self do nothing; as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. I came down from heaven,.. not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
Jesus held true to this course, even through Gethsemane where he bore the sins of all men through suffering which caused him-
... to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit.
As he came to the climax of that suffering, he cried out in agony:
... Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
Thus he partook and finished his preparations unto the children of men as he had undertaken them, submissive to and guided by "the Father's will".
What a difference it would make in the conditions of the world today if all leaders of nations and all peoples were seeking to know and do the Father's will! What peace would come into the world and what peace does come into the hearts of individuals as they acquire such a state of mind and act upon it! The happiest and most successful people in the earth are those who, knowing the will of the Father, are living in harmony therewith. On the other hand, the most contentious, distressed, and miserable people on the earth are those who know his will and who do not live in harmony with it.
We members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are in a unique position with reference to this matter because we know that the Lord has revealed, and is continuing to reveal, to our generation his will concerning us, and we profess to accept it. This leaves us no excuse and no escape. Each of us is destined to be happy and at peace, or miserable and contentious. Many have already chosen their places; others are moving into position. Our status will depend upon how nearly we do the Father's will now, and how faithful we are in continuing to do it to the end of our mortal lives.
As we seek to understand the Father's will, it may be well for us to keep in mind some well-known fundamentals. The first to which I invite your attention is that the rules of conduct prescribed for us in the revelations contained in the D&C; are statements of the Father's will as to how we should live our mortal lives, and that these standards were not formulated by men, and therefore men cannot change them. Their observance is a purifying and sanctifying process, by which we come into union with God and thereby enjoy peace and happiness. To know them and fail to strive to live them is to invite certain distress and unhappiness.
To illustrate: Recently a friend of mine came to me with this problem. "The Church," he said, "is suffering the loss of the loyalty and services of many able members who feel that they are being driven away from the Church and are thus deprived of the communion to which they are entitled, because our leaders put so much stress upon what, to them, are unimportant rules of conduct, such as the nonuse of tea, coffee, tobacco, and intoxicating beverages." He wondered if the rules as to these things and such other, to them, minor things as the payment of tithing and the keeping of the Sabbath day holy, could not be relaxed so that such persons would not feel out of harmony or be embarrassed in the Church.
THE YOKE OF CHRIST
Now, my brethren and sisters, it is not the desire of the Church nor of any man or woman in the Church who has the spirit of the gospel, to discomfort or embarrass or drive away from the purifying and sanctifying influences of the gospel, any person, be he in or out of the Church. Rather, it is their desire to take every person where he now is and build him up, lead him step by step along the straight and narrow path of conforming with gospel standards, until he finds peace and happiness in doing the will of the Father.
This, however, cannot be done by condoning noncompliance with the rules of conduct which the Lord has prescribed, nor by presuming to change them. The words of Jesus were, "Take my yoke upon you." He did not say come on your own terms, but-
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;... and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
The Lord has never revealed a way whereby we can enjoy that rest unto our souls without taking his yoke upon us. The acceptance of the commandments in the D&C; as an expression to us individually of the will of our Father in heaven as to how we should live, and an earnest effort to abide thereby, will do much to bring us peace and happiness while we live in the earth, and to assure us of great joy in the world to come. LIVING PROPHETS AS GUIDES
Another fundamental to bear in mind in our search is that the manifestations of the Father's will to this generation did not cease with what is written in the D&C.; He has not left us unguided to jangle over the interpretations of those revelations, nor does he leave us ignorant of his will on current issues. He has given us living prophets to interpret those revelations and to declare to us his will on present problems.
When the Lord opened up this dispensation, he chose and appointed the Prophet Joseph Smith through whom to reveal his will. And the peoples of the earth were put under obligation to hear him. More than a year before the Church was organized, the Lord said to the Prophet:... this generation shall have my word through you.
And he further declared that woe should come upon the inhabitants of the earth if they did not hearken unto his words.
As long as the Prophet lived, the Lord revealed his will to that generation through him. And it is significant how much of what he revealed dealt with the issues of that day. Since the Prophet's martyrdom, the will of the Lord has been given through succeeding prophets, Presidents Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F. Smith, and Heber J. Grant, who each in his turn has presided over the Church, and, like unto Moses, has guided the people of his generation on the issues of their day by the spirit of revelation.
During the administrations of all these leaders, those who have accepted them as prophets, who have truly believed that by the spirit of revelation they spoke the Father's will on the issues of the day, who have adjusted their thinking, their living, and their feelings to harmonize with the spirit and the letter of the words of these living prophets-they are the ones who have been comforted and who have had peace in their souls.
Today the Lord is revealing his will to all the inhabitants of the earth, and to members of the Church in particular, on the issues of this our day through the living prophets, with the First Presidency at the head. What they say as a presidency is what the Lord would say if he were here in person. This is the rock foundation of Mormonism. If it ever ceases to be the fact, this will be an apostate Church. But it will never cease to be the fact. When the Prophet Joseph Smith was asked what the difference was between the Latter-day Saint Church and the sectarian churches of the world, he said, "We have the Holy Ghost," by which he meant that by the power of the Holy Ghost the will of our Father is revealed to the minds of the leaders of this Church. So I repeat again, what the presidency say as a presidency is what the Lord would say if he were here, and it is scripture. It should be studied, understood, and followed, even as the revelations in the D&C; and other scriptures. Those who follow this course will not interpret what they say as being inspired by political bias or selfishness; neither will they say that the brethren are uninformed as to the circumstances of those affected by their counsel; or that their counsels cannot be accepted because they are not prefaced by the quotation, "Thus saith the Lord."
Those, and I testify to this out of my own experience, who will through mighty prayer and earnest study inform themselves as to what these living prophets say, and act upon it, will be visited by the spirit of the Lord and know by the spirit of revelation that they speak the mind and will of the Father.
This is a day of great conflict between truth and error. Satan is having a field day with the souls of men. Anti-christs stalk the earth in all lands, including our own. False philosophies and doctrines emanating from the prince of darkness are being presented in such appealing manner as almost to deceive the very elect. There is only one sure way to divine the truth from the error. That is to learn what the mind and will of the Father is on these matters, and then do it. You will find it declared on many issues in the messages of the First Presidency given in the general conferences in 1942. I take the liberty of reading from the one given in April the following:
We again warn our people in America of the constantly increasing threat against our inspired Constitution and our free institutions set up under it. The same political tenets and philosophies that have brought war and terror in other parts of the world are at work amongst us in America. The proponents thereof are seeking to undermine our own form of government and to set up instead one of the forms of dictatorships now flourishing in other lands. These revolutionists are using a technique that is as old as the human race-a fervid but false solicitude for the unfortunate over whom they thus gain mastery, and then enslave them.
They suit their approaches to the particular group they seek to deceive. Among the Latter-day Saints they speak of their philosophy and their plans under it, as an ushering in of the United Order. Communism and all other similar isms bear no relationship whatever to the United Order. They are merely the clumsy counterfeits which Satan always devises of the gospel plan. Communism debases the individual and makes him the enslaved tool of the state to whom he must look for sustenance and religion; the United Order exalts the individual, leaves him his property, "according to his family, according to his circumstances and his wants and needs", and provides a system by which he helps care for his less fortunate brethren; the United Order leaves every man free to choose his own religion as his conscience directs. Communism destroys man's God-given free agency; the United Order glorifies it. Latter-day Saints cannot be true to their faith and lend aid, encouragement, or sympathy to any of these false philosophies. They will prove snares to their feet.
If there be those among us who feel aggrieved, out of harmony, or to criticize what the Presidency say on these burning issues of our times, it would be well to remember that these prophets are but declaring to us the will of the Father, and that the only open road to peace and happiness is to bring ourselves into harmony therewith.
May the Lord help each of us to have a consuming desire to know and do his will, and to recognize that his will is made known to us and all peoples of this generation through the revelations in the D&C; and the interpretations and counsels of the living prophets, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder John A. Widtsoe
John A. Widtsoe, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 91-95
My dear brethren and you also who may be listening in: I am very glad today that I am a member of the restored Church of Christ. I have had this gladness in my heart all the days of my life, since my early boyhood, and I bear testimony to you this afternoon and witness also, that this Church is of God, established by him, which, as has already been quoted here, will never be cast down or given to another people. We are dealing with eternal realities, everlasting, from the heavens above.
The excellent messages given us by our brethren during this conference have started in our minds, I know, many trains of thought. One particularly has been with me ever since one of the brethren spoke yesterday forenoon. I would like to discuss it with you briefly.
AN ECHO FROM WORLD WAR I
Some years ago I had the opportunity to spend the night in a little tavern or hotel at the famous little town of Chateau Thierry, in France. That little town was a storm center of the great war of a quarter of a century ago. When we left, the next morning, the proprietor or hotel manager, a veteran of the last war, came out to say goodbye to us. Someone said something about the war in which he had served. He promptly pulled down the eyelid of one of his eyes and put his finger on the eyeball. It was an artificial eye, to replace one he lost in the war. Not satisfied with that, he pulled back his cheek and showed us a silver jaw that had been inserted by the surgeons to replace the one he lost in the war. He looked at us and said, "This is all I got out of the war. What good is war?" I believe that man spoke the feeling of the great majority of mankind, of us common men.
SOLUTION FOR THE PROBLEMS OF THE WORLD
Yet we stand now bewildered before another great war. I believe the world has never been so bewildered as at the present time. We cannot understand how this war has come about. We don't know how to solve the problems that will follow. We look into the future with a certain amount of dread. If I read the magazines and reports correctly, many are ready to surrender even their free agencies to try out something new in the hope that it may lead to something better. The answer to all this, by the Church of Christ, is simple. It is the answer that has been given since the beginning of time. If mankind had accepted the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, there would have been no bloody wars; and if the world today would accept the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, all problems that lie before us would be solved easily and well. We believe, and we have so taught, that every question confronting humanity may be answered by the gospel if we understand the gospel and accept it and use it properly; and every problem before us may be solved in the same manner.
To this reply the leaders of nations say no, or a very doubtful yes. They are willing to concede that religion and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ may be very effective in the spiritual field, but not very efficacious in the temporal world of men and women dealing with living problems here upon this earth.
If gospel light is thrown upon Dumbarton Oaks and upon Yalta, the agreements made there, and upon the coming San Francisco conference, it will not be so difficult to write safe treaties or to discover the weaknesses inherent in agreements already made. Men are so willing in working out the problems of the day, to cover with smiling diplomacy, riotous selfishness.
RESPONSIBILITY OF CHURCH MEMBERS
Now then, having said this, let me ask, what is our obligation as a Church and Church members, in this day of confusion. Do we have an obligation? Are we willing to continue as other people, to use our best judgment as men, try to vote this way or that when an election comes up, depending on our human powers? Are we like all the other people on the face of the earth, or has the Lord placed upon us obligations and conditions which make us different from all the world?
We say that the Lord spoke to the Prophet Joseph Smith and through him restored the eternal gospel, formulated in the heavens before the foundations of the earth were laid. The Lord has told us that the gospel is for all men. He has charged us, members of this Church, to carry the gospel message to all the world.
If it is true that peace can be won only through the gospel of Jesus Christ; and if our claim is true, as I verily believe it is, that we alone have the true and full gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, we carry a tremendous responsibility upon our shoulders. There will then be no world peace until we do our part, accept our high commission and teach the truth to all the world. In that sense we become the custodians, so to speak, of the world's peace, of the world's future, we humble men assembled here, with those who labor in the wards and stakes of Zion. I believe that it is our duty to accept this challenge. We cannot sit in some cozy, warm, spiritual chimney corner, thanking God for the blessings of the gospel, for our membership in the Church, selfishly forgetting all else and everybody else. That is not our work, nor our destiny, nor our business in life, under God's command.
The possession of the gospel, the knowledge of it, does change a man tremendously, but the full joy of the gospel, that joy which we have all seen in many a humble person who has received the gospel, comes only when we use the gospel for others. He who receives must give, that is one of the first and most fundamental of all gospel laws.
Well, you say, we are only a small people, not quite a million people as reported here yesterday. There are about two thousand millions in the world today. Can we do it? Can we teach all the world? We are too few, are we not? Obviously, the first answer that comes when we speak of this high obligation that rests upon us is: We are few, yes. We claim no preeminence in physical or intellectual matters, nor in the affairs of men. But, we have the truth of eternity, and we have faith. Faith and truth are invincible. With the sling of faith and the pebble of truth, like David of old, we may lay low every giant of unbelief and error and opposition to truth in all the world. To go forth in this spirit is the call of the day of Latter-day Israel.
WHOLE-HEARTED SERVICE REQUIRED
You remember that in days gone by, a great cry went forth, "Is there faith in Israel?". That is the cry today, faith not only to bless ourselves in our own mountain valleys, or those of our people in the coast country; but faith that this work will bless all humanity. We belong to a world organization; we have a world message; we are under a world obligation. We must lift our eyes and see this work in its wholeness as the Lord has revealed it to us, and as we have been taught since the days long gone by.
I have the feeling, brethren, that we can't accomplish this work unless we give our whole selves to it. Half-hearted service will not suffice. There must be complete surrender to this work if it shall accomplish the purposes of the Almighty. The old proverb maker said: "Son, son, give me thine heart." Are we giving our hearts to this work that the purposes of the Lord may be accomplished? That is the question for us in this day. That surrender, that giving of one's self, must be full of eagerness. We must not wait to be called to serve. You know what the Lord said to the Prophet Joseph Smith a long time ago about men who wait to be called. We must be eager in service. You remember the story from the days of Christ:
And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?.
That story is for us today, leaders in Israel. Are we so eager that we run to do the will of God, to help work out his purposes?
A LESSON FROM THE STORY OF GIDEON
There is yet another story from the Old Testament, the book on which I grew up and therefore always dear to me. Do you remember the story of Gideon, Judge of Israel? Midian had set about to destroy Israel. Gideon secured an army of over thirty thousand men to fight the battles of his people. Before he undertook to meet Midian he sent back to their homes all who had fearful hearts, also all who were loiterers, men who, when they came to a water course, would lie down on their stomachs, drink at their leisure, and take it easy. He sent such men back. When he had done this, only three hundred men were left. But they were eager men who wanted to fight the battles of Israel, and who when they came to a water course, had no time to lie down to drink, but cupped their hands and took a swallow of water. With these three hundred men, as you remember, Gideon won the battle for Israel. Numbers do not count in the end. It is even so with modern Israel. That is the thought that has gone through my mind during this conference. It is the message I would leave with you.
SACRIFICE NECESSARY
Of course, such service means sacrifice. Certainly it means sacrifice, but the Lord said to us at the beginning of this great latter-day work, "This is a day of sacrifice". Later on, you recall that he said on one occasion we cannot really live up to our covenants as we should unless we sacrifice. But what does sacrifice matter when we are in the cause of the Lord and feel the power of the spirit of God? Many years ago the message came, "Be still and know that I am God". We can trust him. We give a little, and the Lord returns ten-fold, often a hundred-fold. Look at the men of our own Church, who have spent years and years in service to the great cause. They have prospered, not only temporally but spiritually. To them we go for help and counsel. From them we receive support, to make our own lives more beautiful. Of course, sacrifice is required of us; but we, with a great world commission, must lift our eyes to it, prepare for it, have faith for it, and try to do what the Lord requires of us. If we stand ready to give full service, not half service, not half surrender but complete surrender, we shall become mighty men. May that spirit grow strong among us I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Antoine R. Ivins
Antoine R. Ivins, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 95-99
I stand before you this afternoon, my brethren, with mingled feelings of joy and sadness. I am glad that the absence of President Hardy and President Bennion has been mentioned here this afternoon. They were both men who were very, very dear to me, and I want you all to know that I miss them very keenly. As I sit here on the stand today, I feel their absence because I used to go to both of them for support in the questions that so frequently arose, and I used to sit next to Brother Bennion in all of our conference gatherings. I hope that God will comfort Sister Hardy and Sister Bennion, and that he will give us the power to give them some aid in their trials and make it easier for them. On the other hand, I rejoice in the fine quality of the men who have been selected to take their places. I want to make public acknowledgment of my esteem for them and tell them that they have my support in the work that they shall have to do.
THE COMPORT A TESTIMONY GIVES
I am glad for the testimony I have of the gospel of Jesus Christ and for the faith that it gives me, faith that the work which God initiated in this dispensation, through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith, shall go on and on and on. I feel very insignificant as one of the cogs in the great machine which is to carry it forward, but I have gained through my observation and experience the faith that God will see it go forward, regardless of the fact that those of us who are here now will eventually lay down the burdens of life. I like to think of life as something that began before mortality and something that will go on after it; that death is but an incident in life, just as is birth, and I like to think that these companions of mine now are exercising an influence just as they did here. The sun rises in the morning, and we feel its warmth during the day. For us it sets in the evening, but when it sets for us, it warms another land. I feel that those fine men are doing that very thing, that through their personalities and the power that they gained through their experiences here, they are warming another land and helping another group of men and women. I am thankful for that faith, for it helps me over many difficult problems in life.
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LEADERSHIP
We who are here, this afternoon, represent the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We come together for inspiration and to learn better how to do the various things that we have to do in administering the work of the Church. We have a great and grave responsibility because we stand at the head of this large group of people, and it is expected of us that we will show them the way to go. It is true, as has been said, that he who holds a lantern to light the footsteps of his friends, lights his own. In leading the people we see more clearly our own duties, our own responsibilities, and the pathway that we should follow. It is a great obligation, and I stand in fear and trembling before you and before God when I think of my responsibility in the position I occupy. I hope that I may have your faith and prayers as my life carries on, to do it properly.
Man is the crowning creation of God, who spent a long time fashioning the world and the plants and the animals that grow upon it. As his crowning effort he placed man to rule and reign over them. Man is the great workmanship of God. To bring about the eternal life of man is his great objective. He starts us out as almost the weakest of all of the animal creations which he has placed upon the world. There are few of the animals that are born as weak and puny as we, and all of them grow more quickly to maturity and to independence than we. We are the most dependent of all the creations, I believe, but we grow, if we are properly nurtured and cared for, into the crowning glory of the work of God. To take that new soul and tiny body as it comes into the world and develop it into a personage who will eventually attain to the qualities of godhood is a responsibility that few of us appreciate in its enormity. We talk a great deal about the delinquency of this present day, juvenile delinquency and the delinquency of others, but we seem to be startled mainly with what we term juvenile delinquency. The other night I sat and listened to a discussion by one of our prominent educators on that question and one of the things that I gained from his discussion was this statement, "Back of every delinquent child, there is a responsible and frequently a delinquent adult." Now if we will think of it that way, think what a responsibility we have. It isn't their fault, if that is true, there is delinquency in the world, but it is our fault and the fault of our grandfathers, because we respond to influences down through all these generations, the present generation being the product of the past. When we think, too, of a child whose career is changed by some careless act or teaching of ours and that he becomes an undesirable member of society passing his undesirable qualities down to future generations, which pyramid as a great fan beyond him, how can we think of the end of that evil influence and how can we determine the enormity of the offense; thus it is not surprising that we read in Matthew and in Mark and in Luke the statement of the Savior that "he who shall offend the least of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone had been tied about his neck and he had been drowned in the sea". Verily, that is true, for had that been done before his evil influence was felt, it had been better for the world.
THE PROPER WATCHCARE OF CHILDREN ENJOINED
Now, brethren, the children of this Church are our children. God has entrusted us with their care, and ours is the problem to see that they are properly taught and led. I am very, very sure that there are many homes, and perhaps most of the homes of the Latter-day Saints, where this obligation is properly appreciated and where the parents do what is within their power properly to lead as well as direct their children, and I give you in testimony of it the fact that I have seen many young men and women come out of these homes with a faith that is fine and holy. At the same time, it is quite possible that some of us do not attend to these responsibilities as we should. We have frequent cases reported to us where children are on the streets at all hours of the day and night, while their parents are off on some errand, perhaps for pleasure, perhaps for gain, a questionable gain when you consider the sacrifice they make for it. So there may be among us some cases which should have attention, and we who are here are the ones who are charged with that part of it, to see that our people are properly taught and properly led.
It isn't every parent that has the tact to do those things as he should, and it isn't every parent whose children go astray who is responsible for that, because they come under the influence of people outside the family as well as within it, but when we expose them to those external influences we should do everything within our power to protect them from within. Perhaps we who are here in this section of the country have felt so secure in the past that we haven't done as much as we should in preparation and in protection.
I remember visiting an outlying stake established in a large community. When I suggested to the president of the stake that we at home were worried over the temptations that are now being presented to our young people, he said, "President Ivins, we have had to contend with temptation since we came into this section. Our children have developed a method of withstanding it, and we can trust them." So it seems possible to build up a resistance to those things. That is our charge and that is our task. I wonder how many of us get close enough to our children, so that when they come in in the evening, they come to our bedside and tell us where they have been, and how many of us get close enough to them that they will come and confide in us their problems as their advancing years come upon them? Too many of us, I am sure, as parents, are backward in teaching them some of the principles of life which they should learn, and there develops between father and son, between mother and daughter, a barrier that seems hard to surmount; but when we recognize that, at its very first appearance, we should consciously attempt to break it down, tactfully, nicely. Let us see if we can't gain the confidence of these children that we are producing, and let us who are the fathers in the wards and the stakes of the Church see if we can't so gain the confidence of the fathers and mothers that we can talk to them in the same spirit, that we can teach them the value of family prayer. It is astonishing how many people in this last report that we received have admitted that they don't practice regularly family prayer. Now there is no greater safeguard in the family, and there is no greater protection to a child than that habit which he should develop. The principles of integrity, righteousness, and upright living should also be taught them. If it is true that back of every erring child there is an erring parent or other adult, there is a grave responsibility resting upon us, and we shouldn't shirk it; we shouldn't evade it because we are backward or bashful with our children. We should face it fairly and squarely with our arms around them, bringing them close to our hearts and talking confidentially with them. Some of the greatest pleasures of my life have been the sessions that I had with my father, under the stars of heaven, sleeping side by side with him. We should get close to those children; we should love them. We would give our lives for them, but frequently we are so embarrassed and bashful that we won't even talk plainly to them in love and good will. I don't mean a dominating spirit or anything of that kind. I remember one time in going through a mission we attempted to teach a father that he should put his arms around his child, his boy, and bring him close to him. The man who made the appeal in the public address said, "You must hang on to your children," and the man who translated into Spanish, said, "You must govern them with a hand of mail." You can imagine how far we got. That isn't what I mean, brethren. "We must put our arms around them; we must love them; we must teach them; we are the leaders of the people, the heads of the wards and stakes; and what are we doing for them? Let every man of us look himself in the eye, and see if he can say, "I have done my full duty, I am satisfied and happy." If he can't, I call him to repentance.
May God give us the strength to do it, I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder S. Dilworth Young
S. Dilworth Young, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 99-101
A good portion of my life I have thought that the calls which came to those who are to do things for the Church, while officially coming from the prophets, perhaps might come as a still, small voice speaking to the person in the manner of the words of the Lord when he spoke to Samuel. He called, "Samuel". Samuel had to answer two or three times. The words which came to me sounded distinctly like those of President David O. McKay.
THE WAY THE CALL CAME
I submit to you the questions he asked of me because I believe there have never been propounded, to me at least, three more innocent questions. He said, "Where are you?" Of course, I was in my office. He said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I am working." He said, "Would you like to attend conference?" Well, the only reason I wasn't attending conference was because I had no ticket. So I assured him that I would be very happy to attend conference.
He told me he wanted me to attend conference, would I please come down as quickly as I could and sit in the audience and see him at noon. That was as much as I knew until I got to the temple gate, when a very polite and delightful officer of the Salt Lake City police force informed me that I was a member of the First Council of the Seventy, and for the first time in my life I was escorted by a policeman across the temple grounds.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
Now I know, and many of you know, that, whatever the reason why I am called I should not be here in any event without the love and the backing and the work of the men with whom I have labored in the past twenty-two years. A sprinkling of those men sit in this audience today. All I can see before me is a sea of faces, as one man put it this morning, but there are islands in that sea, and those islands are the faces of my friends from all parts of the four counties which I have served so long. They took me to their hearts twenty-two years ago after President Samuel G. Dye and President C. E. Smith, who were then members of our executive board of the Ogden council, with other men, thought I was honest looking enough to try to be their Scout executive, so they voted me in.
I moved to Ogden and that is where my house is, but over these years I have learned my home is there only in part. My home has been in Park Valley, in Snowville, in Howell, in Deweyville, in Croyden, in Devil's Slide, in Morgan, in Willard, in Mantua, in Kaysville, in Layton, in Clearfield, in Syracuse, in Hooper, in Plain City, in Huntsville, and in all of the hamlets where boys have been gathered together as Boy Scouts.
In the counties of northern Utah, loyal bodies of men, under the direction of their bishops and stake presidents, have been called and have labored with those lads. It has been my fortunate lot to serve with them and to serve them. I know of no better group, and it is likely that I shall never meet a more loyal group.
They have been an honor to me, loyal and true. I have camped with them; I've hiked the hills with them; we've talked over Scout problems together; and we've tried to make the boys of the Church better Latter-day Saints. As I say, if I have had the call which I have received, come, it must be because of the support these men have given me, not because of any inherent virtue which I possess, and I pay tribute to them, and I thank them for their support.
Perhaps I shouldn't say this, but when I reached home last night, I received a call from a very close friend who said, "Well, that's fine for you, but what will the poor Boy Scouts do?" I can assure you that there are dozens of professional men in scouting who are Latter-day Saints, humble, honest, upright men who could step into the position I hold and do a much better job than I am doing or have done, so you need not fear, my friends of the Ogden area. When the time comes for me to step down from that position and take another, there will rise up, at the hands of those who elect him, one who will do a better job than I, and one with whom you will be satisfied, I am sure.
A TRIBUTE TO ELDER SAMUEL O. BENNION
I should like to pay tribute to my old mission president, and to his wife. I was one of those persons who were fortunate enough to be under the direction of President Samuel O. Bennion, back in the days when he was a vigorous mission president. He sent me out with Elder Boyd Rogers without purse or scrip, into the wilds of Louisiana to preach the gospel. I didn't know the reason why he sent me to Louisiana, so he told me one time. I was quite a loud youth. I had a voice like a foghorn, and I laughed like one, so when he heard me laugh in the mission office one day after I arrived, he said, "You go to Louisiana. You can laugh down there, and they can't hear you." Elder Rogers and I went down there where they couldn't hear us, and for three days they didn't hear us. We were lost in the piney woods of Louisiana. One of the happiest moments I have experienced in this conference today is to have Elder Rogers, whom I haven't seen since, step up here and make himself acquainted with me.
President Bennion was a father to me. Sister Bennion was a mother for more than two years. I regret the passing of President Bennion more than I can tell you, and I should like to say over this radio to Sister Bennion that I love her nearly as much as I love my own mother.
I desire to serve you in humbleness and sincerity, but I also desire strength of body and of mind to testify to the truth of what I know so well. I know that Christ founded this Church in these last days through the Prophet Joseph and that it sits solidly and squarely on the rock of revelation, given to its living prophet, President Heber J. Grant. If I can bear that testimony to the world wherever I am called, I shall be happy. I shall serve with all the strength I have and with all my might and with all my mind, until that time when I am called hence, and meet my father and my grandparents and my son. I ask it in the name of Christ. Amen.
Elder Alma Sonne
Alma Sonne, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 101-102
My brethren, it seems to me that the circumstances under which we meet and the stirring messages to which we have listened give rise to many reflections. I rejoice with you in the strength and stability of the Church. I rejoice with you in the zeal and the enthusiasm of the leaders of this Church, and I rejoice with you in the faith and the integrity and the unswerving devotion of the membership of this Church. I say to you that God is at the helm. He is directing this people. He will continue to inspire the leaders of this Church. I appreciate more than I can tell my membership in the Church, my testimony of the truth, the great privileges, and the great opportunities which have come to me because of that membership.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE CHURCH
Reference has been made frequently to the greatness of the Church. The Church is great, not necessarily great in number, because there are many churches which outnumber us in members, but our Church, the Church of Christ, is great in purpose, in plan and objectives. It is great in leadership, past and present, local and general. It is great in historical background; its history forms a big part in the drama of American accomplishments. Our history is colorful, interesting, stirring, full of romance, full of tragedy, and yet full of achievement. The membership of this Church have built villages, cities, commonwealths, churches, schools, and temples-and the end is not yet. The organization and the movement characteristic of the Church have always been surcharged with a constructive spirit. Past leaders have subdued the desert. They have set up high standards for you and me to follow. They have developed a literature that will live in the world, a literature that explains and interprets the teachings of Jesus, of Paul, of Moses, and of other great men who stand as the pivots of history. What would these men say if they came back today with a message? What would Moses, the lawgiver of Israel say? He would teach, as he taught when he lived, the divinity of the Ten Commandments. So important are these commandments that neither men nor nations can violate them, if they want to live and achieve. What would Paul, the apostle, say? He would say to the skeptics as he did to King Agrippa, "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?", virtually saying, "You ask me to explain the resurrection. I call upon you to substantiate the denial of this great doctrine." He would say, as he did to King Agrippa, "... believest thou the prophets?". I tell you the world has gone astray because they have failed to believe the prophets.
What would Jesus say? He would preach again his wonderful, unparalleled Sermon on the Mount and tell the nations to heed the teachings, because in it are the elements of salvation. What would Joseph Smith say? He would give his testimony as he gave it when he was alive. He would tell you and me and the world that he saw God the Father, that he gazed upon him and heard the voice of the risen Redeemer. I testify to you that God's work has been established upon the earth. It will grow and increase until it reaches the hearts of men everywhere. It will not fail. God help us to discharge our responsibilities and to introduce into our lives the saving principles of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray in his name. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1945, p. 103
There are three or four minutes still left. Perhaps we should not let them go without trying to have something said that might be helpful.
I am sure we have all enjoyed the spirit of the conference to this time. I am equally sure that that same spirit will remain with us during the balance of the conference, for we meet in humility with a sense of our own unworthiness and with a desire to serve God and keep his commandments.
Nearly two thousand years ago the Lord, walking by the seashore, again saw brethren whom he had seen before. They were busy with their nets and their boats. And he said to them: "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men". They had little training, little education; they were of the humble folk of the land in which they lived, but they had spirit and a spirituality, they had faith; so they left their nets and their boats and followed him. And that is all the Lord requires of us today.
I think perhaps he cares little for our achievements among men, little for what we have done in a worldly way in the past, provided we come to him with a qualification which seems to me to be all-embracing: a pure heart and a contrite spirit. Without these we shall fail, with them we can but succeed.
The Lord expects this from all of us at all times and on all occasions. He expects us to forget the honors we may have gained from this world and our work therein and to come to him, humble and contrite, with a firm desire and a firm determination to follow him and become fishers of men. May this be our lot, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder Ezra Taft Benson
Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 105-110
I cannot refrain, my brethren, from expressing my personal gratification on the selection of the two fine men, Brother Seymour Dilworth Young and Milton Reed Hunter to serve as members of the General Authorities of the Church. As one who has recently come into the presiding councils of the Church, I can assure them that they can look forward to some of the sweetest, most soul-satisfying experiences that come to men in this life. With all my heart I welcome them and assure them of my love and confidence.
OBLIGATIONS RESTING UPON THE CHURCH
I have been impressed during this conference, with the great responsibilities and obligations resting upon this Church and its people. I was impressed with the inspiring message of President Grant, which called to our attention some of these obligations which are ours as leaders. I have often felt that there are three great and important obligations, possibly over-shadowing all others, which rest upon this people and upon this great Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The first of these, at least in the order of emphasis in this dispensation, is that of missionary work-the responsibility which rests upon this people to carry the message of the restored gospel to the people of the world. We have been engaged in that work ever since the Church was organized, yea, even before. Secondly, we have the responsibility of building up the stakes and wards and branches of Zion. This entails the building of a material kingdom, as well as a spiritual kingdom. It entails the providing of facilities-houses of worship, temples, seminary buldings-that are so necessary for us to carry on the spiritual part of the program. It entails taking care of our people, temporally, physically, culturally, and socially, as well as spiritually. And in the third place, we have the great responsibility of performing certain sacred ordinances in the temples of the Lord,-a responsibility which rests upon every holder of the priesthood as well as upon the sisters of the Church.
MISSIONARY RESPONSIBILITY
I was pleased to note the importance which President Grant placed in his message on the first mentioned obligation-that of missionary service. In reading the revelations which the Lord has given to us in this dispensation, I have been impressed to note that probably on no other subject has he referred so frequently as in the case of our obligation as a people to carry this message of the restored gospel to the people of the world. In reading again the revelations which the Lord has given us, I noted that at least twenty-five to thirty of these revelations make specific mention of this great responsibility which is ours. I noted, too, that in some of the revelations, given more than a year before the Church was organized, the Lord made special mention of this important mission of the Latter-day Saints. May I call your attention, this evening, to a few of those revelations? There will not be time to discuss, in any detail, any of them. I simply call them to your attention. In February of 1829, the Lord said this:
Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.
Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.
Then he goes on to point out in that and other revelations:
Behold, the field is white already to harvest; therefore, whoso desireth to reap, let him thrust in his sickle with his might, and reap while the day lasts, that he may treasure up for his soul everlasting salvation in the kingdom of God.
Many of those who came in contact with the Prophet Joseph, even prior to the organization of the Church, became convinced and received testimonies of the genuineness of his message. It was not an uncommon thing for them to approach the Prophet and ask him to inquire of the Lord as to their responsibilities and obligations. You recall the important part played by the Whitmer family. It was in the home of Peter Whitmer, Sr., that the Book of Mormon was translated-at least the latter part of it was completed there. John, David, and Peter Whitmer, Jr., approached the Prophet and asked if he would inquire of the Lord as to what they might do,-what was their duty as men who had recently received the testimony of the truth. The Prophet made inquiry and we have three sections of the D&C; devoted to the answer to these inquiries. They are very similar. May I read from section 15-the answer to the request of John Whitmer.
Hearken, my servant John, and listen to the words of Jesus Christ, your Lord and your Redeemer.
For behold, I speak unto you with sharpness and with power, for mine arm is over all the earth.
And I will tell you that which no man knoweth save me and thee alone-
For many times you have desired of me to know that which would be of most worth unto you.
Behold, blessed are you for this thing, and for speaking my words which I had given you according to my commandments.
And now, behold, I say unto you, that the thing which will be of most worth unto you will be to declare repentance unto this people, that you may bring souls unto me, that you may rest with them in the kingdom of my Father. Amen.
It was only a short time after this that the Lord in another revelation, in which he indicated the calling of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles in this dispensation, made this statement:
Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;
For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him.
And further:
And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father.
The Lord spoke frequently regarding the obligations of the elders of the Church and ofttimes commended them for their faithfulness and devotion, even to the extent of indicating that whatever they spoke when moved upon by the Holy Ghost would be the will of the Lord, the word of the Lord, and would be scripture to the people. Yet, at times, in those days, as in this day, there were men who feared men more than the Lord, and occasionally he had reason to chastise some of the elders of the Church.
In section 60, we read the following verse:
But with some I am not well pleased, for they will not open their mouths, but they hide the talent which I have given unto them, because of the fear of man. Wo unto such, for mine anger is kindled against them.
And then in the 68th section-reference to which I have already made-
And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation.
And this additional great and important promise, made to those who go forward as missionaries carrying the message of the restored gospel:
And any man that shall go and preach this gospel of the kingdom, and fail not to continue faithful in all things, shall not be weary in mind, neither darkened, neither in body, limb, nor joint; and a hair of his head shall not bow to the ground unnoticed. And they shall not go hungry, neither athirst.
So the early missionaries of the Church went forward, beginning with Samuel H. Smith, only a few days after the Church was organized. The number increased until the message was carried to all parts of the then known United States-into Canada, and by 1837, missionaries were on the eastern hemisphere. Even during the dark days of Missouri and Illinois and in the pilgrimage across the plains, missionaries went forward with their work. At times it was interrupted slightly, but always there was that urge and desire on the part of the elders of the Church, who had burning within their souls the testimony of the truth-to carry the message of the restored gospel to the people of the world. After the Saints arrived in the valley, it was not an uncommon thing to have read long lists of names of men attending the general conference of the Church, who were called to go into the mission field and carry the message of the restored gospel. In later years it became the custom to issue the calls by letter.
A PERSONAL FAMILY EXPERIENCE
I shall ever be grateful for an experience which came into our family during this latter period that I refer to; something over thirty years ago. It was during the time when sacrament meetings were held on Sunday afternoon, at two o'clock, at least in the rural wards. I remember very well this particular Sunday afternoon, as father and mother returned from sacrament meeting, in the one horse buggy. As they drove into the yard and their little brood of seven kiddies gathered around the buggy, we witnessed a thing which we had never seen before in our family. Both father and mother were in tears. We had often seen mother in tears and father offering consolation, or father weeping and mother offering sympathy. But never before had we seen them both crying at the same time. We inquired as to the reason, and we were assured that everything was all right. As we followed them into the house and sat down in the living room, mother told us that father had received a letter from Box "B." That was a call to go on a mission. She explained that they were grateful that he was considered worthy to go and that they were happy; but they knew that it meant separation for a period of two years, and they had never been separated more than one night at a time in all of their married life.
This is only a little thing. Practically every family in the Church could tell similar and even more impressive experiences in connection with this great missionary movement. Father went, as your fathers and grandfathers went. The eighth member of our family was born after he got into the field. How I appreciate the faith of our mothers, and our grandmothers. Important has been their responsibility in connection with this great missionary service.
MISSIONARY WORK OF MEN IN THE ARMED SERVICE
Now, during this critical period, through which we are passing-this war period-our missionary program has been seriously interfered with. I visited a mission not long ago and found not one single young man of military age in the missionary service-all were in the armed service of their country. The missionary corps was about ten percent of the normal number and made up almost entirely of young women missionaries and elderly married couples. And yet, as I have thought of this war condition, through which we are passing, and the effect upon our missionary program,-I cannot help feeling that we are probably doing more total missionary work today than we have ever done in the history of the Church. While our number of fulltime missionaries has been reduced, we have, it is estimated, almost one hundred thousand of our young men in the service of their country, hundreds and thousands of whom are doing effective missionary work.
There came to my office a few days ago a young marine, a former stake missionary, with one of his buddies. He told me that he had been doing missionary work with his associates. He had recently baptized this young man, and they had come to the Church office building, during their leave, in the hope that this new convert to the Church could receive a patriarchal blessing.
Only this week there came to my office several young men, in the uniform of their country, who were thrilled with the experiences they were having in the mission field, although in the service of their country. One of them said, "Brother Benson, it is just like being on another mission. Conditions are different, but we have opportunities to preach the gospel, and we are taking advantage of it." A letter from a young man down in the South Pacific, only a few days ago, told of the struggle they had had on one of the islands to get together a small group of Latter-day Saints. He said the first time they held a meeting there were only three present. Then, gradually the number increased until the day he wrote the letter, which was Sunday, he said, "There were sixteen of us at the service today. Four of the boys have joined the Church since the war started."
And so, my brethren, I feel that we have cause to rejoice that we have boys in the service with faith sufficient, with the testimony of the truth that impels them to carry that missionary spirit to their buddies in arms.
THE MESSAGE OF THE RESTORATION MUST GO FORWARD
I know there are many of our friends outside the Church who wonder why we do it, why we make the sacrifice, why we go to the expense of sending out missionaries. We have sent, it is estimated, approximately seventy-five thousand missionaries into the field during the brief existence of the Church; at a cost, I am sure, if we figure the money expended and the income sacrificed, of possibly more than two hundred million dollars. Why do we do it? I received a letter following the last general conference from a young man from this city, not a member of the Church, who asked that very question:
"Why does the Mormon Church continue to send missionaries out into the world, particularly to Christian countries?" May I read the words of the First Presidency of this Church, uttered three years ago yesterday, from this very pulpit, in which they gave answer to this question.
It is our duty, divinely imposed, to continue urgently and militantly to carry forward our missionary work. We must continue to call missionaries and send them out to preach the gospel, which was never more needed than now, which is the only remedy for the tragic ills that now afflict the world, and which alone can bring peace and brotherly love back amongst the peoples of the earth.
Therefore no act of ours or of the Church must interfere with this God-given mandate. This is not a matter of our own choosing. It is not something that has been devised by man. The Lord has made it clear to us, my brethren, that the responsibility is ours, as holders of the priesthood, to carry this message of the restored gospel to the people of the world. And now, during this period of war-stimulated prosperity, when money seems to flow freely, we hope that as leaders in Zion-as fathers-we are making some plans to create a reserve so that when this great struggle is over, our missionary work can go forward with greater impetus and in greater volume than ever before in the history of the Church.
THE PREFACE TO THE LORD'S COMMANDMENTS
I should like to refer, in closing, to one other section in the D&C.; I mention this and call this revelation to your attention for the purpose of indicating that our message is a world message. It is not regional, it is not national, it is a message intended for all God's children. I refer to the first section of the D&C;, given years after some of these revelations that I have referred to. It was given for a particular purpose, to appear as the preface to this book of commandments which the Lord has given us in this dispensation. These are the words of the Lord, to this Church and to the world:
Hearken, O ye people of my Church, saith the voice of him who dwells on high, and whose eyes are upon all men; yea, verily I say: Hearken ye people from afar; and ye that are upon the islands of the sea, listen together. For verily the voice of the Lord is unto all men, and there is none to escape;... And the voice of warning shall be unto all people, by the mouths of my disciples, whom I have chosen in these last days....
Behold, this is mine authority, and the authority of my servants, and my preface unto the book of my commandments, which I have given them to publish unto you, O inhabitants of the earth.
And then further on:
And again, verily I say unto you, O inhabitants of the earth: I the Lord am willing to make these things known unto all flesh; For I am no respecter of persons, and will that all men shall know that the day speedily cometh; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand, when peace shall be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his own dominion.... Search these commandments, for they are true and faithful, and the prophecies and promises which are in them shall all be fulfilled. What I the Lord hath spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself: and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.
And so, my brethren of the priesthood, our message is a world message, the obligation is ours. The Lord expects us to carry his message to the inhabitants of the earth. Possibly never before in the history of the world, has there been a greater need for the simple, but divine message of the restored gospel. God help us to do our duty in this respect, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph F. Merrill
Joseph F. Merrill, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 111-115
Brethren, we are alone this evening, the microphone having been switched off from the powerful KSL broadcasting station. We, therefore, become a priesthood leadership meeting of the same type as we are now holding as a part of stake quarterly conferences. So it will be in order for me, I hope, to talk about matters that primarily concern priesthood officers.
EFFECTS OF HARSHNESS AND KINDNESS
In the bishops' meeting last evening in this hall, Bishop M. O. Ashton told two stories that deeply impressed me. Each story was about a bishop and some boys. In the first one, a group of boys engaged in some Halloween pranks of a rather serious, provocative nature. The bishop secured the names of the boys and charged them to come to the sacrament meeting and publicly ask forgiveness for engaging in the pranks committed, on pain of excommunication for failure to do so. In consequence there are in that community today a number of families that grew up outside of the Church.
In the second case a group of boys and a bishop were involved. A wedding party was held at the bishop's home. A big freezer of ice cream waited on the back porch for the refreshment hour. When the cream was to be served, it was observed that the freezer was empty. Pondering over the matter the bishop decided to invite the guilty boys to an ice cream festival and provided two freezers of ice cream for the occasion. All the boys accepted the invitation. When the lads were seated at the feast, it was noticed that tears began to run down one boy's face. Soon all the other boys were in tears also. From among that group have come some of the finest leaders in their community.
Those were the factual stories told by Bishop Ashton. Hearing them I was reminded of section 121:39-41, D&C;, which reads as follows:
We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. Hence many are called, but few are chosen. No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned.
The two bishops of the story were undoubtedly actuated by the best of motives. Not for a moment would I question that. But one bishop was wise and the other unwise. The thought in the mind of one was to use persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, and love, so beautifully stated in the revelation quoted. In the case of the other bishop he seems to have acted impulsively, yielding to the influence of the evil power. He forgot the scriptural injunction found in the D&C; 64:9-10:
Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men".
I do not find in the teachings of the Master the word "must" used in the sense of force. But we do find the message of the foregoing quoted scripture printed in a beautiful hymn, found in the L.D.S. Hymn Book, 24th edition, 1905, the first two stanzas being as follows:
Know this, that ev'ry soul is free To choose his life and what he'll be; For this eternal truth is given, That God will force no man to heaven
He'll call, persuade, direct aright, And bless with wisdom, love, and light; In nameless ways be good and kind, But never force the human mind.
FREE AGENCY A GOD-GIVEN PRINCIPLE
We all remember, according to the scriptures, both ancient and modern, in that great council held in heaven when a plan was being considered to offer the Father's children when they came to earth, that Lucifer, the son of the morning, was there. He wanted to be sent to earth to have charge, promising the Father that all his children would be returned to him-none to be lost-provided the Lord would give Lucifer his glory. Satan proposed to accomplish his purpose by the use of force by denying men their free agency, taking from them their inalienable right that the Father gave to all his children in the spirit world as well as in the world of mortality. Free agency and accountability go hand in hand they complement each other.
But I have digressed; let me return. There is no indication in the stories Bishop Ashton told that either bishop wanted to take free agency from the boys, but they certainly wanted to reform the boys. One succeeded, and the other failed, due to the methods employed. And this suggests the need for care, study, and prayer not only in dealing with boys but in dealing with all other people as well. Perhaps no two individuals are exactly alike. What is good for one may be bad for another. What succeeds with one may utterly fail with another. I have heard physicians say that this is one reason that makes the practice of medicine interesting-the fact that the doctor continually faces a challenge; for what is one man's meat may be another man's poison.
BISHOP'S DUTIES
In large measure, a bishop deals with individuals rather than with people en masse. If it were not so, there would often be insufficient reasons for dividing a large ward, for large wards have some advantages not usually possessed by smaller ones. But the need of individual treatment requires of the bishop wisdom, discernment, tact, sympathy, love, in order that he may succeed, without giving offense, in best serving his people. Among other duties, he is required to administer programs designed to help the boys and girls of his ward. As I see it these duties, in general, are second in importance to no others. If we can save the youth of the Church, we will save the Church. I would not have anyone think, however, that the individual exists for the Church. The reverse is true-the Church exists for its members. Because this is true, the Church is perhaps the finest example of a large democratic organization found in all the world. No individual can grow up in it, taking advantage of the opportunities offered him therein, without experiencing large personal growth and development in personality, attributes, talents, powers, and other leadership qualities.
ETERNAL PROGRESSION
Yes, the Church teaches the fact that each of us is a child of God, both in the spirit and in the flesh. Since in the realm of life, like begets like, we normally must possess, even though in ultra-microscopic quantities, the attributes of God our Father. And a characteristic teaching of the Church is that "as God now is man may become"-a statement in poetic language of our magnificent doctrine of eternal progression. Man is in very deed the acme of creation. In the language of the Psalmist we too can ask:
What is man, that thou are mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
So in the plan of eternal progression life here on earth is an essential link, and in this link the most important thing is man-the individual. This is evident from the plan which, if successfully followed, will lead the participants back to the Father's presence. The Lord revealed to Moses that:
... This is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
To accomplish his purposes the Lord has set up his highly organized Church as an agency to serve his children. Hence the Church exists for us and for all who will accept its service.
SERVICE BRINGS OPPORTUNITY AND RESPONSIBILITY
And we who are here this evening, and many thousands of others besides, have been honored by being called into the service of the Church and thus given opportunity to serve our fellow men. If we serve well, we will be blessed. I am reminded at this point of the words Shakespeare put in the mouth of one of his characters:
... it is twice blessed; It blesses him that gives and him that takes.
And of the two, the giver is usually the greater blessed-always so if he blesses with a sincere, unselfish motive.
Now let us, too, remember that to accept a proffered opportunity to serve is to accept a responsibility as well. We then in very fact become to an extent our brother's keeper. And in a larger or a smaller measure the welfare of a brother, a child of God, is in our keeping. From this point of view how fit for divine condemnation is he who having accepted responsibility fails in his duty to his brethren. Should not this thought act as a spur to the discharge of duty? Should it not help to send us reverently to our knees to seek earnestly and sincerely for the Lord's aid, suited to our needs? Without his help, brethren, none of us can fully succeed in his work. But succeeding, how great the joy and satisfaction that fills our breasts-a delightful feeling that all the money of a millionaire could not buy for us. This type of feeling is a reward from our God for service in his cause. It is an evidence of his acceptance of our efforts.
SATAN'S POWER BEING EXERCISED
Another point and I am done. Let us not forget that Satan, a spirit brother of ours, is here on earth with a myriad of other spirit brothers. They are among us for a purpose-they are doing all in their power to destroy us and handicap the work of the Lord. Satan knows us
-our desires, our weaknesses, our secrets. He tempts us in a multitude of ways. He attacks us where we are weak, not where we are strong. He stirs us up to doubt, to question, to criticize, to hate, to be slothful, discouraged, sinful, and wicked. He is at the bottom of dissension among the Saints. He is ever near at hand to make attempts to overcome and lead us away. I have in mind not only us in this meeting but people generally. Undoubtedly Satan's influence and power in the world today is greater than ever before.
We here and many others in the Church are called to be watch-men upon the towers of Zion where duty calls us to be faithful in teaching the Lord's way of life by example as well as by precept. Then we shall be effective missionaries. And upon the Church is divinely placed the heavy responsibility of carrying on missionary work, a labor to which all baptized members are called, be they living at home or abroad. No one can escape the all-seeing eye of God our Father, who keeps us constantly wherever we are under scrutiny. Let us remember that finally the books will be opened and we will be judged by the things therein written-the deeds done in the body; Rev. 20:12).
Through his wiles Satan is leading some of our people away. Describing conditions in the last days, Jesus, speaking to his disciples, said:
For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
Brethren, there is but one way of safety-live honestly, sincerely, and whole-heartedly near to the Lord and be wholly loyal to the leadership of the First Presidency of the Church.
I pray that every one of us with the help of the Lord will have the desire, courage, and strength thus to live, and do it in the name of our Redeemer. Amen.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 119-124
As I listened to that inspiring rendition of "O My Father," I thought, music is truly the universal language, and when it is excellently expressed how deeply it moves our souls!
Though the exigencies of war have limited the attendance, this is a great conference. It is great because we have had from the first meeting, throughout all the sessions, an outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord. You have all felt it. The brethren who have spoken have been blessed and inspired by it. Now, you leaders in the priesthood have a double mission and will receive a double blessing, as you carry the spirit of this conference out to your wards and stakes.
What I am going to say tonight I wish could be said to the people out in the stakes, because two-thirds of what I have in mind will apply to them; one-third possibly to you brethren. So I am going to ask that you give it to the young people especially in your wards.
There are three very remarkable parables recorded by Luke in the fifteenth chapter. They are called the parables of the lost and found. Usually whenever they are referred to, the principles of repentance and forgiveness are emphasized, and the rejoicing over the lost, because the lost has been found. To that phase of the parable I am not going to refer tonight, except to say that I think that part of these parables is sometimes misinterpreted, or at least misapplied. There is another phase of these parables which appeals to me even more than the rejoicing, and that is what I want to speak about tonight. I desire to refer to the conditions that contributed to their being lost.
THE MEANING OF THE PARABLE OF THE LOST SHEEP
The scene is a gathering of publicans and sinners who have assembled, it seems, in quite large numbers to hear the message of Jesus. Standing out are pictured Pharisees and Sadducees who are sneering at the Man of Nazareth who is speaking to these publicans and sinners, and the Pharisees and Sadducees are judging him, I suppose, by the company he is keeping. By the Sadducees, the publicans and sinners are looked upon as lost. To the multitude Jesus speaks three parables. The first, the parable of the lost sheep:
What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?.
I ask you tonight, how did that sheep get lost? He was not rebellious. If you follow the comparison, the lamb was seeking its livelihood in a perfectly legitimate manner, but either stupidly, perhaps unconsciously, it followed the enticement of the field, the prospect of better grass until it got out beyond the fold and was lost.
So we have those in the Church, young men and young women, who wander away from the fold in perfectly legitimate ways. They are seeking success, success in business, success in their professions, and before long they become disinterested in Church and finally disconnected from the fold; they have lost track of what true success is, perhaps stupidly, perhaps unconsciously, in some cases, perhaps willingly. They are blind to what constitutes true success.
TRUE SUCCESS
Jesus gave an apt definition of success, I think, when he spoke of Mary Magdalene, saying, "She hath done what she could". True success is reaching the level of our best in our association with our fellowmen. Many of these wandering away as the lost sheep are seeking success for selfish purposes, not for the benefit of their fellow-men. See the difference?
Over twenty years ago we had a truly excellent group of missionaries in the European Mission. I have been interested in watching them during the intervening years. One of these was a brilliant missionary, and he was faithful. He came home, completed his education, and succeeded in obtaining a high position in his profession. For twenty years now he has been following that profession. He is successful in it, but he has gone so far, and has so little contact with the flock, the body of the Church, that he hesitates about affiliating himself with it.
There was another missionary who came home about the same time who also started out to succeed, and he has succeeded. He is a prominent business man in this city, highly successful; but he has always kept in touch with the Church. I think he is a success. He has succeeded in his business, but he has used his means to help the Church of Christ; he is in the fold. There is no need of striking out in selfishness, thinking you have to leave the Church in order to succeed. In the Church we can ask God's help to guide us.
You remember the story of the business man who went into his private office in the morning and closed the door, and one of his agents came in and said to the secretary: "I want to see the manager." The secretary answered: "He is in conference."
"I have come a long way to see him, I want to see him this morning, I cannot wait."
"Well, he is in conference."
The man arrogantly pushed by the secretary, opened the door of the manager's office and then quietly closed it, and apologetically said: "I did not know that he is that kind of man."
Said the secretary: "I told you that he was in conference."
The man was on his knees asking God's aid that day in his business.
I ask our young men at home who are striking out in legitimate enterprises to remember that true success is not just in achieving that one aim, but in keeping in touch with the organization in which they can serve their fellow men, in which they can live to the level of their best.
AN APPLICATION OF THE PARABLE OF THE LOST COIN
The second parable is the parable of the lost coin. A woman lost it and, looking in vain to find it, called in the neighbors to help her search for it.
In this case the thing lost was not in itself responsible. The one who had been trusted with that coin had, through carelessness or neglect, mislaid it or dropped it. There is a difference, and this is the one-third, which I think applies to us tonight. Our charge is not only coins, but living souls of children, youth, and adults. They are our charges. Some of them may be wandering tonight because of the neglect of the ward teachers whose duty it is to-
... watch over the Church always, and be with and strengthen them; And see that there is no iniquity in the Church, neither hardness with each other, neither lying, backbiting, nor evil speaking.
and to see that each one does his duty. Someone may be wandering because of the careless remark of a girl of her age in Mutual,, and the president of the Mutual lets her go, fails to follow her next Tuesday night and invite her to come. Another may be lost because of the inactivity of the Sunday School teacher, or the indifference of the Sunday School teacher who is satisfied with the fifteen people there that morning, instead of thinking of the fifteen who are wandering because of neglect. I will just summarize this thought by calling your attention to a little rhyme that is in one of the deacon's manuals. The poetry is not excellent, but the thought is applicable:
He stood at the crossroads all alone, The sunlight in his face; He had no thought for the world unknown, He was set for a manly race. But the road stretched east, and the road stretched west, And the lad knew not which road was best; So he chose the road that led him down, And he lost the race and the victor's crown. He was caught at last in an angry snare; Because no one stood at the crossroads there, To show him the better way.
.
Another day, at the selfsame place, A lad with high hopes stood; He, too, was set for a manly race- And was seeking the things that were good; But one was there who the roads did know. And that one showed him which way to go. So he turned from the road that led him down, And he won the race and the victor's crown. He walks today the highway fair, Because one stood at the crossroads there To show him the better road.
Our responsibility is to keep the trust that God has reposed in us, calling us to guard these precious souls.
PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON APPLIED TO YOUTH OF TODAY
The third parable is the prodigal son, the "younger son," we are told, so he was immature in his judgment. He was irking under the restraint, and he rather resented the father's careful guiding eye. He evidently longed for so-called freedom, wanted, so to speak, to try his wings. So he said, "Father, give me my portion, and I will go". The father gave him his portion, and out the lad went.
Here is a case of volition, here is choice, deliberate choice. Here is, in a way, rebellion against authority. And what did he do? He spent his means in riotous living, he wasted his portion with harlots. That is the way they are lost.
Youth who start out to indulge their appetites and passions are on the downward road to apostasy as sure as the sun rises in the east. I do not confine it to youth; any man or woman who starts out on that road of intemperance, of dissolute living will separate himself or herself from the fold as inevitably as darkness follows the day.
"My spirit shall not always strive with man", says the Lord. "My spirit will not dwell in an unclean tabernacle". He who tries to live a double life, who does live a double life in violation of his covenants, to quote one author, "is either a knave or a fool." Often he is both, because he himself is using his free agency to gratify his passions, to waste his substance in riotous living, to violate the covenants that he has made in the house of God.
In such cases there is little we can do but warn and plead until the recreant, as the prodigal son, at last "comes to himself". I am simply trying to picture how these three different parables can be applied to our own groups.
THE WAY TO TRUE HAPPINESS
I wish I could say to every young man in this Church, that if you would be successful, if you would be happy, if you would conserve your strength, intellectual, physical, and spiritual, you will resist temptation to indulge your appetites and your passions. That is gospel truth-indulgence does not strengthen youth or manhood; restraint and self-control do. That is psychologically sound, because, instead of expending your energy as animals, self-control gives you more power and energy to expend intellectually and spiritually. Chastity strengthens manhood. It is the source of virility, not impotence; it is the crown of beautiful womanhood; and it is the source of peace and happiness in the home when you start to build it; it is the source of strength and perpetuity of the race.
He is unwise who starts out as the prodigal son to waste in riotous living the substance which God has given him in physical manhood and intellectuality. Much better to follow the example of old Adam as mentioned by Shakespeare in As You Like It. I wish every student would get the implied lessons, and that every teacher of English literature would pause before his class of young men and women and let them absorb the picture that that old man gives when Orlando refuses to let the servant go with him out into the forest. The old servant, who reared Orlando and nursed him, watched him, and trained him in his youth, said:
Let me go with you, Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo The means of weakness and debility; Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly.
God help us that we as leaders may try to guide those who are wandering away from the flock. God give us power to inspire them with the true ideal of success as contained in another saying of our Savior, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added", I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder George F. Richards
George F. Richards, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 129-134
If my remarks this morning shall be addressed, principally, to members of the Church, others listening in, or who may afterwards read what I shall say, may perhaps learn something of the requirements, covenants, and obligations of those who join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which all men and women must do, if they would be saved with an exaltation in the kingdom of God.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God.
COVENANTS ENTERED INTO BY CHURCH MEMBERS
The Latter-day Saints are the people of God, a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a covenant people, and a covenant-making people. The greatest and most important blessings our Heavenly Father has for his faithful sons and daughters are received by covenant. One of the greatest blessings he has to bestow is membership in his Church and kingdom. This is received by solemn covenant.
When I was baptized, and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was required to raise my right arm to the square, and covenant before God, angels, and witnesses present, that I would henceforth keep the commandments of God, as fast as they should be made known unto me. This represents the nature of the covenant entered into, by every person who is baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is frequently spoken of as the covenant made in the waters of baptism. The nature of this covenant should be explained to every applicant for baptism, and he should manifest a willing acceptance, before being baptized.
Every man who has received the Melchizedek Priesthood, has received the oath and covenant belonging to the priesthood, that he will magnify the same; to do which, he must live a righteous life, and answer every call of authority that may come to him in the Church, keeping all other covenants he has entered into, or may do in the future. The Lord on his part covenants to give him all that he the Lord hath.
But whoso breaketh this covenant after he hath received it, and altogether turneth therefrom, shall not have forgiveness of sins in this world nor in the world to come.
The blessings of the temple are of inestimable value. The goal of our existence, that of eternal life and exaltation, cannot be attained without them, but to receive these blessings, we must enter into solemn covenants of faithfulness.
There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.
We who have no other intent than to be faithful in all things do not hesitate making covenants to that end. Every covenant we enter into with the Lord, is for our own good and blessing. If there are any among us who are weak and hesitate, being fearful lest they might not be able to keep the required covenants of the gospel, they should lean more heavily upon the assistance the Lord has promised to all such, when he said.
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
CONSIDERING THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR ACTIONS
I would have the Saints, myself included, avoid as far as possible the disappointments and sorrow here in life, and hereafter, resulting from sin and neglect. Many of our sorrows, and the greatest sorrows we experience in life, are of our own making, and could have been averted.
Remorse of conscience, resulting from sin, is among the greatest of sorrows, and the hardest to heal. No person can afford to commit sin. There is no satisfaction derived from so doing that will justify the sorrow and remorse that result therefrom. Many of our sorrows in life are the result of thoughtfulness on our part. We do things that are unwise, and hurtful to ourselves and to others, not having first thought the thing through, and considered the inevitable consequences. This thought is emphasized in the story entitled, "Clarence and Mother":
A woman, left a widow with one child, was obliged to take in washing for a living. One morning Mother called Clarence earlier than usual, saying: "We have a larger wash than usual, and will need quite a lot of wood." Clarence made no complaint, but dressed himself, and going to the wood yard cut up and carried in a wood box full of wood. Then he wrote a little note to his mother and put it under her plate at the table. When Mother turned her plate over, she found Clarence's note which read like this: "Mother owes Clarence 50c for cutting up a wood box full of wood." The mother's countenance fell for a moment, then she went where she kept her meager earnings, and found 50c and brought it and gave it to Clarence. There was not much said at the table, and the mother ate but little breakfast.
The next morning when they turned their plates over at the table there was a note from Mother to Clarence which read as follows: "Clarence, debtor to Mother, for going down into the valley of the shadow of death, to give him life, nothing; for board and lodgings nine years, nothing; for clothing, and washing and mending his clothes, nine years, nothing; total, nothing."
Clarence had not thought the matter through to a correct conclusion, how much he was indebted to his mother, and that the hard work she had to do was as much for the boy as for the mother, and what an opportunity was here afforded, for him to show his love and appreciation for his mother, for what she had done and was doing for him. Clarence had not thought how deeply indebted he was to his mother, nor the fact that he could not live long enough, nor work hard enough, to pay fully the debt of gratitude he owed to her. Many of us grownups do things thoughtlessly that are just as censurable.
Many members of the Church, young and old, through carelessness and thoughtlessness, are pursuing a course in life that will surely be a great sorrow to them in the future, and to those who love them most, if they do not change their course. And even should they in the future repent, and mend their ways, they may, like Saul of Tarsus, forever after have a thorn in the flesh.
My sympathy goes out to all such, and I would like to help them to see and choose the better way.
There are in the Church today more than 45,000 men past twenty-one years of age, who hold some office in the Aaronic Priesthood, who, if worthy, should have been ordained to the office of elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood, at nineteen years of age, according to the order of the Church, but who have never received the Melchizedek Priesthood, nor the endowments and sealing blessings in the house of the Lord.
Being past twenty-one years of age, a large percentage of them are married men, and as men of the Church, may not receive the endowments and sealing ordinances of the temple without first receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood. It is clear that they have not been married in the new and everlasting covenant, and that if they have children, they, the children, have not been born in that covenant. If the parents of children who have been thus born ever have their children for eternity the children will have to be sealed to their parents, but this is impossible while the father does not hold the Melchizedek Priesthood. Should a man of this class die before the death of his wife, he has no assurance that if he has rejected these ordinances, his widow will go to the temple, after a year has elapsed, and be sealed to her dead husband, and have their children sealed to them. She may decide to be sealed to some man who is worthy to go to the temple, and who has proved his love for her, and his desire to have her as his wife for eternity. Such decisions are frequently made, and then the mother wants to have her children sealed to her, and the only way that can be done is to seal them to the mother, and the man to whom she is sealed. This done, the father has lost his wife, and lost his children. Have these adult members of the Aaronic Priesthood, having wives and children, thought this matter through, and decided to run the risk of losing their wives and children, and their own salvation? Such thoughtlessness, indifference, and neglect, may prove a source of everlasting sorrow.
Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, it might have been.
... neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.
A fulness of glory may not be had outside of the marriage relation, in the new and everlasting covenant, and nothing short of a fullness of glory will be satisfying in the end. It will be just too bad if through carelessness and neglect, men of the Church shall lose their wives, their children, and their salvation. These are among the greatest blessings our Father has to give. The Prophet Joseph Smith has left of record a statement that when God offers to a man knowledge or blessing, and he rejects it, that man is damned. If through neglect, a man lose his wife, his children, and his salvation, that would be condemnation, self-inflicted.
OUR DUTY TO OUR DEAD
There is born unto every man in the Church a responsibility to his kindred dead, to find them out by genealogical search, and then to do the temple work for them, or have done, all gospel ordinances necessary for the living, being alike necessary for the dead. Since the visitation of Elijah, to the Prophet Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple, April 3, 1836, genealogical societies have been organized, and genealogical libraries established, throughout this and other countries, and the spirit of Elijah has been in evidence among the people of the world, in their search to know of their kindred dead, and many thousands of family histories have been published and placed in these libraries, and are thus made accessible to members of the Church. In this we see the hand of the Lord manifested through nonmembers of the Church, in accomplishing his purposes in the redemption of the dead.
The genealogical search is the first step to be taken in the work of redemption of the dead, and as the temple work cannot be done until sufficient information is had, that will identify the dead upon the records, it makes the importance of genealogical research, on a par in importance with the temple work itself.
The Prophet Joseph Smith has said that, "The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead". That includes both genealogical and temple work.
If while we are in life, we altogether neglect this sacred duty to our dead, there is no doubt that we will be deservedly reproached by them, when we meet them. Have we thought this matter through and reached correct conclusions, as to what our future will be with respect to this feature of our religious work, and responsibility?
It is to be hoped that in the end there will be no disappointments and remorse come to us because of neglect. Are we quite sure that we have done our full duty to our neighbors, and associates, who are not of us, in an effort to make known to them the fact of the restoration of the gospel? This is a time of warning, and he that has been warned is to warn his neighbors.
Have we thought this matter through and satisfied our conscience on this point? There are ever before us the hope of reward, and the fear of punishment or disappointment, as incentives for us to do the things that we know we ought to do, and to leave undone the things we know we ought not to do, all of which makes for salvation, for it is written:
... until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law,, and... where no law is, there is no transgression.
A TESTIMONY OF THE RESTORATION OF THE GOSPEL
We have received the gospel, the law, and will be justified only when we have lived the law as we understand it. Nor will we be justified in living in ignorance of the law with such wonderful opportunities as are ours, to learn and to know.
As a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ, I desire to bear to you my testimony, that I do know that the work in which we, as Latter-day Saints, are engaged, is the work of the Lord, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, restored to earth in this the gospel dispensation, in the fulness of times, with all its gifts, ordinances, and blessings, through the instrumentality of Joseph Smith, whom God raised up to be the mighty prophet of the last days. It is the power of God unto salvation unto all those who receive its ordinances, and obey its precepts. It is being taught, practiced, and authoritatively administered to the repentant believers, by the Latter-day Saints, commonly called "Mormons." Its effect upon one who conscientiously accepts it is to establish him in habits of conduct, which make for a better life, a nobler character, a fuller and more enduring peace, and a greater hope of eternal life. It has a restraining and a stimulating effect upon one s life, restraining him from doing that which is wrong, and stimulating him to do that which is right. It teaches one the way of life and salvation, and encourages him to walk therein.
The gospel teaches me that I am a spirit-born son of God the Eternal Father, a brother of Jesus Christ, of most noble birth and ancestry. It teaches me, that I inherited from the Father those qualities and attributes which in their perfection make God, the Father, what he is; that I am placed here on earth for the purpose, in part, of perfecting the qualities and attributes of Deity in me implanted, with the command:
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
It is also written:
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.
A high aspiration indeed, but both scriptural and reasonable. It is written that things earthly are typical of things heavenly. It is most natural that the Son should desire to become like his Father, either in an earthly or heavenly sense. In this thought, and possibility, there is great comfort, and encouragement for one to enter into every necessary covenant of faithfulness, and to keep faithfully the covenants entered into.
We have a God-given responsibility to preach this gospel of the kingdom in all the world for a witness unto all nations before the end shall come; and we invite all men to come unto Christ in his kingdom, by obedience unto the laws, ordinances, and precepts of his gospel, of which we are his exponents and his witnesses.
May the Lord add his blessings to us all, according to our several needs, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 135-139
My dear brothers and sisters, all children of our Heavenly Father: Wherever you may be, I greet you and address you with a prayerful desire that what I say may be a source of comfort and prove to be a blessing.
GOD'S PLAN IN THE CREATION
The Holy Bible contains the advice of our Heavenly Father, and I accept without mental reservation the statements made in Genesis, chapters 1 and 2, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and every living thing that has inhabited the earth, including man.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.
These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
This was all a spiritual creation. Then follows the physical creation.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
It was in the plan of our Heavenly Father that every living thing that he created should each reproduce after its kind. Adam and Eve were the children of God; they were our first parents, and every human being that has lived upon the earth descended from them. God gave them their agency to decide for themselves in all matters and held them responsible for their conduct. They received their instructions in the Garden of Eden from our Heavenly Father and those teachings were preserved for succeeding generations.
Biblical chronology indicates that nearly six thousand years ago our first parents began their earth life. The Lord instructed them how they should conduct themselves, and his prophets divinely commissioned to speak for him, have taught Adam's descendants through the ages how to live to be happy in mortality and so qualify that when the time comes for them to die, they may pass into immortality taking with them the riches of their characters and the knowledge they have gained here. Those who conform their lives most nearly to the teachings of our Heavenly Father will receive the greatest reward and enjoy the most happiness here and hereafter.
THE VALUE OF THE BIBLE
Among other things, the prophets were required to keep a record of the truth that was revealed to them from time to time that it might be passed on for the benefit of their posterity, each generation inheriting from its forebears. Today, therefore, we of this generation are in possession of a record that has been preserved for our guidance containing information that the Lord has revealed from the beginning. I refer to the Holy Bible. Not only does it declare that which has occurred in the past, but it tells of events that were to occur in the future, in some cases generations before they actually did occur. It also informs us that fulfilment occurred at the time that had been specified. The Prophet Amos said:
Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
THE WARNING OF THE PROPHETS
I know of nothing of great importance that has happened in the world that the Lord through his prophets has not advised the people of beforehand, so that they have not been left in ignorance of what was to develop, but could plan their lives, if they would, to their advantage. I cite the following incidents in support of this:
The case of Noah is in point. He was commanded of the Lord to build an ark in which the righteous might be preserved from the flood which was to come. Noah built the ark and preached repentance to his generation for a period of one hundred and twenty years, thus fully warning them. The people, however, were so wicked that they failed to heed the warning. Having their agency, they chose evil rather than righteousness. The rains descended, and the floods came, and only Noah and his family of eight souls were saved. All had been fully warned, but because of their wilfulness and their refusal to repent they were drowned.
Another instance is that of Abraham and his posterity. He was informed that his seed would go into a strange land and after serving there for a period of four hundred years, would come out with great substance, all of which was thereafter literally fulfilled when Moses, being a descendant of Abraham, led the children of Israel out of Egypt back to the promised land.
Joseph, a faithful son of Jacob, who had been sold into slavery by his brothers, was in a prison in Egypt when Pharaoh had a dream that troubled him, that his wise men could not interpret. Pharaoh was told that Joseph could interpret the dream, and he was brought before the king. He informed Pharaoh that he could not interpret the dream but that God would give Pharaoh the answer. Joseph, having received the interpretation from the Lord, told Pharaoh that his dream was of great importance, that there were to be seven years of plenty throughout the land, followed by seven years of famine, and if Pharaoh during the years of plenty would accumulate food, when the famine came his people would not starve. Pharaoh accepted Joseph's interpretation and advice, then rewarded him by making him overseer of Egypt, only the king being greater than he. At the end of fourteen years the dream as interpreted by Joseph had been literally fulfilled, the Egyptians having been saved from starvation.
Another prophetic incident was the attempt to rebuild Jericho. When the city of Jericho was overthrown, a curse was placed upon it, and the people were warned that any man who should rebuild it would lose his first-born and his youngest son. The city lay waste until hundreds of years had passed, when Hiel, a Bethelite, who lived in the days of Ahab, ventured to rebuild the city, but no sooner had he laid its foundation than Abiram, his first born son, died. Still persevering in his determination to complete his work, he set up the gates, and Segub, his youngest son, passed away, thus fulfilling the prophecy.
Then there is the instance where Jeremiah prophesied that Jerusalem would be overthrown and her people remain in bondage for seventy years. This was to be accomplished by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. In due time Jerusalem with its beautiful temple was burned. Her princes, nobles, artisans, and many of her people were carried as prisoners to Babylon along with the sacred vessels from the temple.
One hundred and forty years before Cyrus the Great was born, the prophet Isaiah predicted his birth and announced his name and said that he should overthrow Babylon; also that he would rebuild Jerusalem, notwithstanding the fact that he was alien to all the interests of the Jews.
When Cyrus was about fifty years of age, after subduing many peoples and small nations, he appeared with his army before Babylon, the then greatest of all cities, with its impregnable walls, three hundred feet high, and its mighty gates of iron and brass. Instead of attacking the walls, he diverted the Euphrates River that flowed through the city and used the channel under the walls by which to enter Babylon. He captured the city without difficulty, while Belshazzar, the king, with his courtiers were drinking themselves drunk and desecrating the sacred vessels of the house of the Lord which his father, Nebuchadnezzar, had brought from Jerusalem.
Within the city, Cyrus found the Hebrew prophet, Daniel, who had already interpreted the handwriting on the wall, having informed Belshazzar that he had been "weighed in the balance and found wanting". Having access to the Jewish records, Cyrus learned that the God of Israel had decreed that he was to rebuild Jerusalem. He promptly issued a proclamation to the Jews to return to Jerusalem and for the nations to assist them in rebuilding the city and the temple. This was accomplished exactly seventy years after Jerusalem was destroyed, thus fulfilling Jeremiah's prophecy uttered more than one hundred years before.
The destruction of Babylon is another case in point. When Babylon was in the height of her glory, Isaiah prophesied that it should be destroyed, "that it should never be inhabited, neither dwelt in from generation to generation". It was completely destroyed and inundated by the flood waters of the river. Now, after more than two thousand years, the city that at that time was the greatest under heaven is still a heap of ruins.
The Old Testament is replete with remarkable and almost unbelievable prophecies that were fulfilled to the letter. Only by the revelations of the Lord could the prophets have known what was to occur and only God could fulfill their predictions. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joseph, and others were human beings like their fellows, but they were chosen to represent the Lord and the inspiration of the Almighty directed their utterances and the power of the Lord fulfilled their promises.
Let us refer to one of many predictions in the New Testament. Read the entire twenty-first chapter of St. Luke.
And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.
This prophecy involves the fate of Jerusalem, of the temple, and the whole Jewish nation for nineteen hundred years and is still in the course of fulfilment.
In the year 70 A.D., the Roman army encompassed Jerusalem. The faithful disciples, remembering the warning that Jesus had given, fled to the mountains. The city was taken after a long siege in which the inhabitants suffered the extremes of famine, pestilence, and the sword. In addition to those taken captive one and one-half million Jews perished. The country was laid waste and the temple destroyed, not one stone being left upon another, and the population was dispersed into all the nations of the earth-all as predicted.
Today the Jews are a people without a country and are suffering most inhuman treatment under the tyranny of so-called Christian nations. In their dispersion and suffering they have fulfilled prophecy and will in the future further fulfill it by returning to their homeland.
Jerusalem and Babylon, warned by the Lord's servants that they must repent of their wickedness or they would be punished, defiantly refused, and destruction followed. Other cities and nations have become rich, powerful, and wicked, and have passed into oblivion. As we look back at these happenings do we fail to realize that today the world is reaping a harvest of sorrow and destruction because of the iniquity of its inhabitants?
REPENTANCE THE SALVATION OF MANKIND
With the people of the world ignoring the advice of our Heavenly Father and suffering the penalty of wilfulness, will we follow the path of evil when the history of the past teaches us that destruction will eventually overtake us unless we turn to the Lord? Only repentance can save us. Will we repent before it is too late?
We are not landlords. We do not own any part of the earth or its riches. At most we are only temporary tenants. We leave it all here when we pass on. Naked we came into the world, and naked we depart. This is the Lord's earth, and keeping his commandments is the rent we pay for the blessings of life and all that we will enjoy here and hereafter.
We are living eternal life, and our position hereafter will be the result of our lives here. Every man will be judged according to his works, and he will receive only that degree of glory that he has earned.
It is nearly two thousand years since Jesus Christ our Lord came to earth and gave his life as a ransom for us that through him all might be resurrected from the dead. He was the firstfruits of the resurrection. He taught us to love our neighbor as ourself and to do good to all people. His teachings in the New Testament are a most valuable part of the Holy Bible. It was he who said:
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
He knew that a knowledge of the scriptures was most important. The nations that have been most influenced by the Bible have accomplished most to bring success and happiness and enlightenment to the world along every line of endeavor because they have profited by the guidance of the God of heaven and earth. We read in Job:
... There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.
In times like these we should seek that inspiration through righteousness. It will come in no other way.
With our sons and daughters pouring out their blood like a river on the battlefields of the world to save us from destruction, surely the most praiseworthy and effective thing we can do to show our appreciation of their sacrifice will be to repent of our sins and set our lives and our homes in order so that we can worthily ask our Heavenly Father to restore peace to the earth and bring our loved ones back to us again.
I am grateful for the companionship of the many intelligent, righteous people who live in this most favored of all lands and in other lands. My life has been enriched by your association, and I thank you for it. I desire most earnestly that we shall all earn and receive an eternal inheritance in the celestial kingdom of our Lord right here upon this earth when we attain to immortality. In this the evening of my mortal life, I leave with you my testimony that I know that the God of our fathers, our God still lives and loves us and desires our happiness and exaltation, and I leave this witness with my love and blessing in the name of Jesus Christ his Beloved Son, our Redeemer. Amen.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 140-145
And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him.
And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you?
And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away.
And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.
SACREDNESS OF MARRIAGE TAUGHT BY JESUS
Recently, I heard President Grant express grave concern over the apparent increase of the number of applications for the severance of marital bonds. His concern and fears that there is a growing laxity in the minds of young people with respect to the importance and sacredness of the marriage covenant suggest the topic "Marriage and Divorce" to which I now invite your attention.
Adjustments to be made by newly married couples when young husbands now in the armed forces return to civilian life suggest another condition that makes such a consideration not wholly untimely.
In all the problems and perplexities of human existence, Jesus Christ is the one safe guide to whom we can go for guidance and comfort. Mark's account of Jesus' answer to the Pharisees on divorce sets forth the Savior's attitude toward this vital question.
A careful study of this text, and other references that he made to marriage and divorce, leave little doubt that Jesus set forth the lofty ideal that marriage is of divine origin and that the marriage bond should be held sacred.
This lofty ideal of marriage is confirmed by modern revelation, and is recorded in the D&C; as follows:
And again, verily I say unto you, that whoso forbiddeth to marry is not ordained of God, for marriage is ordained of God unto man.
Wherefore, it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation:
And that it might be filled with the measure of man, according to his creation before the world was made.
When the Pharisees, seeking to justify the granting of divorce, cited the fact that "Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement and to put a wife away" on the ground of "some uncleanness", Jesus answered:
... For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh; so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
In the light of scripture, ancient and modern, we are justified in concluding that Christ's ideal pertaining to marriage is the unbroken home, and conditions that cause divorce are violations of his divine teachings. Some of these are:
Unfaithfulness on the part of either or both, habitual drunkenness, physical violence, long imprisonment that disgraces the wife and family, the union of an innocent girl to a reprobate-in these and perhaps other cases there may be circumstances which make the continuance of the marriage state a greater evil than divorce. But these are extreme cases-they are the mistakes, the calamities in the realm of marriage.
On the other hand, to look upon marriage as a mere contract that may be entered into at pleasure in response to a romantic whim, or for selfish purposes, and severed at the first difficulty or misunderstanding that may arise, is an evil meriting severe condemnation, especially in cases wherein children are made to suffer because of such separation.
DANGERS THREATENING THE MARRIAGE RELATION
Marriage is a sacred relationship entered into for purposes that are well recognized-primarily for the rearing of a family. It is claimed by some careful observers that our present modern life tends to frustrate these purposes. Writes one:
Modern living conditions contribute to these frustrations. Formerly a married woman had a home to care for, often several children. Today, in many parts of our country, a married woman continues either to follow her vocation or to spend her time seeking new stimulations-no children to care for-no house to clean-no meals to cook. Under such a condition her leisure time activities become her all-absorbing interests-interests which often lead her away from her husband rather than to him.
Twenty-four years ago when the steamship Marama dropped anchor outside the coral reef that surrounds the island Rarotonga, a passenger desiring to go ashore asked the captain why he did not sail nearer to the wharf. In answer the experienced seaman mentioned treacherous waters and pointed to an engine of one ship, the Maitai, and to the bow of another, still protruding out of the water-both carrying mute evidence of the danger of anchoring too close to the shore of this coral-bound island. "We anchor here," said the captain, "because it is safer to avoid being dashed to pieces, as those two vessels, on those dangerous reefs."
A flippant attitude toward marriage, the ill-advised suggestion of "companionate marriage," the base, diabolical theory of "free sex experiment," and the ready-made divorce courts are dangerous reefs upon which many a family bark is wrecked.
An ever-decreasing birth rate and an increasing divorce rate are ominous signs threatening the stability of the American home, and the perpetuity of our present form of constitutional government. An editorial in a weekly magazine, published in the capital of the nation, says:
Since 1890 the United States of America's national birth rate has dropped from 32.9 per 1,000 population to 17.4 per 1,000 population.
In those same years, the national average for divorces jumped from 5.7 per 100 marriages to 19.3 per 100 marriages.
A falling birth rate plus a rising divorce rate speak ill for individual faith in the future. Hence it speaks ill for the nation's future.
What, in the long run, is the point of vast new public programs if the individual, continually fearful of tomorrow, flutters from mate to mate and deliberately robs the nation of his, or her, own good qualities in the next generation? A nation's permanency is entirely dependent on the permanency of its individual homes, the family pride of its citizens and the reproduction of those families, generation by generation.
Ex-president Taft on one occasion said:
Our state rests upon our homes. And if we cannot keep our homes from this constant demoralizing breaking up, we had better go out of the business of government entirely.
In some states of the union, it is almost as easy to get a divorce as it is to get married. As a result of this laxity, one out of every five marriages ends either in divorce or annulment.
DIVORCE INCREASING IN CIVIL AND CHURCH MARRIAGES
Though statistics indicate that there is a much lower divorce rate in the Church than in the nation, yet there is cause for concern over the number of marriages annulled annually in the divorce courts.
With the assistance of the Presiding Bishop's office and Professor Roy A. West, I have before me a comparison of marriages and divorces in the Church from 1920 to 1944. It sets forth the fact that though there are fewer divorces among couples married in the temples and by stake and ward authorities than by civil officers and other churches, yet divorces are increasing even in the Church.
For example, during the period 1920-1922 there was one divorce for every 38.24 marriages among couples married in the temples and by stake and ward authorities, but there was, during those same years, one divorce for every 13.20 marriages among couples married by civil officers. Comparatively, that ratio continues throughout the twenty years, as you will note by the following taken at random:
1923 to 1925-one divorce to every 33 marriages; one divorce to every 15 marriages.
1935 to 1937-one divorce to every 28 marriages; one divorce to every 12.52 marriages.
1938 to 1940-one divorce to every 26.61 marriages; one divorce to every 10.13 marriages.
Last year there was one divorce for every seventeen marriages among couples married in temples and by stake and ward authorities, and one divorce for every 6.9 marriages among couples married by civil officers. There is cause for concern over the increase of divorces in this country and even in our Church.
DIVORCE RATE IN THE CHURCH AND IN THE UNITED STATES
The ratio of divorce to marriage in the United States is three times higher than in the Church. In 1920 there were 7.5 marriages to every divorce in the United States; while in the Church there were 24.8 marriages to every divorce. In 1935, the United States had a ratio of 6.1 marriages to every divorce; during the same year the Church had a ratio of 17.9 marriages to each divorce.
The real source of security of our nation rests in the well ordered, properly conducted homes. The character of a child is formed largely during the first twelve years of his life. It is estimated that in that period the child spends approximately 3,240 hours in school; 416 hours in Sunday School and church, but 52,560 hours in the home, not counting twelve hours a day for sleep. In other words, he spends sixteen times as many waking hours in the home as in school, and one hundred twenty-six times as many hours in the home as in the Church.
In the homes of America are born the children of America, and from them go out into American life American men and women. They go out with the stamp of these homes upon them, and only as these homes are what they should be, will children be what they should be.
Luther Burbank, the great plant wizard, most impressively emphasizes the need for constant attention in the training of a child. He says:
Teach the child self-respect. Train it in self-respect just as you train a plant in better ways. No self-respecting man was ever a grafter. Above all, bear in mind repetition-the use of an influence over and over again, keeping everlastingly at it. This is what fixes traits in plants, the constant repetition of an influence until at last it is irrevocably fixed and will not change. You cannot afford to get discouraged. You are dealing with something far more precious than any plant-the precious soul of a child!
There are three fundamental things to which every child is entitled: a respected name, a sense of security, opportunities for development.
The family gives to the child his name and standing in the community. A child wants his family to be as good as those of his friends. He wants to be able to point with pride to his father, and to feel an inspiration always as he thinks of his mother. It is a mother's duty so to live that her children will associate with her everything that is beautiful, sweet, and pure. And the father should so live that the child, emulating his example, will be a good citizen, and, in the Church, a true Latter-day Saint.
SECURITY
A child has the right to feel that in his home he has a place of refuge, a place of protection from the dangers and evils of the outside world. Family unity and integrity are necessary to supply this need.
He needs parents who are happy in their adjustment to each other, who are working hopefully toward the fulfilment of an ideal of living, who love their children with a sincere and unselfish love; in short, who are well-balanced individuals, gifted with a certain amount of insight, who are able to provide the child with a wholesome emotional background which will contribute more to his development than material advantages.
Divorce almost invariably deprives children of these advantages.
HOW TO LESSEN THE BREAKING UP OF HOMES
1. Substitute the present tendency toward a low view of marriage by the lofty view which Jesus the Christ gives it. Let us look upon marriage as a sacred obligation and a covenant that is eternal, or that may be made eternal.
2. Teach the young of both sexes in the responsibilities and ideals of marriage so that they may realize that marriage involves obligation, and is not an arrangement to be terminated at pleasure. Teach them that pure love between the sexes is one of the noblest things on earth, and the bearing and rearing of children the highest of all human duties. In this regard it is the duty of parents to set an example in the home that children may see and absorb, as it were, the sacredness of family life and the responsibility associated therewith.
3. The number of broken marriages can be reduced if couples realize even before they approach the altar that marriage is a state of mutual service, a state of giving as well as of receiving, and that each must give of himself or herself to the utmost. Harriet Beecher Stowe wisely writes:
No man or woman can create a true home who is not willing in the outset to embrace life heroically, to encounter labor and sacrifice. Only to such can this divinest power be given to create on earth that which is the nearest image of heaven.
4. Another condition that contributes to the permanence of the marriage covenant is marriage in the temple. Before such a marriage is consummated, it is necessary for the young man and young woman first to obtain a recommend from the bishop. They should go to him in person, and the bishop who does his duty will instruct the couple regarding the sacredness of the obligation that they are as young people going to assume, emphasizing all the safeguards that have been named before. There in the presence of the priesthood the young people receive, before they take upon themselves the obligation, instruction upon the sacredness of the duty which is before them; and furthermore, whether or not they are prepared to go in holiness and purity to the altar of God and there seal their vows and love.
5. Finally, there is one principle which seems to me to strike right at the base of the happiness of the marriage relation, and that is the standard of purity taught and practiced among the Latter-day Saints. It is a common saying throughout the world that young men may sow their wild oats, but that young women should be chaperoned and guarded. In the Church of Christ there is but one standard of morality. No young man has any more right to sow his wild oats than has a young girl. She is taught that second only to the crime of taking human life is that of losing her virtue. And that is the ideal among young men. That young man who comes to the bishop and asks for a recommend to take a pure girl to the altar is expected to give just the same purity that he expects to receive.
CONCLUSION
For the proper solution of this great problem we may turn with safety to Jesus as our guide. He declared that the marriage relation is of divine origin, that "marriage is ordained of God", that only under the most exceptional conditions should it be set aside. In the teaching of the Church of Christ, the family assumes supreme importance in the development of the individual and of society. "Happy and thrice happy are they who enjoy an uninterrupted union, and whose love, unbroken by any complaint, shall not dissolve until the last day."
The marriage ceremony when sealed by the authority of the Holy Priesthood endures, as do family relationships, throughout time and all eternity.
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
God bless these young couples who must make new adjustments, some under trying circumstances, when the boys and husbands come home from war, and God bless us all to look more earnestly and prayerfully and sincerely upon the sacredness of home and the marriage covenant. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Marvin O. Ashton
Marvin O. Ashton, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 151-153
If I remember correctly, I followed Brother Kirkham last conference, and as far as I am concerned, I will be glad to follow him any time, and yes, follow in his footsteps all the way. I am not like the gentleman who had a wife like the wife that Brother Thomas E. McKay spoke about in conference. He didn't want her nagging at him. He wanted her away from the battle so he could fight in peace. He had a wife who thought she was better than he. Before she died, she had put on her tombstone, "Follow me." You see, she wanted him to land in the celestial realms she was dead sure of. He wasn't quite satisfied with the epitaph as it was, so he finished it. It then read, "To follow thee I'm not content, until I know which way you went."
THE WORK WITH THE BOYS OF THE CHURCH
Oscar Kirkham has done a wonderful work in this Church and particularly with boys. If I could follow him all the way, I would be very content. I had the pleasure of riding down to conference in the automobile this morning with Elder Merrill. We were talking about some of the observations he made with boys in this conference. He was very kind to us, I thought, and by virtue of his observations in the conversation this morning, I am spurred on to say some of the things I am going to try to say this afternoon. I told him I couldn't say what I wanted to say at our Aaronic Priesthood meeting, because if I went into too much detail the bishop and his counselors of a certain ward would be sure to guess about whom I was talking, and I have so much to answer for now that I wouldn't be that brave. Brother Merrill said, "Surely, you don't mean to say that 'tyranny' towards boys exists today." When I told him the whole story, he could hardly believe it. The trouble with many of the fine things we hear is that they always mean the other fellow. We don't "Stop, Look, and Listen." That sign on some of your farms says, "This means you." Some of these observations I am trying to make do mean you and me.
Like Brother Merrill, I had another talk I wanted to give this afternoon, but I am throwing it away. To hear me tell it, my very best talks I have never given. Of course, that isn't hard to believe, and such news is comforting.
Someone has said the reason the boy likes a dog is because it is the only thing around the ranch that doesn't criticize him. When he's around, he's a pain in the neck. Yes, but if you had the experience of some of the rest of us, when he isn't around, it's a pain in the heart. Stay with him. I saw one of the finest demonstrations of love for a boy in Yellowstone Stake. The story is about President Hess of that stake, and I am going into some detail:
I was attending a big banquet in St. Anthony, about six hundred strong, the select of the land. All the fathers of the stake were there sitting beside their sons. Yes, they hired the biggest hall in the place. Some of us were sitting at the head table. I discovered about three chairs from where I was sitting something that decidedly interested me. It was a half-kept kid. The back of his head looked like the back of a dog. What I'm trying to say is that he'd been neglected. I went on without asking any questions, and yet I got curious. After the party was over I inquired as to who the lad was. Here is the story I got: Coming down the highway from his home President Hess was accosted by a shabbily dressed lad. The boy was invited to get in the car. He asked, "Where are you going, mister?" The answer was, "I'm going to a party for fathers and their sons." The boy was a real Yankee. He said, "Where is your boy?" "I haven't him with me tonight," came the answer of the president. "Well, say, mister, why can't I be your son tonight?"Well, the end of the story is, that urchin sat at the head of the table as big as you please with the rest of us. Brethren, that's America. That's the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You never can tell what's under that mat of shaggy hair. You can never tell what heart beats buttoned up in that threadbare coat. Let's love him.
Did you ever hear the story of the lad in the slums and his little sister who desperately took sick? There had to be a transfusion. They thought her brother's blood would match. They tried it out, and it "clicked." When asked to give his blood for his sister, he said, "Sure." When they cleaned his arm, its whiteness, with the dirt off, nearly scared him to death. Well, they took a pint of his blood. An hour after the pumping procedure he was told that his sister had revived and was getting along fine. But what was the question the kid of the slums asked? It was, "Doc, when do I croak? When do I croak?" He thought when he was asked to give his blood to his sister that it meant he was to give his life for his sister. I repeat, "Will you give your blood to your sister?" "Sure." That was the answer from an American lad of the slums.
Christ said that no man is greater than he who gives his life for his fellows. Sometimes virtue is put up in clumsy parcels, but underneath often you've got gold.
A TEACHER'S EXPERIENCE
Talk the boy's language. Be reasonably firm. Don't let him run over you. No boy loves you if you let him run over you.
I once heard a very interesting story about the boys of a certain school district years ago in a backwoods country. They rode every teacher out of the village. The school trustees didn't know what to do about it. As fast as a new teacher came he was ridden out. Finally, one of the trustees said, "I have a fellow that can take care of this school." They cried out, "Trot him out. Send him here." The teacher got to the school Monday morning at eight-thirty and brought with him his six-shooter. Well, a hawk floated overhead, flying a little low. He was circling around, and he was a real temptation. The new teacher pulled out the six-shooter, pulled the trigger twice, and the hawk fell at his feet. Of course, the school population gathered around this crack shot. He observed, "That wasn't so bad, was it?" Well, he next went into the schoolroom. He noticed the blackboard wasn't kept so spick and span, that a bull's-eye on the board with a couple of holes in it would not do any particular harm. He stepped off a few steps, took the six-shooter, pulled the trigger a couple of times more, hitting the bull's-eye squarely, and said, "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Well, he was talking their language. But he wasn't through yet. He pulled out his watch. "It's time to ring the bell." He picked the leader of the gang, the one that had done the most in the past in running former teachers out of their country. He requested, "Ring the bell." The fellow stepped back with his fingers in his vest and replied, "Ring it yourself." Out came the six-shooter. It pointed at the bully. "Ring the bell." He did.
Now, I didn't say that if you want to lead a bunch of boys take a six-shooter with you. I didn't mean that. But talk their language and have them mind.
PRAISE FOR STAKE LEADERS
God bless you fine men. To repeat again, as we go around your stakes and see what you are doing, if we were to give way to our feelings we would sit down and cry like babies at your accomplishing great things. You are doing a fine job. I don't know what some of us do for you in the way of inspiration when we stand before you, but I know what inspiration we get from you in holding your hands and looking into your eyes. God bless you. Amen.
Elder Joseph F. Smith
Joseph F. Smith, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 156-159
This is great company. I wish to thank my Father in heaven for the incomparable privilege of being a little part of it.
As I have listened to this conference, beginning with the message of the Lord's prophet, and have felt the cumulative power of the succeeding testimonies and admonitions, I have been increasingly aware that if I am to make any contribution at all it must be with the help of my Father in heaven, for which I pray, and I ask you to join me in that prayer.
A FERVENT TESTIMONY
I wish to record before this present congregation and before the unseen audience my emphatic witness, without hint of reservation, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, is the anointed One of Israel, the very Redeemer of the world, that he rose from the tomb in a literal resurrection which, by the Christian world, is not believed, in spite of its flaunted celebration of Easter. I wish further to record that because of the wickedness of men the gospel was taken from the earth and that in this dispensation was restored, and that the priesthood of Almighty God was restored with Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery as instruments, that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of the Living God and that every one of his successors is also a prophet.
A SERMON FOR A SOLDIER KILLED IN BATTLE
Not long ago, some weeks ago, I received a letter from a Canadian boy in England. He said in part:
Will you promise to do something for me when and if you manage to get to Edmonton this summer? Will you go to my home and see my mother and talk about me a little? She likes me a lot, and she likes to talk about me to someone else. Since you may be in Edmonton, and especially if something has happened to me by that time, you could gratify this little trait of hers. With love, Roy.
And just a month ago there came to my desk in the tortured handwriting of a grief-stricken mother this letter:
Mr. Smith, Roy has gone. Please will you say a sermon for him?
Roy was not a member of the Church. He was a boy of great talent, a boy of great promise, and he is gone as thousands of others are going, killed in battle.
What sermon shall we say for Roy, together with the thousands of our own boys and the tens of thousands of others who are his companions in death? Shall we extol his virtues and praise his talents or shall we berate our enemies and castigate the war lords? Neither panegyric nor denunciation will give to the world the pictures Roy might have painted, nor the sons he might have reared. What shall we say? Shall we not plead for conduct which will remedy the evil? What one of us, having selected a reputable physician and called him in to diagnose and administer to our ills but will follow his instruction? I marvel at the faith men put in doctors. We will literally lap up any nostrum which a physician in whom we have faith prescribes, without asking what it contains or what it may do. Oh, that people had a fraction of the faith in the words of the prophets that they have in their physicians! We seek to avoid medical quacks. How much more important that we avoid spiritual quacks. We need in these days of a sick world the treatment prescribed by the Great Physician. We have his diagnosis, and we have it constantly reiterated by the Lord's prophets.
APPEAL OF FIRST PRESIDENCY
Five and one-half years ago the First Presidency of the Church said this:
We affirm that all international controversies may be settled by specific means if nations will but deal unselfishly and righteously with one another. We appeal to the leaders of all nations and to the people themselves that they mend and adjust their differences lest the vials of God's wrath be poured out upon the earth, for he has said he will visit his wrath upon the wicked without measure. We further declare that God is grieved by war and that he will hold subject to the eternal punishment of his will those who wage it unrighteously.
We are but beginning to see how prophetic that utterance was. Brethren and sisters, we have faith in the physician because experience has taught us that very frequently his prescriptions are helpful. We have learned to leave things alone, sometimes, when we find they are doing us unquestionable hurt. When are we going to learn the lessons of history? The scriptures are replete with the experiences of people who have rejected the prophets. In this conference reference has been made to many of them, and there will be those foolish persons who will say, "Well, that's Bible stuff. I don't quite believe the Bible." If men can't believe the Bible, will they study their secular history and find the reasons for the dissolution and destruction of the great civilizations of the world-Tyre and Sidon, Babylon, Nineveh, Egypt and Greece, Carthage and Rome-yes, and today the great part of modern Europe? And can the United States of America be far behind? I say unto you, "Nay, unless the United States of America give heed to the prescription of the Great Physician."
FAILURE TO HEED THE WORDS OF THE PROPHETS
Reference has been made to the forthcoming conference in San Francisco. It is becoming increasingly the cynosure, with all eyes turning toward it, with great hope. Will it fail? It will fail unless it is based upon the precepts of the Gospel of Christ, and I have seen only two pronouncements by men in high places who have had the courage to declare this fact.
A few years ago I had the great privilege of driving President Grant from Madison, Wisconsin, to a speaking appointment, and as we drove he said, and I have rarely seen President Grant in sadder mood: "I wish the Latter-day Saint people would be obedient." That called to mind a remark that President Joseph F. Smith made before some members of his family. He said, "I wish I could tell this people some of the things I know," and one of his sons said, "Papa, why don't you?" He replied, "I have tried and I can't, for the people are not ready to hear it." That calls further to mind those tragic words of the Prophet Joseph Smith, betrayed by some of his own, "If my life is of no use to my friends, it is of no use to me," and those other great words of the Master himself:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say,.. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Brethren and sisters, Latter-day Saints, listen to the counsel of the Lord. What matter if we be but few? If every man at this conference, if every Latter-day Saint listening to this conference, would go out and see to it that he made of himself a center from which went out the testimony of the truth, we could accomplish miracles. Let no Latter-day Saint, who has raised his hand to sustain the prophets of the Lord, permit himself ever to depart from that instruction. Let him challenge any faultfinding and let him champion the truth.
Brethren and sisters, any Latter-day Saint having covenanted as a Latter-day Saint to keep the commandments of the Lord and then who refuses to follow the counsel of the Lord's prophets is bringing bricks and mortar for the erection of those altars of unrighteousness upon which other millions of Roys will be sacrificed. Let us remember it.
God give us courage, give us vision and above all give us faith, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 159-163
Brethren, it is good to be here to share with you the inspiration and teachings of this conference. We have heard enough already, that if we can just remember half of what we have heard and take it back to our stakes and wards, they will be enriched because of these conference sessions.
PREPARATION FOR THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIERS
A great deal has been said during the conference, and at the present time much is said and written, about postwar conditions and our responsibilities. In my work in the Church with the young people, particularly the boys of the Aaronic Priesthood, I feel that there are some things to which we can well give thought along this line, for the Church will have to remember that our boys will be coming home, anticipating a great deal from us. We have had many letters from boys who are in the service, in answer to some of the articles that have been written and published in the Church Section of The Deseret News and in The Improvement Era by our girls, on the value of priesthood to young womanhood. Usually the boys close with words something like this: "It is wonderful to know that there are such girls to come home to," and then they tell us of the kind of girls they have met while they have been away.
It seems to me that the M.I.A. organizations will have a greater responsibility than they have ever had before, because these boys will expect more through having been away, and many of our girls have been waiting patiently, faithfully, and adhering to the teachings of the Church, waiting until these boys do return home. I hope there will be due consideration given them, for I am not unmindful of the fact that we owe so very much to them. They have offered their lives and all they have for us, and we ought to do all we can to make their homecoming pleasant and welcome.
I was very happy while in California, a few years ago, in listening to a radio broadcast by a minister of the gospel, to know that this Church has what he indicated the world needs today. He said, "What we need today is a church for the youth of the land. We have been preaching to the old folks and letting the young people go to the devil." Now I am grateful that we have in the Church a program for the youth of the land, that our boys and girls are being taught the gospel and inspired with the spirit of it, that they are being entertained and kept together in a splendid way. There is nothing else like it in all the world.
IMPRESSIONS MADE ON PROMINENT MEN
Some years ago the agent of the Holland-America Steamship line from Rotterdam, a Mr. Herschfeld, came here on a visit. I had met him in Holland. He had a letter of introduction to President Grant from the mission president, and President Grant invited me to the office because I could talk Dutch, and turned Mr. Herschfeld over to me to entertain. When evening came, I said, "Mr. Herschfeld, where would you like to go? I can take you to a show, or I will take you for a ride around the valley, but if you would like to see Mormonism in action I will take you to a Mormon bazaar." He said, "I would surely like to see Mormonism in action." So we went down to the old Granite Stake Tabernacle, on State Street and Thirty-third South. I introduced him to many of the Hollanders who were there, and he spent money freely. He was thrilled with what he saw. We went upstairs to an operetta that was beautiful, and then I said, as they announced the dance downstairs, "Probably you have had enough. I shall be glad to take you back to the hotel." He said, "Mr. Richards, couldn't I see the dance?" "Yes," I said, "if you would like to." We went down to the dance hall, and, on our way back to the hotel, he said, "You could not have made me believe that I could ever see a group of hundreds of young people such as I have seen here tonight, dancing together with no evidence of any evil thought or anything of that kind." He said, "Mr. Richards, if I were a young man I surely would cast my lot with the Mormon people." Then he went on to indicate that his daughter was the wife of a professor, and his son was a doctor, and he said, "You know what they think of the Mormons in Holland."
When we were in Los Angeles, we had a beautiful party in the Hollywood Stake tabernacle, given by the Deseret Club. Mr. Evans, who was in charge of all the Church groups on the campus at the college, was there. I spent considerable time with him, and he said, "Mr. Richards, I wish all the ministers in Los Angeles could see what I can see here tonight."
Now, brethren, I often felt while in the South, that if television ever developed to the point that the radio has, what a marvelous thing it would be to be able to set some of these parties with our young people out where the world could see them.
PRAISE FOR THE YOUTH PROGRAM
I thank the Lord for the leadership of the Church in this youth program for holding our boys and girls together under clean and wholesome recreation, and I trust when restrictions are lifted that there will be increased attention given to this program here at home, such as it deserves. I would like to admonish the bishops not to be too stingy with the Mutual officers whom they expect to carry on this activity program. Don't tell them there is no money in the budget. Go out and get the money if it is necessary. These boys and girls of ours are worth more than our money, and they are entitled to the kind of leadership this Church is prepared to give. You can requisition the finest talent living within your wards and stakes, and you don't have to pay for it. No one else can do that, so there is no excuse for not having the finest parties possible. Then I think we ought to make sure that we maintain our standards. No boy ought ever to enter one of our recreation hails and mingle with our young women with the smell of liquor on his breath, or a bottle of liquor on his person. The Lord expects us to guard and protect the lives and honor of our girls, and such men are in no fit condition to associate with them.
MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES
Now, I would like to leave one other thought with you today. You have heard a marvelous address during this conference, by Brother Benson, on missionary work. You brethren will realize that because of the war many of our boys will be deprived of the privilege of going on missions. Some of them will feel that the years they have spent in the service will have to take the place of their missions, but we have a new generation of boys coming along, the boys of the Aaronic Priesthood of this Church, and I truly hope that every bishop and every father and mother will see to it that these boys grow to manhood with a desire to fill a mission for the Church. It is not only a great responsibility that the Lord has placed upon the Church, to see that the gospel is preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, but the great missionary system of this Church does more for the membership of the Church individually and collectively than any other activity of the Church, in my judgment. When I was a boy, I desired with all my heart to go on a mission. I remember two returned missionaries reporting their missions in the little country town where I was reared as a boy, and as I have said many times, if they did not do unusually well that night, the Lord did something for me, because when I went home, mere boy that I was, I got down on my knees and asked the Lord to help me to be worthy to go on a mission when I was old enough. When the train finally left the station here in Salt Lake, and I bade farewell to my parents, I told them it was the happiest moment of my life. There were many tears shed upon that occasion, but there were a great many more tears shed in little old Holland when I left there to return home nearly three years later. When we were set apart for our missions, President Anthon H. Lund made a statement to us boys I will never forget. He said, "Brethren, the people will love you when you go into the mission field. Now," he said, "don't get lifted up in the pride of your hearts and think they love you because of who you are. They will love you because of what you are. You are servants of the Lord. You are clothed with his Holy Priesthood and that is what the people will love." I did not realize fully the meaning of those words until I went to bid farewell to the Saints in Holland. One little mother, whose daughter came to America only a few weeks before, said, "Brother Richards, it was hard to see my daughter leave, but it is much harder to see you go." A brother old enough to be my own father, knelt down and kissed my hand an affectionate good-bye. As I closed my ministry, I shed tears all the way traveling from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, as I thought of how marvelously the Lord had sustained and blessed me, and what that mission meant to me.
Then President Lund made another statement I could not help thinking of today when we heard Brother Kirkham telling about the boy on the street corner in Boston bearing his testimony. President Lund said, "Boys, if you ever lack for words to speak when you are called upon, just arise and testify that you know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God and the Book of Mormon is true, and I promise you that you shall not want for words to speak." There isn't time to tell you how literally that was fulfilled. I remember one large conference held in Rotterdam where we had about fifteen hundred people present. Some of the leaders of the town came with their stovepipe hats and walking canes, and the mission president had promised me if I would take the minutes-I was secretary of the mission-he would not call on me to speak. Well, President Grant happened to be on the stand and he said, "Call Brother Richards next," and so I spoke unexpectedly. Now, I want to bear testimony to you here this day that the words of President Lund came to my mind, and I walked up to the pulpit and bore testimony to the restoration of the gospel, and the divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Lord did something for me that day; he lifted me up until I felt that the floor could have passed from under my feet, and I would still have been there preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Later, when some of our people were baptized and I happened to be in that baptismal service, they told me that my talk that night, which I knew came from the Lord, was the thing that started them on the way to investigate the gospel.
FUTURE MISSIONARIES
Now, brothers and sisters-there are sisters on the air-I know of nothing in this world that can do for your boys and girls what a mission can. Jesus said, "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent"; and there is no way I know of in the world where men can learn to know God as they can in the mission field. I have heard President Grant say that the experience of his life that he regarded as richer to him than any other in his Church work was the time he spent in Great Britain as a missionary.
I would like to recommend to the bishops this thought, that every boy in the Aaronic Priesthood who lives worthy to go on a mission, be interviewed by the bishop, for a mission call initiates with the bishop. Do not attempt to be the judge whether he is financially able to go or not until you have interviewed him in the presence of his parents. I have tried that. I remember in one home we did not think they could possibly send their boy. We told the mother-the father was not a member of the Church-All we knew was we would be proud to have their boy represent our ward in the mission field, but we did not know whether they had any rich uncles or aunts, or grandparents that could help or not, and the mother said, "Bishop, if you will call my boy on a mission I will see that he gets the money if I have to work every day he is gone to provide it." Now, brothers and sisters, I feel that if we promote this spirit, keep it alive in the hearts of our people it should not be difficult at all for us to have one percent of our ward population in the mission field. We proved this could be done in two wards where I had the privilege of presiding. We have some ten to fifteen percent in the armed forces. The boys will bless you forever for the privilege that comes to them; and if they cannot go they will be stronger Latter-day Saints, proud of the fact that their bishop had interviewed them and given them an opportunity to go.
God bless us to do all we can for our boys, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Harold B. Lee
Harold B. Lee, Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 164-167
When one is called as the last speaker at the end of the seventh session of a general conference, when thirty-three of the finest minds in the Church have spoken, he isn't concerned about what he may have planned to speak, but he is concerned only about saying in those few minutes allotted him what his Heavenly Father would like to have him say. That is my prayer in these few moments.
THE QUESTION OF A DYING WOMAN
I heard a story told from one of the war fronts where our advancing soldiers were going into the land of a people who were fleeing from the ruthless enemy. These people believed in and worshipped a pagan god. As the conquering army made up of the allied nations advanced toward the stricken town, they met long lines of refugees with few or no belongings, fleeing from the enemy. The chaplain was called to administer aid to an old lady who had fallen, unable to go farther. She was in her dying moments. He knelt at her side to administer physical and spiritual aid. He told her about the Savior of the world, how the Savior had come and died for mankind, how he came as the Prince of Peace and how he ministered among those who were sick, needy, and afflicted, how he organized a work that had become a great work. This work had gone throughout the world under the banner of Christianity. As he finished his story of comfort, as he thought, to this dying woman, she looked up at him with dying eyes and asked, "Where have you Christians been all this time?"
FACTORS IN HELPING OUR BOYS IN THE SERVICE
As I thought of that question I thought of a visit I had with two of our Latter-day Saint marines who had just come back from the terrible fighting over Tarawa and others of the islands of the Pacific. They had found themselves through all these trying times in company with twenty-five Latter-day Saint boys. One of these two boys had been set apart by Brother Brown as the M.I.A. group leader and had ministered as the leader and the father of the group. As he told me about these boys, he said, "We kept most of them clean and sweet, but there are some of them that have slipped away from us. They have taken up habits that have not been good. I felt it was my responsibility, and I have done what I could to save some of them." Then I asked them this question, "Tell me, you two who have lived among these boys, what is the reason that some of our boys have kept themselves straight and others of our boys have slipped away from us?" Let me tell you what they said without any hesitancy: "The boys who have kept themselves clean have had regular correspondence with their wards and their priesthood quorums, and the boys who have fallen away from us are the ones who have never had a letter from their priesthood quorums or from their ward bishop." As I heard this simple testimony to the rightness of the instruction that you heard from this stand when this war had only just begun, and when I remembered that the priesthood of Almighty God was the power given by him to more than two hundred thousand of us to work and act in his name for the salvation of the souls of men-I paraphrased the words of that dying old pagan woman, "Where have the priesthood quorums been all this time?" I am hopeful that our boys won't return home without having had their quorums make some contact and some tie to which they can come when they do return.
I think if we could sum up the feelings of our boys as they return to us and have them tell us what it was that kept them firm and steadfast, they would say two things: First, that they have had an interest in life, and second, that they have believed there was someone at home who was concerned about them.
I listened to a doctor recently who said that the medical journals reported that the boys who had become mentally unbalanced in large majority, were the boys who had broken homes, whose wives or sweethearts had been unfaithful at home.
We have heard much in this conference about our boys. We have heard but little about our girls. How much preparation are you making for the girl who has changed during this trying period? How much concerned are you that she will "come home"? And I am talking to the ones that live in your homes, for they, too, during this period, have gone through a most difficult time.
WORK BEING DONE BY L.D.S. SOLDIERS
Shall I tell you what the boys have been doing among themselves to keep going and to help each other to come back to the point of sanity and rehabilitation after they have been through the struggle of war? Perhaps if I can give you three things that they have told us repeatedly maybe you bishops, you priesthood quorum presidents, you stake presidents, will take from their lessons, something to help you to build on the foundation that must be builded upon for their salvation. In the first place, we don't know how the boys are coming back, nor what they will truly need. We are sure that when they come back they will be a little bit more of that which they were before they left. If they loved God and home and country a little before they went away, they will come back loving God still more and knowing him to be a reality, loving home more and with more faith. If they were boastful before they went into the war, they will come back unbearable braggarts. If they were inclined to immorality when they left us, they will come back slimy in their sinning, just as sure as we are here.
This is what they have done in their own little groups to try to help stabilize each other: In the first place, they have organized themselves into what they call ward teaching groups. At Fort Lowry, near Denver, down at Oak Knoll Hospital, for example, where our boys are coming back, they are sending out in pairs from their groups, those who are faithful, to visit the boys who will not come to their meetings, who have taken up habits that are keeping them out of sight. They talk to these boys and ask them, "Are you morally clean? Are you keeping the Word of Wisdom? Are you writing home to your parents? Are you true to your priesthood?" When I asked them, "Isn't that pretty plain language to talk to these boys," they replied, "But how are we going to help these boys if we don't know what is the matter with them?"
Are you as courageous, you ward teachers? Do you really want to help? Then you must do the kind of ward teaching that the Lord said we were to do, if you are to help. The next thing they do is to teach the gospel. They don't preach sermons in great generalities. They are searching into the scriptures. During these last few months, when I have had a somewhat intimate contact with the youth of the Church, I have found that they are hungry for the teachings of the gospel, and they tell me that rarely in the sacrament meetings where they attend do they hear the gospel taught to the members.
PREPARATION FOR RETURN HOME OF SOLDIERS
Now, if you want to help these boys when they come back, may I ask that you do like my little bishop friend who sits here on the front seat who came as a convert from another Church and who is now a bishop in one of our stakes? He says to speakers who come to his meetings, "We want speakers who come to our ward to preach the gospel. We would prefer you not come than to have you come and not preach the gospel to our people." May I urge that you take a leaf out of his book, and the books of our boys.
The third thing they are doing is to make sure that every boy of the group is given some responsibility in their group organization. Does that suggest anything to you? When these boys come home, will you take them to your hearts and see that they are given something to do, some activity that challenges their abilities and makes them feel they are a part of their Church community to which they want to belong, as quickly and as rapidly as possible?
God help us to understand these things and build the defense, the refuge from the storm that the Lord said a stake of Zion was expected to be, where before his judgments would descend in their mighty power, this people might build a protection from those storms of adversity.
May the Lord help us so to do I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1945, p. 167
We will now close what I am sure all of us will agree has been one of our great conferences, great in the teachings that have come to us and great in the high spirituality which has characterized it. We have heard much that we should remember and that if remembered and put into practice will make of us the people whom God designed that we should be.
I will close with reading the passage read by Brother Mark E. Petersen from Joshua:
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
God Grant that that may be the determination not only of us who are here but of every member of the Church. We send our greetings to President Grant and ask God to bless him with his choicest blessings.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 18-25
I wonder if anyone else here feels as weak and humble as the man who stands before you. I have been coming to this house since my infancy. I have seen all the Presidents of the Church since that time sustained by the congregation here, as their names have been presented from this stand. I have seen the Church continue to grow in numbers, and have realized throughout all my years that the Church of Jesus Christ is what its name implies. We who are members of this Church are indeed fortunate to have found the light and to have accepted the truth.
GROWTH OF THE CHURCH
In the year 1830, the Church was organized with six members. The adversary of all righteousness has from that day to the present sought to impede its progress and destroy it. I wonder if that great man, Joseph Smith, who gave his life that the Church might be organized and carried on as the Lord intended, can see the Church as it exists today, with its branches established in all parts of the world, and realize that each day since he was martyred, since he laid down his life and sealed his testimony with his blood, the Church has become stronger than the day before.
From this stand addresses have been delivered by some of the great teachers of the world. Some of the greatest students of the scriptures have explained the gospel from this stand, and men and women from everywhere have worshiped here. Yesterday, this house was apparently as full of the membership of the Women's Relief Society of the Church as it is today with both men and women together. Through that great organization, the Relief Society, begun by the Prophet Joseph, was given to womankind the dispensation of representing the Lord in their way as daughters, as wives, as mothers, and as representatives of their kind in all the world.
THE RESTORATION OF THE GOSPEL
We have had sustained here today various of the quorums of the priesthood, each one directed in its organization by our Heavenly Father. It was not a matter of personal wisdom on the part of individuals. In each case there was necessity for group organization, and as the Church grew and multiplied in numbers, the quorums have correspondingly increased until today in all parts of the world there are men divinely appointed, set apart, and endowed with divine authority, who state positively that they know whereof they speak when they testify that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, who died that we might all live. The Church that he organized in his day represented his Father and himself in all the parts of the world where it was established. In our day, by the direction of Jesus Christ our Lord, this Church was organized. It wasn't organized from just the imagination of men and women. There came a necessity that the priesthood of the living God be restored. A youth was selected to begin the work. When he was less than fifteen years of age, Joseph Smith lived at or near Palmyra, New York state, on a little farm. He was confused about what he should do, or which church he should join. The various denominations in that community were holding revival meetings and one group was saying, "This is the way," and another, "This is the way," until he, being of a naturally religious turn of mind, having lived in a home where the Bible, the holy scripture, was read, found in one passage of James:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
THE COMING FORTH OF THE BOOK OF MORMON
Although a boy fourteen years of age, he went into the woods near his home, into one of God's first temples, bowed down upon the ground, and asked the Lord in his confusion, "Which of these churches shall I join?" I have no doubt he was surprised when the answer came to him, "Join none of them." And then he was told that if he would obey the direction of our Heavenly Father, an important mission would be given for him to perform under divine direction. That was not the idea of a man who desired to deceive; it was the humble, simple faith of a boy. So he continued following the inspiration of the Lord. He continued carrying out the directions that were given to him by holy beings, the result of which was the uncovering in the Hill Cumorah of the golden plates from which the Book of Mormon, the history of the ancestors of the American Indians, was translated and published. Since then that book has been carried to the ends of the world, having been published in many languages. He was only a young man when that occurred. When the time came for its publication, he was ridiculed. People derided him and called him a money digger because he worked for a living and had to earn that living part of the time digging in the earth. But they didn't look upon him as a servant of the Lord; neither did the majority of the people in the days of the Savior accept Jesus Christ of Nazareth as a servant of the Lord. The great majority rejected Christ and rejected each of his followers who became members of the quorum of the Twelve.
Joseph Smith persisted in his work; and when the Book of Mormon was finally about to come from the press, after having been translated through the gift and power of God, for it was in a language unknown to him, the people in the neighborhood of Palmyra agreed that they would not buy it, thinking that they would thwart the bringing forth of the book. They supposed that their refusal to purchase it would make impossible the completion of its publication.
There had been written in that book at the time of its compilation the statement that the book would be received by many people. Joseph Smith didn't eliminate that statement when it came to publication. When the people said, "We'll not read it," he did not take it out and say, "Well, I can't fulfill this." If he had been writing the book himself, he probably would have changed the script, but it was not his script, and so it went to the world. I was present a few years ago when the Smith farm near the Hill Cumorah was purchased, and as I went through the neighborhood I found only one copy of the Book of Mormon. That was owned by a man named Pliny T. Sexton, who was chancellor of the University of New York and the banker at Palmyra. He had a copy of the first edition of the Book of Mormon as it came from the press. The leaves had never been cut, and he kept it in the safe in the bank. I asked him, "Is there any place here where I can find another copy of the Book of Mormon?" He said, "I do not know." I then began to inquire among the people and found that the people of Palmyra had kept their word. They had neither bought nor would they read it. At that time Palmyra was a village and is still a village, but the Book of Mormon that was discredited then has since been read and accepted by people in all parts of the earth, people from many nations, numbering hundreds of thousands, and the work is still going forward, fulfilling the prediction that it was to be made
... known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world; and that all men must come unto him, or they cannot be saved
THE SAINTS MOVED FROM PLACE TO PLACE
Men may conspire to prevent the work of the Lord, as they have done when they are prompted by the adversary, but his work has continued to grow from that day until the present time. As the Church grew, the people were compelled to move from their smaller places. Palmyra became too small, and they moved to Kirtland, Ohio. That became undesirable, so they moved into Missouri, from which state they were banished by the edict of the governor, and many of them laid down their lives as martyrs to the cause. The people then passed across the Mississippi River into the state of Illinois. In fewer than seven years that group of people, led by the youthful Prophet who had now grown to be a man, erected buildings and a magnificent temple which was the finest building in its day in the state of Illinois. In less than seven years Nauvoo became the largest city in the state, regardless of persecution and everything that was done to prevent the growth of the gospel of Jesus Christ that the adversary could inspire, including murder and every other wrong that goes with it.
PROPHECY REGARDING SETTLEMENT IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
At that time Springfield was a city of about twelve thousand and Chicago had a population of about five thousand. The Prophet of the Lord prophesied one day:
... the Saints would continue to suffer much affliction and would be driven to the Rocky Mountains; many would apostatize; others would be put to death by our persecutors, or lose their lives in consequence of exposure or disease, and some of them would live to go and assist in making settlements and build cities and see the Saints become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains.
Think of such a prediction at that time. The Saints were then four or five hundred miles east from where Omaha now is, and Omaha is approximately a thousand miles from the Salt Lake Valley. For the Prophet of God to say that they would be driven from there and go fifteen hundred miles into the wilderness, and there become a mighty people was a remarkable statement indeed. Has that prophecy been fulfilled? Our presence here today attests that it has.
REVELATION ON THE WORD OF WISDOM
I could, if I had time, open to you the D&C; containing the prophecies, the revelations of God to the Prophet Joseph Smith, and show that one by one they have been fulfilled, not by Joseph Smith's power but by the power of God. In referring to the advice and counsel contained in the eighty-ninth section of the D&C;, the Lord made this promise:
And all saints who remember to keep and do these things, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones; And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures.
While Joseph Smith might write those words, he couldn't fulfill that promise. I stand here today as one of the humblest among you, as the result of the observance of the requirements of that revelation and other commandments that God has given. Observance of that commandment has placed the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the tops of these everlasting mountains in a class by themselves. Not only do we have the lowest death rate of any people in all the world, but we also have a high birth rate as well. That was the promise that was given by the Lord in the days of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Lord said that the destroying angels should pass by us and not slay us if we kept his counsel. What has been another result? The age of men and women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has increased until the average term of life among us is longer than among any other people in the world.
Another promise: The Lord said that he would give to those who would keep this word of wisdom, "great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures". I refer you to the February, 1944, number of The Improvement Era wherein was published a graph showing the relative position of the states of the Union as to the number of scientists born in those states in proportion to population. Strange as it may seem, if you began at the lower corner of that graph and followed up state by state, you would come to the state of Massachusetts next to the highest on the graph, yet you would not have reached the state of Utah. You have to go twenty percent points higher up the graph to find Utah, the state that has produced more scientists born within its borders per capita than any other state in the American Union. That wasn't an accident; it was a fulfilment of the promise of God as a result of observance of the Lord's commandments. And so I call attention this morning to the fact that when we do represent our Heavenly Father in the way that he has desired, these blessings follow and are not an accident. They are the direct fulfilment of God's promises through his Prophet.
A PROMISE MADE AS A REWARD FOR LOYALTY
And so today, my brethren, standing here in humility before you, I would like to express to you my gratitude that you have seen fit to promise that you will help the humble man who has been called to preside over this Church as he strives to carry on by the inspiration of the Almighty. For this promise I am grateful, and I thank you that you have offered to do the same thing with regard to the two men who stand by my side as counselors, loyal and true and devoted Latter-day Saints, who have done everything to make my responsibility easier for me to carry. You voted to sustain the Quorum of the Twelve, the quorum that I belonged to for so many years that I felt like a stranger, almost, when I walked out of it to occupy the position as President of the Church.
And so I might go on with all these quorums. You have held up your hands in the presence of God to sustain this body of men in the leadership of the Church. I assure you that if you will fulfill your promise, the blessings of our Heavenly Father will abide with you and in your homes and with your loved ones, and Zion will continue to grow and spread abroad, and the truth will be carried to every land and clime and the power of the priesthood will be made manifest among our Father's children in many places where it has never yet even been heard. You men who are here, or who hold the priesthood, have that responsibility, and as one of the number, I would like to say, we can't let our own personal affairs stand in the way. If the call comes for us to divide the gospel of Jesus Christ with our Father's other children, it will be our privilege as well as our duty to put our own affairs in order, and like Joseph Smith and the men who began with the Church in the early days, go where we may be called to go. One of our departed brethren, Melvin J. Ballard, used to sing so beautifully, "I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord; I'll be what you want me to be." That's the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Great is the joy that comes into the hearts of the men and the women who devote themselves to doing what our Heavenly Father desires them to do.
PRAISE FOR THE WOMEN OF THE CHURCH
I would like to say to this great body of priesthood, you are fortunate men if you have been blessed with a good wife, a daughter of God, to stand by your side. And I want to say to you that God loves her just as much as he loves you. If you would have his blessings, you will treat her with love and kindness and tenderness and helpfulness. She will then be able to carry on under the responsibilities that come to her to bring children into the world and nurture and care for them and teach them the plan of life and salvation. And so I plead with you, my brethren, let your homes be the abiding place of love, and the authority that you bear should magnify that love in your soul and in the lives of your wives and your children.
Yesterday this house was filled with the daughters of Zion, and I say without hesitation that you could find no more beautiful picture of womankind in all the world than was here yesterday afternoon. These faithful wives, these faithful daughters, assume their portion of the burden and carry it on. They make their homes a heaven when sometimes without them the homes would be anything but heaven.
So today, my brethren, I feel to say to you, grateful am I for membership in this Church. Thankful am I that I have lived among this people. I want to express my gratitude to hundreds of you who are here today for the courtesies and the hospitality that many of you have extended to me. I realize that it is not because of the man that you have extended these courtesies, but because he represented the Lord as his humble servant. You have earned your blessing and will continue to have it for all your kind deeds extended to his servants.
WORK OF EARLY DAY LEADERS
Now, as I stand here I realize that those who gave their lives in the early rise of the Church, including Joseph Smith and Hyrum, his brother, could have run away from the danger that threatened them. They knew, however, that that was not the thing their Heavenly Father desired. So they remained behind, after having finished their work; and under the leadership and direction of the Prophet, who by the way was the younger of the two brothers, builded a temple to God on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River in the beautiful city of Nauvoo, and they built it to completion far enough so that the ordinances of the Holy Priesthood were administered, and marriage for eternity was consummated therein. And since the erection of the Nauvoo Temple, the same blessings given there have followed in the other temples to the number of nine. Think of it, my brethren. Beginning only a comparatively few years ago with six members, day by day the work of God has gone forward among the children of men. No longer are the Latter-day Saints despised as they used to be, because the adversary had misrepresented them, but they are now respected by great and good men everywhere because of what has been accomplished. We could not have made these achievements except that our Heavenly Father had made it possible for us to do it. So, we ought to be thankful this day.
I ask that the Lord may take us to our homes when we have finished our labors with this conference, and that each of us will go back to the roof that shelters us, wherever it may be, with the renewed determination that God, being our helper, we will prove worthy of him in whose image we have been created. If we will do that, there will radiate from our very presence, wherever we go, a power of righteousness, and the communities in which we live will be blessed thereby.
GRATITUDE FOR BLESSINGS
I am grateful to these wonderful organizations, without naming them, that have carried their part of the responsibility. You voted for the leadership of these here today. I am grateful for the Tabernacle choir and the other glorious choirs that we have throughout the Church. This marvelous Tabernacle choir and organ that hold forth every Sabbath day have preached the gospel to the ends of the earth, because its program has been carried everywhere And then we have the Singing Mothers of the Relief Society. They not only do what the Lord desires them to do in their lives, but they sing praises to him and teach others to do the same.
How blessed we are in this house, sanctified to God by the teachings that have been given here by righteous men and women. Here we are today, not as a conglomerate community, but as a band of brothers and sisters, worshiping at the same shrine, praying to the same God, living the same gospel, keeping our homes under the supervision of the same spirit. I don't know how any one of us can enjoy these blessings without having his feelings exalted and from the depths of his soul thank him who bestows upon us all our blessings.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may continue his favor; that peace, comfort, and satisfaction may abide in your homes; that these men who are in the various mission fields of the earth, may be magnified before the people and exercise the authority that has been conferred upon them to build, not destroy, but to build a better world that our Heavenly Father will be delighted to honor and to bless because of its righteousness The Lord bless you in your missionary fields of labor, and all of you men in your various callings, all you women in your homes and abiding places, and the organizations with which you are identified. May the Lord bestow every blessing, and I pray that his spirit may continue with us today, henceforth and forever; and when the time comes that we shall stand before the Great Judge, where we all will report some day, that we will find our record of such a character that the Lord will say to us,
... Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
l pray that this may be our blessing and the blessing of every soul that we can influence by lives of righteousness and worthy example, all of which I ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Elder George F. Richards
George F. Richards, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 25-29
I feel very humble in undertaking to address this large congregation, but I have the assurance by your vote that you are my friends. If I have any enemies, I do not know of them. If I have done anything to injure any person. I am very sorry for it. If anybody has done anything in an effort to injure me, I cheerfully forgive him and pray God's blessings upon him. If any of us have done any wrong, I trust that we will discover it and repent of our sins and receive that Spirit from the Lord, the Holy Ghost, which brings peace to our souls, notwithstanding what may be going on about us.
EXPRESSIONS OF GRATITUDE
For thirty-nine and a half years, brethren and sisters, you have been sustaining me as a member of the Council of the Twelve in your semi-annual and annual general conferences and in your quarterly conferences in the stakes. I appreciate this, of course. Great kindness has been extended unto me and now today you have expressed your willingness still to sustain me as a member of the Council and President of the Council of the Twelve. I appreciate this greatly.
I am thankful with you for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, for its restoration to the earth in these last days and for membership in the Church and for the blessings that we have received under the gospel. Everything is offered unto us that our Father in heaven has to give, if only we will be faithful as we have covenanted to do when we entered the waters of baptism into this Church.
TITHING A TEST OF FAITHFULNESS
I had thought that I might be privileged to speak at this conference, and I have thought to speak about a very important subject pertaining to the gospel of Jesus Christ, one that is dear to the hearts of faithful Latter-day Saints. I refer to the law of the tithe, which is the revenue law of the Church. When a member of the Church pays a full tithing, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he is in the favor of the Lord. It is an opportunity to us, brethren and sisters, to show to the Lord that we are willing to make sacrifices for the accomplishment of his mighty purposes in the earth, the saving of the souls of the children of men, for the tithes of the Church are a potent means of accomplishing that end. Those of us who have paid our tithing in full have done our full share in all that has been accomplished by the use of the tithing of the Church. Tithing is a test of the faith of the members of the Church. He is fortunate indeed whose faith has sustained him in meeting the obligation of the tithe. There are great blessings attached to the faithful observance of this law, and for neglect to pay tithing there are serious consequences attached.
THE WORD OF THE LORD
For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?
Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.
And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.
I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, my very handiwork; and all things therein are mine.
And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine. But it must needs be done in mine own way; and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.
For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.
Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.
The law of the tithe is as old, as just, and as true as any others of the laws of God. It has come to us by revelation as a part of the gospel restoration, and in fulfilment of the prophecies of the holy scriptures.
And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
A JUST LAW
It is God's own plan of distribution of the financial responsibilities of his Church. It exacts nothing that is unreasonable, unjust, or impossible, hence there can be no justification for non-compliance therewith. The law of tithing in the Church is regarded as being of such importance, as a test of faith, that a member who does not believe and practice it as a divine law is not accounted as being worthy of receiving the priesthood and temple blessings or occupying a position of presidency in any of the organizations.
The building up of the kingdom of God is a common cause in which we, as Latter-day Saints, are engaged. Each person anticipating an eternal inheritance therein should be willing to do his part according to his means. That is all the Lord has asked of us in giving to us the law of the tithe. A good member of any organization with which he may be affiliated will willingly bear his just proportion of the expense in its maintenance. We would not like to be known otherwise than as good members of the Church to which we belong.
In this connection, we might with profit be reminded of the experience of Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, of old, and not withhold any portion of our tithing from the Lord. If to do so would cause us to lose our faith and standing in the Church, it would be more serious than that which befell Ananias and Sapphira for a similar offense. In many instances the desire to get wealth militates against the payment of tithing.
The Lord understood that propensity in man and warned against it:
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
The Lord requires our undivided affection, our whole heart.
... Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
QUOTATIONS FROM MANY SOURCES
Quoting from "Gems of Thought" by George W. Brown, Rev. Dr. John Wesley Duncan says:
If the tithe is not a present obligation, not in force, then we reply the scriptures are meaningless in their teaching on the subject; and furthermore, if this be not God's plan for financing his kingdom, he has no plan.
Rev. E. M. Runyon says:
The man who religiously tithes his income is a doubly converted man. Tithing weans him away from covetousness, which in scripture is classed along with stealing, adultery and drunkenness, in its power to alienate a man from God.
John H. Holliday says:
One of the plainest teachings of the word of God is the obligation of stewardship. Over and over again it is enjoined upon man as a duty under all circumstances. We are to give not only our substance, but our time, and our talents. God claims all. They are his gift to us. What he entrusts to us is to be used for his kingdom and his glory. With these commandments go promises of rich rewards that are received by those who obey, as myriads here and above can attest. The systematic giving that the tithe compels is full of blessing. It gives one the ability to have something always for a deserving object. It cuts out the roots of selfishness. It nourishes the virtues of brotherly love and helpfulness. It realizes the privilege of being a co-worker with God, and it creates that cheerfulness in the giver that makes God love him. How wonderful that we can endear ourselves to the great God in such a simple way. How wicked and foolish if we do not.
Harry Whitcomb says:
While the tithe would fill a long-felt want, and abundantly finance all the great enterprises of the church, that is not why we should tithe. The reason why we must tithe is because the word of God clearly commands it... God might have annulled the law of the tithe by the word of him who came "Not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it," but instead Jesus laid a tremendous emphasis, and an untold weight of obligation on the old law, when he said that men ought to tithe. How that ponderous "ought" from Jesus' lips should thunder in our ears, and in our hearts, and in our consciences.
I quote from The Deseret News of September 23, 1915:
The Baptist state convention concludes its annual sessions this evening, after an eventful and pleasant meeting with an attendance gratifying to those in charge. A feature of today was an address by the Rev. Dr. L. S. Bowerman, pastor of the Immanuel Baptist Church of this city, on "Tithing, the Minimum Basis of Giving." He strongly advocated the ten percent tithing system, as it obtained in the Mormon Church, remarking, incidentally, "We ought to be as fully religious as the Mormons." "Since the days of Abraham, a thousand years before Moses was born," said Dr. Bowerman, "the tithing system was inaugurated, and so took the precedence of the Mosaic law."
The speaker traced the history of the tithing system through the Old Testament, and showed its endorsement in the New Testament, closing his address by showing the promises of God to the individual and the nation who paid their tithing to his service and for his cause, that they should prosper in the end not only in the goods of this world, but as recipients of spiritual blessings. Dr. Bowerman's address was very well received and was considered one of the most scholarly addresses of the convention.
Rev. A. N. Fisher of Pasadena, California, said that:
While the Methodist Church has not adopted the tithing system to raise funds for its support, the plan was sanctioned at the national convention of Methodists which was recently held in Indianapolis. Mr. Fisher said that this system was right and successful inasmuch as the church now employing it is in most satisfactory financial circumstances. The plan, he declared, appealed to the 3,700 delegates to the convention. It was, he stated, the most representative gathering ever held in the interests of the Methodist Church.
LATTER-DAY TEACHINGS AS TO TITHING
The Church of Christ is destined to bless the whole world by reforming it. It will eventually correct all the great evils of society and lift mankind to a higher level, physically, morally, and spiritually. It is a worthy cause in which to be engaged and for which to spend our means and talents. It is the greatest reform movement of the age. It is bound to succeed, for it is founded upon true principles revealed anew from heaven. Those who aid in its establishment and growth shall surely share in the happiness and satisfaction, as well as the honor and glory of such a mighty work.
The poor receive assistance from the tithes, and to withhold the tithing defeats that part of God's plan.
Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
But he that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned.
Who am I that made man, saith the Lord, that will hold him guiltless that obeys not my commandments?.
Behold, now it is called today until the coming of the Son of Man, and verily it is a day of sacrifice, and a day for the tithing of my people; for he that is tithed shall not be burned at his coming.
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
President Joseph F. Smith said:
There are other books which not only credit what has been paid, but show what ought to have been paid.
Does our tithing account balance?
President Heber J. Grant made this statement:
I desire the resignation of every man presiding over the people who does not believe in the law of tithing.
He that receiveth my law and doeth it, the same is my disciple; and he that saith he receiveth it and doeth it not, the same is not my disciple, and shall be cast out from among you.
And I give unto you a commandment... that ye shall live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God.
Be diligent in keeping all my commandments, lest judgments come upon you, and your faith fail you, and your enemies triumph over you.
May the Lord bless you, my brethren and sisters, and all of us, with faith to pay our tithing honestly, to give our offerings generously, and to maintain our integrity to the truth and help carry on the work to the end, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, October 1945, p. 30
There is time only for a word.
Today I have, by my uplifted hand, witnessed to President Smith, to you, and to the Lord, that I will sustain him as prophet, seer, and revelator, and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Each of you has made a like covenant. The Lord has said, "... if ye are not one ye are not mine". God give to each and every one of us the strength and the power to be loyal, to give up faultfinding, to give up trying to find new ways, to obey the commandments of the Lord-to obey those whom you have yourselves sustained to lead you, for without unity in leadership there cannot be progress and this Church cannot be built up. God give to all of us the power to do this, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph F. Smith
Joseph F. Smith, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 31-33
For the time allotted to me this afternoon I pray that I may have an interest in your prayers that I may bear my testimony to our mutual benefit.
There are occasions, great occasions which come to us, which we would fain share with our brethren and sisters.
A MEMORABLE OCCASION
It is frequently said that the Lord has raised up a particular man to perform a particular mission. Everyone of us here has heard that discussed and has heard how the peculiar talents of each of the presidents of the Church have been of a special value during his respective mission. I wish that all the members of the Church could have witnessed the council meeting wherein the Presidency was reorganized. If ever there was a time when the Spirit of the Lord was indubitably manifest, it was on that occasion. Everyone present thrilled to it. Everyone present was aware, beyond doubt, of the absolute rightness of it.
It is not for me to say what particular mission President George Albert Smith has ahead of him. This I do know, however, that at this particular time in the world's history, never was the need for love among brethren so desperately needed as it is needed today. Furthermore, I do know this, that there is no man of my acquaintance who loves the human family, collectively and individually, more profoundly than does President George Albert Smith. Those two things coming in conjunction, the need for love, his presidency at this time, have for me at least, peculiar significance. And I should like this afternoon to be remembered as saying just this-We must love one another, and we must do more than that.
LOVE FOR FELLOW MEN THE NEED OF THE WORLD
The Savior told us what the two great commandments were. At another time he went beyond loving one's neighbor, at least he became more specific on another occasion:
But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
A little later on he continues:
For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.
In a world seething with hatred, in a world calling for harsh government of vanquished people, I hope that the Latter-day Saints can remember that we must love our enemies. There are those who say, "But we must be practical. It is no time for sentimentality. We must face facts." With that I heartily agree. We must face facts. We must be practical, and I bear you my testimony that the only practicality which will bring peace to the world is that we shall love our fellow men.
THE MEANING OF FREEDOM
So much has been talked about liberty; so much has been said about fighting for freedom. What good is the winning of battles if we shall negate them by acts of unwarranted hatred? About this matter of freedom, I should like to say this regarding personal responsibility: too many people think of freedom in terms of license. Freedom is not the right to do as one "jolly well" pleases. Freedom stops for someone when someone else commits an act detrimental to his neighbor. I have no right to any conduct which would impede the progress of my neighbor. I have no right to any act which would take the freedom from someone else. And that thought carried a little further is of tremendous significance to the Latter-day Saints. This is a missionary Church. Upon us rests the responsibility of crying the gospel to the world because only by it can peace and liberty come.
THE POWER OF EXAMPLE
It is very easy sometimes for Latter-day Saints to say, "What I do is my own business. If I break the Word of Wisdom a little bit, that's my business." There is no such thing as strictly private conduct. A Latter-day Saint, in a careless moment, may perform a thoughtless act which will stand in the way of someone else's accepting the gospel. I know of one little branch in the mission field that had been built up laboriously, and that little branch was all but destroyed by a careless act of a thoughtless missionary. It is well for us to take careful stock of any projected action, no matter how seemingly trivial, and ask ourselves. "If I do this, if anybody sees me do this, will it discourage his faith in the gospel of Christ?"
How tragic to have someone interested in the gospel, on his way in the path of investigation, see a Latter-day Saint violate one of his ideals, and then say, "If that's Mormonism, I want none of it. If they preach one thing and do another, I want none of it." Brethren and sisters, every one of us will be held responsible for any act which proves to be a stumbling block to someone else. We have no right to such conduct. Yes, we have the power to choose; we have the power to do, but we have no right to conduct which would discourage someone else from obtaining the blessings which come through faith and obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is easy in the modern tempo of living to be careless. It is easy to be unwise. It is easy to speak harshly. Let's take thought as Latter-day Saints; let's be contributors to peace. Let's be brethren. Let's love one another and remember that love can be deliberately developed. It can be cultivated through service. You love those whom you serve. Parents love children more than children love parents because the parents do more for the children. Their love grows out of service. If you would love a man, do something for him.
I pray that we may be Latter-day Saints. Bear in mind, ours is the responsibility to carry the message to the world, not merely by word of mouth, but by every act and the manner of every action which is perceived by others.
I pray that the Lord will help us to live according to his word, that we may love each other, that we may be just, that we may even learn to love our enemies, that we may so live that people observing our lives will be encouraged in their faith, and I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Bishop LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 36-39
My brothers and sisters, it is a wonderful privilege to be able to attend this conference with you today. I thank the Lord for membership in this great Church.
THE "PEARL OF GREAT PRICE"
When Jesus was among men, he said that the gospel was the pearl of great price, and one seeking goodly pearls would sell all that he had in order that he might acquire the pearl of great price. I thank God that I possess this pearl of great price through having membership with you in this great Church. And then Jesus indicated that if we would seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness that all other things would be added unto us. Not that we seek last, that we give him the crumbs that fall, as it were, from the Master's table, but that we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and I thank the Lord that there are so many faithful Latter-day Saints who are seeking first the kingdom and they are enjoying the gifts and the blessings of the Lord which are above all other riches in this world.
KEEPING UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD
One of the means by which we can increase our spirituality and appreciation of the gospel is by doing what the Lord has suggested in a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith:
And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day.
Is there any true Latter-day Saint who would not like to keep himself more unspotted from the world? Is there any father or mother in Israel who would not like his or her sons and daughters to keep themselves unspotted from the world? We have been greatly impressed by the letters we have received from our boys and girls away from home during this war-how they have traveled, in many cases in jeeps, for miles in order that they might meet with a few more of our boys and girls, and these letters have indicated the joy that these boys and girls have had when they could meet together. These letters have convinced us that such meetings have contributed largely to the ability of our boys and girls to go out into the world of men, wicked as it is, and keep themselves unspotted from the world.
Jesus said:
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Wouldn't you like to go where he is? Wouldn't you like your children to go where he is, where they can visit with him through his holy spirit and feel his power? For I do know that when men and women meet together in his name, there he is present at least by the power of his holy spirit.
While I was attending a stake conference a short time ago a bishop handed me a copy of a letter written by a young man from Normandy just following D-Day, where he had been engaged in the conflict, and in substance he said to his bishop: "Bishop, when I was home I didn't bother you very much. I never came to your church, but when I come back I am serving notice on you now that I want a reserved seat, and I will always be there to occupy it." Well, he did not come back. He fell in action, but methinks that in the heavens above the heavenly hosts would recognize the expressed wish of that boy.
IMPORTANCE OF ATTENDANCE AT SACRAMENT MEETINGS
Brothers and sisters, I think there is nothing more important, if we would find joy and peace and the happiness the gospel has to give, than that we as Latter-day Saints form the habit of attending our sacrament meetings and taking our children with us. I think the Church has a right to expect that of its leaders. I think the Lord expects it of us. It always grieves me if I hear someone say, "Well, he or she is a general board member, a member of the high council, a member of some ward in a position of responsibility, and he does not attend sacrament meetings." I tell you we just cannot live our lives alone, either. We need the blessings that come from meeting together, and we need to set the example to those who are about us, for as with the priest so with the people, and the people are likely to follow if we set the example and point the way.
Jeremiah of old, speaking of our day said:
Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
Many of us have spent many years of our lives inviting backsliding Israel, the children of God, to come to Zion, and when they arrive here they find out how marvelous is the organization of the Church and the priesthood quorums and the auxiliaries that Brother Kirkham has been speaking of, which the Lord has provided to feed them with knowledge and understanding if they will only come and attend their meetings; but if they do not attend their meetings, how can the Lord feed them with knowledge and understanding as he has promised?
I remember reading the remarks of President Grant where he said he knew Saints in foreign lands who would walk miles to be able to attend a sacrament meeting because they loved the truth and they loved the Church; and when they came here that love waxed cold and they would not even walk across the street; and then he indicated that just as the body without food will wither and die so also will the spirit of man wither and die without spiritual food. And I could not help thinking of the words of Jesus. After he had fasted forty days,, the devil came to tempt him and pointing to the stones said:
... If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
But Jesus rebuked him in the words of Isaiah, saying:
... It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
We must go where the words of God are to be heard if we would not wither and die spiritually.
Brigham Young said:
Whether we be poor or rich, if we neglect our prayers and our sacrament meetings, we neglect the Spirit of the Lord, and a spirit of darkness comes over us.
We do not want to neglect our prayers; we do not want to neglect attendance at our sacrament meetings. We do not want a spirit of darkness to come over us. I want to bear testimony to you Latter-day Saints, as a result of my own experience and training, and that of my children, that I know of no better way that we can keep the spirit of God burning in our souls and in their souls than by attending sacrament meetings. When I walked out of our fast meeting one day with my son, who was a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood, he turned to me and said, "Daddy, if the bishop had not announced the closing song just when he did, I could not have kept my seat another minute." And I thanked the Lord that my boy was there to feel that spirit and that power, for
... where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
When I think of how marvelously the Lord has provided for our spiritual growth and edification and advancement, and how dilatory some of us are in accepting his invitation, I feel, as I imagine Alma did, of old, when he said:
O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth.
that I might be able to make the Saints realize the importance of their responsibilities in these matters. I wonder when Jesus does meet according to his promise, and there are groups of two or three where there might be tens or hundreds, if he does not feel as he did when he stood overlooking Jerusalem and cried out,
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not!.
Then he adds:
Behold your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
May we accept his invitation, mingle with the Saints, strengthen the wards in their meetings where we reside, that we may not have a spirit of darkness come over us and that our houses may not be left desolate unto us.
May God bless this great Church and kingdom and all its members, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Harold B. Lee
Harold B. Lee, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 45-49
I desire to bear testimony this afternoon, my brethren and sisters, to the great work in which we are engaged, that it is the work of our Father and that those who preside as the Presidency of the Church are prophets, seers, and revelators of whom the Lord has said he would do nothing save he would reveal his secrets to them. In this day, a day perhaps when the youth of the Church have been faced with the greatest problems with which the youth of any age have been faced, particularly so in this dispensation, it is not a mere coincidence that there should come to the Presidency of the Church a man who in our day has had more to do with presiding over youth organizations than any other man. He brings a wealth of experience that to me augurs a program of care and attention to the problems of youth, the like of which we need greatly this day.
A NEW APPRECIATION FROM SERVICE MEN
There came to our hands recently a resolution passed by a group of our servicemen who were in the European theater of war. They styled this document which they had prepared and had agreed upon, "A New Appreciation," and this is the way it read in part:
Out of a world of chaos and confusion, out of the hopeless depths of a universal catastrophe spring new convictions, a new appreciation for the finer virtues of life. We left a world where certain fundamental truths were accepted lightly, where our thoughts and actions were characterized by a tendency to be too proud and a little arrogant. We have been guilty of appraising the desirability of a girl by the standards established by a judge in a Hollywood beauty contest. Perhaps some of us have been more guilty than others but we have all been guilty. Last Sunday in a meeting we openly confessed that regrettable error; we asked forgiveness of all we may have neglected by that total misconception. We think we can speak for the greater percentage of L.D.S. servicemen all over the world when we say that through this new inlet God has given us the true light of real beauty. A girl is beautiful when her virtue cannot be questioned, when her stability and faith in the Church is steadfast. A girl is beautiful when she is sincere and humble, when she looks upon a child with affection, or upon a sufferer with compassion. She is beautiful because she has a smile and a cheerful word for her associates. Beauty does not lie in the face alone but rather it is measured by character and the sweetness of her disposition, as we expect it to be. But you can be sure of one thing, those of us who are yet single and have the desire for the companionship of a beautiful girl will be going to the Mutual Improvement Association to find her. We have traveled to many different parts of the world and such travel has only tended to convince us more thoroughly than ever that our greatest hope for complete happiness lies in Zion. There we can rest assured the girls are beautiful.
As I read that lofty sentiment, coming from out of the world where quite the opposite is found on every side, I thanked my Heavenly Father that these sons of Zion were holding up a standard and an ensign of moral purity to the world. If the faithful daughters of Zion were called upon, they would echo back that sentiment to these sons, and would say that if the young men of the Church are to measure up to the standards of the girls they must come home and bring to the marriage altar minds and bodies that are as clean and pure as the servicemen expect of their companions here. To true Latter-day Saint girls, far more to be desired than wealth and handsome profile is a young man who is virtuous, who is honest, who has integrity and is true to the teachings of the gospel.
As I think of our young people thus expressing themselves, I am mindful that they are heeding the words of our Father who gave us a divine injunction in these words:
Verily I say unto you all: Arise and shine forth, that thy light may be a standard for the nations.
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CHOICE
Clearly it was the intent of our Heavenly Father that this, our day, was to be a day of demonstration of the power and effectiveness of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the lives of all who are to be members of his Church. This likewise according to the scriptures, has evidently been his purpose, concerning his chosen people in every dispensation. To the unembodied spirits, so the scriptures record, the Lord said:
... We will go down,... and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God command them.
Father Lehi explained to his son that in order to accomplish that eternal purpose there must be opposition in all things, and that to every individual upon the earth there had to be given the right of free agency and also that there must be in the world the power to entice to do evil and the power to entice to do good.
In the spirit world there were some who were valiant-more valiant than others-in choosing to do good, and thus they became the noble and great ones of whom the Lord said, "These I will make my rulers", and so in this earth, coming through a chosen lineage, those noble and great ones are expected, as members of the Church and kingdom of God in every age, to be rulers of the world of sin and wickedness.
It was of the same responsibility that the Master spoke to his disciples when he said:
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Indeed he declared that his chosen children would be known by their works:
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit... Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
THE CHURCH OF CHRIST TO BE A LIGHT TO THE WORLD
To Noah the Lord declared that because all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth, that he proposed to destroy man from the face of the earth. So, in a lesser degree, in every dispensation, the Lord has commanded that if members of his Church, having taken upon them his name, should sin grievously and refuse to repent, they should be cut out from among his people, lest they be a stumbling block to the world. To continue all such in membership would be to reflect discredit and dishonor upon the work of our Heavenly Father.
The Lord has told us that his purpose in sending to us, in this dispensation, the everlasting covenant was that it would
... be a light to the world, and to be a standard for my people, and for the gentiles to seek to it, and to be a messenger before my face to prepare the way before me.
Hundreds of years ago the Prophet Isaiah saw our day and prophesied of it:
... the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.
Obviously that prophecy had reference to the Lord's covenant children in this dispensation who were to be as a leaven to the world, to lead them to that glorious day of peace when men should "beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks" and when nations would learn of war no more.
WORDS OF WARNING AND BLESSING
The Lord spoke of this our day of terrible conflict as a day when the whole world would seem to be in commotion, but he counseled his people,
Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord.
And then he comforted his people with these words:
And the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come unto it, and it shall be called Zion.
And again he has said concerning the blessing that would come to the faithful in his day:
Mine indignation is soon to be poured out without measure upon all nations; and this will I do when the cup of their iniquity is full. And in that day all who are found upon the watch-tower, or in other words, all mine Israel, shall be saved... Therefore, let your hearts be comforted concerning Zion; for all flesh is in mine hands; be still and know that I am God.
Against the daily temptations that come to influence us to live below the standards that we profess and teach, the Lord admonishes us first with a blessing as he has said to his disciples:
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.... for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
And then he warns us:
Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.
While it becomes us to seek the good will of righteous men and women everywhere, it is well for us to remember that when the lewd, the immoral, and the corrupt begin to compliment us and to curry favor with us, that we had better begin to examine ourselves to see if we are doing our full duty. The Apostle Peter said to the Saints in his day:
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Our failure to be a "peculiar" people in maintaining our standards, despite the jeers and the criticisms of the crowd, will be our failure to be chosen for that calling to which we are called.
The Lord has told us,
Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen.
And then in the same revelation points out two reasons why men fail of their blessings. The first reason he gives is that their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and the second is that they aspire so much to the honors of men. So then as Church members let us beware lest we set our hearts upon the things of this world and lest we aspire so much to the honors of men that we compromise our standards. If we do so, we will be cut off in the day of judgment and will lose our blessings. Our reward for daring to live the gospel despite the oppositions from the outside world will be to have blessings added upon our heads forever and forever.
THE GOSPEL TAUGHT BY EXAMPLE
As the Lord counsels us in this day to be mindful of the standards that we should maintain before the world, I have remembered the repeated incidents that have been told which indicate that the eyes of the world are upon this Church and its young manhood and womanhood. In almost every incident where a young man has been converted to the Church by our boys in military service, he has told us that he was drawn to the Church because of the clean, pure life of some Latter-day Saint boy with whom he was associated. This is a day of demonstration when we as Latter-day Saints by our lives will preach more the gospel of truth than by all the words that we may conjure up. The Lord has said to us:
For Zion must increase in beauty, and in holiness, her borders must be enlarged; her stakes must be strengthened: yea, verily I say unto you, Zion must arise and put on her beautiful garments.
May the Lord bless us with the strength to do so, and may everyone who has named his name, be true to that name and live the covenants that he has taken as a member of the Church, and may youth everywhere echo the sentiments that these fine young men have reported to us, and remember that virtue and purity and integrity are the things that mark them as living above the things of the world. May the Lord bless us all with the power and strength to maintain the standards which our Father has given to us in his everlasting covenant, I pray humbly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Matthew Cowley
Matthew Cowley, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 49-51
In the year 1939, down in New Zealand, we had a very destructive flood. In that flood there were twenty-two white men drowned. They were working on a railway line that was being constructed. There were a large number of native young men working on the same line. Not one lost his life. At the inquest that was held, one of our young natives was asked if he could give a reason why no natives had lost their lives and only white men had suffered. He said, "Yes. The white men ran for their money; we ran for our lives."
I feel at this moment like those natives: from now on I will be running for my life, rather than for money.
AN APPEAL FOR FORGIVENESS
If there is anyone here or within the sound of my voice whom I have ever offended, either in my professional career, in my political activities, my religious service, or in my social conduct, I plead humbly for forgiveness. I know that God does not look upon sin with the least degree of allowance; nevertheless, he that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven. The Lord will forgive whom he will forgive, but as for us it is required that we forgive all men. I appeal, humbly and sincerely, for forgiveness of all my offenses against my fellow men.
WILLINGNESS TO SERVE
When I was called to preside over the New Zealand Mission in 1938, that call was much greater than any aspiration I had ever had for ecclesiastical preference. I have never sought, neither have I refused, any call that has ever come to me within the endowing power of the priesthood of God. I appeal also to you, to sustain me in this position. If I am sustained by you, the body of the Church, I am sure that I will be able to go about doing good. If you do not sustain me, heaven help me.
I sustain, here and now, the Authorities of this Church, from the highest unto the least. I have known President George Albert Smith all the days of my life. I have had the arms of his father about me in my childhood and in my early youth. I have had his arms about me in my maturity. I think it was he who set me apart for my first mission. He married me to my good wife. He took me upon my second mission-and now this! It seems that all the difficulties that have ever confronted me in life he is responsible for.
I thank God, my brothers and sisters and friends, that I was reared in a good home. I thank God that in that home I was taught that it was more important to be moral than to be careful, that I was taught from the days of my youth to honor the priesthood of Almighty God. I was frequently told, as were the rest of the members of my father's family, by our father, that if there ever came a time or an occasion to choose between loyalty to him and loyalty to the priesthood of God, always choose loyalty to the priesthood of God. I thank God that such an occasion never arose.
A SINCERE TESTIMONY
I bear my testimony to you that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of God, that these men who have been called to build upon the foundation of him who stood at the opening of the dispensation of the fulness of times have builded well upon that foundation and are, therefore, worthy to be sustained as prophets, seers, and revelators of the Most High.
God grant, my brothers and sisters and friends, that I may sustain you. You are the members. The only aspiration I have had in life has been to be a good and honorable member of the Church, and now in having been called to this position, I promise you that I will not lose sight of that other aspiration. The greatest call in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is to be a worthy member. Every worthy member of this Church is a potential savior upon Mount Zion of the souls of men.
In conclusion, I thank God for the service that has been rendered by our men and women in the armed forces, and I hereby pledge my life to the ideals of government and religion for which they have offered their all. God bless you and God bless me, in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Stephen L Richards
Stephen L Richards, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 52-57
We stand on the threshold of a new day. We look out into the morning and see the rays of the rising sun tint the sky with the hopes of humanity. We see some clouds also, harbingers of storm, but the forecast is "generally fair for a season." So we go back to our work-back where the black night of war overtook us nearly a half-dozen years ago. It has been a long night and our work has been retarded, but good sentinels have kept the watches and safeguarded our establishments. Now in the daylight of peace, we go back to our work.
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH
We know our work. It is laid out for us by the Master Builder. We have full and complete plans and specifications, and we have, in good measure, too, the tools and equipment. Perhaps we could use a little more modern equipment, and the tools may need reconditioning and polishing, but a sufficiency is available, and we can begin our work again.
The work is not new to us. We, and our predecessors, have carried it forward for more than a hundred years. It was the first enterprise undertaken by those of sacred memory who initiated the lofty cause to which we give our allegiance. So soon as the first revelation of the latter days came to them, they lost no time in carrying the message to neighbors and adjacent communities. When the Church was organized, they accepted most literally the revelation that its mission should be to preach the gospel "... unto every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people". That was their work. In their poverty and weakness they accepted it with such boldness and enthusiasm, fortitude and sacrifice, as history has seldom recorded.
Their faith and confidence were marvelous. They trusted God, and they did not trust in vain. They knew that he had said that "The weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones", and that "... the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers". With this assurance our forebears went forth. They assumed their obligation, and it superseded everything else. Families were left without a competence, ofttimes in the care of relatives and neighbors and friends. Businesses were sacrificed. Such accumulations as they had were expended for the cause. If I were asked to name the outstanding, distinctive, organized accomplishment of the restored Church of Christ in the last century I would without hesitation set forth its phenomenal missionary labors. Nothing more truly characterizes the altruism of the gospel that it teaches; nothing more deeply signifies the devotion and sincerity of its members.
The enormous cost of the service has been widely distributed, shared by nearly every family in the Church. Many families have sent forth more than one missionary, and not infrequently has a home kept one or more missionaries in the field continuously for ten or a dozen years, sometimes for a quarter of a century. I know of no way of securing comparable data from other religious bodies, but I venture the assertion that no other church at any period in history for a century of time has ever given to missionary service such a proportion of its membership and its available resources.
MISSIONARIES AND CONVERTS
For a hundred years there were two armies constantly on the march, an army of missionaries outbound from Zion carrying the banner of gospel peace and liberty, and an inbound army of free and happy people, faith and hope shining in every face, seeking the shelter, the inspiration, and the glorious opportunities of a divinely appointed society. Contingents of these armies have passed on almost every highway of the world-in the States-from the Americas north and south, up and down the devious waters of the Mississippi where missionaries of the early days like Brigham and Heber, and Willard and Parley, and Erastus went on flatboats to embark on slow sailing vessels on their long tedious voyages to their fields in Britain, Scandinavia, and the continent; across Europe to the land of the Arab and the Turk and on into far-off India, over the broad expanse of the Pacific to and from Hawaii and the distant isles of the South Seas. As the missionaries have passed the immigrants in these great counter-marches of the century which has gone, whether in their ships at sea or as they paused to clasp hands in their weary trek across the prairies, one can fancy their salutations, not always spoken perhaps but ever in their hearts, the missionaries say, "We go to carry the gospel." "Thank God we have it," the convert replies, and then adds, "we will follow you later." So indeed they have in one heroic round; missionary to convert, then convert to missionary. Great has been their gift; generously have they given.
What has been given? Why, to every man what he needed. To the poor, they who are so many, the gospel of thrift; to the rich, who are so few, the gospel of giving; to the intemperate, the gospel of self-control; to the indolent, the gospel of work; to the militant, the gospel of peace; to the downcast, the gospel of hope; to the ignorant, freedom from superstition; to the cynical and the wavering, a satisfying philosophy; to the sinner, the gospel of repentance; and to all-faith, security, idealism, happiness, and exaltation.
Is it difficult then to discover the urge which has made possible this remarkable missionary achievement? I think it is not. Such gifts, such faith, such vital endowments are highly esteemed by man. They enrich his life. They enlarge his heart and fill him with gratitude. He thanks God and seeks to express his gratitude in terms of devotion and service. He sees no service comparable to that of giving to others the boon that he enjoys. So he goes forth, not grudgingly, not merely out of a painful sense of duty, but cheerfully, eagerly to requite the supreme blessing of his life and derive new and surpassing joy in the sharing of his joy.
BLESSINGS IN MISSIONARY SERVICE
I thank the Lord that the ardor for the service has not dulled with the passing of time. On every hand I see evidences which convince me that the members of the Church love to proclaim the gospel. Men who cannot go themselves send their sons and daughters. Widows toil and scrimp to keep a missionary. Girls work to provide the necessary expense for their brothers, young husbands, and for themselves. Quorums, wards, and societies contribute, and occasionally a rich man opens up a generous heart and maintains a half dozen in the mission field.
Those who go are blessed, and the homes and communities which send them also. Crude country boys from the farm and the range have been exposed to the education and culture of extensive travel and metropolitan life in great cities. Young men from the cities have been subjected to the rigors of the most primitive, rural life. The knowledge, the tolerance, the adventure, the polish, and the experience which worldwide travel brings have been, during the whole history of the Church, the product of our missionary system. I feel sure that in no other communities on the earth is the percentage of those who have "seen the world" so large as in the villages, towns, and cities of the Latter-day Saints.
Such benefits, however, while important, are but incidental. The more vital results are deeper than enlarged information and polish. The fundamental character of our manhood and womanhood has been improved. Sacrifice has taught self-control. Giving has made for generosity as it always does. Teaching the virtues has brought them into application, and high spirituality has ingrained testimony and soul development. The general uplift in all standards of living which the Church has brought to its adherents is in no small measure directly attributable to its missionary system. How it has blessed the home! Fathers who have paid and prayed; mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts who have been anxious and worried and true. Little tots whose first lisped prayers have been, "Please, God, keep our missionary," have made the home a sanctuary, indeed, the foundation of our religious life.
SIMPLICITY OF THE GOSPEL MESSAGE
This remarkable missionary work has been accomplished by humble men and women. Their equipment in the main has not been the training of schools. It has been the influence and discipline of good homes, Church organization, and individual testimony. Their testimonies and their lives have been more potential than their preaching. The only eloquence they have required to deliver their message is the eloquence of the message itself portrayed in the devotion and purity of their lives. They have never had to rant and yell, nor chant and sigh, to make a convert. They have carried the natural simple joyous message of the Christ in a natural, cheerful way. Was that not the Savior's way? Did he not ever suit the lesson to the people in their language and understanding? Have we any evidence that he employed rituals, ministerial garb, and sonorous phrases to make it impressive? I think we have not, and I advance as a worthy argument for the divine authenticity of the gospel we bear, the manner of its presentation by the missionaries of the Church.
What these ambassadors of the Lord have done for individuals, families, communities, and nations would fill books. A million hearts swell today in gratitude for their blessed service. A man contemplates his home, the loving family which surrounds him, his prosperous business, the esteem of his fellow men, the fraternity of his brethren in the priesthood, his faith, his contentment, his glorious hopes and from the depths of his soul he cries, "God bless the missionary who brought me this."
HOPEFUL OUTLOOK FOR THE SPREAD OF TRUTH
So this is our work-to spread the restored gospel of righteousness and peace throughout the world. I think I do not need to make a case for the need of it. It seems to me that experiences of the last few years and of the present hour are sufficient to convince every observant, thoughtful person of that need.
Here then, in the respite from the ravages of war, is a new day for the proclamation of the word of God. New and more extended opportunities are forthcoming. New methods of transportation and communication are available, and I can but think that hundreds and thousands of our gallant boys who have contributed so much to the liberation of the oppressed peoples of the world will find a kindlier reception than our missionaries have ever heretofore enjoyed.
Will you, my brethren and sisters in the Church of Christ, accept the challenge of this new day? Will you set your houses in order, temporally and spiritually, and send forth ambassadors of truth, good will, and peace to a destitute world, whose need for bread is great but whose need for the "bread of life" is greater? I believe you will. I believe that large numbers of our young men returning from the armed services will wish to fill missions before entering upon post-war employment. When they and other men who hold the priesthood can be relieved from the exactions which the war has placed upon them, they will want to go into the mission field. Then many of our sisters can go with them and render service under the protection and direction of the priesthood of God. I believe, too, that thousands of our families who have been blessed with comparative affluence in these times will wish to devote a portion of their means to this great altruistic endeavor.
What a blessing it will be to our members and establishments in distant lands to welcome the missionaries back again, and what a boon it will be to all people everywhere to hear the pure word of God spoken by his appointed servants. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that bring glad tidings of good things".
God bless us, my people, that we may take up our work again with resolution to give generously as we have received generously, I humbly pray, in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Nicholas G. Smith
Nicholas G. Smith, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 57-59
My brothers and sisters, this conference has been a thrilling one for all of us, I am sure.
JOY EXPRESSED AT SELECTION OF NEW APOSTLE
When President Joseph F. Smith was first voted upon as President of the Church in solemn assembly, I had the privilege of sitting here and voting for him. When President Grant was chosen, I was in Africa and missed that opportunity. Yesterday, as my own brother was voted upon, I thrilled to the very finger tips.
And in the selection of the new apostle I rejoice greatly. I was the bishop in the ward where his family resided, and on many an occasion I have had the opportunity of saying to President Grant: "President, that Cowley family is a model. Young Matt has been superintendent of our Mutual Improvement Association; his sister is president of our young women's organization; his brother, Gloyd, is in the superintendency of our Mutual. They are an inspiration." To see this young man come home from the mission field endowed with the great gift of spirituality and vision and be selected to sit in the same council in which his father sat and be one of the leaders of this people, shows us how our Heavenly Father works. I am so pleased with this selection. He has been giving in accordance with the thought that has been expressed throughout this conference, as have so many of our good people.
EXPERIENCE OF A YOUNG CHURCH MEMBER
This morning I saw and conversed with an eighteen-year-old girl. She had spent much of her life away from the wards and stakes, rather out amongst the people of the world, attending school. Her associates were not members of her own Church. She has been more or less on the defense all of her life. She spent last year in a private school in one of the large cities in the East. There, in attendance, were girls of prominent families, people who knew not God as she knew him, and in her association with these other girls, she said. "They seemed to be looking for something. They did not know what it was, but they were not at peace; constantly they were asking me why I was so happy. One girl I talked with for some hours, and this girl said, 'I see what you mean. I think I understand,' but she did not know just what to do about it all. And then she said, 'What is it that gives you this, that makes you so contented?'" This eighteen-year-old girl said: "I have been talking to you pure Mormonism."
A SERVICEMAN READY FOR MISSION
Those of our children who are reared in the homes of faithful Latter-day Saints, when they go out into the world have a great ability to do good. Just before coming to this meeting a father came into my office with his son twenty-two years of age. He had returned from overseas where he had spent a couple of years fighting, and he wants to go back on a mission of love. I questioned him as to his chastity, and he assured me that he had kept himself clean and spotless, although he had been engaged in a great conflict. He had seen sin, but in his visit over there he found Saints and associated with them, and their effect upon him had been of an uplifting nature. Now he is home for a few days, but he wants to go back. Having filled that mission, he wants to go on another mission. He wants to give and not to get.
THE SIN OF COVETOUSNESS
They speak of peace, but is there peace? When you read in the papers of the constant bickering, the avarice of men that has been spoken of from this pulpit during this conference, the desire to get that which other men have, how tragic it is. It is this thing that causes dissension and trouble throughout the universe, and that has been warned against since the beginning of time, which has such a hold upon the people. We Latter-day Saints have a great responsibility, and as Latter-day Saints if we could but live our religion, what an effect it would have upon the people. As we go through our villages and towns, and see our membership working in the fields upon the Sabbath day, we wonder what they are thinking of whether they are thinking of giving or only of getting. If we could just mend that one thing and remember to observe and keep holy the Sabbath day, then we would be better able to give, because the Lord would bless us so that we could give in greater abundance.
In the Ten Commandments, the last one is a great sermon to this great world of ours, and if we are ever going to have peace and if we are ever going to do away with war and contention, then we must put our lives in line with that tenth Commandment:
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's.
If we could but do that!
Jeremiah, in speaking of Judah said:
... From the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and... saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
God help us to appreciate and understand that in this modern day he has, through his Prophet Joseph Smith, given us a grave warning, and he means every one of us, for in the fifty-sixth section of the D&C;, he says:
Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!
Wo unto you poor men, whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite, and whose bellies are not satisfied, and whose hands are not stayed from laying upon other men's goods, whose eyes are full of greediness, and who will not labor with your own hands.
A just God has warned us, my brothers and sisters. Now the opportunity is opening up. These thousands of young men will be returning home. The experiences they have undergone have prepared them to go out into the mission field to tell of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ through that fourteen-year-old lad, Joseph Smith. I pray that the spirit of which Brother Stephen L Richards has just spoken, the desire to give, may spread throughout the Church, that every boy and every girl who desires to go, may have that opportunity to go to the ends of the earth and warn this generation. This is my prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Levi Edgar Young
Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 59-61
I wish to speak to the seventies of the Church today, and of course what is said will be in common to every brother who holds the priesthood of God. In a sermon delivered in the old tabernacle in Salt Lake City, October 11, 1857, President Joseph Young, who had been made president of all the seventies, in the Kirtland Temple, said:
Language is too frail to express the rich sentiments of the hearts of the Saints; the tongue fails to utter the glory and the pleasure of the kingdom of God. It cannot do it; language fails. There is an influence of the Holy Spirit in the understanding that surpasses all language.
MELCHIZEDEK
How true this is, when we speak of the restoration of the priesthood of God to the Prophet Joseph Smith. When John the Baptist came and gave unto the Prophet and Oliver Cowdery the Aaronic Priesthood, it was followed by holy baptism. They were given the promise of the coming of Peter, James, and John with the keys of the priesthood of Melchizedek. The promise was fulfilled.
In the days of Abraham, there lived in Palestine a "great king and priest of the Most High God". His name was Melchizedek. Beautiful is the thought we have when we are told by the prophet-historian Moses, that Abraham paid tithes of all that he had to Melchizedek, for he was the high priest appointed to keep the storehouse of God. Then we have another historic scene.
INCIDENTS FROM THE LIFE OF MOSES
The children of Israel had been with Moses at Mr. Sinai for many months. In fact it was not until the second month of the second year that things were ready for a new start. The children of Israel were headed for the conquest of Canaan. The arrangements for the vast camp were simple. Moses received the law direct from God, yet he had to descend to the people and present it to them. In the assembly at the foot of the mountain were men, women and children. These all had to live under the law, so they all pledged their assent, exclaiming: "We hear and obey." The commandments were ratified by the voice of the people, one of the noblest examples of pure democracy in the history of the world. Shortly after leaving Sinai, a council of seventy, of which Hur, founder of Bethlehem, seems to have been the head, was chosen by the people, and solemnly set apart to their dignity by Moses, as a kind of senate, or wise men to aid him by their counsel, and give him the support of leading families among the various tribes; for among a people so hard to govern, he often needed this added help.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee.
When Moses was called by the Lord to go unto the Mount, he was accompanied by seventy elders. "... the Lord," says the inspired narrative, "came down in the cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders".
In those far ancient days of the priesthood, the seventies seemed to have been called to many noble duties both individually and in groups. Moses had them with him in the holy rites of the tabernacle, and we find them responsible for clean government in the civic life of the towns of Palestine.
THE SEVENTY CALLED BY JESUS
When Jesus was concluding his missionary labors in Galilee, he summoned his followers together, and out of them chose seventy to prepare his way. The mission of so many to go before him, two and two, and prepare for his arrival in every place which he intended to visit, implies for this last journey an important event. The instructions he gave them closely resembled those which he had issued to the Twelve. It was a time when he was setting forth in sorrow, and some writers infer that they, the Seventy, going two by two, were announcing his divine teachings.
Some weeks passed, and one of the things that filled his heart with joy was the return of the seventy, as he approached the cities and villages, whither he had sent them. They came to give him an account of their successes. Their hearts were filled with astonishment and exultation. And Jesus, while entering into their joy, yet checked the tone of their exultation, or rather turned it into a holier channel. He bade them feel sure that good was eternally mightier than evil, and that their victory over Satan would be achieved. He gave them assurance that they would be protected from harm because he had set his love upon them. Their names had been written, and stood unobliterated in the Book of Life.
THE SEVENTIES' WORK IN LATTER-DAYS
My brethren of the quorums of the seventy, you are all endowed with this same priesthood and power which gives you a distinct hope and message. You have an exalted purpose-to teach the gospel to all the world today. You have the good news of salvation, of freedom, to show the way of eternal life. You are a body of men to help build a regenerated body of religious ideals and life. From this day, you are to stand for a moral awakening as never before, a spiritual upsurge, a deeper appreciation of the spiritual needs of humanity. People will receive the message if it is presented and taught as it should be. The demands are high; the spiritual discipline must be sincere; the sacrifice of material things great. The qualities which made Jesus a master teacher were: He was divinely inspired, profound in his simplicity, understanding, and sympathy.
As the ancient disciples came to know the truths of the Master, so we come to know in our day the importance of revealed truth as we look to him who is our Savior. The priesthood envisages the Church of God, which in time will be known to all peoples of the earth. Life is made over; men are made over; and as one evangelist says: "Men come from darkness into light."
A new missionary effort has come into the world, for men and women are thinking of life eternal. Missionaries are laboring with profound and undying zeal to awaken people to a sense of the meaning of life, and to prepare themselves for the future in this world and in the world to come.
There never was a time when it was more needful for us to recur to the reason of the power of Jesus Christ in the world than now; never a time when we were more in danger of throwing away true permanence for barren change; never a time when we were more in danger of sacrificing truth for wrong. Truly do we know that the man who holds the priesthood of God has a principle higher than any that has gone before; that man whose policy, whose statesmanship, whose legislation, whose faith involves the highest reach possible of the human understanding in the spiritual direction-that men will endure and will help save the world.
We can, my brethren, be honest, intelligent, truthful; we can be courageous, just, and valiant. We can bear witness that this is God's work, and we can be consciously grateful for all the resources, for all the opportunities which are ours. We can be faithful and zealous. These things we are certain of; if we will do our part, in faith, God will give the increase.
Elder Albert E. Bowen
Albert E. Bowen, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 64-69
There is perhaps nothing so important to the individual as what he believes nor nothing so important to communities and nations as what their peoples in the aggregate believe. I mean really believe. And there is often a wide distinction between what men say they believe-the professions they make-and the reality of their convictions. I want to talk a little today about the significance of belief.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BELIEF
Jesus seems to have attached supreme importance to it. His concern was that men should believe him, accept his message. Conscious that this shaping of thought and establishment of conviction would be a slow process, extending far out beyond the span of his earth life, he spent a good portion of the years of his ministry in training a few disciples, whom he had gathered about him, to carry on after he himself should be gone.
He had no temporary or ephemeral communication to impart; it was a world-shaking doctrine and was intended for perpetuity. Neither was it provincial in its scope. Though his whole life had been spent in a small subject province, apparently more tempestuous and troublesome than important, his vision ranged out over the whole earth wherever men are. Accordingly, he gave those disciples he had taught, a commission accompanied by a promise. The commission was to go into all the world and teach his message to every creature. The promise is: "He that believeth... shall be saved". Thus is belief made the starting point of all progress. It is true that certain other things were required to be done as a condition to the fulfilment of the promise, but these of necessity must come as a consequence of belief. Without that there is no chance that compliance with requirements would follow. There is no promise except to him who believes. Belief here signifies a complete acceptance which in its turn compels conformance to the teaching espoused. The condition is not satisfied by a mere lip service. Professions of belief, no matter how vehemently protested, amount to nothing unless they eventuate in conforming deeds.
Jesus had ample demonstration of this during his own ministry. The multitudes followed so long as they were recipients of his material benefactions. It is said that his fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought their sick, and he healed them. They came from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from beyond Jordan. They sat at his feet on the mountainside where he fed them because whereof they would forcibly have crowned him king, but he escaped from them and went by night to the other side of the lake where the crowds next day clamorously sought him out. Then when he began to unfold to them the personal requirements devolving upon recipients of his teaching they melted rapidly away, and the record says, "They walked no more with him". They had no belief. They were seekers after personal gain without appetite for reformation from practices which centered in themselves.
Contrast with that his belief in his own message. It cost him his life, but he carried through. And what about those disciples he had picked and taught? The message was just as unwelcome coming from them as it had been coming from their master. They too were hounded and scourged and hunted down. As believers multiplied, persecution intensified until finally extermination was decreed. Then came the supreme test of their sincerity of belief. Believers were ferreted out, confined to dungeons, and condemned to die. They were thrown to wild beasts for the entertainment of the populace at the arena. They suffered themselves to be torn limb from limb because their belief had settled into convictions so deep seated that they would die rather than recant. They did not have to die. They could have saved themselves by a very simple act. They had only to renounce and they could have gone free but that was not their kind of belief. It was more precious to them than life itself. It was the kind of which Jesus spoke when he promised that "He that believeth... shall be saved". That is to say, a saving belief must be one that persists in all extremities. Where is it to be found in the earth today? It does not deal in expediencies. It does not inquire about the trend of popular favor. With principle-sacrificing compromises it has no commerce.
LIVING FAITH INVINCIBLE
It may be thought or said that this quality of faith is exemplified in the armed conflict just closed. Our soldiers and sailors and airmen sacrificed their lives for a cause. That, however, was in resistance to a physical assault. It was meeting physical force with physical force. We believed that we were in danger of physical subjugation with consequent penalties. Our countrymen went out to repel that danger and keep us free from physical domination with a consequent train of other ills. The test comes now. Have we a set of principles believed by us to be right which we are willing to preserve at any sacrifice and at any cost-principles affecting our internal integrity founded in righteous law and justice? That question is not answered yet. So far as the signs indicate, the outlook is not promising. The indications seem to point to the rule of expediency and battering with evil for the best bargain we can get. But I do not now want to talk about that.
Was the course taken by the early Christians justified? Might there not have been some other way, some expedient, some give-and-take accommodation to reconcile antagonisms without going to the extremity of death? Was it prudent to flout the power of the great Roman empire and persist in a course which it condemned? It would seem indeed presumptuous that a little handful of despised people, destitute of wealth or influence, should resist the edicts of the greatest secular power of the world. But such is the force of doctrine, the power of unwavering belief, the strength of sincere men with resolute conviction that their teachings flourished in the face of the direst persecution. The might of the empire could not crush that kind of faith living in the human heart. It did not extinguish Christianity. And to that circumstance is owed the perpetuation of Christian teaching in the world. If we want to know how great that debt is, we have only to ask what kind of void would be left if the effect of nearly two thousand years of that teaching were blotted out. We should lose substantially all that distinguishes the Christian nations from the non-Christian nations. We should lose the sense of distinction which has led us in this day so heartily to condemn barbarities which have shocked humanity. The very freedom of which the western world boasts, reaching its greatest perfection in the United States of America, owes its existence to the Christian teaching about human brotherhood and the worth and dignity of the human soul. These are fruits of that message which Jesus commissioned his disciples to bear to all the world. The very progress of invention and scientific discovery itself, which has done so much for the material emancipation of man, is born of that freedom, as comparison with the backward nations of the world will disclose. It is to Christ's message-not to scholastic research-that we turn for what we know about the meaning and purpose of life and the controlling power of spiritual and moral law. No one may conceive the degree in which the world would be impoverished if that little band of disciples had not devoutly believed and through their belief perpetuated the teaching.
THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST A STANDARD FOR ALL AGES
Its doctrine has been so thoroughly absorbed into the life of Christian nations, particularly our own, that quite unconsciously men resort to it as furnishing the standard for measuring the validity of the acts of their fellows. When we call some things good and others bad, some courses right and others wrong, we are evaluating them by comparison with the standards set in the teachings of the Master. When the politician condemns the practices of his adversary in matters of human behavior, he resorts to Christ's teachings, perhaps unknowingly, for the ideal by comparison with which the criticized acts are revealed as wrong. His own promises of betterment likewise are in the pattern of ideals drawn from the same source. All that we have that is best in our individual lives and in our national life we draw from what was preserved to the world by those sacrificing early Christians who through suffering and death perpetuated the teachings that had been committed to them. It is fresh in the memory of all of us, growing out of recent and earlier example, that tyrants seeking to impose their evil despotisms have to begin by a crusade intended to root out and destroy the doctrines ingrained in their peoples through centuries of absorption of Christian thought. In these considerations lies the answer to the question whether the sacrifices made were justified and whether by compromise, accommodation, and the practice of expediency those early sufferers might have avoided persecution and conflict with the empire. Over and beyond all these, those doctrines taught the achievement of immortality through the Lord's death and the plan for achieving eternal life, which is exaltation in the celestial kingdom of God.
CONVICTION MAKES A PEOPLE STRONG UNDER TRIAL
Let us take another example out of our own history. Our people began the building of their city at Nauvoo stripped bare. They had been pillaged, despoiled, and driven. In a scant six years they had established a flourishing city. Many of their houses still stand, respectable dwellings in this modern day. They were driven out in winter. From the Iowa shores of the river they could see the lights in their comfortable homes while babes were born in wind and sleet with no other protection than that afforded by their canvas-covered wagons. From there they made their weary journey across prairies, through rivers, and over mountains to these desolate valleys. The line of their march was marked by the graves of their dead. Here they endured privation, hardship, hunger. They didn't have to do any of that. They would have had only to renounce their belief to be let alone where they were. This is demonstrated by the fact that some did just that and remained unmolested. They chose rather to endure the want and misery and suffering that became their portion because they believed. That is the quality of belief that saves. There is no lip service in that. It transcends the bounds of pretense and sham and self-seeking, and anchors itself in unyielding conviction.
It is possible to say that they were wrong-mistaken in their belief. It is possible to say that they were imprudent and unwise. But it is not possible to deny the depth of their conviction nor the integrity of their manhood. Neither may the power of their belief be gainsaid. Their achievement stands revealed to the world. Men do not gather grapes from thorns nor figs from thistles. Those who do not accept their beliefs may feel themselves justified. But we who profess their faith may not escape its high demands. Are we willing to endure what they endured for our beliefs? Do those beliefs mean so much to us? Are they that important in our appraisals? Either those beliefs are founded in truth or they are not. If not, then the system reared upon them should in the nature of things have fallen apart long ago. If they are so founded, then those who profess them may not temporize. We today may not meet the same tests they did, but we shall have to face tests just as searching and perhaps harder to be borne.
We still have to carry the banner. The doctrines by which they lived still require to be perpetuated and spread. Their perpetuation exacts of us the same unwavering steadfastness of conviction as actuated those who established us here. We may not be dispossessed, or driven out, or find a wilderness to reclaim. But we shall be engaged by counter influences perhaps more insidious and therefore more difficult to discern, less easy to understand or to sense the danger of, for we live in a world seething in a welter of confusion.
BELIEF IN AND PRACTICE OF TRUE RELIGION THE SAFETY OF THE WORLD
Whether we recognize it or not, it is beliefs-the beliefs that get themselves accepted-that rule the world. Those beliefs may exalt a nation or drag it down to degeneracy and degradation depending upon their inherent quality. Ships and tanks and airplanes and guns, while necessary implements for waging physical warfare, are not the real source of a nation's strength. Its strength lies in the basic integrity of its people and that depends upon the beliefs they cherish which fashion their lives. The shooting war is over, but peace in its accurate sense is not here. It will not be until it is set up in the hearts of men. The war of ideas is still raging in the world. Opposing beliefs are contending for supremacy. All are clamorously recruiting converts. The business of shaping thought, establishing beliefs, getting ideas accepted, is the most important as well as the most active and flourishing business in the world today.
It is with ideas, beliefs, that we are concerned, for the very safety of the world and of mankind depends upon the nature of the beliefs that get themselves adopted. Our message is the same message Jesus gave to his disciples, namely that men should believe in him, a belief with a conviction that eventuates in living his doctrines. The commission to spread it in the world still stands. The means remains the same, teaching by those who believe. It cannot be done by unbelievers. The doctrines still possess saving power. "He that believeth... shall be saved". But there can be no compromise of principles.
There will be scoffers and deriders. Can we stand derision and still stand unmoved? There will be those in and out of our own membership who will deplore as trivial the differences of belief which set us apart by ourselves, who will recommend that for the sake of easy fraternization we relax in our distinguishing doctrines enough to extinguish apparent differences. It is so much easier and more comfortable to conform to the customs and ideas about us. A little dilution of our beliefs, it will be said, can do no harm.
Probably the disciples of Jesus could have escaped persecution if they had been willing to yield a little and had contended themselves with proclaiming him as a great teacher. If they had just refrained from declaring that he was the Son of God, they probably would have had little difficulty. That would have made their teaching palatable and improved the social and fraternal relations between them and their neighbors. But his Messiahship was the essence of his message. It is the thing that gave it authority. It was that which gave it saving power. Delete that, for purposes of courting favor and being agreeable, and you have robbed it of its whole value. It is to his doctrines, including his achieving for us immortality, that we must turn for understanding of the meaning and purpose of life out of which understanding must ultimately come the peace for which the world longs. Those doctrines embrace a whole course of living as a preparation for eternity of life in God's kingdom. And if political persuasions or economic prejudices or social theories or fraternal felicity collide with those teachings, the teachings must still stand. Unfortunate indeed is any man who has exalted any of these above or on a plane of equality with the teachings of his religious faith.
If we really believe in our souls in the doctrines of our faith, then they must take precedence over all other philosophies or enticements. They cannot take second place to any persuasion.
I am sure that no one will suppose that I am advocating aloofness or presuming to suggest that we regard ourselves as being above or better than others. I do not wish to incite any antagonisms nor to invite unfriendliness of intercourse. I am only trying to say that having as we profess God-given, saving principles, we must hold them sacred, for on them the hope of eternal happiness as well as earthly peace hangs. We should poorly serve humanity if for convenience we gave them a stone when their crying need is for bread.
May God give us the sincerity of conviction to meet every test, I pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder Alma Sonne
Alma Sonne, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 72-74
My brethren and sisters, no one can arise on an occasion like this, before an audience so large and so eager, without feeling a sense of deep responsibility. I rejoice with you in the growth and progress made by the Church. I have been greatly uplifted by the proceedings of this conference.
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
The other day, before a large audience of Relief Society workers, in this tabernacle, Dr. Howard R. Driggs made a remark that has been sounding in my ears since I heard it. "The word light," he said, "appears frequently in the scriptures." It is the responsibility of the Church to spread this light among men. Jesus is the light of the world. His gospel is the beacon light to direct you and me in our journey through life. Jesus also said on one occasion:
... this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.
He also admonished:
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
I feel that this Church, in carrying forward the great program entrusted to it, is actually and truly spreading light throughout the world.
The Prophet Joseph Smith in a revelation has said this:
For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Verily, I say unto you all: Arise and shine forth, that thy light may be a standard for the nations.
I wonder if you catch the boldness and the audacity of that statement, made in the early days when the Church was not so well established nor so well organized as it is today; and yet the Lord said then through his servant,
Arise and shine forth, that thy light may be a standard for the nations.
FAITH GIVES PURPOSE IN LIFE
Brethren and sisters, great things have been accomplished by the Church, but as we view the situation now, with its many problems, there is still much to be done. All of us can contemplate the history of the Church with supreme satisfaction. As I think of these things I feel that the Latter-day Saints will never surrender their heritage of faith. That faith has given purpose and significance to their lives. It has opened the Holy Bible to their understanding. It has sustained them in adversity and trial. It has offered them every inducement to right living. It has been their refuge and their strength in sorrows and disappointments, and it has established their belief in moral and spiritual values, a most important belief. Faith in God is always the pathway to power and achievement; it is the motive power of progress and advancement.
On one occasion I discussed with a minister of another church some of our religious views. Finally, he said to me. "I cannot believe that Joseph Smith was divinely called, but I do believe," he said, "in the principle of tithing taught by your Church." "Why then," I asked, "is it not practiced by your church?" He hesitated for what seemed to me a long time, and then replied, "Because we do not have the faith and the conviction among our members which is characteristic of the Latter-day Saints."
Brethren and sisters, I have always regarded that as a great compliment coming as it did from an outside source and certainly a worthy tribute to the faith and integrity of the Latter-day Saints.
TEMPLE WORK PART OF GOSPEL PLAN
Two weeks ago we dedicated a beautiful temple at Idaho Falls. Why do we build temples? Because we believe in temple work; we believe in salvation for the dead as well as for the living. It is a part of the gospel plan. We believe, too, in the eternity of the marriage covenant as solemnized in the holy temples. That doctrine is sound, reasonable, consistent, and in harmony with Paul's teachings when he said:
... neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.
SUCCESS OF MISSIONARY WORK IN HAWAII
A year ago today I was traveling on a steamer headed for the Hawaiian Islands. On Sunday morning a beautiful service was conducted by a protestant minister. At the conclusion of the service the minister approached me. After asking some questions about our faith, he turned to me with this remark, "The greatest missionary enterprise in modern times," he said, "was launched by the Mormons on the Islands when they began to preach to the natives." As soon as I reached the Islands I began to inquire. I was told that three or four missionaries in the early days were laboring in Honolulu with little or no success. Finally, one of them suggested that they give up their missionary labors on the Islands and return to the mainland. George Q. Cannon, then a young man of vigor and faith, said to his associates, "No, we cannot return home; we will continue our labors on these Islands, not among the white population as we have done, but among the natives." The response to that missionary endeavor was great, and these people on the Islands in whom the spirit and blood of Israel were strong, joined the Church by the hundreds, and many of them have remained true and faithful to the covenant so that today branches, wards, and a stake are organized and functioning among them.
May God bless us in our responsibilities. May he give us faith, wisdom and determination to carry forward his great work in these, the last days, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Thomas E. McKay
Thomas E. McKay, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 75-80
President Smith, brethren and sisters, it is a delight to welcome our sisters into our midst again. I was thrilled, and I am sure all of you were, with the splendid tribute that our President, in his wonderful opening remarks, paid to the mothers and daughters of our Church. It was also refreshing in the meeting in the temple, with the mission presidents, to hear nearly all of them express appreciation for the work their wives are doing in helping them in their great responsibilities. I wish their wives could have been there to hear them. I commend the example of these mission presidents to all the men of the Church, to feel appreciative not only of what our wives are doing for us but also to express that appreciation. I am sure there would be more sunshine and love in our homes, and in the world generally, if all, not only felt but expressed such appreciation.
A TRIBUTE TO THE BRETHREN LEFT IN CHARGE IN EUROPE
In the early spring of 1940 the last of the missionaries, American missionaries, left Europe. Sister McKay, our daughter, Louise, and four very choice missionaries sailed from Italy and came home by way of Gibraltar. Brother Gaston Chappuis and his bride sailed from Lisbon. Since that time, nearly six years now, our missions, nine of them in Europe, have been directed by local elders; and at this time I wish to pay tribute publicly and express appreciation for the work that these fine brethren have done. They have been working under unusual and very difficult conditions but they have carried on. They've held their meetings nearly all of them, including branch, district, and annual conferences. The missions have been self-supporting. The tithing, in fact, has increased from year to year. They have visited the branches as often as possible under the trying conditions. Many of them have attempted to maintain a missionary system, and most of the missions have had a few missionaries, and some of them quite a large force. The British at one time, Brother Anastasiou reported, had three hundred and twenty-five part-time missionaries. Brother Anastasiou, his wife, and two children are here now. The British Mission is again presided over by President Hugh B. Brown, who is doing a wonderful work, not only as president of the mission but also and especially among the servicemen. He writes that he needs more missionaries. Our acting mission presidents are also looking forward to the time when missionaries will be again in their midst.
In a recent letter from President Brown he states: "We need missionaries, experienced men, preferably older men such as ex-bishops or men who have had experience in presiding."
THE DANISH MISSION
In the Danish Mission, Address: Priorvej 12, Copenhagen F, Brother Orson West is in charge. He is a very fine man. He writes and speaks English quite fluently, although he was born and has always lived in Denmark. In a recent letter he states:
We are all looking forward to receiving missionaries again in the Danish Mission... A problem which has been a serious one during the war is the coal and fuel situation. For the time being it is worse than ever. Peat is not the best fuel, but we will have to do with that during the coming winter. I am sure it is not good for our central heating plant to use only peat, which deposits so much soot. Regarding help to families and persons in our mission, I beg to inform you that as far as food is concerned we can get along. Our people in Norway and Finland need it much more than we do. We would be more than happy, however, to receive, underwear, shirts, stockings, and socks. Especially the babies need these things very much. It is almost impossible to buy babies' clothing.
THE EAST-GERMAN MISSION
In the East-German Mission when we left-I happened to be in Berlin when war was declared-Brother Herbert Klopfer was placed in charge, another fine young man who speaks English fluently. In fact, all of our mission presidents except two speak or write English, and those two have secretaries who can translate for them. Brother Klopfer, before we left Switzerland, was called into the service, not as a soldier, but to do secretarial work. The next we heard of him after we returned home was through Sweden; he was in Denmark and had attended services there and had taken part in their testimony meeting. The last word is that he is reported missing on the Russian front. The members are carrying on, however, and his counselors, Elder Richard Ranglack, now acting mission president, and Elder Paul Langheinrich are doing a splendid work. A letter dated August 19, 1945, states:
Had two wonderful meetings today. At two p.m. just a priesthood meeting with forty-five present. At four we held a memorial service in honor of President Grant. There were at least two hundred fifty to three hundred present in a hall big enough to hold one hundred seventy-five. It was just as full of spirit as it was of people. The old mission home at Händelallee is a pile of rubble. A sign in front gives the information that the office is now at Rathenower Str. 52, Berlin N.W. 21, only two blocks north and east of the old location.
THE FRENCH MISSION
The French Mission, as you know, is divided into three districts, Belgium, France, and French-Switzerland. This mission was not left in charge of one acting president, but three district presidents, very fine young men who have been carrying on in the same effective way as have our acting presidents. They are Brother Paul Devignez of the Belgium District, Brother Leon Fargier for France, and Brother R. Simond for the French-Swiss District. Brother Simond has managed in some way to send a monthly report during the entire war.
THE NETHERLANDS MISSION
In the Netherlands Mission the branches are also carrying on. Brother J. Schipaanboord writes:
During the war years we have endeavored to keep the right course. Our old buildings, and the rented halls, too, we have improved if possible so that they have become more valuable for our services. In the Rotterdam Branch we have built a baptismal fount... A new organ was also secured. Owing to the food scarcity, many of the faithful Saints had to be supported by money or in kind. You no doubt know that the mission house in The Hague had to be evacuated, and we finally moved and rented a place in Utrecht, Maarten Harpertzoon, Trompstraat 36.
THE NORWEGIAN MISSION
In Norway, Address: Osterhougs Gt. 27, Oslo, Brother O. Sonsteby, also a very fine man, has been carrying on. He writes:
I have been on a visit to North Norway and saw the Saints there. We held three meetings at Narvik, probably the most northern branch in the world. The branch has scarcely been visited during the war, but the Saints there have kept together in faithfulness and held their meetings regularly. The branch has been visited in the past by some of the leading authorities from Zion during their stay here in Norway, among others, Apostles David O. McKay, and Joseph F. Merrill. As travel conditions are today, the trip was very strenuous, but it was a great joy to me to see the Saints.
THE SWEDISH MISSION
From the Swedish Mission we have received letters and reports all during the war, and Brother Fritz Johansson has done a splendid work, not only in keeping us in touch with the Swedish Mission, but also the sister missions of Denmark and Norway. August 7th to the 22nd he also made a trip in the north up to Finland. Two people were baptized, and they organized a Relief Society. "I discern," he says, "the awful poverty that prevails in Finland. They need food as well as clothing in order to keep them from freezing this winter."
THE SWISS MISSION
We have heard from the Swiss Mission, also a neutral country, occasionally. Brother Max Zimmer, Sr., Leimenstr. 49, Basel, is the acting mission president; he has been especially helpful to our servicemen who were interned in Switzerland and in prison camps in Germany. A conference held at Easter time in their own chapel in Basel, the only Church-owned chapel in Switzerland, is reported as being of the largest conferences ever held in the Swiss Mission.
THE WEST-GERMAN MISSION
In the West-German Mission, the home and office is one of the few buildings still standing in beautiful Frankfort on the Main.
It is only slightly damaged with a few broken windows; a bomb had hit near the building but only cracked the walls slightly and left a large crater where it struck. Most of the rest of Frankfort on the Main is just piles of rubble. Our meeting place was completely burned out. Brother Friedrich Buhl, Jr., was left in charge; a very fine young man, but he was called into the service before we left, and Brother Christian Heck, another young man, was called to take his place. Brother Heck was also called into the service, and Brother Anton Huck, an elderly brother, was called to preside and is doing so now. It is reported that the two young men who had been called into the armed service were both killed.
AUSTRIAN REPORT
In Austria, our meeting places have not been damaged except in Vienna but our members are still meeting in No. 20 Seidengasse. A Russian cannon grenade struck high in the rear of the church building, breaking only a few windows in the chapel part, but inflicting a good-sized hole in the upper region of the apartment building. When the occupying Russians looked over the building, our Church occupying about one-third of it, they were told it was an American church and so they left it alone. Later, when the Americans came, they in turn, looked over the building but when they saw the work of the grenade they also left, and so the members continue to meet in their accustomed place. "Vienna," our correspondent continues, "is a hungry city, a city with ever so little food, fuel, light, housing, and transportation.
"These are difficult times, and I fear that the coming winter will be one long to be remembered. Just recently, I visited the Allgemeine Krankenhaus, the largest and most famous hospital in Vienna, and there the situation was the same, even in a hospital."
WORD FROM CZECHOSLOVAKIA
"In Czechoslovakia," Brother Joseph Roubiek, Trysova ul-c 8, Prague 2, writes, "I wish to inform you that after six years of war, all members of the Church have remained well and alive. It has been a terrible time. We have remained faithful however, and we await you." "The work of the Lord here has not been disturbed. We often think of you and the missionaries. Here there is great need and distress, great hunger among the people. The Saints, however, have continued to enjoy the blessings of the Lord. Their testimonies of the truthfulness of the gospel have not wavered, even in the worst moments of the great conflict."
The two branches in the Palestine-Syrian Mission are carrying on as usual, and food is also scarce there. In fact, it always is.
OUR SERVICEMEN PRAISED
Much of this information that has been received has come from our servicemen and several of our chaplains assigned to these European countries; and I should like to take this opportunity to express appreciation publicly for these servicemen. They have done, and are doing, a wonderful work. Our members are also very thankful for the kindness and help of our servicemen. I will take time to quote from one letter. It is typical of many others. After referring to the splendid work that President Brown did in his recent visit to Belgium, the writer says:
Our good friend and brother, Chaplain Howard C. Badger, has reported to you about activities in this country but he failed to point out the successful mission that he filled in our branches. Not only did he deliver stimulative sermons supported by a strong background, but although a serviceman, he assisted the needy and was somewhat like Father Christmas to our children, some of whom never knew chocolates or sweets before. We will surely remember him over here for his attractive character, personifying the successful missionary. It was also my privilege to welcome and to greet a great many servicemen since September 1944. Although we never met before, we felt immediately like best brothers ready to help each other with all our might.
He speaks of going to a cemetery and with reference to that I should like to read a paragraph from a young French sister. She says:
On October 19, 1944, I copied a dedication from the tomb of a military Mormon which is found in the cemetery of Henri-Chapelle in Belgium. We have promised to visit the cemeteries and search out the tombs of our brother Mormons who died to liberate us, and we will do all we can to place flowers on their graves just as though they were our own beloved sons.
I just cannot say too much for our servicemen. I have heard directly from more than a score of them, and indirectly from more than a dozen others. Several of our chaplains, as I stated, are also in these occupied countries and are also doing an outstanding work. We have had letters from them from the Scandinavian missions, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and quite a large number from Germany and Austria.
The only way we can get letters and help to Germany and Austria is through these servicemen. We are permitted, however, to send eleven pound packages by parcel post to the other missions, but these must be mailed to some person direct. We have now received from our acting mission presidents several hundred names and addresses and we had hoped to get these packages over before Christmas. There has been some delay, however, but the names are on file in the welfare office and are awaiting the go-ahead signal from a special committee appointed by the First Presidency to supervise this matter. In all the missions, as you have noted, shoes, underwear, and other warm clothing, especially for babies and young children are needed I do hope and pray that we can get help to them so that they will not suffer too much from cold and hunger this coming winter.
THE WAY TO PEACE
May our servicemen and our members in these war-torn countries, and all of us, live lives of Latter-day Saints. May we cultivate tolerance and love for one another and for all mankind. This war is but an awful chapter written in the eternal-long struggle between right and wrong, between love and hate, chastity and unchastity, greed and unselfishness. As long as hate and lust for power control the hearts of men, real peace can find no resting place in the world. Only love can bring peace. Anyone who permits himself to hate any person, or any people, makes his own small but vital contribution towards the discord and trouble, while he who seeks to love others, even his enemies, makes his own priceless contribution to peace. True, lasting peace, when it comes to the world, will be made up of the many tricklets of love flowing from the hearts of the people to a common understanding and a common goal. The gift of peace on earth and good will to men was offered to the world in the gospel of living taught by our Savior in his earthly ministry. He made love of God and love of mankind fundamental, and declared, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets". The power of love alone can permanently disarm the world.
May our Father in heaven help us to realize this and to govern our lives accordingly, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Charles A. Callis
Charles A. Callis, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 80-83
As I witnessed that impressive vote sustaining the General Authorities of the Church, a Latin phrase came to my mind which runs as follows: "The voice of the people is the voice of God." While this does not hold strictly true in all cases, yet yesterday morning the voice of God was heard in this great tabernacle. It is a wonderful thing, a blessing of comfort that we have the more sure word of prophecy in this Church. In fact this Church is the treasure house of all the gifts of God, and gives the knowledge that will make men eligible for entrance into the celestial kingdom of God. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a universal Church; it is not only a worldwide Church, but it is as wide as eternity.
THE DAWNING OF A NEW ERA
The prophet Isaiah-and of this prophet, Jesus said that his words were great-had a vision so glorious and splendid that in heavenly rapture he exclaimed:
Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once?.
We are on the threshold of remarkable events. If God, centuries ago, could incline the hearts of the people to seek him so that they had no disposition to do evil, why cannot he do that today? The inhabitants of the earth are his children, and God loves mercy more than judgment. I believe that we are entering upon an era of conversion so great that the human mind cannot conceive its magnitude. We are told in holy writ that every knee must bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ. With all my heart I believe that divine prediction will come true, for Jesus Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
THE APPEARANCE OF JESUS TO THE JEWS
Orson Pratt and Charles W. Penrose declared that prior to the glorious coming of the Son of God, the Jews are going to be beleaguered by the nations who threaten the very existence of the Jewish race. Then, according to Zechariah, down through the gates of heaven shall come the Lord Jesus Christ, the Captain and King for whom the Jews have wept and prayed so long, and he shall set his feet upon the Mount of Olives, and the Mount shall cleave asunder, and the Jews shall escape destruction. The God of heaven shall then, with the armies of heaven, have judgment upon the wicked, and the wicked shall be destroyed. When Jesus stands before the Jews, they will see the wounds in his hands and, recognizing their Lord and God, they shall say: "... What are these wounds in thine hands?" And then Jesus shall break the hearts of the Jews by saying: "Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends". And that nation then, and not until then, shall be born in a day. By the authorized servants of God they shall receive the baptism of repentance; they shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and become the children of God their Father and the servants of the great Jehovah. At that time a fountain shall be opened up unto the Jews and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, a fountain for the cleansing of sin and iniquity, and that fountain shall be as it always has been, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We read in the Book of Mormon:
... because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in... our hearts,... we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.
THE DESTINY OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS
And if the elders of Israel will preach the gospel in its plainness, not worldly philosophy, but the gospel of faith, repentance, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, then shall the hearts of the people be changed by the almighty power of God and they will press into the kingdom of God. This Church is destined to evangelize the whole earth. That is its mission, and by the grace of God we are going to accomplish it.
There is a wonderful prophecy in First Nephi, fourteenth chapter, uttered about the time that Isaiah delivered his great prophecy. Listen to it:
And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth; and they were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory.
How rapidly this wonderful prophecy is being fulfilled! President Joseph F. Smith in Bern, Switzerland, declared that "there will be churches built here, and temples built here and there all over Europe."
What a glorious destiny God sent us here to perform. Brethren and sisters, how can we be dilatory, how can we be negligent, when, shining as the sun in heaven, is the purpose and the destiny of this people? A people that has not an ideal or a noble purpose is like a painted ship on a painted ocean, but we must cherish and nourish these wonderful ideals that God has given and press on to the mark of eternal perfection. And the elders in the field ought not to be kept coddling the Saints, but they should be sent out among the Gentiles and derive that strength and power which comes from preaching the everlasting gospel.
RIGHTEOUSNESS REQUIRED TO MAKE A MIGHTY NATION
God be praised for this mighty republic! Oh, if the leaders of this nation could realize the purpose for which this nation is created, a might nation, the greatest in the world, that stands preeminent among all the nations, I believe that they would highly resolve in their hearts that corruption, extravagance, infidelity, Sabbath-breaking, and all the evils which form the accursed things in this nation, would be removed. I believe that this nation would then receive such a mighty uplift that it would be the wonder of all the world, that it would go forth assisting God and Jesus in establishing the religion which can bring permanent and perpetual peace and lasting glory to this nation.
Brethren and sisters, let us go forward. We are trying to awaken the world for the conflict of justice, preaching the gospel as a special witness for the second coming of the Son of God. Standing in the front ranks of this battle, we shall know, we do know now, that we are battling for the Lord through rendering service for our fellow creatures.
"O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come," be thou our guide we pray thee, lead us on to victory in this great spiritual battle. May we be thy humble instruments in bringing repentance into the world and salvation to our fellow beings, we humbly pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder John H. Taylor
John H. Taylor, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 83-86
I have a thought, brethren and sisters, that I would like to bring to you this afternoon. It came to me when I was coming into the tabernacle grounds.
A HOUSE BUILT UPON A ROCK
There was a little lady rushing out through the gates going to her work. On her way she had come into the temple grounds because to her it was home-home, because this is where she found God, where she found a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, where she was baptized, where she went to the house of the Lord and obtained blessings in his holy house. As I saw her going out, I said to myself, "This place is truly a home, because, like a home, it brings us blessings and safety, strength, courage, and faith that endures."
You remember the parable of the house that was built upon the sand and the house that was built upon the rock. A house that is built upon the sand is always in peril. When the rains of regret and disappointment fall upon the house, and the winds of discord and suspicion beat upon it, the house falls, and great is the ruin thereof. Truly it is the ruin of happiness for the father and mother and the children. Fortunately, in order that theirs will not be a total loss, the house that is built upon the sand and is washed away, may be rebuilt again by the family. This time, if they are wise, they will build upon the rock of faith and confidence and cooperation, and the house will always be safe from the storm. When a house is built upon the rock of love, of good will, of sacrifice, and of tolerance, and the rains of temptation and misunderstanding fall upon it, and the winds of derision and mockery blow against it, it will still stand because it is built upon a rock.
HIS FATHER'S LOVE FOR HIS HOME
I used to wonder why my father did not want to move away from his home. It was a large house and most of the family had married and gone away. I wondered why he did not also go away and find a smaller place. I found out later when I understood what life was about. A long time before, he brought his wife to this house. In it his children had been born and some of them had died. From it sons were sent out into the field to preach the gospel. One of them was brought home by his mother and laid away on the hillside. He had planted the trees; he had remodeled the house. Truly it was built with his love and with his confidence. It represented a lot of sacrifice and doing without many comforts. That is why he wanted to stay in the house that was built upon the rock of his life. And so it became a rock, to us who were born in the house. We knew about the things that happened. We were grateful for the blessings of a father and mother who taught us the gospel of Jesus Christ, who helped us to travel along the right road and find success. That was our home; that is why we loved it; that is where stability and goodness came to us.
PLACES OF WORSHIP BECOME HOMES
Nearby was another home which we loved and which was the meeting house, the old Fourteenth Ward. I went there during all of my youth. There I found a testimony; there I came to know something about the gospel of Jesus Christ; there I found the priesthood of God. There I went to my first dance, and my mother was my partner: a mother so kind, a mother so beautiful, that all the many years that came to her, her large family, all the struggles, the trials and sorrows, yes, even the tears, could not wash away, nor wear away her beauty. She had not only the physical characteristics of beauty, but was beautiful in all the things that God gives to mothers to make them beautiful.
In this block is the tabernacle, another house that is built upon a rock, and one that I love, because of what it did for me. As a little boy, mother brought me to hear the sermons, and we sat here on the side and listened to the servants of God. When I became tired, I cuddled up to her, and she put her arms around me and I went to sleep. This is a home. When I was eight years of age I went over to the Endowment House to be baptized. Then I knew what it was to receive baptism and forgiveness, and as I went out of the door and walked up by the side of this building, I said to myself, "Well, John, you've been baptized and the Lord has forgiven you your sins." I tried to think of all the sins I had committed, and there seemed to be a lot and even then I couldn't find, it seemed to me, enough, and so I magnified what I had that I might leave them with the Lord.
This is the place where I came to see a girl that I wanted to marry. She came here each Sunday afternoon to meeting. When I went on my mission, and came back, she was still sitting in the same place on the Sabbath day. A little later we went into the House of the Lord and received his blessings. Truly the houses of life are a part of us, and to bring us happiness or joy they have to be built upon a rock, otherwise the storms of life will wash away the sand from beneath the house, and it will go down to ruin and destruction.
One day I went out into the great home called missionary life, and there I found a greater testimony. The sweetness of living for others and doing for others increased my testimony so that it became stronger and better than it had been before.
A MISSIONARY INCIDENT
One day I had been out in the country and as I was walking home, I came to a house where some Saints lived. It seemed too late, but I saw a light and therefore decided that they must be up. They were a poor family and had been out of work. When I opened the door and went in, to my surprise I found that they were just eating their supper. The lady of the house said: "Brother Taylor, have you had your supper?" and I said hesitatingly, "No, not tonight." She said: "Come and sup with us." She drew up another stool to the table, and I sat down with the husband and three or four little children. She got a plate and a spoon and I thought she was going over to the stove to get a portion for me, but she went to her own plate and took a few spoonfuls and put it onto my plate. Then she went to the father and to all the children doing the same thing, and then brought it to me, a servant of the Lord.
I prayed in my heart that to this home should come the kindly spirit of the Christ, that he would bless the food as he had the loaves and the fishes, and that the little children should not go from the table hungry. That house, so humble, was built upon the rock of kindness and love of God. When the meal was over, we knelt down around the same little table in family prayer, and as a servant of the Lord, I left my blessing and went away humbly with the desire in my heart that God would surely bless that home.
THE MANSIONS ABOVE
Someday, brethren and sisters, we will all have another home to go to. We are building it as we live our lives on the earth. I trust that we won't be disappointed in the place that we have chosen for it. If it is to bring us the maximum of happiness and security, and be numbered among the mansions of the Lord, we must build it on a foundation of faith, good works, and obedience to the commandments of the Lord. May we be like unto the wise man who built his house on the rock, and when the rains came and the winds blew, it fell not, because it was founded upon a rock.
May our Heavenly Father bless us in our homes, whether they have to do with where we live, or where we meet to worship him, or where we go to get his special blessings; and when we go back to him, these final homes be pleasant places where God dwells and his spirit is always with us, I humbly pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Mark E. Petersen
Mark E. Petersen, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 88-92
One of the parables of our Savior reads as follows:
... The Kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
REVERSING THE PARABLE REGARDING THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE
We have always felt that that merchant was an extremely wise man, because he was willing to give up all that he possessed in order to acquire the pearl of great price. But let me ask you, what would you have thought of that merchant had the parable been reversed and he had given up the pearl of great price in exchange for something of little or no value?
We have some among us who are doing that very thing. In their own lives they reverse the parable of the Lord and they give up the pearl of great price for a fleeting fancy. They actually sell their birthright in the kingdom of God for less than a mess of pottage.
From time to time in the Church section of The Deseret News-which section I do recommend to all of you as one of the finest publications that you can have in your home from time to time that publication carries a list of names of individuals who have been excommunicated from this Church. These excommunicants at one time were all members of the kingdom of God, and at one time they all possessed the pearl of great price. But each one of them has reversed that parable in his own life and has given up the pearl of great price with all its values and with all its blessings. What a pity! What a tragedy!
FALSE TEACHERS DECEIVE MANY
How do people do such a thing as this? One of the reasons people apostatize from this Church is that they have failed to heed the warning of the scriptures against listening to false teachers who raise their voices in our midst. In spite of the fact that these warnings of the scriptures are crystal clear, many of our people fail to heed them Note how clear they are. Peter said:
... there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction, And many shall follow their pernicious ways.
Jesus said,"... Take heed that no man deceive you, For many shall come in my name... and shall deceive many", and again the Lord said, "... many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many" , and once again the Lord said, and keep in mind that when he said this he was speaking to members of the Church who were already in possession of the pearl of great price:
... if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe him not; For in those days there shall also arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs, and wonders, insomuch, that, if possible, they shall deceive the very elect who are the elect according to the covenant.
Who are the elect according to the covenant? They are those persons who have entered into the new and everlasting covenant by accepting membership in this Church.
When the Apostle John was speaking of the false teachers in his day he branded them as antichrists. Said he, "... even now are there many antichrists:...They went out from us". In other words they had been members of the Church, and they had been led into paths of apostasy because of false religious notions.
They went out from us... for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
How do these false teachers lead people astray? They do so by attacking the fundamental doctrines of the Church. They attack the Authorities of the Church. They attack the teachings of the Authorities. They seek to develop doctrinal disputes among the people to undermine their faith, and they lead people into apostasy when they do such things as that. Very often false teachers who have come among us endeavor to justify their position by claiming to have received some revelation or dream directing them, they say, in the paths which they tread.
There were disputes anciently among the Jews, over the doctrines of the church, and these disputes led people to apostasy. There were disputes among the ancient Nephites likewise, just as there are disputes among some of our people today, disputes, let me remind you, which lead to apostasy and excommunication from the Church.
In the days of the Savior, or rather before he appeared among the Nephites, there were many doctrinal disputes among the Nephites. Some of those who stirred up the hearts of the people said that there was no Christ. They denied his very existence. When the righteous Nephites looked forward to the coming of the Lord, these false teachers declared that he would not come, because he did not so much as exist; and so, when finally Jesus did make his appearance among the Nephites, after his resurrection on the other continent, he stood before them, and settled then and there the dispute over whether or not he existed. He stood before the multitude, and invited them to come up, one by one, and examine his body, his resurrected body. He invited them to feel his hands and feet and to thrust their hands into his side, to feel the imprints of the crucifixion; and after they had all come up and found that he was the Christ, they fell down and worshipped him.
Then he began to preach the gospel to those Nephites and the very first thing that he said to them in beginning his preaching was this:
... there shall be no disputations among you, as there have hitherto been; neither shall there be disputations among you concerning the points of my doctrine, as there have hitherto been. For verily, I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention... and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend... one with another. Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away.
Giving a similar warning to the Prophet Joseph Smith the Lord said:
... Satan doth stir up the hearts of the people to contention concerning the points of my doctrine; and in these things they do err, for they do wrest the scriptures and do not understand them.
So, Latter-day Saints, beware of false teachers. When men come among you and begin to preach doctrines unto you which tend to destroy your confidence in the holy scriptures, when men come among you, as they are now coming, declaring to you that the appointment of George Albert Smith as President of this Church is not valid, because they say this Church should only have seven presidents and no more, when people come among you declaring that Christ is not divine, or when they come among you advocating the so-called practice of plural marriage, contrary to the teachings of this Church and contrary to the law of the land, when they come among you declaring that you can enter into domestic relations with another man or another woman without committing adultery, when you do not have a marriage bond which is recognized as legal by the law of this land, or when people come among you declaring that the Church is out of order, because we are at the present time not practicing the United Order, or when a man comes among you declaring that the Church is off the track and that he is one mighty and strong sent to set the Church in order, or when anyone comes and tells you that temple marriage is just a fad and that it has no relationship to your exaltation in the kingdom of God, or when someone comes to you, as one group is now doing, preaching that reincarnation is a Christian doctrine, or when men come to you declaring that predestination is one of the doctrines of the gospel, declaring that one group of the Saints is predestined to go to one degree of glory and another group of the Saints is predestined to go to another degree of glory, or when they come among you declaring that they have had dreams and visions about some get-rich-quick scheme by which they are going to save the Church financially in some period of distress, or when they come to you and declare that the method of administering the sacrament of the Lord's supper is to be changed, contrary to all the teachings of the scriptures, or when they come to you and say you can serve two masters, that you can serve the Church and also one of these wild-cat cults that are starting up, when you hear teachings of this kind you remember that such doctrines cause dissention among the people, that they cause disputes which lead to apostasy and that the Lord condemned disputes of that kind. When you have persons come to you teaching doctrines of this kind, remember also the words of the Savior when he said:
... neither shall there be disputations among you concerning the points of my doctrine... for verily, verily, I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men.
Remember, too, the Savior told the Prophet Joseph Smith that it is Satan who "doth stir up the hearts of the people to contention concerning the points of doctrine." and that when individuals put themselves in the hands of Satan in doing these things "they do err, for they do wrest the scriptures and do not understand them".
SAFETY IN FOLLOWING COUNSEL OF LEADERS OF THE CHURCH
Surely the Latter-day Saints, of all people, should be on their guard against false doctrines. Have we forgotten the warning that was given to us by the Savior, as he appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith in the sacred grove during that first vision? Have we forgotten that there the Savior declared that man-made religious doctrines are an abomination in his sight?
The Lord has foreseen the fact that the Saints would need protection against false teachers, and he foresaw the need of setting safeguards in the Church to give them that protection.
Paul in his letter to the Ephesians clearly explained what these safeguards are, and he gave us the reason the Lord established these safeguards. If you will remember your reading of the fourth chapter of Ephesians, you will recall that he outlined the organization of the Church, and as part of that organization he declared that in the Church there were to be some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. The reasons he said these officers were set in the Church were: First, for the perfecting of the Saints-remember that the Savior had commanded us to be perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect. Second, they were set in the Church for the work of the ministry; third, for the edifying or the instruction of the membership of the Church; fourth, to help us to come to a unity of the faith; fifth, to help us to obtain a knowledge of the Sons of God; sixth, to help us to achieve the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. And then he gave us a seventh reason, telling us that the Lord put apostles and prophets and pastors and teachers in this Church-and mark these words carefully-
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
So if you really desire to avoid deceptions, if you really desire to do that which is right and proper, then you take advantage of the safeguard that the Lord has given you in the organization of this Church. And you remember that if you will follow the teachings of your inspired prophets, seers, and revelators, of your apostles, of your pastors and teachers, your bishops and your stake presidents, you won't need to wonder whether or not such and such a doctrine is a deception, whether it is false or whether it is true, because those authorized servants of the Lord will lead you into paths of righteousness, and they will keep you on the right track.
Salvation comes not by being tossed about by every wind of doctrine but by learning the truth as it is taught by the inspired, authorized leaders of the Church, and then having learned that truth, by living up to it and enduring in faithfulness unto the very end.
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.
If you would know the will of the Lord, so that you may obtain your salvation, then obtain your knowledge of the will of the Lord from his authorized servants whom he has set in this Church. That we may have the common sense to do this, I earnestly pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
Joseph Fielding Smith, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 94-99
It is my purpose tonight to plead with our brethren who hold the responsibility of conducting the priesthood for a better supervision of priesthood quorums. In a revelation given to the Prophet for the benefit of the first elders of this Church he said: "... thou shalt not idle away thy time, neither shalt thou bury thy talent that it may not be known". Too many of those who hold the priesthood have idled away their time and have buried their talent. We would like to have a revival among all the quorums of the priesthood.
ORGANIZATION ESSENTIAL TO PRIESTHOOD
In that great revelation known as section one hundred seven, the priesthood revelation, there are three expressions I would like to read, first from the twenty-first verse:
Of necessity, there are presidents, or presiding officers growing out of, or appointed of or from among those who are ordained to the several offices in these two priesthoods.
Then in the sixtieth verse the Lord says:
Verily, I say unto you, saith the Lord of Hosts, there must needs be presiding elders to preside over those who are of the office of an elder.
And then again in the eighty-ninth verse:
Again, the duty of the president over the office of elders is to preside over ninety-six elders, and to sit in council with them, and to teach them according to the covenants.
Organization is an essential requirement in the government of the Church. The entire universe is organized on a divine plan. Without organization there would be confusion, chaos, and that would lead to disorganization and destruction. The quorums of the priesthood are organized for a definite purpose. I've jotted down several of these: first, to keep the members holding the priesthood active and alert in the performance of every duty which the priesthood requires at their hands; second, to teach the members how to assume responsibility and magnify their callings; third, to train them in methods by which they may effectually teach others and officiate in their behalf; fourth, to encourage them in their responsibilities pertaining to the salvation of the dead as well as for the living.
A quorum, properly appointed, must seek out the needs of every individual member and attempt to supply these needs that may be discovered, both temporally and spiritually. No quorum of the priesthood is assuming the full obligation placed upon it by the Lord which does not sufficiently extend temporal need. Each member should dedicate himself and use his talent to advance the cause of Zion. He must be loyal and faithful to the Church, to the quorum, to the priesthood in general, to his family and to every divine principle of eternal truth.
RESPONSIBILITY OF PRESIDENT OF QUORUM
The responsibility of the quorum president is, as stated in this revelation, to sit in counsel, to advise and instruct and teach those who are under his direction. The Lord has placed the responsibility for the training and the conduct of the members of the quorum upon the shoulders of the president of the quorum. He has given him two counselors to assist him in that work. This direction and care of the quorum may not be transferred to the shoulders of some other. Men who are the most capable for these positions of presidency should be sought. Too frequently it is thought that the supervision of a quorum, especially of elders, is not of great importance, but the Lord thinks otherwise. There should be, however, a division of responsibility among the presidency. The presidency should see that the quorum is fully organized, and that every man is performing his duty. If there are delinquent or wayward members, these should be labored with until brought to repentance and full fellowship.
The stake presidency and the high council have supervision over the quorums of the Melchizedek Priesthood. It is their duty to see that the quorums are fully organized and properly functioning. The stake Melchizedek Priesthood committee is to act as an aid to the stake presidency. It is recommended that such a committee be maintained. It must be understood, however, that the stake Melchizedek Priesthood committee does not preside, but is to supervise and counsel quo-rum members, under the direction of the stake presidency. It is proposed that a member of the stake presidency be the chairman of this committee. He may have as many members of the high council on that committee as it is deemed wise, but not less than three. It is further understood that this committee has authority in the supervision of the elders, seventies and high priests within the stake, under the direction of the stake president.
The presidency of a quorum of priesthood should hold weekly council meetings. They must not wait for something to arise which they deem important to be considered. If they will meet, many things will arise for their consideration which were previously not thought of.
There are three great needs of a quorum. We believe that the work falls naturally into three divisions: first, the need to help every bearer of the Melchizedek Priesthood to attain to the degree of economic independence and material well-being that will assure adequate food, clothing, fuel, housing, and other needs, physical and educational, for himself and family as well as spiritual; second, the need to establish a feeling of true brotherhood should characterize the work of priesthood quorums. There should be the endeavor to provide through the quorum activities, including socials and outings, the feeling of fellowship, faith, and love that shall meet all the needs of the membership; third, a need to search out the facts and make available all the information and statistics concerning the quorum and its members.
DIVISION OF RESPONSIBILITY
We suggest that the responsibility having to do with personal welfare be assigned to the quorum president. It would naturally follow that the other divisions would be assumed by the counselors, one taking the quorum activity and Church service, the other fact-finding and statistical responsibility. These responsibilities must not be shifted to the shoulders of others, but it is very proper that help be obtained from standing committees as the presidency of the quorum may determine. It is suggested that these responsibilities may be designated as follows: one, personal welfare; two, quorum activity and Church service; three, fact finding and statistics.
In the past we have had four standing committees but our observation and the information coming from stake priesthood committees lead us to conclude that these three committees may be all that are required. However, the presidency, if they desire, may call task committees whenever the occasion seems to warrant it.
MONTHLY LEADERSHIP MEETING
There should be in each stake a monthly Melchizedek leadership meeting at which the stake presidency and the stake Melchizedek priesthood committee shall meet with the officers and leaders of quorums and groups, including quorum presidencies, quorum secretaries, group leaders, committee members, and class instructors. It is suggested that the secretaries meet with the fact finding and statistical group of counselors. It is also recommended that a special department to take care of instructors be conducted under the leadership, or at least the direction of a member of the stake Melchizedek Priesthood committee. In this department teacher-training helps and assistance should be given, lesson material enlarged and developed. It should be borne in mind that class instruction and related problems are the responsibility of the member of the quorum presidency assigned.
On the day of the monthly priesthood leadership meeting, the stake committee should hold a preliminary meeting with the presidencies of the Melchizedek quorums. We recommend that separation be had on a department, not quorum, basis. At the time of separation, brief opening exercises should be held. In the matter of reports, it is to be hoped that attention will be given to the instructions which are sent to the quorums. More detailed information and an outline of procedure and instruction will, within a short time, be furnished each stake president and quorum president.
THE COURSE OF STUDY
The course of study that will be considered by the priesthood quorums for the year 1946 was prepared by Elder Milton R. Hunter of the First Council of the Seventy. The title is, The Gospel Through the Ages. I have read this manuscript and some of the other brethren have read it, and I can assure you brethren that we are going to have a very profitable time in considering a subject of this nature.
Now, if I may spend a little time, after giving these details and stating that more information will soon be furnished, I would like to say a few things about our responsibilities as men holding the priesthood. On the one hundred and twenty-first section of the D&C;, the quotation that we have heard so many times from the lips of President Heber J. Grant, I would like to make a comment.
THE WORD OF THE LORD
Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson-That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.
Now who are those who are called? I take it that every man who is ordained to an office in the priesthood has been called. The Lord is willing that any man should serve him.
In the early revelations given to some of the brethren who came asking of the Lord what he would have them do he told them to bring forth the cause of Zion, to thrust in their sickles with their might that they might lay up in store.
I think a great deal of this short section, section four, for two good reasons: first, it was given to my great-grandfather, but it wasn't given to him alone, and I have said many times it was also given to me; and second, it was given to you, each one of you, and in this revelation the Lord says:
Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.
Then it follows that if we don't serve him with all our heart, might, mind, and strength, if we're not loyal to this calling which we have received, we are not going to be blameless when we stand before that judgment seat. It is a very serious thing to hold the priesthood. I wish when our young men were called and ordained, that is, recommended to be ordained to the office of elder in the Church, they could be impressed before they were ordained with the importance of the calling which they are about to receive.
In section eighty-four of the D&C;, the Lord has this to say:
For whoso is faithful unto the obtaining these two priesthoods of which I have spoken, and the magnifying their calling, are sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of their bodies; They become the sons of Moses and of Aaron and the seed of Abraham, and the church and kingdom, and the elect of God; And also all they who receive this priesthood receive me, saith the Lord.
And if we receive the Lord, then, surely the Lord receives us, and we are in fellowship with him.
For he that receiveth my servants receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth my Father.
Now, here is the great blessing, which I think many of us have overlooked, and especially these young men when they are called and sustained to be ordained to the office of elder:
"And he that receiveth my Father"-and of course we receive the Father through our faithfulness and our obedience, "receiveth my Father's kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him".
Can you think of a greater blessing the Lord could offer to any man holding the priesthood? But this is based upon faithfulness and the magnifying of the calling.
In other revelations, you know, the Lord says:
And who overcome by faith, and are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise,... They are they into whose hands the Father has given all things... they are gods, even the sons of God.
And this according to the oath and covenant which belongeth to the priesthood. Therefore, all those who receive the priesthood, receive this oath and covenant of my Father, which he cannot break, neither can it be moved.
Here is a definite, positive statement that every man who receives the priesthood, receives it with an oath and covenant that he will magnify his calling, that he will be faithful and true, and his reward will be to become a son of God and a joint heir with Jesus Christ in having the fulness of the Father's kingdom. No greater blessing could be offered. And then the Lord has said:
Therefore all those who receive the priesthood, receive this oath and covenant of my Father, which he cannot break, neither can it be moved.
Now, these promises were not made to high priests alone, but to all who receive the priesthood. And then the Lord is promising us everything that he has if we will be faithful. Isn't it only fair, that the punishment for violation of that covenant and the trampling of that priesthood under our feet should bring a punishment, on one hand, as severe, as glorious will be the reward on the other? And so the Lord says:
But whoso breaketh this covenant after he hath received it, and altogether turneth therefrom, shall not have forgiveness of sins in this world nor in the world to come.
Oh, if we could only impress that upon the mind of every man when he is called to receive the priesthood! Now, only those who magnify their callings will be chosen.
The Lord bless you, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
Joseph L. Wirthlin, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 99-107
I sincerely trust, my brethren, that I might enjoy the spirit of the Lord the few minutes that I stand before this magnificent body of the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. As I listened to the opening prayer of this session of our conference tonight, there was one thought expressed that made a deep impression upon me, and that was the thought that we should put our arms around those who have become inactive and indifferent in the Church. Our responsibility to those who become indifferent brings to mind the scripture presented by Elder Mark E. Petersen in his most inspirational address. It is found in Ephesians 4:11-13.
ASSIGNMENTS FOR THE PRIESTHOOD
And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man.
As I analyze these words of Paul, they seem to fall into two distinct parts. The first part has to do with those who are the designated servants of the Lord. The second part outlines the assignments to these servants; first, the assignment of perfecting the Saints; second, the work of the ministry; third, the edifying of the body of Christ until we all come to a unity of the faith; and fourth, a knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man.
THE TEACHER'S DUTIES
We are all familiar with the responsibility of each group of these servants of the Lord, but I should like to make particular reference to the group that Paul calls the teachers. Considering the office of teacher in the Church first, and secondly the assignment of perfecting the Saints, establishing faith in their hearts, and giving them a complete knowledge of the mission, the sacrifice and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, it would seem that in the scriptures there should be a plan or formula whereby these teachers might accomplish the objectives outlined in the declaration of Paul. The formula or plan is found in a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith in section 20, verse 53 of the D&C; wherein the Lord said:
The teacher's duty is to watch over the church always, and be with and strengthen them; And see that there is no iniquity in the church, neither hardness with each other, neither lying, backbiting, nor evil speaking; And see that the church meet together often, and also see that all members do their duty.
This is the Lord's plan, and in it there are found five distinct steps: first, the teacher's duty is to watch over the Church always, which indicates that the assignment of teaching the people isn't an assignment for any specified period of time but one that might be a life's mission, for the Lord used the word "always." The second step involves the teacher being with and strengthening them. The third step is to see that there is no iniquity in the Church, neither hardness with each other, neither lying, backbiting, nor evil speaking fourth, to see that the Church meet together often; fifth, and also see that all the members do their duty.
In analyzing this great priesthood assignment of perfecting the Saints, it will require constant motivation, teaching, and particularly in guarding the Saints against those who come as wolves in sheep's clothing, teaching the doctrines of men which are always false doctrines. The untiring effort, prayers, and presence of the teacher, the guardian of the flock, are necessary in order to strengthen the Saints in knowledge, in their faith, and in their testimonies, to the end that they will know of a surety that the restored gospel of Christ is being taught by the teacher of the Lord, and to enjoy a testimony that whispers constantly to them that the gospel as restored to the Prophet Joseph Smith is the Lord's plan wherein they can enjoy salvation and exaltation in the kingdom of our Heavenly Father.
It logically follows that if the Saints are to be perfected, of necessity iniquity, hardness with each other, lying, backbiting, and evil speaking must be eliminated from their daily lives. If you will think of iniquity, think of hardness, think of lying, backbiting, and evil speaking, inevitably you think of Satan, who is the source of these sins which have caused and do cause sorrow and death. The emotions of hate, criticism, and backbiting that he inculcates into the hearts of men are the causes for apostasy, for whenever a man in this Church finds fault, practices backbiting and evil speaking, he becomes hardened in his heart, and the spirit of God departs from him. Unless there is a change, this course leads to apostasy and degradation. The teachers of the Church being the watchmen on the towers of Zion should have as one of their objectives so to teach the Saints that they will have the strength to overcome these vices and evils to the end that the perfection spoken of by Paul will ultimately be their achievement and blessing.
The duty of the teacher to see that the Church meet together often is of utmost importance, for in meeting together often, the Lord has promised that his spirit will be present in rich abundance; and where his spirit is found, truth, love, and light will be the blessings of those who are in attendance. The teacher should encourage the Saints to meet together on the Lord's day, to rest from their labors, and, most important of all, to partake of the emblems of the Last Supper to the end that the body of the crucified Redeemer will become so edified that the people will know that the broken body that hung on the cross and the spilled blood brought about the atonement and made the resurrection possible. Furthermore, through the edification of the body of the Savior as represented in the sacrament, the Saints will have a testimony of his divine calling and always be willing to remember him and keep his commandments.
The teacher should so inspire the Saints that all of them will do their duty as the Lord commanded, for out of duty is personal development and spiritual progress possible, for "faith without works is dead". Personal development and spiritual progress go for perfection in character, in noble deeds, and in doing the will of our Heavenly Father, and the reward, therefore, is one which is divinely given in the form of a testimony, a testimony of the divine mission of the Savior, a testimony of the mission of Joseph Smith, a testimony of the fact that those who now guide and direct the destiny of this work do it under the inspiration of our Heavenly Father's holy spirit and with the mantle of authority upon their shoulders which was restored through the instrumentality of John the Baptist, Peter, James, and John. Activity is the strongest bulwark against the temptations and snares of the evil one. Activity is the lifeblood of this great organization. It is the foundation for an enduring testimony which can be lost when an individual does not do his duty and becomes inactive and indifferent.
The servants of the Lord, these teachers, were assigned to watch over the Church always and to be with and strengthen its membership and are selected by the Lord's representative, the bishop. But who are to be chosen to this great priesthood assignment? This question is not difficult to answer, for the bishop and his counselors have the right to call on every high priest, every seventy, every elder, every priest, and every teacher, who is worthy of this great and holy calling.
Ofttimes the remark is heard, "I have been teaching for ten or fifteen years and feel that because of this long tenure in office, I have graduated from this field of activity." I want to say emphatically, brethren, that any man who makes such a declaration might as well add, "I have graduated from the priesthood that I hold." The man who holds the priesthood of God is expected to render service as long as he lives, for his priesthood is endless. Furthermore, he is expected to respond to any and all calls that are made of him by the proper authority. Anything short of this is comparable to renouncing one's priesthood.
There is no honor with more distinction attached to it than the honor of teaching the people. The Savior set the proper example. His whole ministry was devoted to the welfare of the people and particularly to teaching them the doctrines of the kingdom. Surely, no one holding the priesthood will forego the privilege of following the example of the great Teacher. The Lord commanded Joseph Smith that we should teach one another the doctrines of the kingdom, and there is no better way than visiting among the people and teaching them the doctrines of the restored gospel. There are those who feel that they should be excused from teaching the people because of other duties, but it is felt that although members of the priesthood are engaged in other activities such as the auxiliaries, the assignment of teaching the people should take precedence for it is a priesthood activity, and the priesthood comes first. There is only one exception to this rule, and this exception is made by the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve: in the case of stake presidencies and high councils, they are exempt from teaching because they constitute a court of the Church, and it is felt to be necessary that their minds be free of bias or prejudice. If they were to visit among the people as teachers or arbitrators, these men who constitute the high council court might find themselves in situations where their minds might become prejudiced because of contacts with those who are engaged in controversy. But the stake presidency and high council are responsible for the ward teaching in their stake, to see that it is done in all the wards and that the commandment of the Lord as revealed to the Prophet Joseph is carried out fully.
QUALIFICATIONS OF TEACHERS
What are the qualifications of a teacher? A teacher should be a man who teaches by example and lives every doctrine and principle that he advocates. I am not hesitant in saying to you that when a man goes forth to teach the principles of the gospel, having a clear conscience and knowing in his own heart that he is obeying and abiding by the principles of the gospel to the best of his ability, he can with certainty know that he will teach the Saints with the inspiration of God's spirit resting mightily upon him. He can teach in the spirit of sincerity, and the impression that he will make upon those who listen to him will be lasting and will sow the seeds of faith and obedience. A teacher should always be prepared. My observations indicate that many times teaching is done without proper preparation and that the monthly ward teachers' message prepared by the Presiding Bishop's Office is the crutch upon which many of our brethren lean. The message may be read before visiting the people, but there are many instances where it is read for the first time in the home of some Latter-day Saint, which is a confession that the teachers have come unprepared, and the impression made under such circumstances is very unfavorable. Proper preparation is of utmost importance, for upon it success depends.
Teachers should know the families which constitute their flock. More important, they should know each individual to the end that they can provide the bread of life that is needed, not only collectively but individually, rendering such counsel as will encourage and stimulate greater activity. Teaching on this basis will preclude the use of a printed message, the teachers being prepared and inspired to give such message as is needed in each particular home. I am sure the time is coming, and it isn't too far distant, when the printed message, which has been placed in your hands and is known as the monthly ward teaching message, may be eliminated entirely, and we shall go back to teaching the people, relying upon the Lord's spirit and making careful, prayerful preparation in order to be fully qualified to carry out the mandate of perfecting the Saints, of bringing them to a unity of the faith through the elimination of iniquity, backbiting, evil speaking, and hardness with each other. Servants of the Lord should be in constant communication with him in the performance of duty to be done. Nothing is of more importance than getting down upon one's knees with a junior companion, a teacher or a priest, and supplicating the Lord for his blessings and assistance in this great assignment. I do not hesitate to promise any pair of teachers who kneel down and ask God for his help, after having made proper preparation, that they will be impressed to do those things which will be most efficacious in the lives of their flock.
Teaching the people requires regularity. In other words, we should establish in the Church the practice of teaching the people on the first and second Thursday of each month. Thereby it would be only a short time until the people would become accustomed to having the teachers visit on a definite night, that over the Church generally, these two nights will be known as ward teaching nights, and most people will set them aside in anticipation of the teachers' visit.
It must always be remembered that the teachers visit the people with definite objectives in mind, to strengthen them to see that they do their duty. Therefore, all material foreign to this important assignment should be deleted from the conversation. Much of our time and the time of the people is spent in discussing such topics as the weather, politics, and the war, and in so doing we are wasting our time, the people's time, and most important of all, the Lord's time, because teachers are in his service and he expects us to devote the time involved to the welfare and good of the people.
TRAINING OF AARONIC PRIESTHOOD MEMBERS
I should like to draw to the attention of you older men the responsibility that you have and the privilege you enjoy in the companionship of a member of the Aaronic Priesthood. This young man looks to you for leadership and rightfully, too, and if you disappoint him in keeping the appointments made, if you fail to assume responsibility of leadership in teaching, if you fail to give him the opportunity of expression, it logically follows that the young man will look upon teaching as something of small consequence. On the other hand, with the right kind of leadership, this young man receives a training and an experience that will qualify him for the mission field and, most important of all, burn into his heart a testimony that he is a servant of the Lord. I recall my experience as a teacher. My first companion was an old Scandinavian brother who could hardly speak the English language distinctly and correctly. When the bishop assigned me to go with him, I had many reservations and rather reluctantly consented. This grand man came to me and said, "I am happy to have you as my companion. You come to my home on such and such a night that we might make proper preparation." I went to his home on the designated night with some misgivings. I was invited to kneel down with him in his humble home and ask for the blessings of the Lord, and, brethren, I testify that although this Scandinavian brother spoke broken English, he enjoyed the spirit of God in rich abundance, and I soon discovered in the thirteen families we visited, among whom were the rich and the humble, that this good man was received with the highest degree of respect.
I ask you older brethren to manifest a keen interest in the priests and the teachers of the Church to the end that they will come not only to know but to feel in their hearts that they are in the service of the Master, the service of perfecting his Saints and bringing them to a unity of the faith.
WATCHING OVER THE CHURCH
The Lord's declaration to watch over the Church always entails the responsibility of being willing to visit and be with the Saints whenever necessary, which should eliminate from our thinking that teaching the people requires but one night a month. It might require two nights; it may require three nights; it may require as many nights as are necessary to complete the assignment and to be ever on guard against any influences that are detrimental to the spiritual and temporal welfare of the people. It is essential that the ward teacher should attend all of his meetings for two reasons: first, for his personal benefit; and secondly, to perform his duty of watching over the Church always, which implies that he will take a mental roll of all his little flock that are present. Those who are absent should be contacted with the thought in mind of stimulating them to activity and to carry out the mandate of the Lord to see that the Church meet together often.
There may be those who are in temporal difficulties. If you are watching over the Church always, you will be able and be sufficiently qualified to report the temporal circumstances of such families to the bishop. If you are watching over the Church always, you will be available to render assistance to those who are ill and to the home of death. Surely, the heartfelt interest of the true shepherd of the flock will return to him the rich blessings of appreciation, gratitude, and love for his thoughtful and kindly administrations to those in difficulty.
RECEIVING THE TEACHERS IN THE HOME
I have drawn to your attention a few of the responsibilities of the teacher, but there are other responsibilities. There is another phase of this great and important assignment that has to do directly with you and me who are being and who are to be taught by these servants of the Lord. I ask the question, "Do I receive these men, do you receive these men, with the highest degree of respect and hospitality, or do we merely tolerate them out of superficial courtesy?" It is my feeling, brethren, that we assume an attitude of indifference. Many times we fail to lay aside the evening paper, turn off the radio, call in the family to receive the message of the Lord's servants. If we expect to be built up in our faith, to achieve perfection in our lives as Paul said, these men should be received with all the courtesy and respect at our command. Certainly, if the President of the Church were to come to our door or the president of the stake or the bishop of the ward, we would feel highly honored to do all within our power to show him proper deference. The teacher comes to our door, holding the same priesthood as the President of the Church or the president of the stake, or the bishop of the ward and, being the representative of the Lord, should receive a wholehearted welcome. If we will open our hearts and minds, these men as the instruments of the Lord will feed us the bread of life, and if there ever was a time when we need divine direction and the bread of life, it is in this day of distraction and difficulty. Furthermore, the visit of the teachers extends an excellent opportunity for our sons and daughters to come into the family circle in the presence of the Lord's servants, feeling free to ask any questions they might have. I feel convinced that the youth of Israel have many questions that go unanswered because there was no opportunity nor the right place to answer them, but in the presence of father and mother and the teachers, the shepherds of the flock, these questions can be discussed freely and openly to the end that these young people will be built up in their faith and testimonies.
SAVING THOSE WEAK IN FAITH
It is my duty in the Presiding Bishopric's Office to consider the names of those who request their names to be deleted from the records of the Church. Only yesterday six such names came to my attention, the names of individuals who requested that they be relieved of Church membership because some of them had joined other faiths and felt that they had found the truth. There can be no greater fallacy than believing that one has found the church of the Lord when he has already been in it and leaves it for the organization of some man, but it is my conviction that some of these people leave the fold, some of them are excommunicated, because you and I, the watchmen on the towers, the shepherds of the flock, are not doing our full duty. I want to tell you that no man will give up his faith, will give up the restored gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ or will give up his membership in this Church for any other faith or any other organization if he has a full understanding and comprehension of the gospel as it has been restored in this day. The reasons they leave are that they do not fully understand it and that many of them become critical and disobedient, which necessitates, on our part, greater activity and more alertness, a greater willingness to watch over the Church always and be with them and strengthen them. Many of these people could be saved to the Church if the teacher were doing his full duty.
It is as the Savior said to Peter:
So when they had dined. Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he had said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
Brethren, you have the great honor, yes, the great responsibility of feeding the sheep of the Lord Jesus Christ. If I were to ask you. "Do you love Jesus Christ?" with one accord I am sure you would respond in the affirmative, and in response to such, I feel sure the words of the Christ would come down through the centuries, declaring again, "Feed my sheep; feed my lambs."
May God bless each and every one of us that we will feel highly honored in teaching the people to the end that we might have a part in the Lord's greatest plan and work, best declared in his words:
For behold, this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man,
which I humbly pray each and every one of us will endeavor to do, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Milton R. Hunter
Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 107-111
It is indeed an inspiring sight to stand here and look into the faces of the thousands of holders of the priesthood in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have been thinking while sitting here tonight that there is more divine authority, more right to use that divine authority in this building tonight than in all of the rest of the world combined. We have here the President of the Church, who holds the keys of the priesthood, the keys of the kingdom of God; we have here the General Authorities, who have been delegated certain rights, authority, and power of that priesthood, and we have many other holders of the priesthood in this audience. I trust and pray that we will carry on our work in this priesthood in a desirable way before our Heavenly Father. I trust that the few words that I say tonight will be inspired by the Spirit of God, because I do feel a weakness in standing before this great assembly.
THE CONDITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR
We are all rejoicing during recent days in the fact that the terrible war has come to a close and that the ruthless killings and destruction have been replaced by peace. I, with all of you, hope and pray that all of God's children throughout the entire world will cooperate with our Heavenly Father and his Only Begotten Son in bringing about a permanent peace; but such will be the case only when we all accept and obey the pattern of life established by the Savior, which is conducive to peace.
For a number of years human life has been regarded by the leaders of many nations of the earth as being very cheap. Thousands, yes, millions, of men and women have been ruthlessly sacrificed on the fields of battle. The philosophy of some of the major races of people has completely disregarded the sacredness of human life. Instead of honoring the dignity and worth of mankind, these nations referred to have honored and practically worshipped the glory of the group that is, the strength, power, and hope of world-dominance by their nation or race. I believe that throughout the world, generally speaking, the philosophies of men have almost completely disregarded the sacredness and purpose of human life; therefore, I feel a definite need today to present a few ideas regarding the Mormons' concept of the sacredness and purpose of life.
MAN'S EXALTED POSITION IN THE UNIVERSE
Human life is sacred to the Latter-day Saints-as sacred and precious as anything that exists-because of its divine nature. God has revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith and to the other holy prophets that we are his children, the divine offspring of heavenly beings. Men and women in general are the greatest of God's creative work, being made in his own image, and endowed through inheritance from our heavenly parents with godly characteristics just as mortal children are endowed with the characteristics of their earthly parents. In other words, we are gods in embryo, for, as Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, has said:
... hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,... For in him we live, and move, and have our being;... For we are also his offspring.
All the prophets of the Church from Joseph Smith's day to the present time have confirmed the teachings of Paul. The following statement was made by President Joseph F. Smith:
Man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality.
This beautiful doctrine of the divinity of man does not detract in the least from the glory and great exaltation of God the Eternal Father. It merely dignifies and exalts man and makes human life more sacred and purposeful. It fills the universe with meaning, with design, and attaches to life a goal; and an understanding of this doctrine should fill man's heart with love, charity, and good will toward all of the human family.
If one accepts that he is a son of God, in contrast to the concept that he is the offspring of an animal, he becomes impressed with the unlimited potential possibilities which are his. His eyes are turned heavenward instead of toward the ground. His hope is to become glorified-exalted-even like unto his heavenly parents.
Because of the closeness of the relationship between God and man and because of the great value and sacredness of human life, the Eternal Creator has always shown a special interest in the human family. He revealed to Father Adam the gospel plan of salvation, and has continued to reveal to his children from that day forward eternal truths to the full amount and extent that they were capable of receiving. He has established several gospel dispensations upon the earth; and throughout the entire course of human history he has earnestly pleaded with men to live in peace, in love, and in harmony with each other, as advocated in that divine plan. But ruthless and ungodly men from time to time have disregarded the sacredness of human life, and have brought wars, suffering, disease, and shame upon the human family.
HUMAN LIFE PRECIOUS IN THE SIGHT OF GOD
In spite of the actions of his children, God has continuously retained his interest in them. He sent his Only Begotten Son into the world to teach us that we should love the Lord our God with all our hearts and that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. This divine teacher-the Man of Galilee-attached a sacredness to human life that has never been fully appreciated nor comprehended by mortals. It is true that chosen Israel had known the perennial law of "Thou shalt not kill"; but the magnificent doctrine declared by the Son of God was that "... there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over the sinner that repenteth". In words of tenderness and power the Master of life and death told his eager listeners the beautiful parables of "The Lost Sheep," of "The Lost Coin," and that the well need no physician, but he who is ill. With open arms he cried, "All ye who are sick and weary come unto me, and I will give you rest". Never before had the downtrodden, the outcast, and the discouraged of the human family received such a powerful ray of light to heal them of their afflictions and to turn them unto God and unto a better life as when they felt the power of the message of the Master. Even the sinner learned that he and life were important, and that there was hope for him to receive something more beautiful, more joyous, and more godly than he had hitherto experienced.
After delivering a message of peace and hope to a troubled world, Jesus Christ gave his life as a voluntary sacrifice in order that we might live. Human life is so sacred and so valuable to the Eternal Father "that he gave his Only Begotten Son in order the we might gain eternal life". Even in our day Jesus has again emphasized the importance of a human soul in the following declaration:
... if is so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!.
It is no wonder that the angels of heaven rejoice when God's children repent and seek after eternal life.
THE RELIGION OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS A PRACTICAL ONE
Another reason why Mormons maintain that life is sacred is that God has revealed to them that life is eternal. We believe that we build our own characters through the actions we commit-whether they be evil or good; and the type of characters we mould for ourselves will be ours throughout the eternities.
Thus, thinking upon the sacredness and eternal nature of life leads us into the doctrine of the purpose of life. One of the most clear-cut statements given in the scriptures on the purposes of life was a remark made by Father Lehi to his children. In his own words: "Men are that they might have joy". That concept is basic in the philosophy of Mormonism. We maintain that life and religion are the same thing: that religion is a seven-day-a-week concern of our people, and that it concerns itself with the temporal as well as the spiritual phases of life. To the Mormons the bread-and-butter problem is as much religion and of interest to our Church as is attending meetings or taking care of the other spiritual duties. If men have joy in sufficient abundance, they must have a proper amount of economic prosperity. Therefore, one of the purposes of life is to arrange, distribute, and equalize wealth in such a manner as to bring joy to the largest number of people. If the gospel of Jesus Christ were lived as the Master intends that it should be, all of God's children throughout the world, would enjoy the blessings derived from economic security
A life of joy is a life free from sin. In the words of another Nephite prophet: "Sin never was happiness". It should be said, then, that one of the main purposes of life is to have opportunities to learn the will of God and choose for ourselves the amount of obedience which we desire to render. In fact, Mormonism teaches that one of the main purposes of mortal existence is to give us the opportunity to partake of all the good experiences of mortality, and through the great principle of faith follow the road of progression and righteousness which will eventually bring us back into the presence of our Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son.
In other words, the Mormon concept of the purpose of life is growth-growth intellectually, growth physically, growth morally, and growth spiritually. We call that principle of growth, eternal progression. Mortality marks one short span in the process, but to us today it is the most important period, because God has declared that if we keep this estate in righteousness we shall have glory added upon our heads forever and ever.
The immortal beings in the unseen world and the children of men upon the earth are working in cooperation to bring about this perpetual growth of human personality. The greatest revelation ever given on this subject was when God informed Moses as follows:
For behold, this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
If we add to this statement the following pertinent remarks made by the Master of life, wherein he said:
I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
And again,
... this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent,
then we see more clearly God's purpose of our mortal and eternal existence.
THE WAY TO KNOW GOD
The only way we can know God is to live as he lives, to think as he thinks, and to experience what he experiences. Interpreted in this light, we are brought face to face with the powerful Mormon doctrine which declares that "As man is God once was, and as God is man may be." It is positively true that the growth, the eternal progression, for which life offers opportunities reach their culminating point in a life patterned after that of Jesus; therefore, it is the purpose of life to live as the Savior taught us to live and as he himself lived.
I trust in faith to our Heavenly Father that he will help us that we may live that type of life. Before closing I wish to bear testimony that I am sure that we are all engaged in the work of God. I feel thankful to him for the opportunity that I have and that you have in the priesthood, in helping in his great cause. I know that the prophets of the Lord from Joseph Smith's time, to and including the present President of the Church, are divinely inspired and called of God our Eternal Father, and I wish to sustain the President of the Church with all my heart in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 111-114
Truly, as sung so impressively by the male chorus, we "Need Thee Every Hour"-especially the men who lead this Church, not only the General Authorities, but those in stakes and wards, in quorums, in organizations, and in the missions-all who in any way have the responsibility of guiding the people.
SOURCE OF POWER IN PRIESTHOOD
Jesus the Christ is the source of the power of the priesthood. Yesterday morning when the quorums voted as groups, there radiated a power which I am sure was felt by everyone. We felt it tonight when the thousands here assembled sang: "Do What Is Right." You sang with a force which indicated your intention to do just that thing. As long as the priesthood merits the guidance of Christ by honest and conscientious dealing with their fellow men, by resisting evil in any of its forms, by the faithful performance of duty, there is no opposing power in this world which can stay the progress of the Church of Christ. I am happy to be numbered with you. I am grateful to have the privilege of laboring with this group of men and thousands of fathers in the promulgation of the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I've been instructed and gratified by the instructions of the brethren who have spoken here tonight.
WARD TEACHING
Without further comment I wish to mention one phase of ward teaching discussed so eloquently and impressively by Bishop Wirthlin. You noted that he mentioned two teachers, each accompanying the other in the performance of their duty. There is a growing tendency for teachers to go alone. We decry this practice. We commend those men who, when they fail to have a partner, are willing to assume the responsibility of visiting the Saints without a companion, but for seventy-five years, and probably longer, it has been the practice of the Church that teachers should go two by two. And Bishop Wirthlin very eloquently told us why. It is not sufficient for a teacher to say, "I cannot get anybody to go with me." There are too many young men in the Aaronic Priesthood who hold the office of teacher or priest, and who will accept an appointment as ward teacher to justify any teacher's going alone. Call a young man to go with you. Kneel down with him, as we have been instructed, and then go two by two.
Do this for three reasons: first, because we are instructed so to do; second, because it's for your own protection. You think about that. And third, because you need mutual strength, mutual guidance in giving correction, where it is necessary, and in teaching the doctrines of the Church.
INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING CALLING OF MISSIONARIES
I wish to say a word also about the calling of missionaries.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
That commission given by the Savior to the ancient apostles is applicable today. I need not elaborate upon the magnitude of missionary work. That has been done most eloquently today by Elder Stephen L Richards and others of the General Authorities who have emphasized this theme. I have just two thoughts to express tonight. I have just two further suggestions regarding it. To the question whether returning soldiers or others, who because of some physical defect, have been excused from military service, could be called as missionaries, the answer is yes. The presidents of missions are calling for young men. Missions in Europe, in South America, and the Islands are waiting for messengers to come to them, so please recommend these young men who are worthy of a call to service. Presidents of missions are pleading for young men capable of assisting in office work. If presidents of stakes and bishops of wards can find a dozen such within the next month we shall appreciate it greatly.
In making your selection, however, please choose only young men and young women, who are worthy to represent the Church. The missionary field is not a reform school. True, it does bring about a reformation in those who need reforming. Missionary experience develops character, and brings the sincere laborer into spiritual contact with his Father in heaven, but no young man and no young woman should be sent out to be reformed. Stake and ward organizations of the Church are established for that purpose. We have been rather embarrassed even within the last few months, because of the insistence on the part of parents or, as in one case, of a bishop, that a young girl should go on a mission when she did not want to go; and, in another case, a young man who was unworthy.
Margaret Johnston Graflin, in a poem entitled "To My Son," said:
Remember the world will be quick with its blame. If shadow or stain ever darken your name, "Like mother like son" is a saying so true The world will judge largely of Mother by you.
I should like to apply that thought to the sons and daughters of the Church, particularly to the representatives who go into the missionary field. The Church will be judged largely by your actions and by what you say. "Remember the world will be quick with its blame. If shadow or stain ever darken your name.... "It is a great responsibility to represent this Church, and every missionary is a representative. You men in business would not think of choosing a representative unless you could trust him or her. Make that your ideal, bishop, ask yourself. "Can this man be trusted as a representative of this Church? Will this young lady reflect credit upon this great organization?"
Call young men, yes; but see to it that they are worthy of the trust thus placed in them. These boys who have been out in conditions and in environments that have upset their whole nature-God bless them-they have been true, many of them, but they have been under a strain, they are changed. Now as they come home, put them in an environment where they will become normal, where, above all things, they can render the service of love instead of hate, of salvation instead of death. Many of them have been missionaries while they have been out fighting, but see to it that they are worthy. Talk to them, be kind to them, and when they are worthy, give them the opportunity to go out and preach the gospel.
The world is hungry to hear the truth as never before in its history. We have it. Are we equal to the task-to the responsibility God has placed upon us? I am sure with the power we have seen in this priesthood meeting we can answer "yes."
God qualify our youth and our men in the priesthood everywhere to supply the present crying need of the nations for the truth of the restored gospel, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 114-115
A TRIBUTE TO PRESIDENT GRANT
My brethren, as I look into the faces of this great congregation, my mind inevitably goes back to the time when President Grant sat here with us, for this was the meeting that he dearly loved. Out of it, he got inspiration, and to it he gave inspiration and revelation. President Grant has finished his work and gone, and President Smith has come to take his place. And the loyalty which we gave to President Grant we give to him in fullest measure. President Grant did as President Smith will do, command the love and respect of all of us. President Grant was a great man, great in his integrity, in his honesty, in his straightforwardness. He never lied and never deceived. He had the good opinion of all men who knew him. The Church owes him much. He has left it so that it comes into the hands of President Smith in the best financial condition in its whole history.
President Grant rarely preached doctrinal sermons but his whole teaching and his whole life was an exhibit of the righteousness and the righteous way of living which should come to all Latter-day Saints. We, all of us, thank God for President Grant and for his work. And I repeat, all that we gave to him we shall bestow, not only fully but willingly and gladly, upon President Smith.
THE TRUE MEANING OF LOYALTY
I want to say a word or two about this question of loyalty and of sustaining the Authorities. I think every time I have spoken to you for two or three years I have talked about unity, and I come back to it again,
... and if ye are not one ye are not mine.
I say again, unless we are one we cannot do the things which God expects of us. Loyalty and sustaining do not consist, merely, in raising our hands when we are called upon to vote to sustain. Sustaining consists in carrying out the things which we are asked to do. That bishop does not sustain President Smith who does not do what President Smith asks him to do, in a church way. That president of a stake does not sustain President Smith when he ignores direction and requests which come from President Smith. There are no two ways in this, my brethren, there is only the straight course, right down the middle of the road.
At the beginning of this war, the First Presidency sent out to the bishops of the Church a request for certain information regarding men going into the service. There are several bishops who, up to this day, have never made any return upon that request even though it was repeated time after time. That is not sustaining the President of the Church.
Brethren, we have read enough about war and heard enough about it to know that an army to be successful must carry out the commands of the one who directs. We know enough and have read enough to know that when that is not done, disaster comes. As with an army, so with the Church, at least in the main. If we are to succeed, if we are to go forward in the way in which the Lord has directed, if we are to guide and direct those over whom we preside, then inevitably we must work according to one plan. Inevitably we must follow the lead of our commander-in-chief, him whom we have sustained as Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and President of the Church. There is no other way.
May God give us the power and the will and the humility to see where our duty lies, and the strength to go forward when we so see, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 115-120
My brethren, you have been very patient for the last two days; you have been in meeting very much of the time. Ordinarily, one would become exceedingly weary, but if we enjoy the spirit of the Lord, it relieves us of that weariness and we are happy.
INCIDENTS FROM MISSIONARY LIFE
I remember as a young man and missionary in the Southern States, the first conference I attended. It was out in the woods on a farm in Mississippi. We didn't have comfortable seats to sit on. The brethren had been permitted to cut down a few trees and lay the trunks of those trees across the stumps which were left. We balanced ourselves on those or else sat on the ground.
Our meeting started right after breakfast time, and we didn't even think it was necessary to have anything more to eat until evening. We stayed and enjoyed the inspiration of the Almighty, and we certainly were blessed, notwithstanding the inconveniences and discomforts which surrounded us. At that time there was considerable hostility manifested in Mississippi and other states in the South, but we just felt as if we had walked into the presence of our Heavenly Father, and all fear and anxiety left. That was my first experience in the mission field attending a conference, and from that time until now I have appreciated the fact that the companionship of the spirit of the Lord is an antidote for weariness, for hunger, for fear, and all those things that sometimes overtake us in life.
I have enjoyed the addresses of my brethren. There were several others that we had hoped to reach today, men who have filled missions in foreign lands and who never have had an opportunity to report. I think that on the morrow we will try to give them time enough to say at least that they are glad they were permitted to come home.
We sang, "Do What Is Right." When I was in the mission field first, I went into a section of country where that hymn was known to the community, apparently. Two humble missionaries after walking until late in the afternoon in the sun, in the heat of summer, came to a small house that was at the bottom of a hill. When the missionaries arrived, they found friends who invited them in to partake of their meager refreshment. And then they were asked to go outside in the cool of the afternoon shade, on one of those comfortable, open southern porches between two rooms and sing some hymns. The people were not members of the Church, but they enjoyed Latter-day Saint hymns.
The missionaries had been threatened in that section. One of the men who had threatened them had kept watch of the road and in that way learned when they arrived. He sent word to his associates who saddled their horses and took their guns, and rode to the top of the hill overlooking the little house. The missionaries knew nothing about it; they did not know that right over their heads, not very far away, were a considerable number of armed horsemen. But they had the spirit of the Lord, and as they sat there in the cool of the afternoon and sang hymns, the one hymn that seemed to have been prepared for the occasion was, "Do What Is Right." They happened to be good singers, and their voices went out into the quiet air. They had only sung one verse when the leader of the mob took off his hat. They sang another verse, and he got off his horse, and the others got off their horses, and by the time the last verse had been sung, those men were repentant. Upon the advice of their leader, they rode away without making their presence known. The leader was so impressed with what he heard the missionaries sing that he said to his associates: "We made a mistake. These are not the kind of men we thought they were. Wicked men can't sing like angels, and these men sing like angels. They must be servants of the Lord."
The result was that this man became converted to the Church and later was baptized. And I never hear that hymn sung but I think of that very unusual experience when two missionaries, under the influence of the spirit of God, turned the arms of the adversary away from them and brought repentance into the minds of those who had come to destroy them.
EVENTS OF LAST DAYS PROPHESIED
While the brethren were speaking today, I was reminded of a scripture, and I would like to read a portion of it because it seems to me that we are living in the particular time referred to. I have in mind the third chapter of Second Timothy as follows:
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,... unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,...
having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts....
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
And so, my brethren, we are living in the latter days; we are approaching a time, if we are not already in that time, when "... peace shall be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his own dominion" . Fortunate are we who have been gathered from the nations of the earth into the Church. Fortunate is this great body of men tonight, perhaps the largest group of priesthood that has ever assembled in this house at one time, each one a representative of the Lord.
EXHORTATION TO FAITHFULNESS
I am grateful to see so many of you here tonight, leaving aside other things that might have been done. You have been busy in many cases all day, and yet when the priesthood is called together you come as if to say, "Here Lord, am I". If we in our homes shall so live that the spirit of the Lord abides with us, we will always be prepared to say when the call comes, "Here, Lord, am I."
Tonight, I congratulate myself with you, that in the peaceful quiet of these everlasting hills, in the comfort of this great house of God, we are permitted to assemble ourselves together, not to plan our financial uplift, our social uplift, but to plan how we may find our place in the kingdom of heaven, to dwell there eternally with Jesus Christ, our Lord. We will all be tempted; no man is free from temptation. The adversary will use every means possible to deceive us; he tried to do that with the Savior of the world without success. He has tried it on many other men who have possessed divine authority, and sometimes he finds a weak spot and the individual loses what might have been a great blessing if he had been faithful. So I want to plead with you, my brethren, be as anchors in the com-munity in which you live that others may be drawn to you and feel secure. Let your light so shine that others seeing your good works will have a desire in their hearts to be like you. Wherever you go, keep in mind the fact that you represent him who is the author of our being. The priesthood that you hold is not the priesthood of Joseph Smith, or Brigham Young, or any other men who have been called to leadership of the Church at home or abroad. The priesthood that you hold is the power of God, conferred upon you from on high. Holy beings had to be sent to earth a little over a hundred years ago in order to restore that glorious blessing that had been lost to the earth for hundreds of years. Surely we ought to be grateful for our blessings.
Remember that as long as we seek the Lord, and keep his commandments as best we know, the adversary will have no power over us to lead us into transgression that may forfeit for us our place in the celestial kingdom.
THE LINE OF DEMARCATION BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL
I think I would like to repeat something I have told many times as a guide to some of these younger men. It was an expression of advice of my grandfather for whom I was named. He said: "There is a line of demarcation well defined between the Lord's territory and the devil's territory. If you will remain on the Lord's side of the line, the adversary cannot come there to tempt you. You are perfectly safe as long as you stay on the Lord's side of the line. But," he said, "if you cross onto the devil's side of the line, you are in his territory, and you are in his power, and he will work on you to get you just as far from that line as he possibly can, knowing that he can only succeed in destroying you by keeping you away from the place where there is safety."
All safety, all righteousness, all happiness are on the Lord's side of the line. If you are keeping the commandments of God by observing the Sabbath day, you are on the Lord's side of the line. If you attend to your secret prayers and your family prayers, you are on the Lord's side of the line. If you are grateful for food and express that gratitude to God, you are on the Lord's side of the line. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you are on the Lord's side of the line. If you are honest in your dealing with your fellow men, you are on the Lord's side of the line. If you observe the Word of Wisdom, you are on the Lord's side of the line. And so I might go on through the Ten Commandments and the other commandments that God has given for our guidance and say again, all that enriches our lives and makes us happy and prepares us for eternal joy is on the Lord's side of the line. Finding fault with the things that God has given to us for our guidance is not on the Lord's side of the line. Setting one's self up as a receiver of dreams and visions to guide the human family is not on the Lord's side of the line; and when men, as they have sometimes done in order to win their success along some line or another, have come to an individual or individuals and said, "I have had this dream and this is what the Lord wants us to do," you may know that they are not on the Lord's side of the line. The dreams and visions and revelations of God to the children of men have always come through his regularly appointed servant. You may have dreams and manifestations for your own comfort and for your own satisfaction, but you will not have them for the Church unless God appoints you to take the place that he gave to his prophets of old and in our day, and unless you have been divinely commissioned to do the thing he wants you to do.
So, brethren, we need not be deceived-it will be easy to be deceived-but we need not be deceived if we will honor God by honoring ourselves and our families and loved ones and our associates in the places which they occupy in righteousness.
THE GOSPEL TO BE PREACHED
It is a wonderful day and age in which we live. It will not be long until the servants of the Lord will go again to the nations of the earth in great numbers. I have been asked within the last few hours, "Are we going to open the European Mission?" I may say to you the European Mission has never been closed. We had to call home many of those who were there, but we left men holding divine authority. By appointment they have been ministering to the faithful, and the work of the Lord is still anchored in those lands. It will not be long before there will go forth from the headquarters of the Church, leadership to set in order everything that needs to be set in order, in power and might and faith, giving to those people over there another opportunity, in many cases opportunities they had neglected in the past, and in some cases opportunities they have never yet enjoyed.
We must preach the gospel to the South American countries which we have scarcely touched. We must preach the gospel to every African section that we haven't been in yet. We must preach the gospel to Asia. And I might go on and say in all parts of the world where we have not yet been permitted to go. I look upon Russia as one of the most fruitful fields for the teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if I am not mistaken, it will not be long before the people who are there will desire to know something about this work which has reformed the lives of so many people. We have some few from that land, who belong to the Church, fine, capable individuals who may be called to go, when the time comes, back to the homeland of their parents, and deliver the message that is so necessary to all mankind. Our most important obligation, my brethren, is to divide with our Father's children all those fundamental truths, all his rules and regulations which prepare us for eternal life, known as the gospel of Jesus Christ. Until we have done that to the full limit of our power, we will not receive all the blessings which we might otherwise have. So let us set our own homes in order, prepare our boys and our girls, and ourselves, so that if we are called to go to the various parts of the earth, we will be prepared to go. This will be our great mission.
JOY IN WORK IN THE CHURCH
I want to thank you again for the joy I have had in your companionship during my long ministry. I have been laboring many years. My first ordination to an office in the Aaronic Priesthood was to that of a deacon, within two blocks of where I now stand. I was baptized in City Creek within one block from here. I was confirmed a member of the Church within two blocks from here. But since that time and since I received that gift from my Heavenly Father, for which I have no words to express my gratitude, he has called me to go to many parts of the earth, and more than a million miles have been traversed since I was called into the ministry. I have traveled in many lands and climes, and wherever I have gone I have found good people, sons and daughters of the living God who are waiting for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and there are thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of them, who would be accepting the truth if they only knew what we know.
Brethren, let us be humble, let us be prayerful, let us be generous with our means, let us be unselfish in our attitude towards our fellows. Let our lives be such that our homes will always be the abiding place of prayer and thanksgiving, and the spirit of the Lord will always be there.
PROMISES MADE TO THE FAITHFUL
In conclusion, let me say, wherever we are, let us remember that there has been conferred upon us a portion of divine authority, and therefore we represent the Master of heaven and earth. And so far as we honor that fine and wonderful blessing we will continue to grow in grace before the Lord; our lives will continue to be enriched; and in the end, eternal happiness in the celestial kingdom will be our reward. That's what the gospel is for. Let us live to be worthy of it every day of our lives, and I pray that when the time comes for us to go, we will not feel as though we have neglected any of our own dear ones, any of our neighbors and friends, by failing to divide with them that which is more precious than anything that the world can give, because it is the gift of God himself.
I pray that peace and love and happiness may abide in your hearts and in your homes, and that we may go forward with renewed determination to be worthy of peace because it can only dwell with us when we ourselves are living the commandments of our Heavenly Father and honoring him.
May peace abide with you and with your loved ones, and brethren, surround your families by the arms of your love and unite them together in that bond of affection which will insure eternal happiness.
I invoke upon you the favor of our Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. President George Albert Smith
The Tabernacle Choir Men's Chorus will now sing "Discovery," by Grieg.
I would like to announce, however, that we will meet in the Tabernacle tomorrow morning. Everyone should be in his seat fifteen minutes before 10 o'clock, and if you want a seat, you had better be here before that time.
Again God bless you and peace be with you, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 121-126
The storm has passed, the clouds are lifting, the sun will shine again. Hope is reborn and a vision of a new world is in the making. For the most destructive war of history is ended. Countless millions dream and hope again.
THE PRICE OF PEACE
What is this for which they pray? The hope of humanity, peace.
Peace is obtainable, but what is the price of peace? Let the Lord himself answer:
If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;... I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid.... And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.
In a word, then, the foundation for peace is righteousness.
The efforts of peace conferences, and the prayers of suffering humanity, may bring an armistice of uncertain length, but peace with totality and permanence can come only when men repent and turn to the Lord.
What have we learned by this war? We have learned nothing if hatred, bigotry, and intolerance have not diminished; if covetousness, selfishness, and adultery are unabated; if parents are less dear and the Sabbath of the Lord less holy. In short, if righteousness has not increased, then is our fighting vain, the sacrifices of our sons to no avail, and our tears wasted.
THE HISTORY OF THE RISE AND FALL OF NATIONS
We have come far in material progress in these centuries. But the sins of the ancients still afflict the hearts of men.
Can we not learn by the experiences of others? Must we also defile our bodies, corrupt our souls, and reap destruction as have peoples and nations before us?
Both sacred scripture and profane history give us the tragic stories of young nations rising in power, then in the luxurious and degenerate years of their glory being replaced by vigorous peoples yet unspoiled by the decay of self-indulgence, political intrigue, and immoral shamelessness.
Long centuries ago the Lord commanded the Prophet Jonah:
Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.
That "great city" was the envy of the ancient world in its magnificence and power. Historians describe it as surrounded by walls one hundred feet high and broad enough that three chariots could drive abreast. Fifteen hundred towers held watchmen to note the approach of enemies.
Jonah arrived, and so powerfully preached repentance that the people reformed their lives, and the promised destruction was averted. But Nineveh turned again to sin.
Through the Prophet Nahum, the Lord calls them again to repentance. He indicts them for their debauchery and gives them an ultimatum: repentance or destruction, saying:
... while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.
The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved.
In fulfilment, the river overflowed, inundated the walls for miles, the gates were burned, the king and his concubines and his wealth were consumed with the palaces, and the unconquerable city, now made vulnerable by flood and fire, was taken by the invaders while its boasted defenders lay in drunken stupor and lolled in licentiousness. Today the canals of Nineveh are gone, leaving the country a desolate waste. Sheep and cattle seek scanty pasture among the mounds of the once greatest city.
God cannot be mocked! His laws are immutable. True repentance is rewarded by forgiveness but sin brings the sting of death.
Nineveh is not the only instance. Historians are still puzzled regarding the annihilation of the infamous cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Whatever happened to these peoples, this we know, that swift destruction came to them. Perhaps the Japanese of Hiroshima were no more completely nor quickly destroyed. At least students agree that there was a devastating holocaust which enveloped the cities, leaving the monuments and the people in utter desolation, never to be rediscovered nor rebuilt.
Why were these ancient cities destroyed? The scriptures make it clear:
And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now.... And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city...
And the Lord said, if I find in Sodom fifty righteous,... then I will spare all the place for their sakes.
And Abraham continued to plead with the Lord for a few faithful whom he hoped to find in the city. He asked if it could be spared for forty, then thirty, and twenty, and finally ten. But when ten righteous were not found, Lot and his daughters alone escaped.
Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire.... And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground....
And Abraham gat up early in the morning... and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah,... and, beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.
Historians say the area has remained in "deathlike solitude and unmitigated and supreme desolation."
In the famed city of Babylon we find again unrestrained wickedness of a dissolute people. We hear the prophets calling to repentance, and in the end, dire threats. Again we see a people disappear into oblivion as they fail to follow the commands of God.
Babylon the Great is fallen! Its temple of Bel and the royal palace were magnificent structures, sumptuously adorned. Its hanging gardens were regarded anciently as one of the seven wonders of the world. The river Euphrates ran through the center of the city. The defense walls rose to three hundred feet in height. The gates, a hundred in number, were of brass.
But King Nebuchadnezzar forgot the foundations for peace. His people sank in sensuous indulgence.
The prophets pleaded for repentance. But why should Babylon worry? Was not Babylon the ruler of nations? Was not Nebuchadnezzar king of kings?
... all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down.
Was not this city impregnable? Who could scale its walls? Who could crash its gates? But the monster of sin came. Though impenetrable the walls, and numerous the armed defenders, yet all must fall and crumble as sin makes impotent, weak, and fat the people who become slaves to it.
Some years ago we visited Rome, the Eternal City, but what we saw was not the Rome which ruled the world, but a nation long since relegated to an inferior place. We found its imposing monuments in ruins, its extravagant arches obelisks, and gateways grim reminders of glorious days. The Coliseum skeleton bore witness of beasts torn, human blood spilt, Christians martyred in the arenas, while lecherous humans betrayed their sadistic depravity. Imperial Rome adorned with masterpieces of art, and priceless treasures stolen from the courts of the conquered was now in ruins. The fountains of Rome, its theaters and sumptuous villas all brought to our minds the magnificence of that Rome of world supremacy.
We saw the picture of Roman profligacy in excavated Pompeii, the Mediterranean resort, where the idle rich of Rome reveled in riotous living. The eruption of Vesuvius buried the city with its vomit of dust and stones and ashes.
We walked the streets of Pompeii where chariots had worn tracks in the stone. We saw the homes of the people, their bakeries, hospitals, and circuses. We saw their laundries, drugstores, and baths; their liquor houses and brothels. The latter were padlocked, too revolting to open to general public gaze, as the walls carried pictures in colors, still preserved, depicting the depth of their degradation.
Will history repeat itself again? What of our world of today? Are we not forgetting in our own great America the high and lofty principles which can preserve the nation? It is refreshing to note that our military men too sense the spiritual needs of the hour. The following are the Words of General Douglas MacArthur on the occasion of the Japanese surrender:
Military alliance, balances of power, League of Nations all in turn failed,... we have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves... improvement of human character. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.
CONDITIONS IN OUR OWN NATION
How can we save the flesh when our nation is drinking one hundred sixty-five million gallons of liquor a year; when we spend seven billion dollars in a year for intoxicants, or more than twice our education budget; and when our films present drinking as the smart and proper thing for youth and adults? Are we not aping the fallen empires with the disintegration of homes, desecration of marriage, making divorce too common? The unbelievable increase in divorces of five hundred percent since the Civil War and the prediction that in twenty years, half of all marriages will be legally dissolved, certainly should arrest our attention. God will not tolerate an unvirtuous people. A current magazine indicates that ninety percent of all the mounting divorces are caused by the sin of adultery.
Are we not inviting eventual destruction as we desecrate all things holy and sacred, even to the common and irreverent use in our daily talk of the names of Deity and making his holy day, the Sabbath, a day of work and of pleasure?
How then can we hope for peace? The answer came thundering down from Mt. Sinai and remains the answer today:
Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain... Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy... Honour thy father and thy mother... Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not covet.
The impregnable wall of wicked Nineveh was unconquerable till God reached the limit of his endurance and permitted the elements to undermine the wall and fire to consume the gates so that swift destruction followed.
The three-hundred-foot wall of drunken Babylon, impenetrable as it was by ladder or battering ram, was violated when the dissolute inhabitants stupefied in sin, permitted the river to be diverted and the nation perished.
Israel suffered captivity for its adultery, the loss of its treasures for its idolatry, and was scattered to the four winds for its corruption. God's laws cannot be broken with impunity!
Profligate and sensual Rome decayed and died as it ignored the foundations of peace and set at naught the principles of righteousness.
And now in the year of our Lord 1945, there are among us those same vices which we have seen wreck empires, and we see them becoming flagrant in our own beloved nation. Shall we, like Belshazzar, sow the wind and reap the whirlwind? Shall we permit the home to deteriorate, and marriage to become a mockery? Shall we continue to curse God, hate our enemies and defile our bodies in adulterous practices? And when the patience of the Lord with us is exhausted shall we stand trembling while destruction comes upon us? Or shall we wisely see the handwriting on the wall and profit by the sad experience of the past and return unto the Lord and serve him?
THE WORD OF THE LORD
To our own land, the Americas, the land of Zion, the burial ground of decadent empires, there is a divine promise Would that all Americans knew of it! It was spoken by the Lord to the ancient inhabitants of this country and brought forth by Joseph Smith, the prophet of the latter days. This is the promise: Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ.
I testify that he is the God of this land and I know that we can achieve our destiny and build enduring peace only upon the foundation of his righteousness.
We call upon the nations and our fellow men everywhere to repent, to cleanse their lives, and to place themselves in harmony with the Lord our God.
May our hearts go out in praise and thanksgiving that the earth which did tremble is now still. May the precious blood of our young sons, their agonies and sacrifices and the deep sorrow of all of us commend us to the Father and may he help us as we strive to live his laws and to achieve a permanent peace on earth, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 129-135
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.
THE TRAGEDY OF WAR
So wrote the Prophet Micah, probably quoting Isaiah, seven hundred fifty years before Christ. Nearly twenty-seven hundred years have passed since the eye of prophecy visioned a time when "war shall be no more." During the intervening centuries, many nations have lifted up sword against nations; and war has continued to be one of mankind's greatest evils. Truly it seems that human beings are more prone to war than to peace.
The latest was one of the most devastating in the history of the world. What destruction, sorrow, and suffering it has caused. According to reliable estimates, its direct cost is over one trillion thirty billion dollars, not counting the destruction and damage of property. There have been over a million casualties in the United States. Another million and a half in Britain, making a combined loss in these two countries alone of killed, wounded, missing, and prisoners, of two and a half million. Flying bombs cost British civilians a hundred and forty-seven thousand seven hundred and sixty casualties. Of these, fifteen thousand three hundred fifty-nine were children under sixteen. The Russian and Chinese losses exceed those numbers by millions. Add the millions of dead, wounded, and missing by the Germans, the Japanese, and those of the crushed countries of Europe, and the cost in wealth and in human life becomes staggering. We are close enough to the tragedy to realize that war is "the greatest curse that can be entailed upon mankind." "Under its standards gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, perfidy, rapacity, and lust."
We wonder how many more years will pass before "they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid," when, in Alfred Lord Tennyson's words:
The war-drums shall throb no longer, and the battle-flags be furled, In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
FUTURE SAFETY OF THE WORLD DEPENDS UPON CHANGE OF HUMAN HEARTS
Restrictions incident to the great conflict have largely been abrogated, and once again we meet in a general conference of the Church without fear of molestation from a murderous enemy. We join the Allied Nations in giving thanks that gangsters who, through evil manipulations and clever strategies, seized control of nations, have been defeated; that their attempt to set up dictatorial government has been frustrated; that freedom has been preserved, and liberty kept within the grasp of those who cherish the right of self-government.
In the outcome of this great conflict God's overruling power has been manifest. Let the nations not forget him in the hour of victory.
Because of terrible forces, newly discovered, scientists and military experts are now saying that all present means of defense are inadequate, are in fact already antiquated, and must be changed if the world is to be protected from future devastation.
I would that these men of reputed wisdom and foresight would lay equal emphasis on the fact that the future safety of the world depends not so much upon the changing of defenses as upon the changing of men's way of thinking, and acting. Men and nations must have a change of heart. Hate and envy, suspicion and greed must be supplanted by sympathy, forbearance, tolerance, and justice before the hoped-for time comes that "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
Now that another terrible war is over, the paramount question is-are human minds equal to the problems they must face; are hearts sufficiently filled with virtues needed in the present crisis? I echo the cry of one who pleads-
O human hearts, beating through fear, through jealousy, through pride, through avarice, through bitterness, through agony, through death; beating shame and forgiveness, bewilderment and love.
O my own country, my new world, prepare, prepare-not to avenge wrong, but to exalt right. Not to display honor, but to prove humility. Not to bring wrath, but vision; not to win war, but a people. And not people only, but all peoples. Not to exact justice from your enemies only, and not from your friends only, but from yourselves!
Truly,
The world is in the Valley of Decision. And out of it there is but one sure road: Eyes unsealed can still foresee the mighty vision Of a world in travail turning unto God.
Yes, World War II is ended, but old battles are yet to be fought; new victories yet to be won before the peace for which we pray can be realized.
One is man's suspicion and lack of trust in his fellow man. Man's suspicion and lack of trust is one of the greatest enemies of peace. Nations are distrustful of one another. Russia is afraid that Britain will scheme to win Germany as an ally. Great Britain and the United States look with suspicion upon Russia and fear her possible alliance with China or Japan. Argentina impugns the motives of the United States, and the United States is suspicious of Argentina. Thus the seeds of envy and enmity are sown.
This lack of confidence in one's fellow man is even more of an individual than a national vice. We are prone to magnify weaknesses and to imagine vices in others that do not exist. We chew the cud of slander with satisfaction-slander, "whose whisper over the world's diameter, as level as the cannon to its blank, transports his poisoned shot." Talk about battles yet to be fought! Backbiting and evil speaking head the list!
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue,... this man's religion is vain.
THE GOSPEL TAUGHT BY THE SAVIOR A SURE GUIDE
The battle against godlessness must still be fought. Nietzsche even before the first World War denounced Christianity as a cunningly devised system that has "debauched and undermined and sapped the vigor of the modern European world, and is the most powerful instrument of racial degeneration ever devised by common herd."
Nietzsche is dead, but the poisonous seeds that he and others like him have sown in blindness and bitterness still produce fruit of skepticism and unbelief. In charity we can say that the Christianity Nietzsche condemns is not the gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by the Redeemer of man. But egotists and misled people who cannot discriminate between truth and error still find themselves wavering with respect to the divine mission of Jesus Christ. Every true Christian, and especially every faithful member of the Church of Christ should be militant in defending the principles of the gospel as given by our Lord and Savior, for, in the words of Mark Hopkins, true Christianity "promotes industry, honesty, truth, purity, kindness. It humbles the proud, exalts the lowly, upholds law, favors liberty, is essential to it, and would unite men in one great brotherhood. It is the breath of life to social and civil well-being here, and spreads the azure of that heaven into whose unfathomed depth the eye of faith loves to look."
There has been but one perfect character in this world-the peerless personality of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world. No man can do better than to accept Christ as the great Exemplar and the safest Guide.
It is not an easy thing in this old world to make God the center of our being. To do so we must determine to keep his commandments. Spiritual attainment, not physical possessions, not the indulgence and the gratification of the body, must become the chief goal.
Only in the complete surrender of our inner life may we rise above the selfish, sordid pull of nature. We should seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. What the spirit is to the body, God is to the spirit. As the body dies when the spirit leaves it, so the spirit dies when we exclude God from it. I cannot imagine peace in a world from which God and religion are banished.
SELFISHNESS THE CAUSE OF THE WORLD'S ILLS
Another old battle still raging, and one we must win before permanent peace is established on earth is the battle against selfishness. Selfishness is the root from which spring most human ills and suffering. Selfishness promises satisfaction, but its fruit is disappointing, and produces only ill will and unhappiness. Selfishness and enmity caused the first recorded murder and the first implied rejection of the great truth that man is his brother's keeper.
It was selfishness that caused the violation of the Munich Pact, which led, in September, 1939, to the murderous invasion of Poland, and the subsequent destruction of European nations with all its attendant horrors and human suffering. It was selfishness and inordinate ambition that caused the Pearl Harbor tragedy.
Unless the battle against selfishness is won at the peace table, our hopes for a permanent peace may be shattered, and the world again stricken in warfare.
Nature's law demands us to do everything with self in view. Self-preservation is the first law of mortal life. But Jesus says:
He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
Jesus on the Mount of Temptation triumphed over all appeals to selfishness, and thereby set an example to all men who would strive for spiritual attainment. As Jesus resisted the tempter, so selfishness must be overcome by subjugation and resistance. There is no development of character without resistance; there is no growth of spirituality without overcoming.
And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations.
INTEMPERANCE AN ENEMY TO PEACE
A fourth battle still raging, and in which the opposition seems to be gaining ground, is the battle against intemperance. The attitude of the Church of Jesus Christ towards temperance is unmistakable. February 27, 1833, the Prophet Joseph Smith received what is known as the Word of Wisdom for the benefit of the council of the high priests assembled in Kirtland, and the Church, and also the Saints in Zion, given by revelation which sets forth the order and will of God in the temporal salvation of all Saints in the last days. Wine and "strong drinks" are condemned as beverages, and the use of them discountenanced in all cases except in the use of wine for sacramental purposes, and even this should be "pure wine of the grape of the vine, of your own make".
Tobacco is condemned also as being "not good for man".
At the time the Church took this decided stand against whisky and tobacco, no state in the Union had passed any law against the liquor traffic. It is true that temperance societies had been organized, and the cause of temperance was gaining impetus, but it was not until 1851-eighteen years after the revelation on the Word of Wisdom-that the first permanent prohibition law was passed in Maine. Later religious denominations began to organize temperance societies. It appears, therefore, that the Mormon Church was among the very first organizations, if not the first organization or church in the United States to legislate as an organized body against the use of alcoholic drinks and tobacco.
In 1908, President Joseph F. Smith in his opening address at the seventy-eighth annual conference said:
There is a general movement throughout the land looking toward local option of temperance among the people of our state and adjoining states. I sincerely hope that every Latter-day Saint will cooperate with this movement in order that we may curtail the monstrous evils that exist especially in our cities. I wish to say that I am in sympathy with this movement, and I know my brethren are united with me, and in harmony with the efforts that are being made to establish temperance throughout the land.
Many of you will remember how President Grant pleaded with the people of Utah to retain the Eighteenth Amendment. To the day of his death he regretted that Utah was in the column of states that repealed the prohibition law.
Statistics today seem to indicate that our fight for temperance is making little progress. For example, there was spent in Utah during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1945, for
Cigarettes.......................... $ 4,978,196
Beer.............................. 11,197,806
Liquor............................. 10,862,677
Total............................. $27,038,679
Intemperance goes hand in hand with lawlessness, and lawlessness is an enemy of peace.
TRUE RELIGION ALONE BRINGS PEACE
I know of no force so potent in eradicating these and all other enemies of peace from the human heart as the gospel of Jesus Christ. True religion is today the world's greatest need-in a sense by the individual of a relationship with God-that indefinable something which enters into the soul of man and which unites him with his Creator.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
A celebrated British statesman, Edmund Burke, in the latter half of the eighteenth century wrote: "True religion is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt the whole fabric cannot be stable nor lasting."
"I have now disposed of all property to my children," said Patrick Henry; "there is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that, and I had not given them one cent, they would be rich. If they have not that, and I had given them all the world, they would be poor."
Only through the application of righteous principles by individuals and by governments, can nations learn war no more, and establish a permanent peace.
O Brother Man! fold to thy heart thy brother; Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there; To worship rightly is to love each other, Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.
Follow with reverent steps the great example Of him whose holy work was "doing good"; So shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple, Each loving life a psalm of gratitude.
Then shall all shackles fall; the stormy clangor Of wild war music o'er the earth shall cease; Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger, And in its ashes plant the tree of peace.
After the passing of centuries God has given mankind another opportunity to end war. The most momentous decision of all time must now be made by the peoples of the world.
God grant that they will never again revert to the law of the jungle but will "beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks, neither shall they learn war any more", I earnestly pray with you in the name of the Prince of Peace, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Elder Joseph F. Merrill
Joseph F. Merrill, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 135-141
Brethren and Sisters:
Conferences of this kind are primarily for members of the Church, but nonmembers are welcome to attend the public sessions and of course to listen to the broadcast proceedings. However, it is to members that most of us who speak direct our remarks. This I shall do during the few minutes I occupy.
A PRACTICAL RELIGION
We teach that our religion is a very practical one and, being a way of life, touches every phase of our daily living. We believe with the Apostle James that faith without works is dead. We also believe with the Apostle Paul that "... by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." Some readers seem to stop here, but let us read the next verse which says:
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
This statement of Paul's is in harmony with that made by Jesus in his great Sermon on the Mount, when he said:
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.
The Apostle Paul also wrote, as you also know, these words:
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
A LAW OF HEALTH
As a means of preserving our bodies from certain types of defilement the Lord gave to the Church in its very beginning, and to the human family generally, what has been properly called a law of health, better known among us as the Word of Wisdom. Qualified specialists in the field of science and medicine have said that food and drinks are the things that have more to do with bodily health than any other ordinary factor. So in recent years the science of dietetics-the science and art of feeding-has come into prominence and is based upon an immense amount of experimentation and research. The health of the individual and the health of the people in mass are extremely important, not only to the individuals themselves but also to the public. Hence civil governments, private humanitarian organizations, the Church, etc., are vitally concerned with problems of health.
It is my purpose now, however, to make some remarks relative to only one of the many problems in the big field of things that affect human health. In section eighty-nine of the D&C; we find a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith in February 1833, less than three years after the organization of the Church, in which abstinence from wine, strong drinks, tobacco, and hot drinks is enjoined, because they are not good for man. By hot drinks was meant primarily tea and coffee, though subsequent researches found that any drinks at high temperatures, such as hot water and soups, are harmful. The ideas voiced in the Word of Wisdom were expressed in words having the meaning current at the time. In those days hot drinks were commonly understood to be tea and coffee. The Church now interprets the words, wine and strong drinks, as meaning all alcoholic beverages, of which there are many varieties.
In passing, it may be well to remark that the revelation on the Word of Wisdom was given at a time when scientific men knew but little, if anything, about basic facts of the science of dietetics. Since those days, and within the last fifty years, a vast amount of research has been done, and that pertinent to matters spoken of in the Word of Wisdom is confirmatory of the truths therein revealed. This fact should give joy and satisfaction to all Saints, for it is irrefutable testimony of the divinity of that great document. Time will not permit me now to go into detail concerning this testimony. I repeat, however, that a multitude of scientifically discovered facts support the Word of Wisdom, and, so far as I know, none refute it.
MISLEADING ADVERTISEMENTS
Among these is the irrefutable fact that liquor and tobacco are not good for man. Science, experience, and revelation are in agreement on this statement. Then, why do people continue to use liquor and tobacco? Ask Satan, he knows. Satan is a deceiver, the father of lies, the inspiration of avaricious men engaged in promoting evils and cunning designs calculated to mislead the people, particularly the youth, into habits of drinking and smoking. To this end huge sums of money are continually spent in advertising propaganda material, much of it honeycombed with misleading and partially or wholly falsifying statements. A few years before the great global war began, an able investigator found that more than sixty million dollars was spent annually in the United States for advertising cigarettes and alcoholic beverages. Since all of us have some idea of the power of money, is it any wonder that publicity agencies that accept liquor and tobacco advertisements, such as newspapers, magazines, and radios, are opposed to prohibition?
Let me say here that smoking and drinking in this country have become so general that the enormous sum of ten and one-half billion dollars was spent during 1944 for liquor and tobacco, so it was authoritatively reported.
I have just said that science, experience, and revelation agree that liquor and tobacco are not good for man. Let me specify a little.
INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF TOBACCO
Concerning the use of tobacco, it affects injuriously the heart and circulatory system, the lungs and respiratory system, the brain and mental powers, the nervous system, the kidneys and elimination organs, the muscular system, etc., thus weakening the body with the result that it is less resistant to diseases of various kinds. Recently there came from the press a new book relative to tobacco and its effects written by Dr. Frank Leighton Wood, entitled What You Should Know About Tobacco. Dr. Irving Fisher of Yale University wrote a foreword for the book in which he said:
The tobacco problem has for years engaged my attention, both as to its economic and hygienic aspects. As treasurer of the Committee for the Scientific Study of the Tobacco Problem and as chairman of the Hygienic Reference Board of the Life Extension Institute, which has contributed more perhaps than any other agency toward solving the basic problem of tobacco, I have had unusual opportunities to become familiar with this many-sided problem... The evidence now exists sufficient to show that no one who smokes can achieve the best of which he or she is capable, whether this be a foot race, a price fight, a golf game, tightrope walking, a rifle score, bombing the Reich, writing, speaking, singing, acting, performing on a violin, piano, or typewriter, attainment of health, strength, endurance, working power, beauty, glamour, or any other excellence on which men and women set their hearts. Prize fighters and acrobats know this. It is time that those ambitious in all other lines of work should learn it.
Relative to the effect on the muscular system I give this illustration found in the 1938 edition of the standard book How to Live by Fisher and Emerson:
Some years ago Dr. W. P. Lombard, professor of physiology in the University of Michigan, conducted a series of observations for the purpose of determining the influence of smoking upon muscular work. He reported: "The record of these successive observations shows that the effects of one cigar of moderate strength was to lessen the work of which the subject was capable from seventy-five foot-pounds to fifteen foot-pounds, the number of times that the weight could be lifted being reduced from eighty-six to twelve, over eighty percent. These figures indicate how seriously tobacco cuts down one's strength and endurance!"
In his book, after pointing out many deleterious effects of the use of tobacco, Dr. Wood says:
There is an aspect of the tobacco habit which, to some, is more important than its effect on life itself. A large number of people, including many doctors, are quite indifferent concerning their health or the possibility of dying prematurely. When confronted with facts concerning the life-shortening effects of tobacco or other habit-forming drugs, they may accept them but, in a spirit of bravado, may add that they would rather live their fifty years than exist for one hundred. In saying this they assume that the smoker lives a more happy, contented, and useful life than the nonsmoker. But does he? In the following chapters we shall show that, on the average, not only does the smoker die at a much earlier age than the nonsmoker but that he is more often afflicted with painful and disabling diseases of long duration and that in addition to this, he experiences various minor ills, such as annoying coughs, hoarseness, rawness of the throat, heartburn, shortness of breath, and many other disagreeable symptoms or diseases which are peculiar to those who use tobacco in any form. We shall show that he cannot excel in sports, as most people already know; that he will be handicapped in acquiring an education and for this reason may be likewise handicapped in satisfying his other aspirations in life. We shall show that even his character may be unfavorably affected.... We shall show that girls and boys and men and women who begin to smoke with the avowed intention of smoking in moderation and quitting the habit when they find that it is becoming harmful to them, nearly always smoke to a great excess and seldom quit the habit. No one can be at his best if he uses tobacco any more than the boxer, the runner, or the ball player can, for the use of this drug interferes with the blood supply, not only of the heart muscles but of every organ and part of the body, including the brain, the liver, the stomach, and the reproductive organs, as we shall show.
The use of tobacco shortens life. This fact was demonstrated satisfactorily to the whole scientific world on the appearance of a report by Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins University, published in the journal Science, March 4, 1938. Dr. Pearl and his associates made complete life tables on 6,813 white men between the ages of thirty to seventy. He divided this group into three-2,095 nonusers of tobacco; 2,814 moderate smokers; 1,905 heavy smokers. He found that between the ages of thirty and seventy the heavy smoker died, on an average, ten years younger than nonsmokers; that moderate smokers, on an average, also died from one to five years sooner. And as I have already quoted, smokers are less free from bodily ailments than are nonsmokers. So I repeat, the fact is that smokers die earlier than nonsmokers.
May I quote a few words from the late Dr. A. L. Warner, who devoted a long life to the study of the evil effects upon the mind, body, and character of tobacco and was widely known for his writings on the subject? He wrote:
A large majority of the young men of the United States have used tobacco. We are breeding a race of tobacco degenerates. The children inherit the narcotic craving from tobacco-using ancestors, making them as they grow older, easy addicts to tobacco, liquor, and other dope. Juvenile crime, vice, and degeneracy, steadily increase with the increased use of tobacco. The average age of crime in the United States has come down in sixteen years from age twenty-eight to nineteen.
Extremely regrettable as it is, young women in the last few years have taken up smoking and the habit is rapidly growing among them. From an article written by Alonzo L. Baker, associate editor of the magazine Good Health, and entitled "Should Women Smoke?" I make a few quotations as follows:
Here are two facts that should be borne in mind by every girl and woman in America:
1. Tobacco harms women more physically than it does men.
2. Tobacco does more damage to the race through mothers than through fathers.
Naming some bad effects, he continues:
A vital question is the effect of tobacco in pregnancy. These two facts are indisputable: Nicotine is one of the few substances that passes through the placenta to the fetus; Nicotine passes to the infant in its mother's milk. In view of the virulence of the poison that nicotine is, damage both to the unborn child and to the nursing child is inevitable when he is nicotinized before and after birth... The smoking habit has become widespread among women of recent years only in America. Preliminary reports... thus far made indicate that the number of still-births and premature children born to habitually smoking mothers is markedly higher than for mothers who are abstainers from tobacco....Just cause for alarm is the rapidly growing number of girls who form the tobacco habit before they have come to physical maturity. Smoking on the part of girls during their teen years is nothing less than a tragedy, for those are the years when nicotine does its greatest damage to the growing nerve and glandular systems of the female body.
Dr. D. H. Kress, another well-known objector to smoking, wrote on this particular point saying:
For both man and wife to be addicted to smoke inhalation is destructive of everything that is good. Children born to such a pair had better never been born;... anything that is injurious to the child after its birth is equally injurious to it before its birth when indulged in by the pregnant mother.
United States Surgeon General Hugh S. Cummings once wrote:
When women generally contract the smoking habit the entire nation will suffer. The physical tone of the whole nation will be lowered. This is one of the most evil influences in American life today. The habit harms a woman more than it does a man.
President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University once in talking to his freshman class on the subject of tobacco gave the following advice:
My dear freshmen, I want you to remember that tobacco in any form destroys the brain, and you have none to spare.
ALCOHOL A CURSE
Time will not permit my saying much relative to liquor. It is perhaps unnecessary to do so since the effects of drinking are more or less widely known. However, I ask your indulgence while I give two or three quotations from keen observers. The Journal of the American Medical Association said:
Alcohol is a poison inherently, absolutely, essentially; in a drop or in a gallon, in all quantities and in every quantity, it is a poison. Plainly the quantity cannot effect its chemical constitution.
And from the eloquent pen of the late keen-minded Robert G. Ingersoll, who knew how to describe alcohol in all its hellish effects on humanity, I give the following:
Alcohol is the blood of the gambler, the inspiration of the burglar, the stimulus of the highwayman, and the support of the midnight incendiary. It suggests the lie and countenances the liar, condones the thief, and esteems the blasphemer. It violates obligation, reverences fraud, turns love to hate, scorns virtue and innocence. It incites the father to butcher his helpless offspring, and the child to sharpen the patricidal ax.
Alcohol burns up men, consumes women, destroys life, curses God, and despises heaven. It suborns witnesses, nurses perversity, defiles the jury box, and stains the judicial ermine. It bribes voters, disqualifies votes, corrupts elections, pollutes our institutions, endangers the government, degrades the citizen, debases the legislature, dishonors the statesman, and disarms the patriot. It brings shame, not honor; terror, not safety; despair, not hope; misery, not happiness; and, with the malevolence of a fiend, calmly surveys the frightful desolation, and reveling in havoc, poisons felicity, destroys peace and ruins morals, wipes out national honor, curses the world, and laughs at the ruin it has wrought. It does that and more. It murders the soul; it is the sum of all villainy, the father of all crime, the mother of all abominations, the devil's best friend, and God's worst enemy.
And from the inspired voice of the Church-that of the First Presidency-the following was said three years ago in this conference:
Drink brings cruelty into the home; it walks arm in arm with poverty; its companions are disease and plague; it puts chastity to flight; it knows neither honesty nor fair dealing; it is a total stranger to truth; it drowns consciousness, it is the bodyguard of evil; it curses all who touch it.
Drink has brought more woe and misery, broken more hearts, wrecked more homes, committed more crimes, filled more coffins than all the wars the world has suffered.
Yes, in accordance with the divine will, the Church stands absolutely and continuously opposed to smoking and to the consumption of all kinds of alcoholic beverages. It persistently calls to its members and to all others to abstain from the use of these body, mind, and soul destroying poisons. May the Lord give us all the desire and the strength to do so, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder John A. Widtsoe
John A. Widtsoe, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 141-144
My dear brethren and sisters, I pray that while I stand before you I may be guided by the Holy Spirit in all that I say.
A SOLEMN ASSEMBLY
Two days ago, at the first session of this conference, the people present were organized into a sacred, solemn assembly. The men holding the priesthood were placed in groups, according to their offices in the priesthood. The women and those not holding the priesthood were placed in another group. Then, before the people assembled, were presented the Authorities of the Church, the General Authorities. The President of the Church, his two Counselors, the president of the Council of the Twelve, and the Patriarch to the Church were voted on successively by these different groups, and the Council of the Twelve as a group was voted on likewise.
It was an impressive hour, such as seldom comes to the Church. It was only the second time that I had been at such a gathering. This method of voting, this procedure, was known by our fathers in this dispensation. It was known by those of other dispensations, and undoubtedly is patterned after the order in the courts of heaven. It has profound meaning, much more than we can begin to discuss this morning when there is much to be done.
Among other things, at that meeting, we sustained George Albert Smith as prophet, seer, and revelator, and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That word, "revelator," has remained in my mind as I am sure it has in the minds of many who were here on that occasion. It implies many things. It implies, as we know, we Latter-day Saints, that God is still speaking to his children, and that revelation, continuous revelation, is a vitalizing, life-giving element of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the principle which distinguishes us from many other groups of believers; it is the principle that gives us the strength and power to accomplish the work which may be placed upon us from time to time. It means that God, our Father in heaven, is still watchful over his children placed here upon earth; that in this changing day, he has not closed the Book of Revelation. His voice is still heard, and as new problems arise, he speaks, as we may need his help.
REVELATION THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH
This Church was founded in revelation. It was born in revelation. Upon his knees, the Prophet Joseph Smith, just a lad, lay in the grove and prayed for light, and light came. In that light stood the Father and the Son who gave him information and commissioned him with respect to the work he was to do. Later on, through the process of revelation, by the operation of that principle, the Book of Mormon came into existence, and revelation followed revelation until we have a sound foundation on which to build throughout the ages to come. We believe in revelation, in continuous revelation. That, as a people, we must never forget.
When the Church was organized, on April 6, 1830, Joseph Smith was chosen President, the first President of this Church. On that day, before the day was over, the Lord gave a revelation that relates to what we did two days ago. I believe the words of God, then spoken, may be applied from generation to generation for our good. If he has given us a man to stand as the mouthpiece of God, a revelator, there must be some obligation resting upon us as members of the Church of Christ. This is in part what the Lord said on that day:
Behold, there shall be a record kept among you; and in it thou shalt be called a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of the church through the will of God the Father, and the grace of your Lord Jesus Christ.
And then comes the admonition to us, our own obligation:
Wherefore, meaning the church, thou shalt give heed unto all his words and commandments which he shall give unto you as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me;
For his word,, ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.
Now, we covenanted two days ago to sustain George Albert Smith as President of the Church. Let us not forget the obligation placed upon us by the Lord with respect to him and our own covenant.
Not only did the Lord say this, in this very interesting and important revelation, but he pointed out the common cause for apostasy, the common cause for falling away from the truth. He said:
For by doing these things the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name's glory.
In other words, if we violate our covenant and fail to recognize the leadership of him who is called to be the President of the Church and God's prophet, the gates of hell may prevail against us. Too often, I am sorry to say, they have done so.
But he will give us strength, if we seek it, for later on the Lord says:
For, behold, I will bless all those who labor in my vineyard with a mighty blessing, and they shall believe on his words, which are given him through me by the Comforter, which manifesteth that Jesus was crucified by sinful men for the sins of the world, yea, for the remission of sins unto the contrite heart.
This is found in section twenty-one of the D&C.;
Some would say, reading these words, "Why this is just plain autocracy." They would say that it takes away from us our free agency if by sustaining a man we accept his words as if they were from God. That is not quite so, the gift of free agency is never taken from man. Moreover, the doctrine of this Church is that every man and woman, in his or her respective field, may receive revelation from Almighty God. This is a Church of revelation and revelation is not limited to one man alone. One man is called to speak for the Church. I have my problems from day to day, and I have equal right with him to call upon God for help in the problems of my day. By the spirit of revelation we accept the guidance of the revelator. That is always understood. The principle of revelation, that God still speaks, that he has not forgotten us, gives full freedom to act intelligently. If that were understood by the world, the peace spoken of here this morning would soon come. But, men depend upon themselves. They fail to call upon God. They fail to listen to his words, and floods of hate and discontent and evil stalk the world. We have had the experience of war the last few years; we know what it means when men try to depend upon themselves and their own power.
Every person may receive inspiration or revelation. The stake presidents have the right, in their positions, to ask for revelations from God, the bishops, in their positions; the housewives, in their daily tasks can claim real help from God, provided, of course, that they are sensitive to such help, provided that they are able to hear the voice of God.
When God speaks, some of us fail so to live as to understand the message that comes from eternity. I know some people say, "Well, how can I so conduct my life as to be responsive to the messages from the unseen world?"
There is an old illustration, a high school illustration, that bears on this subject. We may take a rod of soft iron, and place it with some iron filings, without apparently causing any change; the rod is not magnetic; but if we wrap that rod of iron with a wire carrying an electric current, it becomes a magnet. Though the rod has not changed, in shape and width and length, it has undergone a deep change. It has become changed so that it attracts iron filings or whatever else is subject to magnetic action. Just so, if we, men and women, could wrap ourselves in obedience to God's law, live as we should live, a wonderful change is effected in us, and we, too, can then hear the messages of the unseen world. The principle of revelation and fitness for revelation, should be remembered by all of our people, by you, by me, and by all of us.
A SURE GUIDE
There is another thing to be remembered. How can I, a poor human being, distinguish between an impression from God and an impression from an evil source. The devil is always ready to deceive us. You heard Brother Petersen's remarks yesterday recounting a dozen or so of the devices the devil uses in this day to mislead humanity. The test of truth, given us is very simple, easily understood. When an impression comes, call it inspiration or revelation, compare it with the words that issue from the mouth of the prophet who stands at the head of the Church. Then, if your impression is in harmony with his expressed words, it is from God. If it runs counter to the prophet's teachings, your impression is from an evil source.
The Lord wants to speak to us; he wants to guide us. He wants us to hear. His Holy Spirit permeates the universe, touches every heart, and if it is permitted, will carry messages to us from the throne of God. The manner of our lives will help us to receive such messages and to distinguish between those that may come from God and those that come from the evil one.
This Church lives and moves and has its being in revelation-continuous revelation. May we remember our relationship to the living prophet, as we recall the great events of two days ago. God bless us and be with us, and magnify us in our labors, that we may stand as a light before the nations, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 150-155
Thus saith the Lord:
And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine. But it must needs be done in mine own way... Thus saith the Lord.
Two years ago today I began my official work in this capacity. They have been two years of great joy and happiness for me. It has been my privilege to go throughout the Church and to have that incomparable opportunity of entering the homes and lives of the people.
"IN MINE OWN WAY"
In these two years I have seen a great drama played before my eyes. The title of the drama is: "In Mine Own Way." The stage is the earth; the scenery consists of the mountains and plains, the streams and oceans, the forests and deserts; its actors are the people, the sons and daughters of God.
A TYPICAL "HOME NIGHT"
The curtain rises on the first act, showing a world of night life with its theaters, banquets, and night clubs. Throngs of people have left homes and firesides seeking diversion in commercial amusement and riotous living, but off in one corner of this huge stage I see a modest home in which a family is assembled. It is a family of five. They are having a typical Latter-day Saint home evening. Little Grace is taking her turn tonight. She has arranged the program and is conducting. All of the family sing the song "Love At Home." The father tells a story from the Bible; then little Jimmy, just starting out with his violin, plays a simple little tune. Little Grace sings: "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam." And then the little three-year-old, unable to do anything else, turns somersaults to entertain the group. Some games are played and the mother serves the refreshments, which tonight happens to be popcorn. I see them now at the close of a perfect home evening, kneeling all together in prayer as they retire. And I seem to hear the voice of God saying:
And parents... shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.
BLESSINGS THROUGH FAITHFULNESS
The scene is changed. The setting this time is a world of selfishness, of overspending, of debt, of grasping humans accumulating the things of the world. There is one spot on this huge stage that arrests my attention. I see a young family, the father of which is still in his twenties. The lovely home is bright and resounds with children's voices and beyond the walls of its loveliness, I see prosperous mercantile establishments owned by him. His conference visitor is talking to him, commending him for his faithfulness in the payment of his tithing which he has paid on his prosperity. And then I hear this young, devout Latter-day Saint say: "I deserve no commendation. I am doing only my duty and my privilege. When I came home from my mission, wholly without funds or program, I knelt and asked for the blessings of the Lord, and I promised him that I would give him not only the tenth of my increase, but all that I possessed and accumulated would be his for his work and at the call of his servants, the Authorities of his Church."
As that scene closes I reflect again upon the title of the drama, "But it must needs be done in mine own way."
MISSIONARY WORK GOING FORWARD
The curtain is parted again and I see a discordant world, full of hate and envy, insincerity and frustration. Some are seeking righteousness but great numbers are satisfied to "eat, drink, and be merry" and let the world go merrily on in its sin. Then at one side of the great stage, I see the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in all its activities, including its missionary work. I see, going forth from the wards, great numbers of messengers of peace, giving the gospel to a world freely. An old couple, arranging their affairs, are gathering together the funds which they have earned and saved from their poultry farm throughout a period of years. They are leaving their home for the mission field. In another part of the stage is a group of missionaries coming into the rooms of the General Authorities to be set apart for their missions. In one room is a father with his young daughter. He is a patriarch and though many are his years, light is his heart. And after the girl has been set apart, her proud father whispers to the General Authority as they go out of the room, "Maybe you would be interested to know that this is my eleventh missionary to go into the mission field. It isn't a sacrifice," he quickly adds, "Every one of those missionaries has brought a blessing to our home. And I have three more children yet to go." The gospel preached in the Lord's own way without price or compensation! And I seem to hear the Lord's comment:
... freely ye have received, freely give. As my Father hath sent me even so send I you.
A STRONG CONTRAST
Another curtain. The scene this time is of the workers of the world, cursing in their labor; youth who use irreverently the name of Deity in their games and sports, and socialites indulging in vulgar and obscene stories in their parties. In contrast is presented a group of fourteen men on the Weber River. They are stake authorities spending a night and a day in the canyon. They are hiking, pitching horseshoes, playing volley ball, "swapping" stories through the afternoon, and in the evening they gather together to eat, and then to spend hours exchanging experiences and in solemn worship around the fireplace. As the men retire one of the number whispers to a companion, "Do you realize that through this long day and evening fourteen prominent men were together but never once was the name of Deity used improperly, nor a single story related that had even a shady background?" And as that scene closes I find myself thinking: "What a sweet and abundant life a Latter-day Saint may have," and I remember the words of Paul:
Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure.
HELP IN TIME OF NEED
Another scene: I see a world of people confused with social problems, "each for himself and the devil take the hindmost." There is evidence of riches and poverty, luxury and want; and then within this world of selfishness there is presented a scene of devastation where floods in their fury had played havoc with many homes, and here are fifteen hundred members of the priesthood of the Church with their sleeves rolled up, with their boots on, digging filth and debris from mud-filled basements resulting from a terrible storm that damaged homes and destroyed valuable possessions of the people. I see other floods where crops were washed away, animals drowned, farms gutted, and adobe homes melted by a raging river. I see the people from neighboring wards and stakes come to the rescue-with food, bedding, clothing for the needy; scores of truckloads of hay and grain for livestock; wire and posts for fencing; cash for leveling the farms, and building materials for dwellings for the homeless. And I see priesthood quorums with saw and hammer, building homes for members in distress.
And I thank the Lord for a people who follow the injunction: "Love thy neighbor as thyself", and, the family enters the newly constructed home, I seem to hear the Master say:
... Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
TWO WAYS OF SPENDING THE SABBATH
The curtain rises again on a Sabbath day-church bells are ringing. The populace, however, seems motivated by the spirit of "holiday" rather than "Holy Day." All over this great stage on the Lord's day people are picnicking in the canyon, men are in the fields doing their work; hunters and fishermen are in the mountains; men and women and children are in long queues before picture houses, ball games and rodeos. But off in another little corner in this great stage there is a sacrament meeting in progress. The meetinghouse is filled with worshiping people keeping holy the Sabbath day. The bishop is conducting, and down in the congregation, in one side pew is a family of six-a young couple with four children under twelve. And then at the conclusion of the meeting it seems the bishop is commending the young parents for their faithfulness, and the father of this little brood says: "We are happy to come to sacrament meeting each Sabbath. It is a privilege to worship. We always like to come together as a family. Our life would not be complete if our play, our work, and our worship were not all together." And I was grateful for the many who worship on the Lord's day, and I seem to see Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with the plates on which was engraved:
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
THE LAW OF CHASTITY
And then the scene changes again, and I see a world of sin. Here are displayed the hellholes of vice and crime. Here are the divorce courts and people filing in and out, notables many times divorced but unashamed. Homes are broken and children divided, and I hear someone say that ninety percent of all the divorces that break up these homes are caused by the sin of adultery, and that a staggering percentage of the people on this stage are immoral and unrepentant. Backstage is a small picture in contrast. Here is a community of about four hundred Latter-day Saints far away in the southland. A physician-surgeon, not a member of the Church, is telling his friend: "Now I've finished five years of practice in this little community of Mormons. Oh, the Mormons are not perfect but a pretty good sort though. I have attended them in their childbirths, in their operations, and in all of their ailments, and after five years I have yet to find the first case of social disease among them." And I seem to hear the warning of Paul, heeded by these Latter-day Saints:
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
Here is the law of chastity lived "in mine own way."
TWO MARRIAGE SCENES
Another scene is presented. It is a world parading in pomp and show, in display and pretense. Upstage I see a minister standing before a young couple, all elegantly dressed. And I see the best man, ladies in waiting, the ring bearer, many actors with parts prepared and gowns that are gorgeous. Large groups of people are on either side of the aisle with curious expectant faces. And then it seems that I see in another small corner of this huge stage, a young girl and her mother talking quietly together in their home. I hear the daughter saying: "You have been a sweet mother to me. I am grateful for your teaching me the beauty and importance of a temple marriage. I saw Betty's spectacular wedding with all of its flowers, costly gowns, and expensive appointments. I felt the labored formality of it all, the gasps of the curious onlookers. Mother, I desire a sweet, simple temple marriage; I want no rice, no old shoes, no wild demonstration. I want no pageantry no matter how colorful-marriage to me is a holy ordinance. What I would like would be for John and me to go through the sweet holy rites of the temple with just my folks and his, and a few intimate friends, where all is white and calm and beautiful and serene. Mother, I want no one unsympathetic to be present and nothing to be done which, in any sense, will mar the solemnity of that sacred occasion. This is a time when I want no hilarity, no crude or vulgar jokes. And as we walk out together, united for time and eternity, I want us to face the world with our minds and hearts still on that same high plane we found in the sealing room of the temple. I want us always to retain that sweet spirit of prayer and worship and peace. Thank you, Mother, I want to be married in the Lord's own way."
And as the curtain closes I stand in contemplation-grateful and happy that in the drama of life on the great world stage there are here and there episodes of contrasting brilliance and beauty which show the way to live the commandments of God in his own way.
My brothers and sisters, let us be true devoted Latter-day Saints. Let us love the Lord and our fellow men and live the commandments of God that we may have a full and abundant life leading to exaltation, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Marion G. Romney
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 155-159
In harmony with what has been said in this conference, about supporting the new President of the Church, I want to pledge to President George Albert Smith here before all of you, that I have every intention of rendering to him the same kind of loyalty that I gave our late departed great President, Heber J. Grant, whom I loved as I have loved few men.
In speaking of President Grant, I want to express my regret also for the loss which the Church has sustained since last conference in the passing of his son-in-law, Robert L. Judd, who rendered such yeoman service in the welfare work.
TESTIMONY COMES THROUGH SERVICE
The welfare program of the Church is very dear to me, and with the help of the spirit of the Lord, for which I pray, I want to say a word about it.
You are witnesses that when, with all your hearts, you work at a Church assignment, the Lord gives you a testimony that it is of him, and you have joy and satisfaction therein. That is the way it is with me in the welfare work, which now for four years has been one of my major assignments.
During the weeks following April conference, 1941, while I was wondering what I would be asked to do as an Assistant to the Council of the Twelve, my wife said that she believed she could guess, and of course, she did guess, many times. Once she said, "I think they will ask you to help Brother Lee in the welfare work." and I replied, "Oh, my goodness, I hope not! There is nothing for which I am less qualified."
Well, in a few days I received a letter from the First Presidency, appointing me assistant managing director of the Church welfare plan, "to labor under the advice and direction of Elder Lee and the General Committee." Within sixty days I closed up my personal affairs, and went to work in earnest on this new assignment. I read and studied everything the brethren had said about it. I asked members of the General Committee and office staff hundreds of questions. I fasted often over an extended period, and prayed humbly for an understanding of the welfare plan. Twice I traveled through the Church into practically every stake and saw the welfare projects in operation.
I believe I have heard almost all the objections which have been raised against it, and also the labored arguments in justification for not living it. As I have listened to these objections and arguments, I have been painfully aware of the dull spirit in which they have been urged. All over the Church, on the other hand, and this is the thing which has encouraged me, I have seen the sparkle in the eyes, the spring in the steps, and felt the joy in the spirits of those who have tested the plan by the Savior's formula:
If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
I believe I have made a rather complete study, and I now testify to you that I do know beyond any doubt, by the same power that Peter knew that Jesus was the Christ, that the Church welfare plan in its inception was and now is inspired of the Lord; and that the great principles implemented by it are eternal truths, which the Saints of God must abide if they are to purify and perfect themselves as the Lord has commanded.
Very often in welfare meetings bishops and others are asked what results they expect from the plan. Almost invariably one of the answers is that through it they expect the members of the Church to be fed, housed and clothed, when present sources of supply fail. This is a good answer, and I believe that the truth of it will yet be a demonstrated fact.
SPIRITUAL MEANING IN THE CHURCH WELFARE PLAN
To me, however, Church welfare is more than just a plan to provide for the physical needs of the Saints. I am convinced that in addition to being a way of economic salvation in the days of necessity, it has deep spiritual significance; and that should other means always be available with which to supply the physical needs of the people, still the welfare plan, or some similar plan sponsored by the Church under the inspiration of the Lord, requiring us to serve and minister to one another in temporal affairs, would be necessary in order to bring us to that oneness, equality, and
... union required by the law of the celestial kingdom.
Unity, above all else, is the one thing characteristic of the Church of Christ. The burden of the Master's great prayer
... in the hour of his approaching death was, that the oneness subsisting between himself and the Father should also subsist between himself and his apostles, and... between them and all those who should receive the gospel through their teachings.
The way to this oneness and unity has always been mutual consideration and helpfulness to one another. This the Lord declared to ancient Israel when he said, "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself", and during his earthly ministry he reaffirmed this command as one of the two great requirements upon which hang all the law and the prophets.
In this dispensation, the Lord has made it clear that loving one's neighbor as oneself includes administering to his temporal needs. He said to the members of the Church before it was a year old:
... be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.
And he prefaced this command by calling to their attention the inequality among them in worldly goods. Among other things he said:
... the poor have complained before me, and the rich have I made, and all flesh is mine, and I am no respecter of persons.... Wherefore, hear my voice and follow me, and you shall be a free people... let every man esteem his brother as himself.... And again I say unto you, let every man esteem his brother as himself.
And then he illustrated the meaning of esteeming one's brother as oneself by a parable in which he disapproved of having one of his sons clothed in robes and given a seat of honor, while another son of equal faithfulness is clothed in rags and given a lesser place. It was against this background of instructions that the Lord gave the command,
... be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.
Fourteen months later, he said:
... the time has come, and is now at hand; and behold, and lo,
it must needs be that there be an organization of my people, in regulating and establishing the affairs of the storehouse for the poor of my people,... for a permanent and everlasting establishment and order unto my church.
Through this organization a certain equality in earthly things was to be obtained in order that the Saints might be equal in the bonds of heavenly things, and the Church was to be enabled to stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world.
Keep in mind that this organization was to be built around a storehouse from which the needs of the poor among the Lord's people were to be supplied. Some folk regard this as a menial temporal activity; but the Lord said its purpose was to advance the cause which the saints had espoused for the salvation of men and to the glory of their Father in heaven. He thus associated it with his loftiest endeavor, that of bringing to pass the immortality and the eternal life of man, which he has declared to be his work and his glory.
Who but the Lord himself could devise a way by which the members of his Church, rich and poor alike, can be so motivated that by the exercise of their own free agency they will administer to each other's needs in such a spirit of love as to move toward these great objectives? No one. And the Lord intended to direct the way, for said he:
I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, my very handiwork; and all things therein are mine. And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine. But it must needs be done in mine own way; and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low. For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.
UNITY REQUIRED OF THE SAINTS
In another revelation the Lord prescribed loyalty to his way as a prerequisite to obtaining a place in the celestial world. Now, my brethren and sisters, when members of the Church, our own fathers, and mothers, brothers and sisters, and children, are provided life's necessities from sources other than those approved by the Lord, it is not being done in his way and does not fulfill the law.
The way prescribed for the Church, when these revelations were given in the early 1830's, was the United Order. The Saints, however, did not prove obedient to the things required at their hands in connection with this order, and were therefore not successful in becoming "united according to the union required by the law of the celestial kingdom". As a consequence, the requirement to practice the United Order was withdrawn from the Church. The Saints were driven and afflicted, and the redemption of Zion is yet delayed.
To us and for our day, the Lord has given the welfare plan whereby we may demonstrate to him through mutual consideration and helpfulness to one another in temporal things, that we do love our neighbors as ourselves, rich and poor alike, and thereby move toward the equality, oneness, and unity which the Lord requires of us. This plan is not meant for any one class alone. We all need the training it affords. The day for the ushering in of the great millennium approaches, and for that day we must be prepared to live as one in perfect unity. We cannot come suddenly to that happy state. It will take training. By putting the welfare plan fully into operation, we can move forward toward this high objective, and also to the perfection of the welfare program itself," until it becomes perfect in all respects to the care and blessing of" the Lord's "people," as prayed for by President George Albert Smith in the dedicatory prayer at the Idaho Falls Temple.
May the Lord help us, my brethren and sisters, to understand the great principles underlying the welfare plan and comprehend the full purposes for which it has been given to us, that through living it we may move toward that "union required by the law of the celestial kingdom", I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Ezra Taft Benson
Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 159-164
I have felt confident that this time would come. This is a sobering experience, my brothers and sisters. Our great benefactor and leader said at one time regarding this great responsibility: "You cannot hide the heart when the mouth is open. If you want to keep your heart secret, keep your mouth shut." But he also added that when it becomes our duty to talk, we ought to be willing to talk.
QUESTIONS BEING ASKED
I desire to repeat one sentence from the revelation which Brother Romney indicated has already been quoted two or three times in this conference:
And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine.
During recent weeks it has been my pleasure to visit with many young men and some older men, during which time they have asked several questions regarding some of the temporal matters pertaining to the Latter-day Saints. They have asked questions regarding the Church's interest in agriculture and farming. They have commented that they do not hear as much now about these things as was once spoken in the Church. Some of them have suggested that they would like to know whether or not the Church looks with favor on young men going abroad to various parts of the country to establish themselves in farming and in business, or whether they should remain close to Church headquarters. Others have asked regarding cooperative business enterprises, and other cooperative activities.
I realize, my brethren and sisters, that in discussing temporal matters, the Lord has said:
... all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal.
MAN'S PLACE IMPORTANT IN THE WORLD
The objective, of course, is spiritual. We live, however, in a material, physical, temporal world. Man is the center in Mormon philosophy.
For behold, this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
The earth upon which we live was established for man. The Church is for man, not man for the Church.
We are blind until we see that in the human plan Nothing is worth the making if it does not make the man. Why build these cities glorious if man unbuilded go; In vain we build the world unless the builder also grow.
But to us man is a dual being, temporal and spiritual, and in the early revelations to this people, the Lord took occasion, many times, to give direction and commandment regarding temporal matters. He directed the Saints and the leaders of the Church in the purchase of land and other property; in the construction of temples; even in the establishment of a printing press, and a store, and in the building of a boardinghouse for the "weary traveler". In the great revelation known as the Word of Wisdom, he not only indicated what is good and what is not good for man, but he outlined a plan for the feeding of livestock, which, through more than a hundred years, has gradually been sustained through the scientific investigation of man. Whatever affects human welfare has always been and ever will be the concern of the Church. Our people have always been counseled in temporal affairs.
COOPERATION IMPORTANT IN TEMPORAL MATTERS
I read again recently some of the early discourses of President Brigham Young and other Church leaders as the Saints came into these valleys. The people were truly counseled in temporal affairs. Various types of projects were inaugurated under their direction. They were taught to conserve ranges and forests and to conserve water. They were taught also to conserve food and feed and other materials. They were encouraged in the production of more profitable crops and in more efficient methods of production. They were taught to work together, to cooperate, to sustain each other. Listen to the words of President Young:
Any people who will cooperate on correct principles will increase in material wealth and prosperity... If the people called Latter-day Saints do not become one in temporal things, as they are in spiritual things, they will not redeem and build up the Zion of God upon the earth. This cooperative movement is a stepping stone. We say to the people, take advantage of it, it is your privilege.
Later he gave cooperative support to private enterprise and encouraged men to enter private business. Should not the counsel given by President Brigham Young in the early days of the settlement of these valleys be heeded today? The principles of cooperation and working together were used to develop the resources of these valleys and permit people to survive. We need to adopt these same principles, which have been tried and tested by the experience of the last hundred years, to preserve and conserve these resources and to raise our economic standards. I do not mean by this that our people should go out and in every priesthood quorum and in every ward organize cooperative business organizations. A warning has been given, and wisely so, that cooperative enterprises, business cooperatives, require efficient business management and direction. At the same time it is recognized that there is a place for cooperative endeavor, among our agricultural and rural groups particularly, as there is also an opportunity and a place for private enterprise.
ZION EMBRACES ALL OF AMERICA
We live in an area, my brothers and sisters, where we face rather peculiar problems, and to some extent, some limitations. Water is our most limited factor in the agriculture of the area in which the Latter-day Saints are concentrated. The topography of our country presents other serious problems. We have, in many areas where the Latter-day Saints live, a very serious pressure of population on the land. There is a tendency for our farms and farming units to be divided and redivided until many times they have become somewhat uneconomic because of their limited size. Because of this pressure there has been a tendency for many of our young people to go out into other areas where land seems to be more abundant and probably where the opportunities are greater. This is not a thing to be discouraged if they act wisely. All of America is the land of Zion.
I was pleased in visiting the Northwestern States Mission recently to find that many of our young people have gone into that fertile area, have established themselves in agriculture and in business, and are sinking their roots deep, becoming a part of the community life and a support to the branches of which they are loyal members. To me this is a condition that will likely increase as the years pass. As the Church grows and increases in numbers, no one state or area will be able to contain the Latter-day Saints.
ADVICE IN MATTER OF DEBT
There are some things, my brethren and sisters, those who live in the rural communities particularly, that I would like to call to your attention which I think might be helpful in aiding us to improve the efficiency of our operations. One of them was referred to by Brother Clifford Young in his excellent address yesterday: the matter of debt. We face at the present time a great adjustment period. If history repeats itself, we may expect a declining price level in the case of agricultural products particularly. That will mean that more bushels of wheat, more tons of sugar beets and more farm products generally will be required to pay off a given amount of debt. It is well for Latter-day Saints to make a special effort during this period when prices are relatively high, to reduce our debts to the very minimum in order that we might be prepared to meet the adjustment period as it comes without losing our farms and without making undue sacrifices.
WAYS OF MORE EFFECTIVE FARMING
There are many things that we could do to enlarge our farming units, not only by the acquisition of land, but by the more effective use of irrigation water, much of which is wasted through seepage and excessive irrigation. More acres on given farms can often be brought under irrigation through a wiser and more efficient use of water. We can add intensive units to our farming program without enlarging the area with such units as poultry, livestock feeding, production of truck crops, seed production, new crops, and other things. On many of our farms I believe we could reduce waste areas, corners, fence lines, ditch banks, and yard space.
There is a need to increase forage production to supplement our ranges, which, in many areas, are becoming seriously depleted. We need to use the information which has been developed by the United States Forest Service, by our agricultural colleges, and tested by leading ranchers, to plant improved grasses on our ranges, and thereby increase the number of livestock that can be carried. Many of our communities are built largely on a livestock economy.
Ofttimes the rearrangement of fields and the enlargement of fields, permits the more efficient use of power and heavy, horse-drawn farm machinery, which is a common need on many farms. The use of better breeding stock and better feed and seed will all tend towards a more efficient type of agriculture, a more profitable farming enterprise, and a more satisfactory community life.
We need to work together more than we do. In the joint ownership of heavy equipment such as combines, balers, tractors, drills, and in the cooperative ownership of breeding sires, and in many other ways, we can join together as farmers in our communities in order to make our farming operations more efficient and more effective.
In many areas our system of marketing and distributing our farm products and purchasing farm production supplies needs to be improved. Farmers need to improve their bargaining power. There is a tendency among many of our people, and not confined alone to our people, to sell their products in rather large quantities at wholesale, and to buy back in small dabs, here and there, their needed supplies at retail prices. As one of our distinguished financiers, Bernard M. Baruch, has said:
The farmer selling in unlimited competition with himself, has been buying at more or less controlled prices from industries which have organized their production and marketing.
We need to improve the distribution of our farm products. That does not mean that in every area we need to organize cooperative associations. There are limitations on these organizations. The need should be determined. Possibly the work is being done efficiently through private channels. We should determine whether or not there is a need for improvement in the marketing and distribution of our products in a given area.
The farm is largely a manufacturing plant where land, labor, fertilizer, supplies, seed, and feed are combined to produce a product for market. It is no easy matter to become an efficient farm operator today.
It is important that we keep our thinking straight, my brothers and sisters. Let us ever keep in mind that all material things are but a means to an end, that the end is spiritual, although the Lord is anxious and willing to bless his people temporally. He has so indicated in many of the revelations. He has pointed out, time and time again, that we should pray over our crops, over our livestock, over our households, our homes, and invoke the Lord's blessings upon our material affairs. And he has promised that he will be there and ready and willing to bless us.
THE SOUNDNESS OF PRINCIPLES OF SELF-HELP
Let us stand together on our own feet. Let us cooperate to accomplish these so-called material objectives. A sound agriculture is vital to the national economy. I like the words of that great Irish pioneer in cooperative effort, Horace Plunket, who labored for many years among the poor, down-ridden farmers of Ireland, when he said:
For the longer I live, the more certain do I become that what the best of governments can do for farmers is of insignificant importance compared with what, by carefully thought out and loyal cooperation, they can do for themselves.
Let us as Latter-day Saints stand on our own feet. Let us not be inclined to run to a paternalistic government for help when every problem arises, but to attack our problems jointly, and through effective cooperative effort, solve our problems at home.
To me one of the greatest bulwarks we have in this country against all the foreign isms, "crackpot" theories, and the unsound social reforms is the people who live on the land, close to the soil. Dr. Widtsoe emphasized a year ago at our conference the important part which the rural people of America play in the safety and security of this great land. Certainly no group of people in all the world know so well that, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap". And as Brother Widtsoe said in that excellent address, which I commend to you, "A strong rural membership brings safety to the Church, not otherwise obtainable. It is so in the nation."
The principles of self-help are economically, socially, and spiritually sound. The Lord will not do for us what we can and should do for ourselves. But it is his purpose to take care of his Saints. Everything that concerns the economic, social, and spiritual welfare of the human family is and ever will be the concern of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
May the Lord bless us with inspiration to guide us in all of our material affairs that we might be successful. And may we ever keep in mind the great objective of life and the purposes of God in establishing us here in the earth, namely, to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life in the celestial kingdom, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 164-167
My brothers and sisters, I trust that the few moments that I stand before you, I may have an interest in your faith and prayers, that what I say may be helpful, at least to some of us.
The wide range of subjects which have been talked about at this conference shows the scope of the gospel of Jesus Christ and shows us how in that gospel and in the gospel plan the Lord has provided for all of our needs. There is no phase of life, that we have to live, that is not fully covered by the principles of the gospel.
CONFIDENCE EXPRESSED IN CHURCH LEADERSHIP
As has been repeatedly observed, and I myself have mentioned, we are beginning a new era in the history of the Church. We have had great leaders in the past: President Smith, President Young, President Taylor, President Woodruff, President Snow, President Smith, President Grant, and now President George Albert Smith. Each of those brethren in the past had the love, confidence, and respect of every Latter-day Saint who was living as he should live. Those only have spoken ill who were not serving the Lord. As in the past, so it is today.
May I say, we miss today and through this conference, not only the presence, but the admonitions of President Grant-a great man, so esteemed by all who knew him in the Church and out, a man of steadfast principle, a man who lived as he preached, a man who knew no guile, a man who was honest and truthful, a man respected and loved, to whom I gave all the loyalty I had. The world will not soon forget President Grant.
Now we come to President Smith, and again I say that to him I give all of the loyalty, all the respect, and I shall give to him all the love that I gave to President Grant. If I did not do so, I would not be worthy of the choice he has made. May God help me to do my duty.
CONTINUAL INSPIRATION NECESSARY TO GROWTH OF CHURCH
Brother Stephen L Richards yesterday said a few words, along with others, in connection with the growth of this Church. There has been a marvelous growth. You will remember that after the Savior died, Paul tells us some five hundred assembled together and he appeared before them. We may assume, I think, that that number was more or less the total of the congregation he had been able to bring together. A few days after Pentecost, Peter, preaching in the temple, talked to five thousand, many of whom seemed to be believers. But the growth of the church from then on, while great, seems not ever to have approached our growth in the matter of numbers. I dimly remember having read somewhere, that there were perhaps a hundred thousand members at the end of the first hundred years. We number almost a million. That one hundred thousand, or whatever number it was, went forward, but the records show that after the apostolic age, after the apostles died, people began to wander away from the truth. Some writers affirm that inspiration ceased. Perhaps that is why they did not grow more rapidly and certainly we have grown so rapidly because inspiration and revelation, of which Brother Widtsoe spoke, have continued with us during all these years. But even during the time of the apostles there began to be a falling away, as is clear from the Epistles of Paul, of Peter, John, James, and Jude. People began to wander off, and that wandering was increased in the succeeding centuries, accumulating speed, it seems, as it went on.
They began to gather into church teachings things to make Christianity a little more palatable to the philosophers of the time. They brought in something of Plato's doctrines, something from the philosophies of the Orient, they brought in dualism, and they mixed up with it a little Christianity and in reaction created the cult and the beliefs known as Montanism. Imperceptibly they went away. Why did they go? Because they were trying to satisfy the thought and the philosophy and the reasoning of men, in order that they might have their support and probably their praise. Thus came Gnosticism. Montanism was an attempted return to the early principles of the gospel. Out of the two, with other doctrines of philosophy and thought which came in, were developed the Christian beliefs and practices that were finally established with headquarters at Rome.
WARNING AGAINST CHANGES IN ESTABLISHED ORDER OF CHURCH
There is a deep lesson in all of that for us today. Already there are coming in amongst us doctrines that have no part or place in the pure doctrines of the restored gospel. These heresies are creeping in insidiously. They come to us from the philosophies of men, in no small part from the philosophies of the Christian scholars of the day. They make our doctrines, as they made the early Christian beliefs, more palatable to our philosophers, but so surely as they destroyed the Christian church in the early days, just so surely will they destroy us if we do not stop them where they are.
It is easy to see, too, how the early Christian church got away from the simple practices that the Lord established and that his apostles followed with.
I want to say a word particularly to you brethren and sisters who come from long distances, you who are in the outlying areas of the Church, surrounded as you are by the mass of the people who do not believe as you believe; you are subject to their influences, their social contacts, their habits, and their customs. You find inevitably that they try to lead you away, and you, being human, must struggle not to be led. Preserve, I say to you, brethren and sisters, the simplicity of our rites, few as they are, and our ceremonies. Do not begin to introduce elaborate dress and pageantry in connection with the administration of the sacrament. I would amaze you if I should tell you how far it is reported some have gone.
Please do not say to us: "You do not understand, you are up here, and we are away in these great, metropolitan areas, and you do not know our problems." Well, some of us do. Some of us have lived in great metropolitan areas. There is no area in which, for example, the sacrament may not be simply administered. Yours is not a peculiar situation, unknown.
Again: you do sometimes have long distances to go to reach your meetings, but so have the people in many, many rural areas in this state, the state to the south, and the state to the north. They get along, and so can you. Do not try to get into the position where you can get through with all of your worship in a couple of hours on Sunday morning. Do not do that. The point I hope you are getting is: do not try to change the established order of the Church to suit what seems to you to be a peculiar situation of your own. You are not dissimilar, you are the same, and if you change and someone else changes to suit his convenience and his peculiar situation, and then someone else, somewhere else, and so on, we shall come to a time when our unity not only of observance, but of faith, will cease.
I plead with you, my brethren and sisters, hold fast to the iron rod.
You will never make a mistake by following the instructions and the counsel of him who stands at the head as God's mouthpiece on earth.
May the Lord give us faith and strength, may he give us determination, may we be valiant, may we have courage, may we live always simply, may we worship God in our hearts, not merely ceremony; may we be in truth his people, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, October 1945, pp. 167-175
President J. Reuben Clark, of the First Presidency of the Church, has just spoken to you and it now falls to my lot as your presiding officer to say a few closing words as we finish this conference.
Nobody could stand where I am and look into the eager, upturned faces of a congregation such as this and not be impressed with the responsibility that attaches to counseling and advising such a remarkable group of people.
BLESSINGS ENJOYED BY THE SAINTS
The world is in a ferment. The conditions of the world in many places are anything but desirable, and yet we are permitted to meet together today, in peace, in this glorious weather, on this block that is so delightfully beautified. We are permitted to live here in the fresh air of these grand valleys and mountains, unafraid of any impending danger. What a grateful people we ought to be! When I think of the comforts and the blessings and opportunities, that have come into my life, because my forebears accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ and went through all kinds of undesirable and uncomfortable experiences in order that they might be permitted to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience, I am most grateful to my Heavenly Father.
No other country in the world is as blessed as this country. The Lord himself raised up the men to prepare the Constitution under which we live. Free opportunity to serve God, untrammeled, has been vouchsafed to us by that Constitution, and the people of the United States of America, who have continued to honor God and keep his commandments, have retained an understanding of the purpose of life and a faith that is worth more than all of the wealth of the world.
THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST
We in this Church, are only a handful of people. There are many churches in the world, many in the United States, which bear the names of the men who organized them, such as the Wesleyan Methodist Church, and others. Great and good men have come forward and sought to improve the conditions of the people, and the country in which they lived. We have the peculiar distinction of belonging to a Church that does not have the name of any man, because it was not organized by the wisdom of any man. It was named by the Father of us all in honor of his Beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
I would like to suggest to you, my brothers and sisters, that we honor the name of the Church. It is not the church of James and John, it is not the church of Moroni, nor is it the church of Mormon. It is the Church of Jesus Christ. And while all these men were wonderful and notable characters, we have been directed to worship God in a church that bears the name of his Beloved Son. I wish that our young people as they grow up would keep that fact in mind. We have become so accustomed to being called the Mormon Church by all our friends and neighbors throughout the world, that many people do not know the proper name of the Church, and I think the Lord would expect us to let them know that.
In all these churches there are good men and good women. It is the good that is in these various denominations that holds them together. It has been my privilege to be with people in many parts of the world and to be in the homes of many people of the various denominations of the world, both Christian and Jew. I have been with the Mohammedans; I have been with those who believe in Confucius; and I might mention a good many others. I have found wonderful people in all these organizations, and I have the tremendous responsibility wherever I go among them, that I shall not offend them, not hurt their feelings, not criticize them, because they do not understand the truth.
As representatives of the Church we have the responsibility to go among them with love, as servants of the Lord, as representatives of the Master of heaven and earth. They may not altogether appreciate that; they may resent that as being egotistical and unfair, but that would not change my attitude. I am not going to make them unhappy if I can help it. I would like to make them happy, especially when I think of the marvelous opportunities that have come to me because of membership in this blessed Church.
THE SAVIOR'S MINISTRY
Today, in many parts of the world, people are worshiping God in the way that they have been trained to worship. The people of the great nation of China worship, as they believe, in a way that will be pleasing to the Creator, if they understand that we had a Creator. And so do many others. That was also true in the days of Jesus of Nazareth. When he came into the world, there were many denominations. There were people scattered in different parts of the world that did not believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When Christ came to instruct the people, he told them that there must be faith in God and righteousness in life or they would not please our Heavenly Father. And so the Savior of the world came with kindness and love. He went among the people healing the sick, unstopping the ears of the deaf, and restoring sight to those who were blind. They saw these things done by the power of God. Comparatively few of them could understand or believe that he was the Son of God, but what he did was in kindness and patience and love and forbearance. Yet his experience was such that upon one occasion he said:
... Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
That was your Savior and mine, in his own world, if you will, in the world belonging to his Father. All that was here belonged to God and yet his only Begotten Son in the flesh had to call the attention of his associates to the fact that with all his majesty and his royalty, he still must live like other men. And when the time came for him to die, and be hung upon the cross, and cruelly tortured by those of his own people, his own race, he did not become angry, he did not resent the unkindness.
When the one thief on the cross railed against him, the other thief called attention to the fact that they were only receiving their just deserts, while here was a righteous man being unjustly punished. The one thief prayed, as best he knew how to pray, and the Savior of the world said to this man who was suspended alongside him on another cross:
... To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
The people of the world do not understand some of these things, and particularly, many men cannot understand how the Savior felt when in the agony of his soul, he cried to his Heavenly Father, not to condemn and destroy these who were taking his mortal life, but he said:
... Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
That should be the attitude of all of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That should be the attitude of all the sons and daughters of God and would be, it seems to me, if they fully understood the plan of salvation. But it has remained for a little group, the group to which you and I belong, to call the attention of our Father's other children, day by day, to the fact that anger and hatred in our hearts will not bring us peace and happiness. So it is our privilege, possessing divine authority that has been conferred again in our day, to go into the world and teach men the message of the Savior that would have redeemed the world if people had accepted it.
This world might have been free from its distresses long ago if the children of men had accepted the advice of him who gave his all, as far as mortal life is concerned, that we might live again.
Christ answered those who asked him which was the greatest of all the commandments:
... Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart....And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
That is the spirit of the Redeemer and that is the spirit all Latter-day Saints should seek to possess if they hope someday to stand in his presence and receive at his hands a glorious welcome home.
THE TRUTH TO BE PREACHED
When I think of the opportunities that the Lord has offered to us! One of the most difficult problems that we have had has been to carry this gospel to the nations of the earth. Hundreds, yes, thousands of our fellows have gone, in many cases without purse and without scrip, to the islands of the sea and to the nations of the earth, and to what end? To say unto our Father's other children: "The gospel has been restored again." The scriptures indicated that a true knowledge of the gospel would be lost; that the time was to come when men would run to and fro in the earth, seeking the word of God and not find it. It is our privilege and has been that of our forebears to say to mankind: "The time has come when the truth may be found. Surely you can see that the manner and form of worship that the people have been following all through the ages has not succeeded in bringing peace and happiness. Now, why not listen to the Lord."
Our missionaries have gone out and have said to the children of men:
"A humble boy, believing the Bible after he had read it, believing that there was a God who could hear and answer prayers, went out and knelt down in the woods near his home in the state of New York, and prayed unto the Lord, asking guidance. This boy had read in the scriptures where the Lord had said:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not: and it shall be given him.
And so this boy, not yet fifteen years of age, because of his implicit faith in the promises of our Heavenly Father, had the heavens opened to him and God the Father and God the Son appeared and instructed him as to what he should do. Although a youth, he was older than the Savior of the world when His parents lost Him. When they found Jesus in the temple, they chided him because they had been delayed. It was at twelve years of age that Jesus said to his parents:
... wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business.
So, it is not surprising that a boy fifteen years of age, if he were inspired by the Lord, should desire to know what he should do.
Joseph Smith was able, notwithstanding the opposition of the adversary of all righteousness and all his emissaries, to face the contumely and hatred of a wicked world and finally he gave his life as a testimony of the truth of the gospel of our Lord that had been restored in its fulness to the earth.
The Church began with only six members. It has grown day by day in spite of the opposition of the adversary. But for the powerful arm of righteousness, but for the watchcare of our Heavenly Father, this Church would have been crushed like a shell long ago. However, the Lord has said that he would safeguard us, and has promised us protection if we will honor him and keep his commandments. The Church in its early existence moved from place to place, and finally was driven through the wilderness and came out into this western land and established itself here, by the blessing of God, in a land then so undesirable that other people did not think they could live here and develop a satisfactory community We can now see the results. Our forebears had the same faith that led the children of Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, the same faith that led the Pilgrim Fathers across the mighty deep to the land choice above all other lands, the same faith that inspired the men who wrote the Constitution of the United States, the same faith that characterized the lives of the Hebrew prophets, who one by one were willing to give their lives in order that they might maintain their standards and continue the teaching of the gospel that the Lord had given to them. When we think of some of the prophets and the experiences through which they passed, it is marvelous.
ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS OF BAAL
I have in mind now, the prophet Elijah who said to the people: Build two altars and let one be for God and the other for Baal. Then let us put the offering that is customary on each altar.
And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God.
The priests of Baal were challenged by the true prophet of God, and so they called to Baal to send down fire from heaven, and they continued to cry. Elijah said: Cry aloud, perhaps he is asleep, or he may have gone on a journey. And when these men, these priests of Baal, who had been leading Israel astray, discovered their helplessness, it is said they jumped upon the altar, and they gashed themselves with knives. Then, Elijah, the true prophet of God, said: Father in Heaven, in order that the people may know that thou art God, wilt thou send fire down from heaven and consume the offering that is on the altar that has been built to thee. And not only were the altar and the offering consumed, but the water that had been poured over the offering to prevent its being easily burned was licked up, and the people stood there to find that of the hundreds of men claiming divine authority, there was only one man that God would recognize.
TEACHINGS OF JOSEPH SMITH
Now, when Joseph Smith, just a youth, announced that he had seen the Father and the Son, it appeared ridiculous to many people. They had been taught that it was not possible for the Lord to appear to the children of men, that such manifestations were past and that the Bible contained all the information that was necessary. But the boy prophet knew because he had seen the Father and the Son. Knowing that it was not some imaginary thing, he continued his work, and under the direction of the Lord, organized the Church. Then our Heavenly Father sent holy beings to confer upon him divine authority, which had been lost to the world, as we read in the scriptures that it was to be lost to the world. There came John the Baptist who conferred the Aaronic Priesthood, and there came Peter, James, and John who conferred the Melchizedek Priesthood. These four men had lived upon the earth and offered their lives in testimony of the divine mission of Jesus Christ. When the time came for them to come and bring back the authority of the priesthood, they were not maimed and bruised as a result of the handling they had received by wicked men, but they were immortal, glorified, resurrected beings, who came to the earth and thereby established in the mind of the boy prophet, Joseph Smith, the truth that there was in reality a literal resurrection from the dead.
And may I say that there are comparatively few people in all the world who understand that there will be a resurrection. The Lord has again revealed this in our day. He has impressed it upon us and has given us to understand that when the time comes for that resurrection, if we are worthy that we will be quickened celestial bodies, and from then on, we will dwell in the celestial kingdom, the highest of all kingdoms. But he has taught us also that there are other places where we may go. If we don't want to go to the celestial kingdom, by being less careful and particular about keeping the commandments of God, we may go into the terrestrial kingdom, and if we are still more careless, we may find our way into the telestial kingdom, which is the least of the kingdoms of glory.
There are some people who have supposed that if we are quickened telestial bodies that eventually, throughout the ages of eternity, we will continue to progress until we will find our place in the celestial kingdom, but the scriptures and revelations of God have said that those who are quickened telestial bodies cannot come where God and Christ dwell, worlds without end.
The gospel of Jesus Christ was given to the world to prepare us for a kingdom that we would not be prepared for with any other gospel. And so the truth has come in our day. How thankful we ought to be to our Heavenly Father for that truth, how patient we ought to be with one another. How grateful we ought to be to those who have been willing to teach us the truth, and how willing we ought to be to keep our bodies clean and undefiled by the wicked things of life, knowing that we have been created in the image of God and that he expects us to take care of these bodies and keep them pure.
A HAPPY HOME LIFE
These are some of the thoughts that have come into my mind this afternoon as I have looked into the faces of this wonderful audience. I am grateful for the association and companionship of such as are here today.
I thank my Heavenly Father that I was born in this day and age of the world, and that I was blessed with goodly parentage that I might begin my earth life under favorable circumstances, for I want to say to you that I never knew anything wrong to happen in my father's home. There were always peace, happiness, and love; the rules of the Church were observed, and family prayers were as regular as our meals. While we did not have very much sometimes, we thanked God for what we had and it was sweet to the taste and sufficient to take care of us. When my father passed away, he left two families of children, and two mothers of those children. His life had been such that if there had been any problem among us, any question as to what should be done with reference to his affairs, all that was necessary for us was to say, as we united together, we will do whatever father would have done. We knew how fair and just and honorable he was, and so our problems were never difficult of solution, and we have lived together in the bonds of love, just as all the people of the Church should live. The gospel teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and if we will do that, we will not be distressed, we will not have our feelings wounded, part of us will not be well-to-do while others are living in poverty. If we love our neighbor as ourselves, we will all do our full part, and our Heavenly Father has promised us his blessings in return.
RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS OTHERS
Let me say I realize the great responsibility that is upon my shoulders. I know that without the help of our Heavenly Father, the organization with which we are identified cannot be successful. No man or group of men can make it successful, but if the members of this Church will continue to keep the commandments of God, live their religion, set an example to the world, love their neighbor as themselves, we will go forward, and increasing happiness will flow to us.
Today as I stand here I realize that in this city, in the Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Episcopalian, and the other churches, I have brothers and sisters that I love. They are all my Father's children. He loves them and he expects me and he expects you to let our light so shine that these other sons and daughters of his, seeing our good works will be constrained to accept all the truth, not a little part of it, but accept all the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord. Think what a marvelous opportunity we have! Think what a blessing it will be if we do our part here, as we stand on the other side of the Great Divide, when our Father shall summon his great family together as he shall, to have these wonderful men and women, hundreds and thousands of them who have been our neighbors, and who have watched our lives, stand there and say: "Father in Heaven, we owe it to these thy children of the humble organization that bears the name of thy Son, we owe it to them that we have understood the truth and that we are here at the supper of the Lamb." That is our privilege, and our blessing.
Let us not complain at our friends and our neighbors, because they do not do what we want them to do. Rather let us love them into doing the things that our Heavenly Father would have them do. We can do that, and we cannot win their confidence or their love in any other way.
PRAYERS FOR LEADERS OF OUR COUNTRY
Fortunate are we to live in this great land of America. Fortunate are we to have had raised up from time to time great men to preside over the nation. I want to tell you that we can influence them, and we can help them, if from the depths of our hearts we will pray to the Lord to give them wisdom to carry on and not be swayed by the foolishness and avarice and wickedness of many of those who dwell in this land. It is your duty and mine to remember in our prayers the President of the United States of America, to remember the men who represent us in the Congress of the United States, to remember the executives of the states of the nation, and to pray for them that they may have divine aid. They are God's sons, every one of them, and he wants them saved and exalted. It will be our responsibility, with the added information that has been bestowed upon us, to carry the message to them in love, not in criticism and faultfinding, but with love in our hearts. And I want to say to you, I am sure we will win many of them to an understanding of the truth, and they will bless us forever.
HUMILITY EXPRESSED
I know that there are many problems and there will be greater problems as the days come and go, but the same Father in heaven that led the Children of Israel, that saved Daniel and the three Hebrew children from destruction, the same Heavenly Father that preserved our forebears that came into this western land and established them here, and blessed them and made it possible in the poverty of the people to have this great temple and other great temples, and houses of worship like this, that same Father, your Father and mine, is ready to pour out his blessings upon us today.
Let us evidence our faith; let us evidence our belief; let us set the example day by day, that no one shall be kept out of the Church because of any conduct of ours.
I thank you for the confidence that has been manifested, my brothers and my sisters, in hoping that I may succeed, and promising as some of you have, that you will help me to succeed, because I am only a man, one of the humblest among you, but I have been called to this service-and I would not be here if I did not know I had been called-by the authority of our Heavenly Father. I will need the help of every man and every woman and every child, not for my blessing, but for your blessing, and for the blessing of the children of men wherever they may be. That is not my responsibility, that is our responsibility.
A FERVENT TESTIMONY
I know that God lives. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the living God, as I know that I stand here and talk to you. I realize, however, when I make that statement, that it would be a serious thing if it were not true, and there are those who will question its truth, but I have no question in my mind. If I did not know it were true, I would not dare to make that kind of statement to you or to anybody else, for in the not-far-distant future, in the natural course of events, we will all stand before the bar of God, and this man who is talking to you will stand there to answer for the things that he has said and done in life. Knowing that, and realizing the seriousness of saying that which is not true, and that if I have falsified I would lose my blessings, in love and kindness, I want to bear this testimony to you, my brethren and sisters who are here, to those who may be listening in, and to those whom I may meet from time to time, that I know these things are true, and I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints possesses divine authority and is guided by the Father of us all, and knowing that, in love and in humility, I bear you my witness that these things are true, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 3-6
This audience this morning would be an inspiration to any thoughtful person in the world. As I stand and look at your faces and realize that the house is filled to capacity, and this on a busy weekday when so many people are occupied with other affairs and unable to leave their homes, I know that this fine attendance indicates a faith that is commendable.
THE UPLIFT OF MUSIC
I am sure we have been uplifted by the glorious music of our Singing Mothers this morning, representing the greatest women's organization in all the world given to the work of charity and uplifting womankind. This group this morning who have just sung to us represent this particular region; and if you were to travel in different parts of the world, even into the South Seas, you would find a group of Singing Mothers in the various missions of the Church, who sing the same music that we sing here, but the hymns have been translated into their own languages, and they rejoice in singing praises to our Heavenly Father.
I wonder if there are any people in all the world who have as great reason to be thankful as this group assembled here this morning. Coming from various parts of the world, various mission fields are represented by those who have gathered for conference; many of you have come a long way to be present this morning.
SAFETY OF HAWAIIAN MISSIONARIES
For the comfort of those who are here or who may be listening in who have missionary representatives in the Hawaiian Islands, we are pleased to inform you that this morning we received a cablegram from Hawaii to the effect that while there has been considerable damage wrought by the recent tidal wave, much destruction of property, and some loss of life among our members all the missionaries are reported safe.
THE WAY FOR PEACE
With the confusion and uncertainty that exist everywhere, surely we are blessed who are permitted to assemble under this spacious roof this morning in worship. What a privilege it is to live in an age of the world when we know that God lives, when we know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and our Redeemer, and when we know that the Lord continues to manifest himself to his children who have prepared themselves to receive his blessings! I am looking into the faces of a great audience this morning, most of whom enjoy the inspiration of the Almighty, and when they pray, they pray to their Father in heaven knowing that their prayers will be answered in blessings upon their heads. We live in a day when the scripture is being fulfilled among the nations wherein the Lord said through one of his prophets, that in the latter-day, "... the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid". With all the wisdom of the world, no group thus far has been able to point the way for peace with the certainty that it is the way. We who are assembled here this morning are fortunate to know that there is a way for peace that alone will produce results, and that way is to keep the commandments of God as revealed to the children of men anciently and in our day. If that way were followed, all the problems that are so serious in the world could be solved, and peace would come to this unhappy earth.
DIVINE WATCHCARE
So, this morning, under the influence of prayer, coming as we have come to wait upon the Lord, surely his promise will be fulfilled to us that when even two or three shall meet together in his name, he will be there to bless them. What a comfort it is to realize that there is no mistake about it, that we are the children of our Heavenly Father, that he does love us, and because of his anxiety for our peace and welfare, in our day, sent another prophet to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ and to place in the Church divine authority, that men, as of ancient times, may hold the priesthood and officiate in the ordinances of the gospel of our Lord. No other people have that assurance as we have it. I do not say boastfully, but gratefully, that we know there is a God in heaven, that he is our Father, that he does interest himself in our affairs, and he has done that ever since the world began, when his first children were placed upon the earth.
One of his prophets long ago made the statement, and it has been fulfilled literally, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants, the prophets". All the important things that have happened in the world up to now have been foretold by the servants of the Lord, and the things that are occurring and that will occur that are important will be revealed, if they have not already been, before those things occur. I think it is marvelous to know how close we are to our Heavenly Father, and I also think it is deplorable that some of us do not appreciate how near he is, for the reason that we have failed to measure up in many cases to his wise counsels.
A CHOICE LAND
We live in the most wonderful land in all the world, "... a land which is choice above all other lands", so stated by a prophet. Advantages are enjoyed by the people in this great western hemisphere, and particularly in the United States of America and Canada-opportunities and blessings that are not known in many parts of the world. We are permitted to worship God according to the dictates of our consciences. We can make our adjustments according to his rules and regulations and not be interfered with by those who are godless and who are anti-Christ in their attitude toward the human family. So this morning I feel that I am talking to a great family. We are all brothers and sisters. We are here to worship. This is not merely a convention. This is a conference of the representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who have come from their homes into this edifice which has been rendered sacred by those who have spoken from this very pulpit and who have assembled here ever since this building was constructed. It was erected in the poverty of the people, and no other place like it may be found in all the world. Often when it is vacant there is a spirit here that you will find in few places in the world. Many people have come here on a busy weekday as tourists, and as they have come under the shadow of this roof and looked through the building and have seen this great organ, with everything quiet, many of them have been moved to tears by the inspiration and influence that they have found here.
THE BLESSING OF LIFE
We are here as sons and daughters of the Living God, trying to work our way through life until we shall be worthy of an exaltation in the celestial kingdom. What a privilege it is! Oh, how I hope we appreciate it this morning and will continue to appreciate it as long as we live upon the earth! I hope that during the sessions of conference we may all come prepared to be fed the bread of life. I hope that we will come with a prayer in our hearts that those who address us may be inspired, that they may draw the inspiration necessary from our Heavenly Father to feed his flock. If we shall do that, when conference has been concluded, and the last prayer has been offered, there will return to our homes in the valleys of these everlasting hills and in the other states and territories and missions represented here, men and women who have realized fully and completely that we waited upon our Heavenly Father and he did not disappoint us.
PRAYER AND BLESSING
It is not my purpose to talk long this morning. I greet you and welcome you on behalf of the Church and say to you, it is a joy to look into your faces and be with you to worship and wait upon the Lord, with the assurance that he will hear and answer the prayers that have already been offered and that will continue to be offered, not only by those who speak audibly but by those who come here with a prayer in their hearts. I pray that the Spirit of the Lord may be in our homes and abiding places, that there may go out from this great conference influences that shall enrich the lives of those present and absent, that day by day we may let our light so shine that others seeing our good works will be constrained to glorify the name of our Heavenly Father.
I pray that his Spirit may be here in rich abundance this day that we many partake of its influence and be instructed and informed under that power that will enrich our lives and give us a feeling of gratitude that we are able to be here this morning, and that the Lord may add his blessing and his peace to be upon you and our Father's sons and daughters everywhere.
How I pray in my soul this morning in your hearing that the President of the United States and those who are working with him may live in such a way that the power of the Lord will be with them, that they may not be misled but that they may so adjust affairs at the seat of government that the people of this nation will be blessed because of their desire to honor God and keep his commandments, and that these and all other blessings may be ours.
I am thinking this morning of our poor people in the various war-torn countries. We hear almost daily from some source from people who have not enough food to nourish their bodies as they should be nourished, people who are wearing the same clothing they wore when the war broke out and have no way of replacing it, people whose homes have been blown to bits by bombs and destroyed by the great war. Those people this morning, many of them, knowing where we are, are praying that they too may be inspired. We are blessed, brethren and sisters, and I pray that we may appreciate our blessings and live to be worthy of them, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder John A. Widtsoe
John A. Widtsoe, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 20-23
My brethren and sisters: So far, this has been a very impressive session of the conference. We have heard the voice of the prophet of God. It is a pity for any people not to have a prophet to lead them. For our possession of prophet-leadership we are deeply grateful. We must have felt also very grateful as we heard the statistics read concerning the progress of the Church.
EVENTS OF A CENTURY AGO
My mind has been turned in comparison during this hour from the Church of today to the Church of yesterday. One hundred years ago the evacuation of Nauvoo began. John R. Young writes in his autobiography that one morning in February 1846-he was then about nine years of age-he awoke, dressed, and went down to the yard; there he saw people, some of his own and some strangers, loading the household furniture into two big wagons. He went to his mother and said: "Mother, what does all this mean?" She gathered him into her arms and said, "Son, we are going to leave our home, and we shall never see it again."
As I recall the date, it was about February 4 when the first two families crossed the Mississippi River among the ice floes. One of those families-unless I am very much mistaken-was headed by the great-grandfather of the present President of the Church, John Smith, famous in Church history. A little later, amidst a bitterly cold season, the water froze over the Mississippi; and the people were able then to take their wagons, their horses, and themselves on foot, across the ice on the way to the West. They began what in the history of the world is the greatest adventure of the kind ever known. Between fifteen and twenty thousand persons were moved bodily from a well-established city, in orderly fashion westward to an unknown destination. There were hardships on that trip; there was sickness; there was death; babies were born; but the procession moved onward. Contrast that with our happy surroundings here today: a great people, by the thousands, gathered together peacefully. This remarkable exodus-unique in the history of the world-makes us proud of our heritage. There are hundreds of descendants of the people who made that journey in this congregation today; and all of us are spiritual descendants of that group. We have all accepted the faith that they held. The achievements of these people, one hundred years ago, thrill us as we think back.
They knew in advance, some months before, that the evacuation had to be now. So, in Nauvoo all were busy. Wagons were being built; tires for the wheels were shaped; it was a busy season of preparation for the trip into the unknown West. Yet, in the midst of that labor and anxiety, my brethren and sisters, these people completed, as best they could, the building of the temple in Nauvoo. Eagerly and at any cost, at any sacrifice, the temple of God would have to be completed, sufficiently, at least, to enable these wanderers-to-be to receive their endowments in the holy temple of Almighty God. In fact, they were obliged first to dedicate that temple in part. The upper floor was dedicated first, in November, before the February of the exodus. There, then, many hundreds received their endowments. Later on, just before the presiding brethren left in April, they gathered quietly, privately, to the temple, and dedicated it to Almighty God. That having been done, they left it in the hands of Almighty God. But they brought with them to us, to these valleys of the mountains, and to all the Church thenceforth, as fruits of their labors, all the blessings from the temple, in which we are participants today.
These are thoughts that came to my mind as we heard the splendid address of our President, and the great report of the present condition of the Church.
PROPHECY OF JOSEPH SMITH FULFILLED
At least one prophecy of the Prophet Joseph Smith has been literally fulfilled. When he was not much more than a boy, in the early years of his manhood, before the Church was organized, the Lord said to him:
A great and marvelous work is about to come forth unto the children of men.
Unknown, untaught, with no reputation, he should have been forgotten in the small hamlet, almost nameless, in the backwoods of a great state; but he dared to say that the work that he was doing, under God's instruction, was to become a marvel and a wonder in the world. We know, my brethren and sisters, that whether it be friend or enemy who speaks of us, if he is a sober-thinking, honest man, he will declare that whatever in his opinion the foundations of this work may be-we know the foundations-it is a marvelous work and a wonder, none like it in the long history of the world. The truths set loose by the Prophet Joseph Smith have touched every man of faith throughout the whole civilized world, and measurably changed their beliefs for good.
So they wandered on, these people from Nauvoo. Finally they reached this place. Their settlement here is not our story today.
PIONEERS CERTAIN OF THEIR BELIEFS
One cannot help wondering why amidst all manner of difficulties they undertook the perilous journey over deserts and plains. It would have been so easy to have said, as some few did: "This is paying too big a price. We will remain here. We will say to these enemies: 'Good-bye to Joseph Smith, good-bye to the Church. Why face this extraordinary request made upon us, that we move from civilization into the wilderness?'"
There must have been a good reason for the decision to go on. We know what the reason was. They dared to do what they did, to meet persecution, to meet difficulties, to face death if need be, because they were certain of their belief. There was no doubt about it in their minds. Certainty had removed all hesitation. They knew where they were going-not the identical place, to the Great Salt Lake Valley, where Salt Lake City was to be built-but they knew that God was at the head, that he was leading them to the right place. There was no doubt in their minds about that. They knew that God lives, a God who is anxious to help his children on this earth. They knew the reality of the mission, origin, and ancestry of Jesus Christ. There was no doubt in their minds about the divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Doubt and fear had fled. They who had doubts remained behind, but they who lived in the spirit of certainty came along.
WORLD NEEDS CERTAINTY TODAY
I wonder, if I may draw my conclusion in a few words, if certainty is not the world's great need today. Read the papers of today, conveying the news of the world to us. Read the articles on philosophy or religion or proposals to set things right in this world today. In them there is no certainty. Men say, "This will do," and other men say, "That will do." There is no unity of understanding, no certainty.
President Smith spoke today of the way to peace. He said: "We know the way to peace." They were the greatest words uttered at this session of the conference or that could be uttered-that we know the way to peace. Latter-day Saints who have sought the light, who have sought to find the truth, who have given themselves to the study and practice of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, know the proper way of life. There is no doubt or hesitation about the issues of life. Those things have fled. Certainty is the world's great need. From congressional or parliamentary halls, from the halls of leadership everywhere in the world, the great cry issues: "Teach us how to be certain that what we do is right, and for the good of the cause we represent."
The voice of certainty, perhaps the greatest need of the world, is the great message of Mormonism to all people. In the gospel of Jesus Christ are a few simple fundamentals, eternal truths, which, if accepted, may serve as foundation stones of every structure that lead to man's permanent and eternal good.
FAITH OF PIONEERS
These people who crossed Iowa, moving towards Winter Quarters, had lost a prophet. They had been robbed of the man they loved, who had conversed with God, who had been instrumental in organizing the Church, through whom they had been guided. It was a terrible loss; but did they fear? They knew the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus. They were certain of its origin. They were certain of the priesthood, with its power and authority. Here was another man, just a plain ordinary man, a painter, glazier, and woodworker, a man highly endowed by nature, but there were others likewise endowed. On this man had been conferred the authority of leadership, even as Joseph the Prophet had it. The followers did not hesitate a moment. God's work is continuous, eternal, and they followed the new leader as they followed Joseph in the days before, and as we will, I hope, follow our leaders today. May I here interject this thought: There has been no diminution of power and leadership in this Church since the days of the Prophet Joseph. The same authority is possessed today as then; and the men who possess that authority in our day are as capable as those of the past in carrying forward the work of the Lord.
Such are the lessons from the past. History is a dead thing unless used as lessons for us of a later day. We think of the events of a hundred years ago. Contrasted with conditions in the Church today, we read lessons in courage and faith to help us in our daily walk before the Lord and before our fellow men.
In conclusion, our great need is to learn how to be sure and certain of the things that pertain to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and be courageous in following them. Certainty is but another name for a part of faith. Without faith we can do nothing; with faith anything may be accomplished. In this the great latter-day kingdom of the Lord, we live and move and have our very being in faith. Our forebears, one hundred years ago, trudged across the plains of Iowa, and beyond, knowing that they were destined, if they obeyed truth, to help build the kingdom of God upon the earth. Let us go forward today with the same faith and certainty. May we feel just as certain as they did that we in this day of many problems, have the same great destiny-to help build the kingdom of God on earth. Make us strong in our labors to complete our destiny. I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph F. Merrill
Joseph F. Merrill, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 27-32
The conditions in the world today are such that every Latter-day Saint faces a challenge-a challenge of loyalty to the leadership of the Church and to its teachings and standards. The forces of evil were perhaps never more rampant and their influence never more widespread than now. Let us take a brief glance at the gloomy situation.
The Prevalence of Evil
To the eyes of a Latter-day Saint, and judged by his professed standards, the sinful ways of the world were never more largely indulged in by its people generally than they are today. Were sex moral standards ever lower? Were selfishness, greed, and crime ever more rampant? Was religious faith ever colder? Was the desire to get something for nothing ever stronger? Was the struggle for place and power ever keener? Were family ties ever looser? Were marriage vows ever more frequently violated? As for America, is not a negative answer to these questions the correct one? Was not Alexander Pope stating facts when he wrote:
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Judged by Latter-day Saint teachings and standards, the moral conditions of the country are most deplorable. And yet, sad to say, our people are by no means quite justified in assuming a "holier-than-thou" attitude. Worldly sins of every type exist among us. It is folly to close our eyes and deny the presence of these things. Then I suggest we look the situation squarely in the face and do something about it. What, does one ask? I answer, sincerely repent and help our fellow men to do likewise. Investigation will show that smoking, drinking, gambling, juvenile delinquency, fornication, violation of marriage vows, broken homes, divorces-to name a few things only-are growing evils among us. To the worldly-minded, most of them are minor matters, devoid of sinful aspects. But to Latter-day Saints the case is wholly different. We cannot indulge in any of these things with a guiltless conscience because we have been differently taught. We have divine revelations relative to them, the Word of Wisdom, for example. Hence we know that indulgence in smoking and drinking is displeasing to the Lord. Gambling is adjudged a wrong by every moral code. Marriage is a holy estate requiring sacred vows and imposing binding obligations. If these are all faithfully kept then within the precincts of the home, there may be heaven on earth a place where live innocent and joyous children, happy parents, and a united Christian family.
Juvenile Delinquency
According to authentic reports, juvenile delinquency of both boys and girls has greatly increased during recent years until it has reached alarming proportions. Broken homes and absence of mothers from their homes are given as major causes. To Latter-day Saints, family life, home, and children are requisites for greatest happiness and glory, both in this life and in the life to come. Children are the brightest gems in any woman's diadem. This truth might well be indelibly impressed on the mind of every wife.
Respecting the duty of parents to the children, the Lord, through his Prophet Joseph Smith said:
And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents... And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.
Further in the D&C;, we read:
All children have claim upon their parents for their maintenance until they are of age.
Thus divine law, as well as civil law, makes the parents responsible for their children. No Latter-day Saint lives a worthy life in the eyes of the Lord who neglects to do everything feasible to bring up his children according to gospel standards. Let every parent take heed of these requirements. Wise Solomon declared:
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Yet there are parents who erroneously and foolishly say that they must let their children grow up without religious teaching and training in order that they can be free to choose for themselves when they are grown. This is a doctrine of Satan. It cannot in the least degree release parents from the responsibility to their children which the Lord places upon them-a truth that they will some day certainly learn and, if neglected, to their sorrow.
Let all Latter-day Saints be faithful to their parental duties that their children may be a joy to them and a credit to the community where they live.
Increase in Divorces
A year ago from this pulpit President David O McKay discussed the divorce question and asserted that in the United States divorces had so increased that one marriage out of every six ended in the divorce court. Recently, it has been publicly said that about fifty percent of the war marriages of American boys in service are being terminated by divorce. The picture painted by these figures is a sad and deplorable one. It is indicative of unstable, sinful, and demoralizing conditions, ruinous to the ideals of marriage, family, and home, a distinctive blight upon the happy life that every wedded couple may achieve by being true to their marriage vows. Then is not a marriage failure necessarily an unfavorable reflection upon one or both of the parties to the marriage-the ones responsible for the failure? A grave delinquency is certainly indicated, for the conditions of a happy union have not been met.
What are these conditions, the novice may ask? Since I do not qualify as an expert in these matters I will not venture to answer the question except to say that if each party to the marriage contract will faithfully live the Golden Rule in all of his or her relations with the partner, then the marriage undoubtedly will be successful. A Latter-day Saint marriage is a union of two equal partners, obligated to build a home where mutual love, respect, trust, fidelity, tolerance, patience, and kindness are some of the essential operating factors. And in the home where these prevail the ugly specter of divorce will never enter.
... Men are, that they might have joy.
Wedlock is essential to a fulness of joy. Let every Latter-day Saint who enters the holy precincts of the marriage state do so with a firm determination to live so that all the joys and happiness obtainable therein may be his realization. Marriage was instituted by God himself. No one can violate its covenants with impunity.
Smoking and Drinking Decried
And now a few words about smoking and drinking. I am speaking to Latter-day Saints-to people who accept the Word of Wisdom as being a divine revelation. This being true, they cannot indulge in the consumption of liquor or tobacco without having to some extent at least, a feeling of guilt because the Lord has said liquor and tobacco are not good for man, and indulgence is therefore contrary to his will and to Church teachings. So when it comes to smoking and drinking, a Latter-day Saint and a nonbeliever are not on the same moral plane. The latter is not conscious of sinning; the former is. Why then do Latter-day Saints indulge? There is a variety of reasons, but perhaps the chief one is that other people do. We are more or less influenced by the actions of others. A woman wears short dresses because it is the fashion, not because it adds to the beauty of her appearance. But the Lord said:
... they that knew no law shall have part in the first resurrection; and it shall be tolerable for them.
Also:
For of him unto whom much is given much is required; and he who sins against the greater light shall receive the greater condemnation.
Is this not a merciful and just standard by which to be judged? I repeat, Church members cannot justify themselves in violating the laws and commandments of the Lord because nonmembers do. Indeed, in any case, each person will be held accountable for what he does, for he is given his free agency. But I call attention to the fact that every person is accountable for the example he sets and the influence he has with others. Be he ever so humble, his words and acts will affect one or more of his fellows. Hence, for these words and acts he must give an account. That his example may be good, particularly for young people, is one reason why we are so persistent in trying to convert to abstinence all of our older people who indulge in the use of narcotics.
But let me warn you that smoking and drinking are on the increase among the people, as are other evils such as juvenile delinquency, gambling, Sabbath breaking, profanity, fornication, and other types of wickedness.
Movement to Increase Liquor Sales
In view of the whole situation there is need for every Latter-day Saint to buckle on the armor of righteousness and go forward battling valiantly for the cause of right, Christian morality, justice, and truth according as the Lord has given us eyes to see and intellects to understand these things. Satan and his hosts are on the alert to extend his domain and increase his power. For instance, notwithstanding testimony and facts which prove that the consumption of alcoholic beverages results in physical, mental, moral, and spiritual evils of many types and kinds, and that the liquor business is always more or less lawless and corrupting, there is now a movement on foot in Utah to extend this business, to multiply the avenues of liquor sales, and to increase the ease with which liquor may be obtained.
The official advocates of repeal in 1933 loudly proclaimed that the saloon would never be allowed to return. That disreputable joint was a stench in the nostrils of clean-minded people. Decent women never darkened its doors. But now the proposition is to multiply in Utah by many fold the places where liquor may be legally dispensed and turn myriads of dining places and food counters into liquor taverns. Further, we are asked to legalize the sale of liquor at social and night clubs. All of this would in effect turn every social club and public eating place into a saloon. Is there anyone who believes these night clubs would be clean, respectable, law-abiding places? Experienced people know that many of them would be dens of drunkenness, gambling, fornications, and other vile things.
Better Laws and Enforcement Needed
Will the good people of Utah permit opening the gates of hell wider than they are now? On the other hand, should they not unite to secure better laws, better enforcement, more restrictions-all in the interest of a better and cleaner environment? Nineteen forty-seven is centennial year. Millions of tourists will come within the borders of this state. Shall they go away with the impression that Utah has copied Reno? Certainly not!
"Utah, We Love Thee" is the title of a song we joyously sing. Let us prove our love to the satisfaction of our centennial visitors by cleaning up, fixing up, and painting up, not only materially, but morally and spiritually as well. In preparation let us at once begin to live a more genuine Christian life by abstaining from doing evil, by more fully living the Golden Rule and by intensifying our efforts to be fair, honest, dependable, and just in all our dealings with our fellow men.
Facts on Use of Alcoholic Beverages
And now a few more facts relative to alcoholic beverages. These are taken from an article published in The Christian Advocate, February 21, and written by M. E. Lazenby:
Fifty million people in the United States drink alcoholic beverages-half of all people over fifteen years of age. Three million of these are excessive drinkers, 750,000 being chronic alcoholics. Has drinking become public enemy Number One? In pre-prohibition days this country had 177,000 licensed liquor places; there are now 360,000-more than twice as many. In 1944 the American people spent more than seven billion dollars for alcoholic drinks, a sum about equal to that spent for all educational, religious, and charitable work combined in a similar period of time, as the following shows:
Add all the money spent in the United States during the school year 1941-42, for educational purposes, including that spent on all public and private schools, colleges and universities, professional and special schools of all types, including public libraries and reading rooms of all kinds. To this sum, add all the expenditures, gifts and bequests to organized religion for 1942, then add all expenditures from American Red Cross funds by the national and local chapters from January 1942 to March 1945. To this add the total income of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis for the eight months' period ending May 1944; add the expenditures of the United States health service; add the expenditures by the forty-eight state governments for benefits in 194l, such as public safety, health, hospitals, institutions for the handicapped, public welfare, corrections, and recreation; add all the expenditures of the federal government during the fiscal year 1944 under the Social Security Act, including old-age assistance, aid to dependent children, aid to the blind, unemployment compensation administration; add the Department of Labor expenditures for maternal and child health service and crippled children; add, finally, the expenditures of the United States Veterans' Administration during the fiscal year 1944. The sum total of all these is $7,039,914,950-about the same amount as that spent for alcoholic beverages during 1944. Can we believe it? The seven billion dollars spent in 1944 for alcoholic beverages drew that staggering amount from the cash registers of legitimate business. Further, in America four billion, one hundred forty-seven million pounds of grain and two hundred thirty-eight million, six hundred fifty-five thousand pounds of sugar, syrup, and molasses were used in the manufacture of distilled and fermented liquors. Yet abroad millions of people are dying for food.
Statistics show that during 1942 there were 28,309 traffic accident deaths, in 25.1 percent of which the parties involved had been drinking. There are some significant facts relative to alcohol and crime that are illuminating. The F.B.I. reports for 1932 show that in 596 cities having a population of 21,660,000, there were 831 arrests for drunkenness per 100,000 population. In 1944 in these cities there were 1,726 arrests for drunkenness per 100,000,-more than double. The F.B.I. is quoted as saying that our crime bill is $16,000,000,000 a year and that "twenty-three percent of this is caused by drink."
Further, an officer of the Distillers Produce Corporation, speaking before a Rotary Club, October 1945, said the liquor traffic industry is spending almost $50,000,000 a year in advertising, the purpose of which, of course, is to get more men and women and young people to drink. Whither are we going?
Can Latter-day Saints, wherever they are, in Utah or elsewhere, favor any move that will make liquor more easy to get or more widely consumed? May the Lord forbid!
I pray that the Lord will give us all a greater desire and a stronger will to live righteously, and I do it in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
President Levi Edgar Young
Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 32-36
Joseph Smith was a descendant of Robert Smith who emigrated to America from England in 1638. Robert Smith had lived in Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the ancestral home of Governor Bradford and the famous men of the Plymouth colony. It was also the ancestral home of President George Washington. That old stock was deeply religious, and there was wonderful strength in their forms of Christian belief. Robert Smith may have known John Winthrop, for when he landed in Boston, Massachusetts, Winthrop was there, and had written to his people:
It will be a service to the church of great consequence to carry the gospel into these parts of the world to help on the coming of the fulness of the Gentiles.
Joseph Smith came of such ancestry.
Joseph Smith Restored Knowledge of Living God
A new religious idea was launched that day when the Father and Son appeared to Joseph. The doctrine of "grace," the outgrowth of the Protestant Reformation from Luther's and John Calvin's day, was met by the divine truth again that man is in the image of God and is free to work out his salvation. The divinity of man was emphasized anew. A part of the greatness of any man, a sign of his worth, appears in the unbounded reverence wherewith he stands or kneels before his Maker. One great trouble today is the fact that man has not esteemed himself high enough. Man has forgotten the divine injunction of the Master when he said:
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Considering the gospel, the same energy and aspiration are needful today as in the days two thousand years ago. Whenever the followers of the Master have lived on the highest levels, they have struggled for one tremendous thing: The regeneration of the world in the light of the divine. When the knowledge of the Living God is lost, Christianity becomes merely a name. Joseph Smith was thrown back upon one thing and that was to ask. A spiritual world dawned within the content of his soul. From his youth up, he sought for an understanding of the will of God and the way to attain the kingdom of God. It meant to possess the priesthood, and to possess this light and power meant to live the life true to his God. Man never reaches after the divine unless the divine works and is acknowledged in his own life.
From his life, his writings, his revelations, the Prophet had but two main ideas at heart: first, to establish within the minds of men the spirit, the knowledge of God's holy word; second, the dream to preserve the government of the United States and its divine Constitution, that man might find life and peace in its laws. In other words, religion can come to birth in the soul of man only through a conquest of the ordinary, natural world which surrounds him.
The Divisions of Christendom
The terrible persecutions which he had been called to withstand had made of him a man of God. He with his people had been driven from place to place, their lands taken from them, and their families scattered and put to sorrow and want. There was no redress. An undying hope lay in his heart, and subsisted through all the adverse fortune and tragedy which he and his people endured. Their hope was founded on the new vision, and they were blessed with a forward outlook. His people clung to him. Not once did he utter a discouraging word, but kept his eye on the goal which would yet be attained. He had grown to manhood in a new age of the world's history. He had noted the divisions of Christendom. To him it was the most conspicuous reproach and its chief cause of inefficiency. How could the pure word of God be taught, for the different divisions were a denial of his spirit of love and fellowship. The whole Christian world was a dismembered condition of all groups and sects. Grotius, the Dutch historian, had said in the seventeenth century that the teachings of Christ were going from the world, and Leibnitz, the German scientist, declared that the teachings of Christ were lost in the varied teachings of such men as Luther, Calvin, and Erasmus. Today thinkers like Stanley Jones, Adolph Deissman, T. Z. Koo, Karl Barth, Ivan Lee Holt, and a host of other leaders in thought have been put to wonder just what the pure doctrines of Christ are: Herbert L. Willett, professor emeritus of Oriental languages at the University of Chicago, made this statement in 1939:
The church although weakened by divisions, has rendered important services to other generations, but today it is facing problems so serious that it is forced to realize the enormous liability which its divided condition involves.
Among these are the class hatreds which prevail, the exploitation of youth by commercialized amusements, the lure of vicious literature, and the yet unsolved drink problem. These are the present issues which the "dismembered church is unable to encounter with success." "Divide and conquer" were the words which Milton put into the mouth of Satan in the assembly of the rebel angels.
The Compensations of Hardship
They stood their sufferings with a feeling that the compensation would be a divine sweep of God's message. Cheerful, they accepted the heavenly call without murmur, and they "made their suppers of songs." What astonishes us still more was their resignation, their respect for government. With meekness, patience, and goodness, they left their homes to give the glad tidings of a new day.
This is why our history has been tragic. It is illustrated in the famous march of the seventies of the Church from Kirtland to Missouri in 1838, when six hundred men, women, and children started out amid the storms of persecution, plodding on day by day in cloud and sunshine and camping together at night with their prayers to God for protection and rest that they might continue their march on the morrow. As President Joseph Young said after the long weeks of weary travel were over.
The compensation of this journey into the West will be seen and realized by our children some day.
God was their sun and shield. As the Psalmist said, he was the health of their countenance, and his presence put gladness in their hearts.
Sublime Moral Teachings
As one reads the D&C;, the revelations of God to the Prophet, one is overawed with the sublime teachings pertaining to the moral life of man. "The spirit and body are the soul of man", and the soul shall be purified by living the highest ethical laws that have been given to man: the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, the Parables of Jesus, and the many examples of the way Jesus dealt with men. The fourth section of the Doctrine and Covenants tells of the characteristics of a pure soul. The spirit must be made clean; the body must be made clean. Wrong and sin must be overcome. To bring the teachings of the Prophet within the confines of a mere essay is impossible. There is a majesty to his teachings that requires faith in God, prayer, and a realization of the power of the Holy Priesthood which you and I here today realize in our very lives. The gospel to him were beauty, truth, and goodness. The farms and cities and homes which the Saints built on the frontier give testimony of their knowledge of the institutions of civilization. Around their temples, they planted their lawns and flowers; the homes were purified by their lives. Moral perfection was based on spiritual and bodily perfection. As they reached a juster appreciation of their human needs, the regard for a pure body and spirit took its place as one of the three requisites of human character, along with the love of truth and the love of goodness.
Civic Idealism of the Prophet
The Prophet directed his people to build their temples, and in that grand old edifice-the Kirtland Temple, and later in that other majestic temple at Nauvoo-their hopes were realized. They were erected to God and required the human constants of the people who built; hunger, and labor, seedtime and harvest, love and death all operated to build those noble and sacred houses. Little wonder that they could say:
O God, in every temple, I see people who see Thee. And in every language I hear, they praise Thee.
The civic idealism of the Prophet of God is shown in the lovely old cities of Kirtland and Nauvoo, rising from town governments to civic centers. They exemplified the words of Isaiah of old:
... We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.
Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.
In the study of their fields and gardens, one is reminded of the story of the beautiful garden found in the Odyssey of Homer, which some say, is a reflection of the tradition of the Garden of Eden. Certainly they illustrate what Goethe said in the last scene of Faust:
I found God in trying to make the earth beautiful.
The Kingdom of God a Concrete Reality
And now to conclude. The Prophet established the Church of Christ as it was designed by the Master. As Jesus set forth the reality of the kingdom of God as spiritual and subjective -as "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost", it is also true that he set forth the establishment of this kingdom as a concrete, organic reality, small indeed at its beginning. So today is the Church separate from civic and political government and composed of the people who follow his teachings. This is a glorious part of my theme which time forbids my amplifying. We read in the gospel of Luke how Jesus chose twelve apostles who were willing to act as his heralds of the kingdom; and with the seventy, these were sent into the world to teach the gospel. So in this day, after the Church was organized, the Twelve and the seventy were sent forth to evangelize the world. The Church is a coherent organization, which can be coterminous with the nation or the whole world, but is not dependent upon, nor derived from existing forms of civilization. It is the organized concrete expression of the kingdom of God.
Paul the apostle made this point clear as recorded in the first chapter of Colossians:
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
Elder Marion G. Romney
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 36-40
This morning we listened to the prophet of the Lord say that we are living in the time when the prophecy,
... the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid,
is being fulfilled. This afternoon we heard Elder Joseph F. Merrill of the Council of the Twelve paint a word picture of some of the evil things rampant in the world today. It is my firm conviction that if the Latter-day Saints are to go successfully through the crisis in which we now find the world, they must have in their hearts the certainty that the early pioneers had, to which Elder Widtsoe referred this morning. We can have that certainty because we have the right to be taught by the same power which taught them.
"We Have the Holy Ghost"
On one occasion the Prophet Joseph Smith was in Washington talking to a President of the United States. I believe it was President Van Buren. The President of the United States said to the Prophet of the Living God, "What is the difference between you"-meaning the Church he had founded under the inspiration of God"-and the rest of the Christian world?" And the Prophet Joseph answered that question in one sentence, "We have the Holy Ghost."
The Saints who crossed the plains almost a hundred years ago obtained their certainty by the power that Joseph Smith referred to, the Holy Ghost. He teaches us direct from God.
Some people have said that Joseph Smith was an unlearned man. He was an unlearned man in the things of the world, but the day he came out of the grove, following the first vision, he was the most learned person in the world in the things that count. When he came out of that grove, he knew more than all the world put together about the great question of the resurrection, which had been argued from the time man began to think seriously, because he had seen standing before him, the resurrected Christ When he came out of that grove, he knew more about the nature of God than all the world. There had been many books written; philosophers had spent their lives trying to find out the nature of God, but when God took Joseph in hand to teach him he cut through all material things and taught Joseph the truth about these and many other important things.
Now, every member of this Church has had hands laid upon his head and has listened to words about like this, "Receive the Holy Ghost". And every Latter-day Saint has the right to receive the Holy Ghost and be guided, through these perilous times in which we live, by that Spirit.
There are two sources, and as far as I know only two sources, from which we may expect to gain guidance that will safely bring us through. One source is through our righteous living, so that we can have the dictates of the Holy Spirit, and the other source is from the words spoken by the men whom we shall sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators here in this conference.
Importance of Attending Sacrament Meetings
There are two or three things that are very necessary for Latter-day Saints to do in order to have the Holy Spirit, and I want to talk this afternoon about one of them. It is partaking of the sacrament. In the fifty-ninth section of the Doctrine and Covenants, where the Lord specifies certain commandments especially applicable to the land of Zion, he says among other things:
And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day.
The Melchizedek Priesthood quorum presidencies throughout the Church are requested to report to the general priesthood committee of the Council of the Twelve the performance of their quorum members with respect to various Church activities. One of the activities reported is attendance at sacrament meetings; another is keeping the Sabbath day holy.
In reviewing some of these reports, my interest has been challenged by the great number reported to be keeping the Sabbath day holy, who do not attend sacrament meetings. Now, of course, I realize that there are circumstances under which Church members may and do keep the Sabbath day holy without attending these meetings, but in the absence of compelling circumstances, I feel that proper observance of the Sabbath day requires attendance at sacrament meetings.
I wish that more of the members of the Church would regularly attend them. It would be to their own spiritual well-being, and I fervently seek the sustaining power of the Holy Spirit while I attempt to tell you why.
In the first place, we are under solemn obligation to attend sacrament meetings, for the Lord has required all who believe and are baptized in his name to do so. It is evident that he also instructed the original Twelve when he first instituted the sacrament, for we read that following Peter's great Pentecostal sermon,
... they that gladly received his word were baptized:... And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
We learn from the Book of Mormon, where the record is more complete, that the resurrected Lord gave specific instructions to his disciples among the Nephites that they should administer the sacrament unto all those who should believe and be baptized in his name, and "... this shall ye always observe to do", he admonished them. "... Behold, ye shall meet together oft", he said unto the multitude, and it is recorded that "... they did meet together oft to partake of bread and wine in remembrance of the Lord Jesus".
In this dispensation, in the revelation in which the Lord pointed out the day on which the Church was to be organized, he also said:
It is expedient that the church meet together often to partake of bread and wine in the remembrance of the Lord Jesus.
A little later he fixed the time and frequency of such meetings with this instruction:
... thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day.
Obedience to Commandments Brings Growth
I believe that every time we act pursuant to a commandment of the Lord, we comply with some fundamental principles of growth, for he never requires us to do a useless thing. Rarely, however, are the purposes for which a commandment is given and the beneficial results which follow obedience thereto set forth with such clarity as they are with respect to this commandment.
In explanation of it, we are taught that the bread is to be eaten in remembrance of the body of the Savior, and that the water is to be drunk in remembrance of his blood which was shed for us. It follows, then, that this sacred ordinance is to direct our thoughts to the central and most important events of earth's history, the suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
It has always seemed significant to me that from the earliest times until today, there has been among all peoples who have believed and accepted the gospel, a frequently repeated ordinance pointing their minds to these great events. In the early morning of earth's temporal existence, at the Lord's command, Adam built an altar and offered sacrifice, although at the time he knew not why. As a consequence of his obedience and for his enlightenment, an angel appeared unto him and
... spake, saying: This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth.
The sacrificing of the firstlings of their flocks by true believers in Christ, in contemplation of his great sacrifice, then future, continued until his death. The thoughts of his people were thus repeatedly pointed forward to his great atonement. Since his death, the minds of his followers have been turned back to that event by the sacrament.
Partaking of Sacrament a Spiritualizing Experience
Now partaking of the sacrament is not to be a mere passive experience. We are not to remember the Lord's suffering and death only as we may remember some purely secular historical event. Participating in the sacrament service is meant to be a vital and a spiritualizing experience. Speaking of it, the Savior said:
... And it shall be a testimony unto the Father that ye do always remember me.
In order to testify, one's mind has to function, and it must be concentrated upon the thing to be testified. And we are not only to partake of the emblems of the sacrament in remembrance of the Redeemer, testifying that we do always remember him, but we are also thereby to witness unto the Father that we are willing to take upon us the name of his Son and that we will keep his commandments This amounts to a virtual renewal of the covenant of baptism, for you will recall that candidates for baptism are, among other things, to
... witness before the church that they... are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end.
Now there is a doctrine abroad in the world today which teaches that the physical emblems of the sacrament are transformed into the flesh and blood of Jesus. We do not teach such a doctrine, for we know that any transformation which comes from the administration of the sacrament takes place in the souls of those who understandingly partake of it. It is the participating individuals who are affected, and they are affected in a most marvelous way, for they are given the Spirit of the Lord to be with them. This is promised in the sacrament prayers. The sacredness and importance of these prayers is evident from the fact that they have always been given to the Church verbatim. In this dispensation they were dictated to the Prophet Joseph Smith by direct revelation from heaven. In them, in addition to the promise, the whole purpose of the sacrament is set forth. Let me repeat to you the blessing on the bread:
O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it, that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them; that they may always have his spirit to be with them. Amen.
Companionship of Holy Spirit Promised
While instructing his Nephite disciples with respect to the sacrament, Jesus twice repeated to them the promise:
... And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you.
It is the overwhelming importance of realizing this great promise that makes regular attendance at sacrament meetings so imperative, for if we can but have the companionship of his holy spirit, we shall be able, as the Lord admonishes, to keep ourselves more fully unspotted from the world, and furthermore we shall be neither deceived nor disturbed in our faith by the evil about us.
Now, my brethren and sisters, may the Lord shock us into an appreciation of what it means to attend regularly sacrament meetings and acceptably participate in the sacrament service. If we will increase our attendance from about twenty percent to forty percent, we shall double our spiritual power for righteousness in the world, which, may the Lord help us to do, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Antoine R. Ivins
Antoine R. Ivins, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 41-43
My beloved brethren and sisters, I crave an interest in your faith and prayers for the short time that I shall stand before you. I feel that without it and without the Spirit of God, it would be useless for me to attempt to say a word of comfort to any of us.
Thus far in this conference I have enjoyed very greatly what has been done and said. I likewise enjoy very much the privilege I have had of shaking hands with so many of the men and women whom I esteem to be my friends, and I wish it were possible to shake hands with all of you and know you well. We get a great deal of comfort in moving among you as we visit the stakes and attempt to deliver a message that will be helpful.
The Two Great Commandments
These are very trying times, trying to all of us, I presume, and it has already been said in this conference that no man seems to be smart enough to tell us just what to do to correct our troubles. I wish I knew the answer. I believe, however, the Savior told us about what we should do if we would live in peace and happiness and live successful lives. Last night we listened to a statement of the work that is being done by our welfare organization in the Church, an expression of unselfish devotion to an ideal. Christ said the great commandment is to love God, and the second is to love our fellows as we love ourselves. I see in that the simple statement that we should drive out of our hearts all selfishness, for until we get rid of selfishness we cannot well love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
Spirit of God Needed in Affairs of Men
As I study history, I believe I see that every great war of aggression the world has suffered has been prompted by avarice and greed and selfish desire, sometimes not on the part of all the people but at least on the part of the people who have the power to bring the others into aggressive action against their neighbors; and I believe the war that we have just had and the war that preceded it were precipitated on the world by nothing but greed and avarice and selfishness. I do not expect to live to see the time when people will not do those things, but some day may come when an arrangement can be reached such as will prevent the aggression of one nation upon another, of a strong nation upon a helpless one. If that time ever comes, it will come because the Spirit of God shall inspire men to draft policies to prevent it.
We not only have international troubles of that kind, but we also have interstate troubles that grow out of the same motives, and they trouble us sometimes very definitely and personally. I believe that they also would vanish if people could gain the Spirit of God and act under its inspiration. If our legislators could give themselves to the duties of their office, if they would never have a selfish motive in what they do, perhaps better laws could be drafted. If the men who control the big business of the nation should realize that their own welfare rests upon the welfare of the people that they employ, perhaps they could in that way be helpful. And then if the employee likewise could realize that his welfare depends upon that of his employer, perhaps they could get together in a more helpful spirit, and some of these evils could be eradicated.
Unselfishness Vital in Church Service
Then if we in the stakes and wards could drive out of our hearts and our souls the spirit of selfishness, we could do our duty only with the thought of helping the great organization of which we are a part. We likewise could help to bring about that day; but we are human; we are intensely human; and self-preservation, we are told, is the first law of nature. There is selfishness in it, and it is because of the tremendous struggle that it will take to drive it out of our souls that the love of neighbor gained such prominence in the teachings of Christ. It is likely the greatest struggle we would have to make with ourselves to become absolutely unselfish. But the things we do, we expect to redound to our own honor and our own glory, and frequently we measure our willingness to perform them on that standard. It is not right.
I once heard a young man as he addressed a seventies' convention in Barratt Hall say, "There is no measure to the good that a man may do if he does not worry as to who gets the credit for it." That is a great and glorious principle of action. I think if nations would work for the welfare of the group, and if the governing elements within nations could work for the welfare of the group; if those who work could work for the welfare of the whole, the Spirit of God would have an opportunity to work upon their souls and make better men and better women of them, bringing peace and prosperity and the alleviation of all suffering. It is a wonderful task; it is perhaps the greatest task of all, and it will never be realized without the Spirit of God to prompt it. We will never get that Spirit until we weed out of our habits those vices of which Brother Merrill has spoken this afternoon. Perhaps if we could come to live chaste and upright lives, we would then have a right to claim from God his Spirit; and getting his Spirit would help us to become unselfish; and becoming unselfish we could love our neighbors as we love ourselves. I have a picture of this body of men and women going away from this building with a definite resolution to drive out from their hearts every vestige of selfishness and to devote themselves with greater sacrifice to the well-being of their brothers and sisters, their fathers and mothers, their neighbors, and the nation at large. I wish that God would give us this Spirit. If all of us who are here and if all who are listening to the sound of the radio waves that go forth would devote themselves to that one purpose, then this conference would fill the measure for which it was called together. The world would be better, and God would reign in the hearts of men. That he may help us to do this, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 43-50
My brothers and sisters: This is an inspiring experience. I have listened with great interest to the testimonies and the remarks of my brethren. I am sure that today there are many hundreds of thousands of Latter-day Saints throughout the world represented by you and who, with you and us, are today bearing testimony of the divinity of this great work.
Some of the brethren have mentioned our great heritage and our ancestors who have left us that heritage. Brother Widtsoe mentioned members running into the many thousands who crossed the plains at great personal sacrifice. There were thousands of that number who died between Nauvoo and the Salt Lake valley and sealed their testimonies with their blood. They were martyrs to a great cause, as was their prophet, seer and revelator.
Martyrs for a Great Cause
I wish to say a few words about martyrs. Webster says a martyr is one who voluntarily suffers death for refusing to renounce his religion.
About one hundred fifty years before the birth of Christ, there came among the descendants of Lehi, a prophet named Abinadi. Fearlessly he preached repentance to King Noah and his faithless people who were guilty of all the crimes known to men. He boldly denounced their immoralities, and called them to repentance. "... Away with this fellow," the king had commanded, "and slay him; for what have we to do with him, for he is mad". They attempted to lay hands on him, but he warned that God would not let them harm him until his message was delivered.
And he spake with power and authority from God.
Then Abinadi prophesied the coming of the Messiah, his life, ministry, and death. The king commanded that he be bound, cast into prison, and threatened:
... thou shalt be put to death unless thou wilt recall all the words which thou hast spoken evil concerning me and my people.
Abinadi answered that he would recall nothing and, having been sent of God to deliver a message, he would continue until his mission was finished. When his testimony had been fully borne, they beat him and burned him at the stake, a martyr for a great cause.
Then there was Stephen, one of the seven men called by the apostles to look after the welfare work of the church. And he was full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people". But he was arrested. "And set up false witnesses" who testified against him with all kinds of accusations. He spoke at length a warning, quoting scripture, calling to repentance and testifying of his Redeemer and Lord, reminding them of their part in his betrayal and crucifixion. Men cannot stand to be denounced for their sins. They cast him out of the city and stoned him.
There was Paul, who had given consent to the martyrdom of Stephen, who was also to seal his testimony with his blood for, tradition has it, that he was mobbed at Iconium; stoned at Lystra; dragged through the streets and left for dead; imprisoned and whipped at Philippi; abused at Thessalonica, arrested at Jerusalem and sent to Rome where he was in prison for two years. In the Mamertine prison he languished for nine months with Peter, and finally was beheaded with the sword, at the command of Nero.
Peter, who witnessed much of the Lord's ministry, his transfiguration, his death and resurrection, and became the leader of the church, was also to seal his testimony with his blood. Imprisoned many times and subjected to much physical abuse, writers say that he was crucified in Rome after nine months' imprisonment there and that he chose to be crucified with his head down since he felt he was unworthy to meet death in the same posture as did his Lord.
The Martyrdom of Jesus the Christ
The martyrdom of Jesus the Christ is well established-it followed closely the pattern. His life was the perfect life. His enemies, failing to find any guilt in him, resorted to mobocracy to end his life. He answered their every question, performed miracles which astounded them, did good everywhere, but chastised and rebuked them for their adultery, insincerity, drunkenness. He threatened their vainglorious way of life; he called them hypocrites, vipers, and murderers of prophets. He had restored the gospel and established his kingdom. It was inevitable that he should die to witness eternally of its divinity. His every word was criticized; he was accused of being a deceiver, a glutton, a winebibber, a common person associating with publicans and sinners. They called him a Sabbath breaker, a usurper of authority, a tax evader. They charged him with heresy and sedition. He was said to be an ignoramus, a blasphemer, and accused of being born of fornication. He was arrested, spat upon, torn with thorns, mocked and beaten. He was seized by a vile mob led by one from his inner circle who had maliciously planned to betray him. Chief priests and elders took "counsel against Jesus to put him to death". Magistrates found no fault. The governor examined the prisoner but washed his hands saying:
... I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.
And Judas had finally repented and cried:
.... I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.
The Savior had told his followers of his approaching death. He must die for the sins of the world and to seal his testimony. This he knew. His hour had come. They crucified him, the Son of God, on Calvary.
Joseph Smith's Testimony Sealed with His Blood
Another day dawns-a new dispensation; the heavens are opened. The Father and the Son bear witness again to earth. Other heavenly visitors restore priceless blessings to men, and another martyr gives his precious life to testify to a faithless, skeptical, and unbelieving world that a personal God lives; that Jesus his Son is the Redeemer; and that truth is again restored. The details of the life of Joseph Smith are familiar to us. He announced at once his glorious vision of the Father and the Son and was immediately oppressed and persecuted. Modern scribes and Pharisees have published libelous books and articles by the hundreds, imprisoned him some forty-odd times, tarred and feathered him, shot at him, and did everything in their power to destroy him. In spite of their every effort to take his life, he survived through more than a score of years of bitter and violent persecution to fill his mission, until his hour should come.
Twenty-four years of hell he suffered but also twenty-four years of ecstasy he enjoyed in converse with Gods and other immortals! His mission was finished-heaven and earth were linked again; the Church was organized; Brigham Young and other great leaders were trained to carry on; and he had conferred upon the heads of the Twelve every key and power belonging to the apostleship which he himself held, and he had said to them:
I have laid the foundations and you must build thereon, for upon your shoulders the kingdom rests.
And his hour had come to seal with his blood his testimony, so often borne to multitudes of friends and foes. His Judas came from his own circle-Governor Ford was his Pontius Pilate, Nauvoo was his Gethsemane, and Carthage his Calvary. There were also modern Pharisees to goad the mobs-and another martyr testified.
Martyrs Lived to Complete Their Work
Someone has said, "Anyone can found a religion," and Talleyrand answered: "Yes. If he is willing to die for it." And the martyr is willing to do exactly that. But the powers of earth and hell cannot take him 'till "the hour is come".
Abinadi when threatened by Noah's soldiery, cried out:
Touch me not, for God shall smite you if ye lay your hands upon me, for I have not delivered the message which the Lord sent me to deliver;... therefore, God will not suffer that I shall be destroyed at this time.
Ye see that ye have not power to slay me, therefore I finish my message... and then it matters not whither I go, if it so be that I am saved.
Life had been pleasant, but even death was not bitter, for as God has said:
... those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them.
It will be recalled that Peter was released from prison by an angel and protected in many ways 'till his work was finished. And Paul likewise. No violence could take his life until he had borne his testimony to Rome and Greece and other lands. But finally he made the prophetic statement to Timothy:
For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
There was no fear in his approach to eternity-only assurance and calm resignation to the inevitable martyrdom which he faced. He did not want to die but was willing thus to seal his testimony of the Redeemer.
Though the Savior had numerous times been in most hazardous situations, it was clear that his life could not be taken until his work was finished. A large crowd of people had surrounded him, and there was much tumult in the temple.
.... they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not come.
And again:
... Jesus walked into Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.
His brethren dissuaded him and said:
... Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest.... If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world. For neither did his brethren believe in him. Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come.
But when the work was established, the Church organized, the keys delivered, the apostles trained, he had said to his brethren:
... Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith my time is at hand. I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples.
Then the Lord had gone into Gethsemane to pour out his heart to God. Here he had said again to his beloved Peter, James, and John who sleepily sat by while he had prayed:
... Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Joseph Smith had also recognized the inability of his enemies to end his ministry prematurely. He said:
All the enemies upon the face of the earth may roar and exert all their power to bring about my death, and they can accomplish nothing, unless some who are among us, who have enjoyed our society-called us brother, saluted us with a kiss-and by falsehood and deceit, stir up the wrath and indignation against us-we have a Judas in our midst.
His hour had come, his ministry finished. Now his enemies might prevail.
Lives of Martyrs Given Voluntarily
Into the pattern of martyrdom comes the voluntary phase. In every instance the martyr could have saved his life by renouncing his program. Abinadi had been told he would be put to death. But he answered:
... I will not recall the words which I have spoken... for they are true; and that ye may know of their surety I have suffered myself that I have fallen into your hands. Yea, and I will suffer even until death, and I will not recall my words, and they shall stand as a testimony against you. And if ye slay me ye will shed innocent blood, and this shall also stand as a testimony against you at the last day.
The Savior had said:
... I lay down my life for the sheep.... No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
When Peter in the garden had smitten off the ear of one of the servants of the high priest, Jesus said to him:
... put up again thy sword into his place... Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?.
Closing Events in Life of Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith did not want to die. He had so much to live for, with his family, his friends, with his interest in the expanding kingdom, and he was still a young man, but though he hoped and prayed that the cup could pass, he knew it was inevitable. He said:
I am going like a lamb to the slaughter. But I am as calm as a summer's morning; I have a conscience void of offense toward God and all men. I shall die innocent and it shall yet be said of me"-he was murdered in cold blood".
How he wanted to live! He lingered as he passed his farm and said plaintively:
If some of you had such a farm and knew you would not see it any more, would you not want to take a good look at it for the last time?
And as he left Nauvoo, his longing eyes surveyed the city beautiful.
This is the loveliest place and the best people under the heavens-little do they know the trials that await them.
His farewell to Brother Wells was full of pathos: "I wish you to cherish my memory." And while waiting the foul blow in Carthage jail he had said:
Lay your head on my arm for a pillow, Brother Fullmer-I would like to see my family again-I would to God that I might preach to the Saints in Nauvoo once more.
This was his Golgotha; he seemed to know. He had said:
Boys, if I don't come back, take care of yourselves. I am going like a lamb to the slaughter.
And a slaughter it was! The shots rang out! And freely flowed the blood of martyrs, for Hyrum, his older brother, had chosen to remain with him. This precious blood soaked into the earth, sealing an undying and unanswerable testimony which continued to ring in minds and hearts.
He bore record:
I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two personages and they did in reality speak to me.... I have actually seen a vision, and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it.
He approached and actually confronted his tragedy. His dying words were: "O Lord, my God!"
Testament Made Effective by Death of Testator
In the final hours of the life of the martyr comes a calm serenity that baffles all human explanations It is an unanswerable challenge to those who would rationalize and explain away.
Abinadi faced his enemies triumphantly:
... durst not lay their hands on him, for the spirit of the Lord was upon him; and his face shone with exceeding luster, even as Moses' did while on the mount of Sinai, while speaking with the Lord.
They bound him and "scourged his skin with faggots" and when the flames began to scorch him he prophesied concerning them and cried:
"O God receive my soul!" He died and sealed the truth of his words by his death.
And as the death sentence fell upon Stephen,
... all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.
As the bestial mob viciously hurled stones to take this guileless life, the young martyr looked up and saw the heavens opened and saw
... the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.
and as his bruised and bleeding body had reached the limit of physical endurance he fell to his knees and cried with a loud voice: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge!" and another soul had sealed his testimony with blood.
The Savior stood the humiliation, the mockery, the physical pain with patience and tolerance, but he did not want to die. He loved life in spite of his persecutions. He prayed,
... O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
And then had come his betrayal, his trials, mockery though they were, and his execution.
Though his precious life was being taken by the unscrupulous degenerates yet,
... said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
As his life ebbed out he cried aloud:
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
Paul said later:
For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood.
But they had borne witness; truth was established; blood had been spilled; and the testimony would stand eternally against those who rejected the truth and were the villains in the tragedies.
Blood of Martyrs the Seed of the Church
But martyrs do not die. They live on and on. When the Savior said, "It is finished", he referred to his mortal experience, for his crucifixion marked but a milepost in his ever-expanding power. Hundreds of millions have been influenced for good by this perfect life and martyr's death. He had said himself:
And whoso layeth down his life in my cause, for my name's sake, shall find it again.
His work continues to spread to this day.
The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.
Stephen dead is greater than Stephen alive. His sermons continue to inspire his readers.
When Nero sends the other Christians to the lions, it is said, he sent Paul the Roman citizen to the headsman and the block. Perhaps, but it is unimportant. Paul walks and talks in every house in Christendom.
And Joseph Smith, our Prophet:
He could have yielded and perished, but standing resolute, he lives forever.
His work was not lost. His testimony goes steadily forward, on to infinity. As Alma had carried the torch for Abinadi, the apostles for the Savior, now came Brigham Young and the Twelve to continue the work of restoration.
Men do not give their lives to perpetuate falsehoods. Martyrdom dissipates all question as to the sincerity of the martyr. Personalities do not survive the ages. They rise like a shooting star, shine brilliantly for a moment and disappear from view, but a martyr for a living cause, like the sun, shines on forever. Great characters, students, businessmen, scientists, followed the youthful prophet to his death. They were not deceived. They lost him in martyrdom but inspired with the divinity of the Cause went forward without hesitancy, Thousands gave lives they could have saved, in Missouri, Illinois, and crossing the plains, and today a great people hailed for their education, practicability, and virtue, stand to bear witness that the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, like that of the martyrs before him, is another of the infallible proofs of the divinity of the gospel of Jesus Christ, restored in its fulness through that humble prophet.
I bear testimony, my brethren and sisters, that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, and that he will continue to live on eternally. This testimony I bear in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Richard L. Evans
Richard L. Evans, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 59-61
First of all, I should like to express my gratitude to my Father in heaven for my membership in this Church, and for my fellowship with you who are here, and with those whom you represent, throughout the world.
There has been running through my mind a phrase from the D&C;, accentuated by some phases of the statistical report given here yesterday morning, which I shall refer to in a moment. This phrase appears in a number of places:
... trouble me no more concerning this matter.
And in one place it is followed by the further reminder:
But learn that he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.
This phrase "trouble me no more concerning this matter" which, as stated, appears in a number of places, would seem to have been an indication from the Lord to the Prophet Joseph Smith and his associates that when principles had been given, when the mind and the will of the Lord had been made known to the Prophet, he and his people should proceed in accordance with those principles without unnecessarily seeking further instruction, or further troubling the Lord concerning things which they already knew.
This thought ties in with another oft-quoted series of verses from the Doctrine and Covenants:
For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things: for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward. Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward. But he that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned.
"Be Anxiously Engaged in a Good Cause"
It is a great satisfaction to parents, it is a great satisfaction to men in places of leadership, when our children, or those who are working in some assignment for which we are responsible, do precisely what they are asked to do, in the manner in which they are asked to do it. But there is an even greater thrill than this that comes to parents and to those in positions of leadership, and that is, when our children or our associates do a good thing of their own free will-a thing which they haven't been asked to do, specifically, but which they undertake in accordance with the principles which have been taught them, which they know to be true. That is one of the great thrills of being a parent-when a child who has been taught correct principles proceeds to act in his own behalf in accordance with those principles, and to bring to pass good works and righteousness.
I believe if we should ask the leaders of industry and of business and those who are responsible for the economic well-being and other activities of our nation, what is one of the most difficult things to find, that among those which would be high on the list, if not in highest place, would be the difficulty of finding young people, and old ones too, for that matter, who are willing to take leadership and responsibility, to make decisions, and to see things to their final conclusion and disposal with integrity, with ability, and in accordance with principles which have been pre-determined and agreed upon. And I believe further than any young man who will take leadership and responsibility with integrity and intelligence can have about what he wants.
Obligation to Govern Ourselves Under Correct Principles
Now, as always, there are two forces at work in this world, as there were in the heavens before time began. There is that force which would condition men for servility and regimentation, which would discourage them from thinking and acting for themselves. And then there is that force which, having established sound principles of conduct, would make it possible and encourage men to be free agents, and to use their intelligence and their God-given energies in the accomplishment of good works and righteous purposes.
To bring this down to its application in the Church today, we heard in the statistical report yesterday that there are one hundred fifty-five stakes, thirty-eight missions, more than twelve hundred wards and independent branches, and nearly a million people, and we know that the time is already here when men holding office in the wards and stakes must more than ever assume responsibility, make decisions, follow through with their assignments to a successful conclusion, proceeding with good works, and bringing to pass many things in righteousness of their own free will, in accordance with the plans which have been laid down, and without importuning too much concerning principles which have already been established and agreed upon.
As the Lord on a number of occasions instructed the Prophet to "trouble him no more" concerning certain matters, the Prophet likewise, even with the Church as small as it was in his day, did virtually that same thing to his associates. He advised that he taught his people correct principles and let them govern themselves. And frequently, as recorded in the Documentary History of the Church, when someone from another branch or from another part of the Church, distant somewhat from the place where the Prophet happened to be at that particular time, would write him and ask him how to proceed with a certain problem or situation, he would often reply by reminding them of the principles by which they should be guided, answering some of their questions directly where he thought they needed answer and then advising them to proceed in accordance with their own best judgment and to handle the situation themselves.
Use of Free Agency
This generation, in many places in the world, has been deliberately conditioned for regimentation, and I am sure that those forces which are committed to the principle of the free agency of man and his intelligent action and responsibility in his own behalf must be more vigorous than ever before in counteracting this contrary influence. I do not know anything, for example, that is more wasteful of time or more destructive of individuality, than making it necessary for people to wait long hours in long lines. I wouldn't say that it was always avoidable, but certainly it must not become our way of life. Certainly these things must not be permitted to be perpetuated beyond actual necessity, lest our lives become reduced to an inflexible pattern.
I would plead with you, my brethren and sisters, and pray our Father in heaven, that, as individuals and as people and as a nation, we may give our full energies to bringing to pass much righteousness; that we may not withhold our labor; that we may get in and do the job that needs to be done, and work and give our strength constructively for the creation and the production of those things which the world so badly needs; that we may proceed with full purpose of heart in accordance with the principles we know to be true; and that we may take responsibility and make decisions and bring to pass much righteousness of our own volition, not waiting to be commanded in all things, for the way is clear before us, and our duties and obligations and responsibilities are not hidden from us. May God help us so to proceed, I ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph F. Smith
Joseph F. Smith, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 61-66
My brethren and sisters, will you give me your faith, and will you join me in my prayer that I may be equal to this assignment?
Night before last in the welfare meeting the President of the Church called attention to the fact that we as a people had suffered relatively little during the war, and he suggested that we think on this. I have been thinking about it since he called it to our attention. This country has suffered relatively little. Grievous as have been our bereavements, the people in this country have not wanted for food; they have not suffered deprivation. It is well that we think on these things, and think upon the reasons therefore.
The Key to True Education
In the great revelation which contains that famous "Mormon" axiom, "The glory of God is intelligence", we read this:
The Spirit of truth is of God. I am the Spirit of truth, and John bore record of me, saying: He received a fulness of truth, yea, even of all truth; And no man receiveth a fulness unless he keepeth his commandments.
That, it seems to me, is the key to true education. No man can receive a fulness of truth unless he keeps the commandments of our Father in heaven. Learning is not wisdom. We have been misled into thinking that learning is the ultimate in education. True education must result in wisdom. The learning in the world is great. We stand breathless before the myriad of marvels of science. The wisdom of the world is puny. Witness the devastation of war. May I take a moment to read a verse from II Nephi which I have often quoted regarding this matter of learning? We have had reference made in this conference to the foolishness of so-called wise men.
... O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.
Amidst the greatest learning that the world has ever seen, we have seen the greatest perishing the world has ever seen, and our greatest learning has been utilized for the destruction of God's children. "But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God". Again, no man receiveth the fulness of truth-no man may be truly educated-except he keep the commandments of our Father in heaven. This great revelation concludes with this statement:
And, verily I say unto you, that it is my will that you should hasten to translate my scriptures, and to obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion. Amen.
Historical Events
I should like to take a few moments this morning to give consideration to some historical events. As I go about among young people I find, tragically, that among high school students, the two subjects most heartily disliked by the greatest number of persons, are, first, English, and second, history. Our educational system would do well to think upon that. If we would be wise, we should know how we got the way we are. Only a genuine study of real history can bring that about. This country, a land choice above all other lands, and the people thereon have enjoyed tremendous blessings. This country was long in preparing. I can't outline the whole story. I'd like to touch just one or two important events.
Way back in 1215 when the barons wrung from King John the Magna Charta, we had the modern beginning of true democracy. Sometime later, in 1517, Luther nailed his famous theses to the door of his church in Wittenberg, and not a great time after that, in 1555, the famous Peace of Augsburg gave freedom of worship to Protestants-breaking the tyranny of Rome. Still later, a band of Puritans, finding themselves persecuted in England because of their religious beliefs, went to Holland, and after twelve years in a foreign land, amongst a foreign tongue, they decided to set out for the new world-for real religious freedom-and in 1620 headed westward across the Atlantic Ocean. The great governor, William Bradford, said of them:
So they left that goodly and pleasant city which had been their resting place for twelve years, but they knew that they were pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but lifted up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits.
Their reliance upon the Lord was their greatest safeguard.
The Mayflower Compact
After that memorable and tedious voyage across the ocean, as their little ship lay at anchor in Cape Cod Bay, they were faced with insurrection. They were faced with possible anarchy, because there were those among their number who were determined that there should be an anarchy. The wiser ones among them knew that anarchy must inevitably lead to chaos. But in the cabin aboard the ship they gathered together, and with reliance upon their Father in heaven, brought forth that famous document, the Mayflower Compact,"-the beginning of American democracy." I would like to take just a minute to read it for you. Notice well the first words:
In ye name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by ye grace of God, of Great Britaine, France & Ireland king, defender of ye faith, &c.;, haveing undertaken, for ye glorie of God, and advancement of ye Christian faith, and honour of our king & countrie, a voyage to plant ye first colonie in ye Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly & mutually in ye presence of God, and one of another, covenant & combine our selves to gather into a civill body politik, for our better ordering & preservation and furtherance of ye ends aforesaid: and by vertue hear of to enacte, constitute, and frame such just & equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete & convenient for ye generall good of ye Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cap-Codd ye 11. of November, in ye year of ye reign of our soveraigne lord, King James, of England, Franc. & Ireland ye eighteenth, and of Scotland ye firtie fourth. Anno Dom. 1620
Declaration of Independence
There you have the beginnings of truly democratic government, people bound together to frame just laws for their own observance, under the guidance of the Lord. And later the Declaration of Independence was drafted. After setting forth the reasons for the separation, by setting forth their grievances, Jefferson, speaking for the colonies, concludes thus:
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name and by authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be free and independent states; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great British, is and ought to be totally disolved; and that as free and independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
"God Governs in the Affairs of Men"
This country has enjoyed the blessings that it does, because of reliance upon the Lord. Only a year later-1787-our great Constitution was drafted. I wonder how many in this congregation have read the Constitution in the last ten years? I want to tell you, brethren and sisters, it is the charter that stands between us and slavery, and it would be well for us to think upon that. May I read what Benjamin Franklin said about it. He said this at the time when debate was acrimonious, and there was dissension in the Congress:
I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?
We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it". I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a by-word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.
I, therefore, beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service
The Lord's Appraisal of the Constitution
Now there are those in the country who are telling us and particularly our children, that the Constitution was very fine in its day but that it is old-fashioned. "We have passed 'the horse and buggy days'; it is time we were becoming modern." I would like to take a moment to read what the Lord has to say about the Constitution of the United States:
... again I say unto you, those who have been scattered by their enemies, it is my will that they should continue to importune for redress, and redemption, by the hands of those who are placed as rulers and are in authority over you-
According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles; That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.
When the Prophet offered the dedicatory prayer in the temple at Kirtland, a prayer which was given to him by revelation, he said this:
Have mercy, O Lord, upon all the nations of the earth, have mercy upon the rulers of our land, may those principles which were so honorably and nobly defended, viz., the Constitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever.
And in the ninety-eighth section of the D&C;, the Lord has this to say about the Constitution:
And that law of the land which is constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before me.
Therefore, I, the Lord, justify you, and your brethren of my church, in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land;
And as pertaining to the law of man, whatsoever is more or less than this cometh of evil.
Support Men Who Will Protect the Constitution
Now, those are the Lord's words. There has been a tendency among some Latter-day Saints, even when the Constitution is mentioned, to say, "There he goes talking politics." I am not talking politics. I am quoting the words of the Lord. Certainly, it is not meet that we should bring politics into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but just as certainly, it is meet that every member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints take the doctrine of Christ into his politics, and that he evaluate every candidate and every platform under any and every political banner in the terms of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If there be any one who would destroy or weaken the Constitution of the United States, oppose him to the limit of your constitutional rights! Obversely, we should support candidates and foster platforms of whatever parties who will protect the sacred Constitution of the United States-that just document of government which was divinely inspired.
In our various councils today I am wondering how often the Lord is asked for aid? I would like to know if there has been one single instance in the whole history of American labor-management disputes when industrialists and labor union leaders, coming together to solve their problems, have asked the Lord for guidance. I would like to know if there has been one single instance. Goodness knows, prayers are rare in civic and national conferences. It is time we learned that the wisdom of men is foolishness, when they think they know of themselves and refuse to rely upon the Lord.
May I turn to the second inaugural address of Abraham Lincoln? I read towards the end:
... "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh". If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether".
Rely Upon the Lord
The Civil War was fought for the preservation of the Constitution, for the abandoning of slavery, and yet slavery is creeping upon us in this day-anno Domini 1946. Through the wars we did not want but now there is beginning in this country real want. I have heard a number of recitals in the past two or three days of persons destitute, without clothing and without food, because they are suffering economic slavery. Now, brethren and sisters, certainly as Latter-day Saints it is time that everyone of us in all his work: in his vocation, in his exercise of his civic rights, in his presiding at the head of his family, in all he does, that he rely upon the Lord. It is time that civic bodies, economic bodies, national bodies, start relying upon the Lord, even as did our forebears. May I conclude with those famous words of Abraham Lincoln, peculiarly appropriate at this moment:
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
I pray that certainly the Latter-day Saints at least shall do all in their power to preserve that kind of government, that kind of reliance in government upon providence which to this moment has assured us our blessings and which if we abandon, will bring us into ever increasing slavery, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Harold B. Lee
Harold B. Lee, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 67-72
I could ask for no preface more fitting for what I desire to say this morning, than the singing of that grand hymn, "Come, Come, Ye Saints." As I sit through the conferences from year to year, I contemplate the great effort and sacrifice that have gone into the efforts you have made in coming to these conferences and the seriousness with which you attend, regularly and faithfully, and in listening to all that is said and the actions taken. I have asked myself the question as to the purpose, after all, of a general conference, and I am reminded of the words of the Lord when he gave us, in a revelation, the pattern by which important matters pertaining to his Church should be presented to the people. This is what he said
... let it be done as it shall be counseled by the elders of the church at the conferences, according to the knowledge which they receive from time to time.
Will of the Lord Again Revealed
As in olden times, so in our day, holy men of God speak as they are moved upon by the Holy Ghost, and whatsoever they speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the word of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation. It should be a great comfort to the Latter-day Saints in this day of which the Lord foretold, when peace should be taken from the earth, and the devil would have power over his own dominion, to hear the Lord say in revelation that in that day he would reign in the midst of his people and would have power over his Saints. But in this day when the arm of the Lord shall be revealed, they who will not listen to the voice of the Lord, neither to the voice of his servants, neither give heed to the apostles and prophets, shall be cut off from among the people. Some of the most profound thinkers in our generation, other than Church members, have realized the need for revelations from the Lord in order to give vitality to the teachings of a church. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said:
The Hebrew and Greek scriptures contain immortal sentences that have been the bread of life to millions, but they do not have epical integrity, are fragmentary and are not shown in their order to the intellect....
Nor can the Bible be closed until the last great man is born.... Men have come to speak of revelation as somewhat long ago given and done, as if God were dead. That injury to faith throttles the preachers and the goodliest of institutions become an uncertain and inarticulate voice. The need was never greater for revelation than it is today.
The Purpose of Revelation
In our day the Lord has given us the reason and the purpose for which revelations are given. He said to us in one of the earliest revelations in this day of the restored Church:
Wherefore, I the Lord, knowing the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the earth, called upon my servant Joseph Smith, Jun.,... and gave him commandments; And also gave commandments to others, that... The weak things of the world shall... break down the mighty and strong ones, that man should not counsel his fellow man, neither trust in the arm of flesh-But that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord,... That faith also might increase in the earth; That mine everlasting covenant might be established; That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed... Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding. And inasmuch as they erred, it might be made known; And inasmuch as they sought wisdom, they might be instructed;... And inasmuch as they were humble they might be made strong, and blessed from on high, and receive knowledge from time to time.
And so, obedient to that purpose, there have been in this day, our day, men commissioned of the Lord with power and authority, and he has given them the inspiration to teach and proclaim these things to the world for the purpose the Lord has set forth, and he has done it here in this conference and will continue to do so until the end of the conference, that the important things might be counseled by the elders of the Church to this people according to the inspiration and revelation they receive from time to time. As the Latter-day Saints go home from this conference, it would be well if they consider seriously the importance of taking with them the report of this conference and let it be the guide to their walk and talk during the next six months. These are the important matters the Lord sees fit to reveal to this people in this day in the year 1946.
Foresight of Church Leaders
The divine nature of the activities of this Church was never more attested than in the developments of this last decade, when, under the inspiration of heaven, our leaders have been trying to prepare this people against the calamities which were shortly to come upon the inhabitants of the earth. At the time when the nations of the world were fomenting hate and racial prejudices, this, the Church of Jesus Christ, was sending missionaries to many of these nations, preaching the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God. We were exemplifying that brotherhood here at home by the teamwork of priesthood quorums and by ward and stake groups working on welfare projects and in missionary activities. When a false and inflated prosperity was abroad in the land, caused by the demands of the recent war, this people, largely by volunteer labor, were filling storehouses with surpluses that would otherwise have gone to waste. They were building a grain elevator and storing grain at the time when wheat was being destroyed because it was not needed. They were, in obedience to the counsel of the leaders of the Church, filling their own cellars and their own basements with the commodities necessary to meet the needs that were foreseen in a day to come, and in order to reduce the drain on the public supply that would otherwise be needed for the prosecution of the purposes of this government. The things, it seems to me, that we need most in the world today, are, first, a recognition of the "modern Josephs" represented in the leadership of the Church today, because of the prophetic vision they have exercised in seeing this day of want and destruction; and second, we need "modern Pharaohs" in this and other nations, who will recognize the statements of these leaders of the Church as the mind of the Lord and the word of the Lord to the world in this day.
An unintentional testimony was given to us recently in the nation's capital by a high-placed government official when he said after we had explained to him the welfare activities of the Church "You have done the very thing in your Church that the government is now trying to do in its present program to provide food for the starving nations of Europe."
As the carloads of foodstuffs and clothing and bedding move down to the seaports to be transported overseas to feed our needy people, and as the truckloads in our country go to meet similar needs in that distressed area, I have felt in my heart that surely this is sufficient evidence of the hand of the Lord being laid bare in behalf of his people.
Tenth Anniversary of Church Welfare Program
Today marks the tenth anniversary of the inauguration or the announcement of the churchwide activity known as the Church welfare program. I cannot come to this day without looking back over the days that have passed. I have remembered some of those who lathered this work, since its inception, who have been called to their eternal home: President Heber J. Grant, Melvin J. Ballard, Nicholas G. Smith, Campbell M. Brown, J. Frank Ward, Robert L. Judd, Elias S. Woodruff, Byron D. Anderson. As I think of their passing, I can't help contemplating what their interest is in the welfare program wherever they are today. I can't believe that it is less than it was here; and if the Lord gives them the opportunity to exercise that influence, I am certain they will be exercising it. What of us here? In paying due honor to what they attempted to build, I wonder if we have remembered their words. We have repeated often the statement that was given to us by President Grant when this program was launched. These were his words and you heard them repeated, time and again, when he said:
Our primary purpose is to set up, insofar as it might be possible, a system under which the curse of idleness would be done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and independence, industry, and thrift and self-respect be once more established amongst our people. The aim of the Church is to help the people to help themselves. Work is to be re-enthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership.
Foundation Stones of Welfare Work
I traveled over the Church by request of the First Presidency with Elder Melvin J. Ballard in the early days of the welfare program to discuss with local Church leaders the details essential to its beginning. There were three favorite passages of scripture that he frequently quoted to the people. One statement that he often repeated was this "We must take care of our own people, for the Lord has said that all this is to be done that:
... the church may stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world".
And again he taught, after quoting from the one hundred fifteenth section of the Doctrine and Covenants:
Verily I say unto you all: Arise and shine forth, that thy light may be a standard for the nations.
This is the day of demonstration of the power of the Lord in behalf of his people. And again quoting the one hundred fourth section:
Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.
I read these quotations to you today to remind you of the foundation stones on which the welfare work of the Church has been laid.
Obligation to Care for Our Own
As I have recalled the experiences of the last ten years, I have thought of the welfare work as a kind of temporal turning of the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers.
You who may think that a far-fetched statement, may I remind you of one or two scriptures? To Timothy, the Apostle Paul said:
But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
And again the commandment from Mt. Sinai, and interpreted by the Master, you will remember, to mean the taking care of aging parents by children:
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
From these two scriptures I make these two conclusions: In the first place those who refuse to care for their own are subject to a judgment more severe than that which would be meted out to one who lost his faith and had become as an infidel; and second, that those who refuse to honor father and mother in the way the Master explained, are jeopardizing their tenure upon this land which the Lord has given us. I have thought a great deal about that. I wonder whether that tenure shall be jeopardized because of the burdensome taxation that shall increase and grow until we are virtually displaced in our ownership, if we don't take care of our own, or I am wondering whether the Lord will withdraw his blessings, as Amulek declared in the thirty-fourth chapter of Alma, if we refuse to succor those who stand in need of help.
And on the other hand, so far as children are concerned, I have remembered what the Apostle Paul said about that: He predicted a time that would come in the last days, a perilous time when men should be lovers of their own selves, covetous, disobedient, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection. That sounds strangely familiar to the language of the Lord in this day, when he declared:
Now, I, the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them; and their children are also growing up in wickedness; they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness. These things ought not to be, and must be done away from among them.
I have asked myself if the failure of children to take care of their aging parents, when they come to a day of want and are in need of sustenance, is due to the failure of parents, in the day gone by, to teach those same children to avoid the curse of idleness, and to be responsible in righteousness before our Heavenly Father. Unless we teach our children today correct principles, they, like some children today, will be thankless and without the natural affection necessary to cement this society upon a firm, determined foundation. Yes, it seems to me that in very deed, the welfare plan has been a kind of turning of the hearts of the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children, that we might be prolonged upon this land which the Lord our God has given us.
The Lord's Plan for Security
The Lord has given us in this day the greatest organization upon the face of the earth, with his power and his authority to direct it. He has given us sound principles; he has shown us the plan and the way by which want and distress may be done away among us. He has shown us the way to brotherly love. If the afflictions which have been predicted do come upon us, they will come upon us because we have not kept the faith and because we have been disobedient and have thrown away the opportunities that our Heavenly Father has given us to prepare for the day of calamity which he foretold, over one hundred years ago, would come in this generation.
I remember at the dedication of the grain elevator in 1940 hearing President McKay in an inspired and prophetic prayer utter these words:
May this be an edifice of service, a contribution of love, and as such we dedicate it unto thee and ask thy blessings to attend all who have contributed to its erection and all who may contribute to the keeping of these bins filled with the wheat which is considered necessary to be preserved preparatory to the judgments that await the nations of the earth.
My prayer is today that those who contribute, and those who receive as well, shall so live in the bonds of brotherhood and unity and oneness, that the Lord can reign in the midst of his Saints and be a power over them and a shield, as he promised in the ninety-seventh section of the Doctrine and Covenants he would be, if we his Saints would keep his commandments in the day when the judgments were about to descend upon the earth.
God help us so to live and to keep in harmony with his Spirit that these things may be with the Saints in our day, I pray humbly in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 72-76
My brothers and sisters, I sincerely trust that I may have your sustaining faith and prayers that what I shall say today will be uplifting, upbuilding, and encouraging. If I cannot achieve that, as an instrument in the hands of the Lord, then my time spent will be wasted.
TESTIMONY OF JOB
These are troublous times, times that try the souls of all of us. We all need help, even the most happy of us. There is a pall of sorrow, apprehension, and anxiety that overshadows us, and there is only one way in which we can get relief therefrom. Job of old, replying to the cruel accusations of his three friends, said:
For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:
Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
In that great declaration Job gave us a complete picture of Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Redeemer, of his death, of his atonement thereby, of his resurrection, all of which were made fully operative upon Job, and even as upon Job, so upon all the rest of mankind. All shall die, all shall lie in the tomb; all shall be resurrected, save only those who may be "caught up" at his coming. That is the message; that knowledge of Job is the knowledge which in these sorrowing days will give us peace and comfort. As the Savior said:
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
We may all have the knowledge which job had. Indeed it is the right not only but the duty of Latter-day Saints to gain that knowledge. As we fail to gain that knowledge, we fail to reap the fruits, enjoy the blessings which the gospel has for us, and they will come to us, that blessing, those fruits, if we live as we should.
TESTIMONIES OF FORMER-DAY SAINTS
I have often thought of a number of instance which indicate the possession of that testimony of Job, instances connected with the life of the Savior in the Old World; instances where men and women knew who Jesus was and his mission. One of the earliest, after his birth, following the vision and visit of the shepherds, was that which occurred in the temple when Jesus was taken there to fulfil the requirements of the Mosaic law. There came into the temple, at that time, one Simeon, to whom the Holy Ghost had revealed that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord, Christ. And when he came into the temple and saw the infant Jesus, he took
... him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said,
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.
Thus to him came a testimony like unto Job's.
Anna on the same occasion, that good women who had dwelt in and about the temple for years, came in and declared that she saw the redemption that was to come to the world.
Shortly after Jesus began his mission, you remember, he chose certain of his apostles, and among them Simon, afterwards called Peter, and Andrew his brother. He had met them before he chose them. But on that day he came by them as they were casting their nets into the sea, for they were fishermen, and he said to them, as apparently they walked out into the water:
... Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
And unquestioning, filled with the same testimony which Job had, they put aside their nets and followed Jesus, even until the day, after his death, when Peter and others, thinking the work was done, went fishing.
FAITH OF THE CENTURION
I think of the experience of the centurion whose servant was ill. Apparently scarcely knowing the Savior, yet he sent to him, telling the Savior, through the Jews whom he sent to carry the message, that his servant was ill and he wanted him healed. Jesus started toward the home, but the centurion sent word to him:
Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof:
Wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee: but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed.
For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth, and to another come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.
and Jesus said to those about him:
I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
The servant was healed. Another testimony having in it the elements of Job's!
I remember, too, the story of the Greek woman, the Syrophoenician whose daughter was afflicted. The colloquy between the Savior and this woman constitutes, I think, the only instance where a question was put to the Savior to which he did not have some reply She asked him to heal her daughter. At first he answered her not a word. Then she worshipped him, and he said:
... It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.
She replied:
... Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.
And Jesus said:
... O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.
She, too, had a testimony like unto Job's.
PETER'S TESTIMONY AT CAESAREA PHILIPPI
And then later comes the incident with Peter, the great Peter, as I estimate him, to whom the Savior gave the name Cephas. After Jesus and the apostles had been out in Galilee, visiting, they came to the coast of Caesarea Philippi, and, apparently stopping to rest. Jesus said to them, seemingly addressing Peter:
... Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said:
Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
Peter, apparently without hesitation or equivocation, answered, and said:
... Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
THE BLESSINGS OF A TESTIMONY
From that time until this, that message has rung down through the centuries, pointing out to us how we may get that comfort and that consolation to which each and every child of God is entitled, and without which we may not be happy or gain our exaltation. That was the testimony that was behind those who founded this Church, from the Prophet Joseph down, and to all that believe, even the last ordained among us. It is the testimony that buoyed up the Saints as they traveled through the wilderness to come to this desert-all through their trials, their tribulations and persecutions in Ohio. Illinois, Missouri; it is the testimony that is buoying up our Saints today in Europe under all their hardships and desolations, and these are as grievous as any that have come to any of the children of men, so far as physical suffering and woe are concerned. Our reports indicate that many, and most in some sections, are without homes. Many, indeed all in some sections, are hungry, and without clothes. Yet they have held to their testimonies, out of which have come cheerfulness and resignation, and faithfulness. They have worshiped the Lord; they have kept his commandments, even under the most dire circumstances.
THINGS OF GOD KNOWN BY SPIRIT OF GOD
It is our right, as I have already said, it is indeed our duty to gain that testimony for ourselves. Some may scoff, some may doubt, some may declare that our principles are false, but truth is never made error because somebody denies it. I commend to you to read what I had intended myself to read, but there is not time, the eleventh and following verses in the second chapter of I Corinthians, in which Paul says:
For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
We must be prepared, as Paul there indicates to the Corinthians, to be considered as foolish, for he tells us that the things of God are foolishness to men. But we who have the testimony of the spirit, we know that foolishness to men may be the greatest wisdom to God; and we know we may enjoy that spiritual blessing and knowledge if we shall but so live that the Holy Ghost may reveal to us the Father and the Son, and the testimony thereof, and bring to us that peace to which I have already referred, which Jesus promised:
KNOWLEDGE OF GOD BRINGS PEACE
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
That the Lord will give us this testimony, which I declare to you is my testimony, so that we may live in peace and happiness, that our hearts may be encouraged in this time of stress and trouble, that we may look with confidence to the future, serene and secure in the knowledge that God knows us, that we are his children, and that he will bless us if we keep his commandments, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Bishop LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 81-85
I am very happy, my brothers and sisters, to have the privilege of attending this conference. I think we have been wonderfully blessed of the Lord in the outpouring of his Spirit, and, above all other things in this world, I thank the Lord for my membership in this Church, and fellowship with the Latter-day Saints.
JOY IN MISSIONARY WORK
It has been forty-one years this month since I left Salt Lake to fill my first mission in Holland, and I have been thinking while sitting here that from that time to this the gospel has meant everything in the world to me. I remember when I gave my report at the close of my first mission in the ward to which I then belonged. I made the statement that I hoped the Lord would send me on a mission often enough so that I could retain the spirit that I had enjoyed in the mission field. The gospel with all its teachings and its promises and its blessings has become a real thing in my life, and with all my heart I know it is true, and I hope to do all I can as long as I live to help to promote faith in the hearts of my fellow-men.
Jesus said in that marvelous Sermon on the Mount:
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.
And I want to bear testimony to you that I know that promise is within the reach of every man and every woman who does hunger and thirst after righteousness.
EXCERPT FROM A LETTER
About ten years ago, while I was president of the Southern States Mission, I received a letter from a woman in the South telling of the number of books and pamphlets she had read regarding Mormonism, since the elders called at her door. In this letter she said:
Since I have come to the conclusion that "Mormonism" is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard of, I would like to know what the members of your Church read. I have read books on philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, Christian Science, etc., in search of answers to my own life's problems, and needless to say, the problems remained unanswered, but now I have hope.
And I am grateful to the Lord that in the gospel we teach there is an answer to life's problems. I have wondered just what one could really want to know that he cannot find an answer to in this glorious gospel, and I wonder if those of us who are here today feel that "Mormonism" is the most wonderful thing we have ever heard of. I wonder if we have the faith that the early members of the Church had when they made such sacrifices in order that the missionary cause of this Church might be carried on in the world. Their hearts were touched; they were led out of darkness; and they realized the glorious truths the Lord had revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith.
ADAM TAUGHT BAPTISM
There was another in the earliest days of the history of the inhabitants of this earth who hungered and thirsted after righteousness. That was our Father Adam, and he went to the Lord. He wanted to know from the Lord why it was that men should be baptized in water and receive a remission of their sins. And I would like to read to you the statement of the Lord to Adam in answer to his question. He said:
... inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water, and blood, and of the Spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water and of the spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten; that ye might be sanctified from all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory;... Therefore it is given to abide in you; the record of heaven; the Comforter; the peaceable things of immortal glory; the truth of all things; that which quickeneth all things, which maketh alive all things; that which knoweth all things, and hath all power, according to wisdom, mercy, truth, justice, and judgment.
Now the Lord gave Adam to understand that it was by being born again of the water and the Spirit that it was given to abide in him the record of heaven. I wonder just what the Lord meant by the "record of heaven," and I thought that it meant that it reveals unto us who we are, where we come from, why we are here, where we are going, and that great eternal truth that we are in very deed sons and daughters of God, the Eternal Father. Is there any truth that men could acquire through their faith and their obedience that would mean more than to know that every man born into this world has the possibility to grow and develop and become like unto our Heavenly Father?
In our relationship to each other we are in very deed brothers and sisters, and Christ was the Firstborn, the Elder Brother, who offered himself as a ransom for sin of all the inhabitants of the earth. Then it tells us the purpose of our creation, that we are here to gain knowledge and intelligence and experience and prepare ourselves that we might go on and become as he is.
THE 76 SECTION OF THE DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS A GUIDE
I like to read the seventy-sixth section of the D&C; which we have been wont to refer to as "The Vision." To me that is one of the most marvelous scriptures that has ever been revealed to men, and as far as we know it never was revealed until this last dispensation, and when it was given to the Prophet Joseph he was told that it was a transcript of the record of the eternal world. Paul was privileged to see it, for he was caught up into the third heaven and the paradise of God, but he was not permitted to write the things that he beheld. This revelation indicates who are worthy or will be worthy to obtain a place in each of the three degrees of glory as described in that revelation, one like unto the sun, one like unto the moon, and one like unto the stars. Is there any man or woman in all Israel who loves the Lord and loves the truth and hungers and thirsts after righteousness who would not desire this information to guide him in his life and to indicate what his life must be in order to be worthy of the glory which we know as the celestial glory, likened unto the sun?
And then we are told in the song written by Eliza R. Snow, "O, My Father":
For a wise and glorious purpose Thou hast placed me here on earth And withheld the recollection Of my former friends and birth.
BLESSINGS FOR THOSE WHO DESIRE THEM
When I think of the information that comes to us individually as Latter-day Saints through the patriarchs of this Church, when I think of what my blessing has meant to me that I received at the hands of my father when I was eight years old, I realize that in the sight of the Almighty we are in very deed individuals, each one with a destiny and a purpose and a mission in life to fill, and I can think of no greater disappointment that could come to one of our Father's children than to finish his life and then be told that he had failed to accomplish the things for which he was sent into this world.
Then Adam was told that it should be given to abide in him, the Comforter; the Comforter that makes known all things, things which are present, things which are past, and things which are to come. Jesus explained that it would be necessary that he should go away or the Comforter could not come, that he should teach us all things, bear witness of the Father and of the Son. President Clark this morning related the testimony of Peter which he received because of that witness.
Adam was told that it should be given to abide in him, the peaceable things of immortal glory, and I wonder if anybody can understand the peaceable things of immortal glory without understanding the glorious promise of the eternal duration of the marriage covenant and the family unit and our association with each other beyond the veil. Senator Beveridge said in his book, The Young Man and the World, in a chapter devoted to "The Young Man and the Pulpit," that a prominent railroad man in America said that to know that he would live again, with a conscious identity, knowing who he was and who other people were, would be worth more to him than all the wealth of the United States. This knowledge we gain through hungering and thirsting after righteousness; and also we learn that we will be resurrected and that we will lose nothing through our death, but that it will be a gain to us. In the words of Paul:
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
Then he was told that it would be given to abide in him, the truth of all things.
We are not only to know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God; not only to know that Jesus is the Christ, the Redeemer of the world, but to understand the truths of heaven, the principles by which we might live that will guide us in our thinking, guide us in our living, give us power among men because it is given to abide in us, the truth of all things.
"That which quickeneth all things, which maketh alive all things, that which knoweth all things", the understanding of scripture, to know the truth of the Book of Mormon, the truth of the Bible, to know the truth of the revelations that God has revealed in these latter days. I tell you, brothers and sisters, it was well said when Jesus said:
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Adam received an answer to his inquiry from the Lord, and the woman from the South, through finding "Mormonism," was able to say that she now had hope of finding an answer to her own life's problems.
When you see these glorious temples, when you see this great assembly of the Saints of God, when you see the priesthood of God, when you see apostles and prophets such as the primitive church had, which God placed in the Church,
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
I ask, is there anything more we could want to know? If we understood all these things, then we could understand why Isaiah, when he saw the temple of God builded in the tops of the mountains in the latter days, saw people all over the world, and heard them say:
... Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.
And may God help us to do it, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Clifford E. Young
Clifford E. Young, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 85-89
I feel the need of your faith and prayers, my brethren and sisters, as I stand before you this afternoon. I desire to add my testimony to the many forceful testimonies of this conference.
History of Nauvoo Period
Recently I was reading a biography published during the year, covering the war years of Abraham Lincoln. This biography was written by J. G. Randall, professor of history at the University of Illinois, and in laying a background for the war period of Lincoln's life, he goes back into the Illinois period of the early forties, a period that was known to the Latter-day Saints of that time, and in it he makes one or two pointed observations:
In 1840 few towns of Illinois had more than two thousand people. It is a curious fact that the largest Illinois settlement by far in the middle forties was the Mormon city of Nauvoo, beautifully situated on the broad Mississippi about a hundred miles northwest of Springfield. Here in the 1840's, when Chicago was a stripling village of less than five thousand, and Springfield a muddy little town recently planted on the prairie, stood the largest City in Illinois, a community of more than twenty thousand.... Center of Mormonism. Nauvoo possessed thousands of dwellings, and a great temple into the construction of which had been poured a million dollars.
He further describes some of the conditions that existed at that period, and says, quoting one of the historians of Illinois, that this was a lawless period in the history of our nation, and that Illinois partook of that lawlessness. Governor Ford in his History of Illinois deals at length with the "mobocratic spirit" in Illinois, and Lincoln speaks of it and warns of its dangers in these words: "Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his fathers and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty." As I read this I thought, surely our people knew what that meant. They, too, suffered because of these conditions.
Beveridge in his biography of Lincoln describes some other things that are interesting, showing that at that time the standards were not as they are today. He writes:
Quantities of whiskey were consumed, everybody, women and preachers included, indulging. Men were quick to fight, and combats were brutal. Profanity was general and emphatic; yet an innate love of justice and truthfulness and fair-dealing permeated many of the communities, and generous and ready hospitality was of the highest order. Notwithstanding these things, religion, too, was a vital part of their lives. Churches were organized as soon as there were settlers enough to form small congregations. Preaching was crude, direct and vociferous, but it was an effective force for good. Schools, although crude, were started almost as soon as churches. In fact church and school were companion influences for decency, knowledge, and morality in pioneer life. Many times, social relations were loose and undisciplined.
And then he goes on and speaks of the dialects of the time which were extremely crude. Beveridge makes reference to a charge that was made against Lincoln, as Lincoln carried on his debates on states rights with Stephen A. Douglas, in which Lincoln was charged that he was advocating the marriage of whites with negroes. Lincoln, of course, resented this and in his reply said that because he sought the freedom of these people and advocated that they might eat the bread that they earned was no reason why his motives should be questioned.
Motives of Joseph Smith Misunderstood
As I read this, my brethren and sisters, my mind went back to the Prophet Joseph. He, too, was the victim of motive questioning. It was a time when people questioned people's motives, when many times they were vicious in their imputations, and the Prophet and our people became the victims of that very thing; and as we look back today, it is no wonder that people misunderstood the Prophet Joseph. They failed to interpret truly his motives; they failed to feel the impulse of his righteous living, and when he advocated practices and doctrines that were in contravention to the then known times, men questioned that which he advocated and particularly the motive back of it. And thus the Prophet Joseph became the victim of this impugning of motives, and much of this was a contributing factor to his martyrdom. Men did not know him then, and men and women have failed, in our day, to try to know him. That is unfortunate.
True Appraisal by Early Converts
If I may be a bit personal, my grandfather with his four brothers and their father joined the Church in 1832. My great-grandfather was then nearly seventy. All of these five brothers, with the exception of Lorenzo Young, were older than Joseph Smith, and yet when they came into Kirtland they recognized in him a Prophet of the living God. They were men of intelligence; they were men capable of analyzing the Prophet Joseph Smith and appraising the things for which he stood. They believed implicitly in him, and when they accepted the truth as it had been taught to them by the early missionaries, to the day of their deaths they never wavered. All of them were true to the faith. That was typical of many. John Taylor stands out as a beacon light. He had come from England as a young man. It is true that he was younger than the Prophet for he was born in 1808. He had come from England in 1832 and settled in Canada. And in 1836, Parley P. Pratt found him and preached the gospel to him, and he subsequently embraced it. Later he came to Kirtland to visit the Prophet. It was a time of apostasy; it was a time of persecution, but he never wavered, because the Lord had borne witness to him that here was a Prophet of the Living God.
After this visit John Taylor returned to Canada and subsequently in company of others Joseph Smith visited him. Later in 1837, in the fall, John Taylor was asked and instructed to wind up his affairs and join with the body of the Saints. Coming to Kirtland he found the Prophet was in Far West and so continued his journey down into Missouri. You can well imagine what it would mean in that day, slow travel and no roads, under crude and primitive conditions, similar to the ones to which I referred in the beginning as described by Professor Randall. And yet, coming into Far West, where also there was apostasy, it made no difference with John Taylor. He knew, and that was all that was necessary, and from then on he consecrated his life to a life of devotion and service that is almost unequaled in this new dispensation. He was with the Prophet at his martyrdom and never wavered. His life reads like a romance, and yet it rings true because of his loyalty and his faith.
And so, my brethren and sisters, as I read of these primitive conditions, I thought how easy it was to question motives; how easy it is today when men do not know and feel the human soul to fail to respond to that soul as it breathes testimony of the divinity of this great work.
Oliver Cowdery's Return to the Church
Two more things I would like to mention before I close. I have always been impressed, as you have, in reading of Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer. It was through the instrumentality of Phineas Young that Oliver Cowdery came back into the Church. They were brothers-in-law, Phineas having married Oliver's sister. Oliver Cowdery left the Church in 1838 and was cut off with David Whitmer. He drifted around and finally came back to Richmond, Missouri. Phineas Young wrote to Oliver pleading with him to come back to the Church. Oliver replied feelingly, that he had been wronged, that the brethren had misjudged his motives. Our people in Missouri had suffered persecution. They had lost their lands and in many instances their homes. One marvels as one reads about it that there was not more of a falling away, because that part of the Church was so far removed from the leaders of the Church, and it was easy for men to get off the track.
Well, Oliver Cowdery felt that his motives had been questioned, and so he wrote to Phineas Young that he felt that the Saints would not receive him. Phineas replied that Oliver should come back into the Church, that he knew it was true and that this was where he belonged. In 1848, while a conference was being held in Council Bluffs, Oliver came to the conference, and in the course of one of the meetings he asked to speak, and you know the story. He proclaimed again his witness of the Book of Mormon and his faith in the Prophet Joseph.
After the conference he appeared before the high council. "I do not ask to be restored to my former position," he said. He had been the second elder in the Church. "All I ask is that I may come back into the Church, because I know it is true." A vote was taken by the high council which had excommunicated him, and that was in the proper order, and it voted to receive him into the Church and he was subsequently baptized and ordained an elder. Preparations were made for him to come out to Utah, but before this could be accomplished he was taken seriously ill and passed away. But he passed away, as David Whitmer afterwards said, the happiest man he ever saw, because he was back in the Church where he belonged.
David Whitmer True to His Testimony
And so with David Whitmer. Among the announcements of deaths read here yesterday was that of the passing of James H. Moyle, the father of Henry Moyle, the chairman of the welfare committee. It was my good fortune as a boy to come under the influence of Brother Moyle, working in Mutual with him, and I have since that time had a love in my heart for him and an appreciation for his devotion to the Church. I recall his telling of his interview with David Whitmer, how he, just out of college, wanted to know-he was a young man and the challenge was before him-he wanted to know. His parents had joined the Church in England and emigrated to Zion, but he, himself, wanted to know whether or not there was anything in this thing called "Mormonism." Learning that David Whitmer was still alive, he went down to Richmond to interview him, and Brother Moyle writes that he never in his life cross-examined anyone so vigorously as he did David Whitmer.
As Brother Moyle related it, it strengthened my faith, and as I have contemplated it since, I have thought how easy it would have been for David Whitmer to say: "My boy, that was fifty-two years ago. We were mistaken; we were young. Joseph Smith had an influence over us, and we were mistaken." But he did not say that. He could have said it because he had previously been quoted by the Encyclopedia Britannica as having denied his testimony. He did not say that, but he did say: "I want to say to you once and for all that the testimony that I bore then is as true today as it was the day we uttered it". That was in the eighties, over fifty years since the testimony of the three witnesses had been inscribed on the flyleaf of the Book of Mormon.
Joseph Smith a True Prophet
My brethren and sisters, my time is up. The Prophet Joseph lives as real a living Prophet today as he ever did. His motives were misunderstood then; they are misunderstood now, but there is no question about his integrity or his divine calling. When men like John Taylor and the Youngs and the Kimballs and others came to him and associated with him, Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer, who were cut off from the Church, who knew him and associated with him intimately-I repeat-when men such as these associated with him and recognized in him a Prophet of the Living God, then we may say that critics of the Prophet today need also to take cognizance of these testimonies as well as of men who questioned his motives and who vilified him and maligned him as did apostates of his time and as is done in our day by those who do not have the spirit of the gospel.
God bless us and help us to appreciate that he was a Prophet of the Living God, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Marvin O. Ashton
Marvin O. Ashton, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 89-94
Some of you will never know what volumes of humility encompass some of us about twice a year. I sincerely trust that whatever I say will be in keeping with this conference and the spirit that is here. Someone has said something about "goose flesh". I have been so thrilled in this conference, that I think the above expression is a good one. I wish to express my appreciation at this time to my Heavenly Father for the gospel and for the thrill that we get in its contemplation.
SUGGESTIONS MADE BY BISHOPS
The last few conferences that I attended in the stakes, I have taken the liberty, if you please, of calling on each bishop in the leadership meeting and of putting the question to him this way: "If you were in our position, that is, we who are conducting this conference, what would you like discussed in the meetings that are to follow?"
One made one suggestion and one the other. One bishop said this: "Once in a while I think it is a good thing to remind members how much the Church appreciates what they are doing." Now, I suppose there is nothing new about that; but it is very, very timely.
PRAISE FOR CHURCH MEMBERS
We have all come here to have our "batteries charged," as the common expression goes. I want you folks in the stakes and the wards to know that we who go out to see you get our batteries charged from you. Inspiration comes up the ladder, and it comes down the ladder. We get inspiration from you in your lives when we see the tithing you people pay, the meeting houses you build, the fast offerings you make, donations to the welfare, and whatnot and whatnot. It goes on and on. But may I say this: Don't ever worry about that. I was talking to a railroad man the other day. He said: "The most dangerous thing on the track is an engine and a coal car." What he meant by that was this-I suppose he was referring to the observation that has been made by Brother Callis-we sometimes run light and that is where our trouble is. An engine and a coal car trying to make the curve at fifty or sixty miles an hour can't do it, and they tip over.
Don't worry if you are loaded too heavily. It will do you good. That is what the world needs. You will always find those people that come up to you and sympathize with you, and a lot of people who do nothing themselves but go around with a chip on their shoulder. Someone has said:
You can bet your life when someone goes around with a chip on his shoulder, there is more wood farther up.
MESSAGES FROM LEADERS
The meeting yesterday morning impressed me emphatically in two ways; first, the message of our dear President-that message which he generally gives. He is the embodiment of it. I am not trying to compliment him too highly-I do not believe in that stuff. I mean his message of good will-that this is one great big world, a great big stage, and all the people on it are God's people. If we could just eternally burn that into ourselves, we would all be better off. That is the spiritual side of things.
Second, as you heard President Clark read the financial statement, he read it as if he knew what he was talking about. And he does. His message to us breathed stability. It emphatically indicated watchdog care in the spending of Church funds. In the message of our two leaders we were reminded of a balance of the spirit and the temporal. When this Church thinks of nothing but money, it is a "goner." When this Church thinks of only spiritual things, and we haven't our feet on the ground and we won't hold water financially, we are on dangerous ground. Thank the Lord for that balanced condition of this Church, and may it always be that way.
PRACTICAL BALANCE NECESSARY
What is true of the Church is true of an individual. Are you balanced? Am I balanced? The man that things of nothing but the hereafter and stumbles over the practical things of life is really a picture. It is sad. I am not talking about the man that has his troubles financially-I am talking about the man who eternally looks over the horizon and never watches his feet below. That fellow, in an exaggerated case, is a leech. He is like the cuckoo bird that lays its eggs in another bird's nest. Yes, others have to hatch the eggs and raise these additional children. What gumption this impractical fellow lacks has to be furnished by someone else.
You know there has been nothing so interesting to me the last two months as this thing they call mistletoe. Mistletoe you find largely in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. I guess you find it up this way sometimes, too. But you see some trees festooned with the mistletoe; that mistletoe is a leech. I don't know why they ever connected the mistletoe with affection, because every time that mistletoe gives that tree a kiss, if enough mistletoes do the same, the tree is a "goner." Yes, in using mistletoe language you can kiss the tree goodbye. And that is going to be the trouble with our nation if we are not very careful. I saw some trees down in Texas that were just a mass of mistletoe. A tree so burdened is going to get the ten count. Those things are leeches. A man that is not practically balanced is like the mistletoe; he is like the cuckoo bird. A man, on the other hand, who thinks nothing but money, money, money, is also a "goner".
ADVICE AGAINST GREED FOR RICHES
The observation I would like to make here to you is that many people holding positions in our Church are getting this money bug. I take my hat off to the man who has insurance and provides for a rainy day. A man is a coward if he doesn't do that. I am talking about the man who has accumulated plenty and gets the disease or bug so that he eternally chases after more, more, more, and in that chasing he neglects his duties. Some men take the cream of their energy for making money, and when they come to the Lord's work, they've got nothing but skim milk, and some of it is awfully blue.
He who longs to be rich is like a man who drinks sea water; the more he drinks the more thirsty he becomes and never leaves off drinking until he perishes.
I remember a story in the scriptures. It was an observation of the Christ. A certain man built huge barns and jammed the barns with grain and the necessities of life. He had enough to last for years. He shut himself off from the world and sat down and chuckled to himself that he had so much. I think that it was then that God said this unto him:
Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.
You know, I like a cartoon-it says so much without talking unmercifully. Down in Arizona I saw this cartoon:
It was of an elderly gentleman on his deathbed. I guess he had placed for his comfort his stocks and bonds and his money all around his bed. You can scarcely see him for his accumulations. The whole picture told the story that the end was near. The doctor with watch in hand held the old fellow's pulse, and the nurse from the expression on her face was ready for the ultimate. In that tense moment so vividly pictured, the old man, with his hands on his gold, tenaciously blurted out: "Doc, I'm not going to go until I can take these with me."
Now, when you go, you will leave everything. Some men get their minds so much on cattle, so much on stocks and bonds, so much on sheep that they crowd everything else out. Some of our leaders in our organizations get that disease. I once heard of a fellow that got so in love with sheep that he just kept grabbing, grabbing, grabbing, and finally a bishop's court was held to settle to whom a certain herd of sheep belonged. And the court decided against him. When the trial ended, he shook his fist and said: "Well, you've got the sheep, but I'll have those sheep in the next world." Well, now, I don't know too much about those things, but I'll bet that if he has those sheep in the next world he'll have to put some asbestos blankets on them so they will stand the heat.
Some people get this grabbing habit so intensified in their systems that it becomes second nature for them to grab, grab, grab. It so permeates their being that it works with them like reflex action. May I be pardoned for a little repetition? Let me illustrate what I mean:
A fellow of this grabbing disposition was working on a ripsaw in a lumber mill. In the course of his ripping a two-by-four; "bingo," off came a finger. Instead of letting his companions in the mill rush him to first aid, he persistently dug into the sawdust to find the lost finger. But in his efforts to repossess the one finger, "zip," away went another. Notwithstanding the efforts of his companions to pull him away so that he wouldn't bleed to death, he now persisted more feverishly than ever to find the two lost fingers in the sawdust.
At this point in the story a workman came to the scene that knew of his grabbing friend's potentiality. He asked them what was the matter. They told him. He said, "If that's all you are worried about, I can get that for you very easily." The newcomer to the scene put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a quarter, flipped it into the sawdust. and both lost fingers came up and grabbed the quarter. That's what I call reflex action.
Some organizations succeed in spite of the men at the head, in spite of what they do and what they don't do. I remember a cartoon of an old negro fishing. They sometimes say the operation of the gospel is like fishing. He was fishing, half asleep. The line jerked and the colored man was brought to his feet with a terrific pull. He felt the boat pulling in the direction of the large fish on the end of the line. The fish was so big that our colored fisherman was really being taken for a fast merry-go-round around that lake. In his bewilderment, he looked down at the splash the fish was making and cried out: "Am I fishin' or am you niggerin'?" Some of you people who hold high positions, you are not fishin', you are just niggerin'. Some of you want titles, the honor, but you go to sleep holding the line.
HELPFULNESS A DUTY
I want to come back to this thought again, the things that count in this world are written over the horizon. Let us be kind to one another and think of something besides money and ambition. That is the trouble with the world.
Ike Eisenhower, the beloved general, was giving a talk to the navy boys the other day, and he made this observation:
Cultivate mutual understanding of anyone you have to get along with.
Some good writer commenting on it-I wish I could recall his name so I could give him credit-told this little parable I leave with you. The parable is as follows:
A newspaper man interviewed a farmer who had won many blue ribbons in raising corn. The newspaper man said: "I understand you are the winner of some blue ribbons." "Yes." "But," he said, "what gets me is that when you win a blue ribbon you take your select corn and pass it on to your neighbors, and they are competing against you for the ribbons. What is the sense in it?" The old man replied: "These neighbors all around me have been raising corn, and if I don't give them select corn, their bad corn is going to pollinate my good corn."
I read a strange story of a man by the name of Pheister. While experimenting in the raising of a hybrid corn, when the corn was in the flower or tassel stage, he tied paper sacks around the tassels so he could govern the pollinating of it.
You can't do that in life. Your neighbors are there scattering their pollen, as it were, or influence, and so are you-you are living with them. As you help them they help you.
... give to the world the best you have, and the best will come back to you.
A month ago, going down towards the Mexican line, down where the lizards, as the boy puts it, lay on their backs and fan themselves, we stopped in a little food shop. We didn't get much bodily food, but we did come away with some food for the mind that was hanging on the walls. First:
What a wonderful world this would be if I loved others like I love me.
The one that went right with it read:
Some people think when they cast their bread upon the water it should return toasted and buttered.
Now wait a minute. You may think that is rather ridiculous. That man who sent his corn, his select corn to his neighbors, was casting bread upon the waters, but he got it back toasted and buttered.
May the Lord help us to be kind. Let us remember what is ahead of us. Let's not look gloomy these days. Let's face our problems. Our grandparents did it. Let's keep our chins to the sun and face whatever is ahead of us. We play our greatest tunes in time of trouble, and the challenge is there. You do your duty; let me do mine; and let's smile-smile if it kills you, and if some people smiled it would kill them.
May the Lord bless us. Amen.
President George F. Richards
George F. Richards, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 94-99
Last Sunday was fast day. I attended fast meeting in one of the wards in this city and heard some faithful testimonies borne. One young woman in her testimony intimated that she did not know so very much about the gospel but this one thing she did know, that the gospel brings peace to the soul. I thought that was a wonderful testimony, and I concluded that that woman is living her religion, for those Latter-day Saints who are living their religion do have peace to their souls, and those who are not living their religion I am afraid that their souls are frequently very much disturbed. This is one of the great blessings that the Lord has for the faithful of his children, peace to the soul.
As this congregation stood up to sing, I thought what an awe-inspiring sight this is. It is inspiring as we sit, but when we stood it seemed that there were more of us, and then I thought, "Why, we are only a sprinkling of the faithful members of the Church," and I thank the Lord for them, and I certainly do pray that he will bless them and reward them for their faithfulness. And there are some who are not faithful for which we are sorry. God bless them that they may see their mistakes; that they may take advantage of their opportunities of receiving the saving ordinances of the gospel they have not yet received; and that they may learn to know that the Lord needs them in his service; and that an opportunity is afforded them if they will live so that they can be used, to pay in part the debt of gratitude they owe to him, which they will never be able fully to do.
Then if I am informed correctly, there are some members of the Church who are not only indifferent to their religion but who have committed sin, and violated the rules of chastity. I pity them. God bless them that they may understand their true situation and repent of their sins and make peace with the Lord while they have opportunity. The Spirit of God will not always strive with man.
ANNIVERSARY OF ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH
This is a wonderful work in which we are engaged. The annual general conference of the Church is of particular significance and deep interest to Latter-day Saints. The members of the Church, far and near, in great numbers are assembled in this general conference of the Church on the anniversary of its birth, a most suitable way in which to commemorate that exceedingly important event, affecting as it does the lives of many thousands of pure-minded, clean-living men and women for their good and their salvation. The organization of the Church and the restoration of the gospel spell "Mormonism," for which many faithful souls have suffered persecution and death, but the reward to all such, exceeds in glory any conception had by mortal man.
One hundred sixteen years ago today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, by direct command of God, in Fayette, Seneca County, New York, under the laws of that state. Since its organization, the Church has been the object of bitter opposition and persecutions. This has come at different periods, from different sources, and in various forms, but always instigated by Lucifer, the devil, through willing emissaries, with the object and intent to destroy the Church, and defeat the purpose of God in his planning for the salvation of the children of men.
PERSECUTION, A HERITAGE OF THE SAINTS
For the comfort of the Saints, let me quote to you from the sayings of our Savior:
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Persecution is, and always has been, a heritage of the Saints of God. Men and women have gone about the country, in this and in other lands, lecturing against the Church and its leaders. Magazine articles and books by the score, of a venomous and libelous character, have been written, published, and circulated against us. Apostates from the Church have opposed it in various ways, while the work of the Lord against which their fiery darts have been directed, goes steadily forward.
Mormonism has for more than a century, been thus pelted with vituperation, deceit, and falsehood, but by every attack it has become more widely known. The work of the Lord thrives under opposition and persecution. "Truth is mighty and will prevail."
We do not court opposition and persecution, but when it comes, we are not so greatly disturbed, for we know our ground, that this is the work of the Lord, and that God is at the helm, guiding the good ship into a safe harbor.
TWO MAJOR POWERS IN OPERATION
There are two major powers operating upon the minds and hearts of the children of men-the one for good, and the other for evil.
Quoting from the Book of Mormon:
Wherefore, all things which are good cometh of God; and that which is evil cometh of the devil; for the devil is an enemy unto God, and fighteth against him continually, and inviteth and enticeth to sin, and to do that which is evil continually.
Quoting from the Doctrine and Covenants:
... for we beheld Satan, that old serpent, even the devil, who rebelled against God, and sought to take the kingdom of our God and his Christ Wherefore, he maketh war with the saints of God.
The Holy Ghost is a member of the trinity of the Godhead, a personage of spirit non-tabernacled. Lucifer also is a non-tabernacled spirit The Holy Ghost is an inspirer of good. The devil is an instigator of evil. Each is striving for the souls of men; the one to save and the other to destroy.
... choose you this day whom ye will serve.
Man has his free agency and is responsible to God who gave it for the way he exercises it. The whispering of the Holy Ghost removes all doubt and fear, and brings conviction to the soul, so that we can say, conscientiously, that we know the truth of that which we have received.
Said the Savior:
... My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
BORN OF WATER AND OF THE SPIRIT
Let us see how this works: Jesus taught the will of him who sent him, and did his will in all things. He said to Nicodemus:
... Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
What happens when one is born of water and of the Spirit? Jesus has set us a worthy example in all things. Let us see what happened to him:
And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
That is, he was immersed in the waters of Jordan by John the Baptist, and went up straightway out of the water, and thus he was born of the water. Then the heavens opened and the spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, lighted upon him as a dove, and thus he was born of the Spirit.
Now note what followed his having been born of water and of the Spirit:
And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
That is the approval which the Father gave to his Son. Similar approval is received through the power of the Holy Ghost, by every worthy person who is baptized as was Jesus, by the same authority of priesthood, and who receives the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands by the elders of the Church. In this way members of the Church have received a testimony of the truth.
... no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost.
After the individual has received the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, it is his right and privilege, through faithfulness, to have his constant companionship, the significance of which only the faithful know.
HOLY GHOST OPERATES FOR SALVATION OF MAN
The Holy Ghost operates in many ways for the blessing and salvation of man. For example: when Jesus asked his disciples-
... But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
How did the Father reveal it to Peter? By the power of the Holy Ghost, through whom the Lord has contact and communication with man on the earth.
Hear what Moroni, a prophet of God of Book of Mormon days, has to say about the operation of the Holy Ghost:
And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
Many people have put this promise to the test and have received the witness of the spirit, that the things contained in the Book of Mormon are true.
This promise is true with respect to all the scriptures As I read the account given by Joseph Smith of the visitation of the Father and the Son to him, while he was yet a boy fourteen years of age, the Holy Ghost bears record to my soul, that what he says is true, and I rejoice exceedingly in this testimony. I feel that I know by the revelations of God through the operations of the Holy Ghost, as well as did Peter, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and by the same power, which is the power of God, I do know that Joseph Smith was and is a true prophet of God, as were all his successors in the presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, down to the present, including the present President of the Church, George Albert Smith. I also know that this work in which we are engaged is the work of God, and that it will endure forever
EFFECTIVENESS OF THE ATONEMENT
I here quote the words of the Savior:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
The burden of sin and remorse is something to be dreaded and to be avoided. The Savior has provided, however, a means by which the sins of deepest dye may be forgiven, and that, by repentance and obedience unto the laws and ordinances of the gospel, made effective through the atonement of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
The third article of our faith reads:
We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
In this way we rid ourselves of our sins and prepare ourselves for salvation.
Baptism is a natural sequence to faith and repentance. It is the door into the kingdom.
... Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
... He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
Baptism is also for the fulfillment of the law.
Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.
But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?
And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness,
which could not be fulfilled without baptism.
Baptism is for the forgiveness of sins which have been repented of.
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
"GO ON UNTO PERFECTION"
Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God.
Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgement.
And this will we do, if God permit.
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ,
to know whom is life eternal.
We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul-We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.
May the Lord help us to be orthodox in our thinking, in our teaching, and in our living, and be in the image and likeness of God in all things, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder S. Dilworth Young
S. Dilworth Young, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 103-108
As I look over this vast number of Latter-day Saints, I begin to understand and to have some comprehension of why it is that I do not know people when I go up the street during a conference. I have met so many of you during the past year, and have been so kindly entertained that I have made some effort, some struggle, to know you when I see you. It is almost a hopeless task. May I say thanks for your many kindnesses and express a hope that you will understand when I meet you on the street if I do not remember your name. If I look a little blank, I wish you would be like Earl J. Glade, who said that he never goes up to a man he has met without greeting him thus: "I know you. I met you at this place." So with me. If you will say: "I know you. This is where I saw you," then I think I can remember better.
I should like this evening to be articulate for some of the inarticulate; I should like to speak for the boys of twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three. I should like to speak to them also, if I may, and if the Lord will give me wisdom, because they need speaking to as well as speaking for.
AN INSPIRING SERMON
A good many years ago I read some things with a great uplift of spirit. I read in a book where a man by the name of Wilford Woodruff said that he was in a meeting once in which Parley P. Pratt was present. Brother Pratt said that he had ridden for a long distance to reach the meeting place. His subject was: "Will you join us in Zion's Camp and go and rescue the Saints in Missouri?" When he asked for the privilege of speaking, he stated that he would speak for only a few minutes, as he was very tired. He started at early candlelight, as they called it in those days, and he spoke until after midnight. Brother Woodruff sat through the long sermon, thrilled and inspired. He said, in about these words:
I was so thrilled that all the gold in the world could not have kept me from going with that company.
I thought to myself I would like to have been thrilled that way too.
CONVERSION OF WILFORD WOODRUFF AND LORENZO SNOW
And I read again where a man by the name of Lorenzo Snow was going to Oberlin College in Ohio. He wrote to his sister and said:
If there is nothing better than is to be found here in Oberlin College, good-bye to all religions.
He told her that there was nothing at all for him there, but later, when he heard the elders speak, and recognized in their testimony the words of salvation, he was thrilled, and he could not join the Church rapidly enough.
As a boy I looked at the pictures of Wilford Woodruff and Lorenzo Snow, gray-bearded men in their last years, and I thought to myself: "That would be easy for them. They knew the gospel is true. It would be really easy for them to accept it." When I learned later that Wilford Woodruff was only twenty-six years of age when the experience with Parley P. Pratt happened to him, and that Lorenzo Snow was only twenty-two, then I could begin to see some hope for the young men.
Those men made their decisions when they were as young as you boys are. They did not wait and have a testimony come to them gradually. They had been investigating the words of Christ in the Bible for some years, as very young men, and when the time came for them to hear it, they were willing to accept it. They prayed earnestly for a testimony, for the Holy Ghost, and it came to them. To Lorenzo Snow it came with such a rush and power that for several nights he said he could hear the whisperings and the rustlings, and he seemed bathed in fire. His mind was uplifted, and he understood the scriptures as he never had before.
SEEKING FOR A TESTIMONY
I like that, and I say to you young men you can have the same experience if you want it. All you have to do is to want it badly enough because you can't "see-saw" around with it; either it is so or it is not so. If you make up your minds it is so and ask the Lord to give you a testimony, if you ask in sincerity and truth, you will receive that testimony. Those men obeyed the prophet of God. You may obey the present-day prophet of God, and you may get the same thrill and happiness out of doing it. He needs courage to go on, the same as you do, and the men who have been sustained by this conference as prophets, seers, and revelators-sixteen in number-need it also. They have their discouraging moments, but the thing that gives them courage to go on is your faithfulness.
A TRIBUTE TO MARK AUSTIN
We have all respect for the aged. We young men know that they have been tried and not found wanting. They will stand and support the tabernacle as long as it shall need supporting.
I have learned one lesson in the past year, and I am going to pass it on to you: It has seemed to me, as President Smith moves about this Church, that there stand staunch men with their arms outstretched, holding the ropes of the tabernacle tight, so the winds cannot blow it away. All their lives they have shown by their works that they support the President and the Church. I have seen such a man, and I should like to point him out. I am going to be personal, and I hope the person about whom I am going to speak will forgive me if I embarrass him.
I have watched Brother Mark Austin go about in the welfare work. He is past eighty. For years and years he has been a bulwark to the brethren who preside over this Church. No matter what they told him to do, he did it. As I, a young man, have watched him, I have taken fresh courage that somehow I might measure up as faithfully as he has done and is doing. He does not let age interfere when Brother Romney assigns him to go on a mission over a week end to a conference. He is right there, no matter how far away it is, no matter how much discomfort he suffers. He is a true gentleman. He never interferes; he never gets in anybody's way; but he goes about quietly doing what he is assigned to do, for the glory of God and for the honor of the priesthood of the Church, in the name of the prophet of God.
We young men, and those of you who are twenty, twenty-one, and twenty-two, can learn to copy that kind of example. It does not come easy; it takes about sixty years to get there, but once arrived, you have a serenity of conscience and a happiness which cannot be equaled on earth.
These sixteen men that we sustain are honored. They are sustained as the prophets of the Living God. You men may also be honored just as much if you obey the words of the prophets of God. You see, a prophet cannot do very much prophesying without someone to whom he can direct his words, and he cannot ask for any help unless he has someone of whom to ask it. You are they. It is you who must hear the word and then go forth and obey it.
EARLY DAY MISSIONARIES SET AN EXAMPLE
We mention Brigham Young a good deal of the time, and we mention Heber C. Kimball, two men who were as close to each other as brothers. We often speak of Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, David W. Patten, the first great martyr, and others as examples of great men. But there are those among you who are also great.
Have you ever heard of Zera Pulsipher? Many of you have not; some of you may have. As I read in the History of the Church, I learn about many of the great ones who have risen and whose biographies have been written, but if one reads in the books carefully, he will see that a large proportion first heard the gospel through Zera Pulsipher, and, as likely as not, he was the one who baptized them. His name is mentioned repeatedly in the histories as a man who was out preaching the gospel. Do you know anything about him? Nobody does. It was not his job to become the president of the Church; it was not his prerogative to preside over any of the great councils of the Church, but as a young man, about twenty-two years of age, hearing the Prophet's voice, he obeyed and went out spreading the glad tidings to the children of men. Because he believed it, because he was sincere in it, the Lord blessed him, and he was the instrument by which many great ones came into the Church.
You have heard it said in this conference, and you will hear it, I suppose, a number of times that blessed is he, and how happy will be he who makes one convert in the kingdom of our Father. If I remember correctly, Heber C. Kimball and his companions converted about three thousand, the very first months they were in Preston, England. But do you know the names of the five young men who took the gospel to Brigham Young, and to Heber C. Kimball? One was named Eliot Strong. Another one was named Eleazer Miller. The other three were Alpheus Gifford, Enos Curtis, and Daniel Bowen. How much joy they will have in the kingdom of their Father with the great prophets of the Lord and the three thousand converts from Preston, and the many thousands more from England that these converts made in their turn. Such is the lot of every young man who faces me this evening, and every young man in the Church if he chooses to obey the call. He may have like pleasure in going forth, and if he never does become great in the Church as an organizer, he can become great in the Church by the people he converts to the gospel.
CALLING YOUNG MEN ON MISSIONS
Blessed is the boy, who, believing, goes out into the world at the call of the prophet and seeks out the honest of the earth. There is hardly a man in this room but whose parents or grandparents are the result of such work. I should like to make a plea to the young men, backing up what I heard at the last conference. President Smith made a blanket plea that the young men of the Church respond to missionary calls. A large number of those young men have been taught in the past by their parents and by their ward authorities that calls do not usually come by blanket request. I mean by that, that they believe that they ought to remain quietly at home and wait for the inspiration of the Lord to inspire the bishops to come over and call upon them. If I understand it correctly, I think that President Smith wants every young man to feel that he can go to his bishop, and volunteer, saying: "I am willing to go." I believe that is the way to interpret it. In any case any young man does not feel that way and thinks he ought to wait until the bishop comes, I think the bishop ought to go to every clean living, righteous young man in the ward who is home from war, no matter how long he has been home, and talk to him about it, counseling with him and his folks.
Every worthy young man in this Church has a right to be called upon a mission, every one. I think it is not the right of any man who has a presiding place in any ward or stake to neglect any boy for the reasons that we usually give and have given during this year. I have heard many say, in many places where I have been, "Well, our boys have been away for a long time; they ought to be home for a little while. Give them a rest. Let them have a few months at home before they are called out again." I say to you there won't be many boys left at home, no matter whether you call them or not. They are not going to stay home. They have left home forever. They will come back and visit at home, it is true, but they are going to school, or they are going to marry, or they are going to do any number of things. But they are not going to stay home. So that is no reason. If a boy is able to go on a mission, he ought to be given a chance. Let him turn it down if he wants to, but don't make his decision for him. Make certain that he does not want to go before you cease to call upon him.
Do you think there is no need? Do you think we can't use them? In the mission of which I was a member twenty-five years ago, a year after World War I, there were two hundred missionaries. That many had gone out to the mission field. In that same mission today, there are fewer than forty, one year after the end of this war. Many boys are responding, it is true, and some of our facilities are taxed right now to take care of them, but they are not responding fast enough, and they are not being asked fast enough. A great many of the boys are getting away without being invited to go on missions. They have it in their minds and hearts to go to school, and they should go to school. They can go to school, but I do believe there is not any school on earth but can wait two years while the Lord's word is sent over the earth. I don't know of any finer school for any boy than to go into the world seeking out the humble, defending his Church, learning how to get along with people, teaching the things of the kingdom of God to his heart and in other people's hearts. He will come back a stronger and a finer man. He can go on to his school then and get a great deal more out of it, knowing that he has done the will of the Lord and has acted as his servant on the earth at the request of the prophet of God.
THE DESIRE FOR MISSIONARY SERVICE
That is the lot of any young man who wants to do it. I don't care who he is. But I will give to you young men over this Church one sentence: You've got to want to do it. I repeat: You've got to want to do it. The Lord can put it into the hearts of the Presidency of the Church and of the Quorum of the Twelve to call you on missions if you will accept it, but you've got to want to accept it.
I have talked to any number of young men lately who want to accept the call. Wilford Woodruff wanted to accept. He wanted to join Zion's Camp; he was warned that he might die, that he would probably lose his life. He said: "I don't care. I want to go anyhow." Lorenzo Snow wanted to go on a mission. The moment he was baptized and confirmed and had the Aaronic Priesthood conferred upon him, he packed his grip and went on foot to the missionaries, you've got to want to go.
My young friends, if we get enough missionaries you've got to want to go, too. Not half-heartedly, no, not with the feeling that: "I'll go if I'm called; perhaps I'll enjoy it, perhaps I won't," but rather, "In the name of the Living God I'll take his word and with his power on my shoulders I'll go to the whole earth, wherever I am sent, and bear witness to the world that the gospel has been restored and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that President George Albert Smith is a prophet, and that this Church is the true kingdom of God." If you do that, you will never regret it as long as you live, and the Church will grow by leaps and bounds. Before you know it, it will fill the whole earth. God grant that may happen soon. I ask it in Christ's name. Amen.
Elder Alma Sonne
Alma Sonne, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 108-111
My brethren, no one can rise on an occasion like this without feeling a thrill of emotion. I was impressed yesterday when President Clark read the financial and statistical report of the Church. It was a calm recital of figures, but those figures told a story of growth and progress. I was deeply stirred a few minutes later when Elder Widtsoe reminded us that just one hundred years ago the Latter-day Saints were leaving the beautiful city of Nauvoo. They were then scattered along the fringe of the great desert that extended westward to the slopes of California. By what combination of circumstances could these men and women hope to survive? It required a great faith and certainly a great courage to undertake the great task that lay ahead.
Accomplishments of Church During Last Century
During that century of time, the Church has asserted itself and carried forward the truth brought to earth by Joseph Smith the Prophet. Since that day the foundation of a great intermountain empire has been laid. Cities, towns, churches, temples, public buildings have been built. Deserts have been subdued; schools colleges, seminaries have been established. Missions have been opened in foreign lands and on the islands of the sea. Branches, wards, stakes have been organized, and missionary work at home and abroad has gone forward. The gospel has been explained, and the name of Joseph Smith the Prophet as a restorer of divine truth has been heralded to all the world. Surely a good beginning has been made in the "marvelous work and wonder" spoken of by ancient prophets, and surely the leaders of the past have made their names secure on the pages of history. These leaders, all of them, referred to by President S. Dilworth Young, were great in character and in good works. They were great in their foresight and in their achievement. They were great in their perseverance and mighty in their faith. "Mormonism," so-called, was not the outgrowth of fraud and deception. The Latter-day Saints have not been led astray by a wicked pretender or an unscrupulous imposter. We think of these things whenever the name and character of Joseph Smith are being assailed. It was Charles Francis Potter who said:
If we are to accept the dictum of Jesus, "By their fruits ye shall know them", we must rate Mormonism high.
Faith in God Sustained Pioneers
Reference has been made to the pioneers. How can we account for the constructive faith of the sturdy, dauntless, courageous pioneers of Utah and neighboring states and for the unconquerable spirit which possessed them? What motives, what urges actuated them as they left their homes in the East and moved westward over the trackless waste? These men and women in the solitudes of the desert had time to think and pray and to ponder and weigh carefully their responsibilities. What power sustained them in their hardships and in their difficulties? What prompted each one of them to cast his lot with a persecuted and driven people? Was it not his faith in God and his conviction that a new dispensation of the gospel had been committed to man through the divine calling of Joseph Smith? History will one day deal fairly and intelligently with these questions. The unprejudiced student, the searcher after truth will see in Mormonism the counterpart of primitive Christianity. His investigations will discover in it the same spirit, the same energies and fortitudes, the same type of leadership and the same far-reaching objectives. He will see in Joseph Smith the characteristics of a true prophet of God like the prophets whose names and deeds glorify the pages of Biblical history. He will find that Joseph Smith is not easily dislodged from his position as a prophet of God. The Prophet's claims will never be nullified by the declarations of traitors and blasphemers.
I read from the Doctrine and Covenants:
The ends of the earth shall inquire after thy name, and fools shall have thee in derision, and hell shall rage against thee;
While the pure in heart, and the wise, and the noble, and the virtuous, shall seek counsel, and authority, and blessings constantly from under thy hand.
And thy people shall never be turned against thee by the testimony of traitors.
A Good Tree Bears Good Fruit
Those words were reassuring to the Prophet when they were given. They are reassuring to us today. There is no way to account for Joseph Smith outside of his own explanation. Someone has said: "Truth is harmonious." It is consistent with itself today and always. Jesus said:
... Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Wicked and degraded men do not bring light and hope and joy to their fellow men. A mind darkened by evil could not attract God-fearing men and women of faith, integrity, and intelligence whose lives have reflected good work and worthy achievements. Would a church founded on fraud and falsehood go forth with eagerness and determination to uplift humanity? Would such a church array itself against evil in all of its manifestations? Would it teach faith in God and repentance of sin as preliminaries to church membership? Would it adopt doctrines and ordinances and standards established by Jesus Christ and his apostles If so, for what purpose? We are told that evil begets evil, and good begets good.
Joseph Smith's Work to Stand Forever
Finally, let it be remembered that Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith, brothers and companions in the cause of truth, gave their lives as a testimony of their sincerity. Not only they, but others left a similar testimony, sealed and certified, and therefore binding upon the world. While he lived, Joseph Smith baffled his fellow men by his teachings, which were so profoundly creative. The keenest minds were perplexed and puzzled before his demonstration of power and leadership. But the fury of so many against him is proof even today that he is not dead in the hearts of men; that he is well-fortified and will continue to stand out boldly and clearly in the religious world. He will loom bigger and bigger on the human horizon as the years come and go. The correctness of his views and the soundness of his principles and doctrines will be vindicated fully and completely. He cannot be removed or explained away by slander or vilification. He presented a plan which provides for the exaltation of the individual, the perpetuity and the coherence of the family, and the safety and security of the nation. He put divine approval upon the establishment of our republic and proclaimed freedom and equal rights as essential factors in man's progress and advancement. He declared that America was a land of promise, held in reserve by the Almighty for the fulfilment and the accomplishments of God's purposes. No one has sounded a higher note of patriotism than did Joseph Smith. In his veins flowed the blood of the Revolutionary Fathers, and to him the Constitution was an inspired instrument of government.
Joseph Smith gave to the world a foundation for intelligent faith, and he has also given to honest, sincere doubters a kindly light to lead them forward and upward to a higher goal and a more satisfying life. His testimony to the world still stands. God bless his memory. May his words and teachings be preserved to bless the human family forever, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 111-117
When, on one occasion, the Prophet Joseph Smith was asked the meaning of the strength of Zion, he replied:
The strength of Zion is to put on the power of the priesthood.
You, brethren, radiate that strength tonight. No one can be in your presence as the priesthood of the Church filling this building, and representing thousands of others, without feeling heartfelt gratitude for the privilege of being numbered with you. God bless you!
THE SACRAMENT
I desire, tonight, to say a few words regarding the administering of the sacrament. In so doing it is not my purpose to repeat the excellent sermon delivered yesterday by Elder Marion G. Romney on that same subject, but if I may be blessed with the spirit of this gathering and the inspiration of the Lord, I desire to supplement that timely address.
The greatest comfort in this life is the assurance of having close relationship with God. I am speaking to men who know what that experience is. The sacrament period should be a factor in awakening this sense of relationship.
... the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.
Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.
No more sacred ordinance is administered in the Church of Christ than the administration of the sacrament. It was initiated just after Jesus and the Twelve had partaken of the last supper; and the Saints in the early days followed that custom. That is, they ate before they administered the sacrament, but that custom was later discontinued by instructions from Paul to the Saints to eat their meal at home so that when they met for worship they might meet as a body of brethren and sisters on the same level to partake of the sacrament in remembrance of the life and the death, particularly the death of their Lord.
THE PURPOSE OF THE SACRAMENT
There are three things fundamentally important associated with the administration of the sacrament. The first is self-discernment. It is introspection. "This do in remembrance of me", but we should partake worthily, each one examining himself with respect to his worthiness.
Secondly, there is a covenant made; a covenant even more than a promise. You have held up your hand, some of you, or if in England when signing a document, put your hand on the Bible, signifying the value of your promise or of the oath that you took. All this indicates the sacredness of a covenant. There is nothing more important in life than that. Until the nations realize the value of a covenant and promises and conduct themselves accordingly, there will be little trust among them. Instead there will be suspicion, doubt, and signed agreements, "scraps of paper," because they do not value their word. A covenant, a promise, should be as sacred as life. That principle is involved every Sunday when we partake of the sacrament.
Thirdly, there is another blessing, and that is a sense of close relationship with the Lord. There is an opportunity to commune with oneself and to commune with the Lord. We meet in the house that is dedicated to him; we have turned it over to him; we call it his house. Well, you may rest assured that he will be there to inspire us if we come in proper attune to meet him. We are not prepared to meet him if we bring into that room our thoughts regarding our business affairs, and especially if we bring into the house of worship feelings of hatred toward our neighbor, or enmity and jealousy towards the Authorities of the Church. Most certainly no individual can hope to come into communion with the Father if that individual entertain any such feelings. They are so foreign to worship, and so foreign, particularly, to the partaking of the sacrament.
THE VALUE OF MEDITATION
I think we pay too little attention to the value of meditation, a principle of devotion. In our worship there are two elements: One is spiritual communion arising from our own meditation; the other, instruction from others, particularly from those who have authority to guide and instruct us. Of the two, the more profitable introspectively is the meditation. Meditation is the language of the soul. It is defined as "a form of private devotion, or spiritual exercise, consisting in deep, continued reflection on some religious theme." Meditation is a form of prayer. We can say prayers without having any spiritual response. We can say prayers as the unrighteous king in Hamlet who said: "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go."
The poet, contrasting the outward form of worship, and the prayer of the soul, said:
The Power incensed, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; But haply, in some cottage far apart, May hear, well-pleased, the language of the soul, And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.
Meditation is one of the most secret, most sacred doors through which we pass into the presence of the Lord. Jesus set the example for us. As soon as he was baptized and received the Father's approval, "This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased", Jesus repaired to what is now known as the mount of temptation. I like to think of it as the mount of meditation where, during the forty days of fasting, he communed with himself and his Father, and contemplated upon the responsibility of his great mission. One result of this spiritual communion was such strength as enabled him to say to the tempter:
Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Before he gave to the Twelve the beautiful sermon on the mount, he was in solitude, in communion. He did the same thing after that busy Sabbath day, when he arose early in the morning, after having been the guest of Peter. Peter undoubtedly found the guest chamber empty, and when they sought him they found him alone. It was on that morning that Peter said:
... All men seek for thee.
Again, after Jesus had fed the five thousand he told the Twelve to dismiss the multitude, but Jesus went to the mountain for solitude. The historian says, "when the evening was come, he was there alone". Meditation! Prayer!
I once read a book written by a very wise man, whose name I cannot now recall, which contained a significant chapter on prayer. The author was not a member of the Church, but evidently had a desire to keep in close communion with God, and he wanted to find the truth. Among other things he said in substance:
In secret prayer go into the room, close the door, pull down the shades, and kneel in the center of the room. For a period of five minutes or so, say nothing. Just think of what God has done for you, of what are your greatest spiritual and temporal needs. When you sense that, and sense his presence, then pour out your soul to him in thanksgiving.
SACRAMENT PERIOD FOR COMMUNION WITH GOD
I believe the short period of administering the sacrament is one of the best opportunities we have for such meditation, and there should be nothing during that sacred period to distract our attention from the purpose of that ordinance.
One of the most impressive services I have ever attended was in a group of over eight hundred people to whom the sacrament was administered, and during that administration not a sound could be heard excepting the ticking of the clock-eight hundred souls, each of whom at least had the opportunity of communion with the Lord. There was no distraction, no orchestra, no singing, no speaking. Each one had an opportunity to search himself introspectively and to consider his worthiness or unworthiness to partake of the sacrament. His was the privilege of getting closer to his Father in heaven. That is ideal!
Brethren, we recommend that we surround this sacred ordinance with more reverence, with perfect order, that each one who comes to the house of God may meditate upon his goodness and silently and prayerfully express appreciation for God's goodness. Let the sacrament hour be one experience of the day in which the worshiper tries at least to realize within himself that it is possible for him to commune with his God.
Great events have happened in this Church because of such communion, because of the responsiveness of the soul to the inspiration of the Almighty. I know it is real. President Wilford Woodruff had that gift to a great extent. He could respond; he knew the "still small voice" to which some are still strangers. You will find that when these most inspirational moments come to you that you are alone with yourself and your God. They come to you probably when you are facing a great trial, when the wall is across your pathway, and it seems that you are facing an insurmountable obstacle, or when your heart is heavy because of some tragedy in your life. I repeat, the greatest comfort that can come to us in this life is to sense the realization of communion with God.
FATHER'S TESTIMONY
Great testimonies have come in those moments. It is just such an experience as that which came to my father in the north of Scotland when, as I have told some of you before, he prayed to God to remove from him a spirit of gloom and despondency that overwhelmed him. After a night of worry and restlessness, he arose at daylight and repaired to a cave on the shore of the North Sea. He had been there before in prayer. There, just as the rays of the morning light began to come over the sea, he poured out his soul to God as a son would appeal to his father. The answer came: "Testify that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God!" The cause of his discouragement flashing upon his mind, he said aloud: "Lord, it is enough!"
There are those in this audience who knew my father and can testify to his integrity and his honesty. A testimony of that kind has one hundred percent value.
These secret prayers, these conscientious moments in meditation, these yearnings of the soul to reach out to feel the presence of God such is the privilege of those who hold the Melchizedek Priesthood.
ELIMINATION OF DISTRACTING THOUGHTS
Now I know that some of you are saying to yourselves, "music helps to intensify that feeling of communion." When you stop to consider the matter, you realize that there is nothing during the administration of the sacrament of an extraneous nature so important as remembering our Lord and Savior, nothing so worthy of attention as considering the value of the promise we are making. Why should anything distract us? Is there anything more sublime? We are witnessing there, in the presence of one another, and before him, our Father, that we are willing to take upon ourselves the name of Christ, that we will always remember him, always, that we will keep his commandments that he has given us. Can you, can anybody living, who thinks for a moment, place before us anything which is more sacred or more far-reaching in our lives? If we partake of it mechanically, we are not honest, or let us say, we are permitting our thoughts to be distracted from a very sacred ordinance.
I was speaking recently to one man about this. He said: "Oh, but the beautiful music of the choir helps us to concentrate." Concentrate on what? The more beautiful the music, the more your attention is attracted to it, to the player, or to the composer. If it is beautiful music poorly played, then the discord detracts your attention. Have that music in preparation up to the moment, yes, but when the prayer is said, and that young priest speaks for us, as he does, then remember that we are placing ourselves under covenant. It will be ideal if, during the fifteen minutes, every man, woman, and child will think as best as he or she can of the significance of that sacred ordinance.
There is one other point which might be associated with the passing of the sacrament. It is a beautiful, impressive things to have our boys administer it. They are the servants; they are waiting upon us and waiting upon the Lord; and have come there because they are worthy to officiate if the bishop has spoken to them properly.
... be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.
If every boy could sense this, quietly and with dignity he would pass the sacrament to us. Sometimes they pass it first to the organist, as if no moment should be lost before she starts to distract our attention. The music starts at once. No matter how good it may be, the tones of the organ, if we are respectful to the organist, divert our attention from the prayer that has just been offered.
PRESIDING OFFICERS TO RECEIVE SACRAMENT FIRST
Rather should that young man carry the sacrament to the presiding officer, not to honor him, but the office, as you honored our President tonight. That presiding officer may be the bishop of the ward; if so, let the young man carry the sacrament first to the bishop. After that pass it to one after the other who sit either on the left or the right of the presiding officer; not going back to the first and second counselors and then to the superintendent. The lesson is taught when the sacrament is passed to the presiding officer. The next Sunday, the president of the stake may be there, who is then the highest ecclesiastical authority. Do you see what the responsibility of the deacons and the priests is? There is a lesson in government taught every day. It is their duty to know who is the presiding officer in that meeting that day. Next Sunday there may be one of the General Authorities. Those young men will have in mind the question, "Who is he today, and who is the presiding authority?"
COMPANIONSHIP OF HOLY SPIRIT
But the lesson I wish to leave tonight is: Let us make that sacrament hour one of the most impressive means of coming in contact with God's spirit. Let the Holy Ghost, to which we are entitled, lead us into his presence, and may we sense that nearness, and have a prayer offered in our hearts which he will hear.
My thought is partially expressed by Edwin Markham in the following lines:
The builder who first bridged Niagara's gorge, Before he swung his cable, shore to shore, Sent out across the gulf his venturing kite Bearing a slender cord for unseen hands To grasp upon the further cliff and draw A greater cord, and then a greater yet; Till at last across the chasm swung The cable-then the mighty bridge in air!
So may we send our little timid thought Across the void, out to God's reaching hands- Send our love and faith to thread the deep- Thought after thought until the little cord Has greatened to a chain no chance can break, And we are anchored to the infinite!
God help us, brethren, so to live that we may sense the reality, as I bear you my testimony tonight it is real, that we can commune with our Father in heaven, and if we so live to be worthy of the companionship of the Holy Spirit, he will guide us into all truth; he will show us things to come; he will bring all things to our remembrance; he will testify of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, as I do tonight, and of the restoration of the gospel, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 117-122
Brethren, I renew to you a sentiment that I think I have expressed every time I have met this great group of priesthood, since I have had the opportunity to address you. It is a great joy to be with you, to feel your spirit and to enjoy the inspiration which comes from your presence. I renew again the thought that I have so often expressed that if we could bring real unity, the unity of one man, into the priesthood of this Church, we would wield an influence that would affect the course of world affairs. We cannot do it and will not do it until we are so united. It is my belief that it is our opportunity, not only, but also our duty and responsibility to come, as the old expression went, "to a unity of the faith". I cannot believe that the Lord will hold us guiltless if we do not do this. It is the obligation of those who bear the Holy Priesthood of God.
NEGLIGIBLE PERCENTAGE OF FINANCIAL MISHAPS
Yesterday, in an aside comment I made, as I was reading the financial report, I did you brethren an injustice. I think that I said that our financial mishaps in carrying on all this tremendous expenditure and collection of funds would not exceed one tenth of one percent. In the last ten years there has been just a little over in mishap, eight ten-thousandths of one percent, and out of all those who handle these great funds there is not one man who is under bond. I dislike to boast about ourselves, but I think we may challenge the world on that record. I am grateful to you brethren for your integrity, your honesty, and your truthfulness which represents a long step toward the unit to which I have already referred.
SCRIPTURES REFERRING TO ONE TRUE GOSPEL
I thought tonight that I might read a little scripture to you and then refer to a matter to which I have referred before and which is very near to my heart. I am reading from Second Nephi, 26th chapter and 20th verse:
And the Gentiles are lifted up in the pride of their eyes, and have stumbled, because of the greatness of their stumbling block, that they have built up many churches; nevertheless, they put down the power and miracles of God, and preach up unto themselves their own wisdom and their own learning, that they may get gain and grind upon the face of the poor.
Paul, writing to the Galatians, said in verses oft quoted by us:
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
I will now read from Second John:
For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.
Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed.
For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians in his First Epistle, he used these words:
For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified....
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Then going on to the eleventh verse, to which I briefly referred this morning:
For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God.
Now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
Those scriptures are clear; they need, from me, no explanation.
DESTRUCTIVE DOCTRINES BEING TAUGHT
I have said on other occasions, and I repeat now that there are being taught amongst us, unfortunately, doctrines which are utterly destructive, not only of Jesus the Christ, but even of God himself, and we must be on our watch that neither we nor our children be influenced, debauched, or polluted by such doctrines.
Recently a man of education, a worthy member of the Church, sent to me a statement of some of the teachings that now are somewhat mooted amongst some of our Latter-day Saints-a few only, I trust. I am going to read this statement to you and make some comment upon the points as I proceed. There are some ten points.
I wish to say to you as earnestly as I may, that, as you will see when I have read them, if they shall attain credence amongst us, particularly amongst our young people, they will destroy our faith.
The first of these statements reads:
"1. God is not an anthropomorphic being,"-
that is, he does not have hands, or eyes, or feet, or ears, or a voice-
"and not a personal God, nor a Living God."
I remember when Dr. Talmage used to say something not dissimilar from what I shall say, but he made an actual quote, as I recollect which I can only summarize after these many years. It went about this way:
"Thrust God out of the back door, and he comes in at the front door as the First Great Cause. Thrust the First Great Cause out of the back door, and God enters the front door as a Great Force. Push him out as a Great Force, and he comes back in as a Great Intelligence."
No sane man who can think at all can deny in his heart the existence of God, the God of the Bible, and of the New Testament,
and of modern revelation. The next point:
"2. Man is a creature of the Universe and draws intelligence and ideas from the Universe by being in harmony with it."
This statement is not only indefinite, but meaningless. It does, however, seem to postulate a Universe Intelligence, and thus we are back to our great concept of God.
"3. There is no such thing as supernatural experience among men at any time in history. No revelation directly from God."
This denies all scripture. It denies all divine manifestations to man. It denies his goodness and his mercy and his love. It gives the lie to the commonest experience of man, recognized from the savage to the most highly civilized man; indeed, it gives the lie practically to our very existence.
"4. Jesus Christ was a revolutionary leader-but not divine."
This, of course, denies the divinity of Jesus. It falls squarely within the observation of John who declared, as I have already read:
For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an anti-christ.
"5. Joseph Smith did not see God nor really experience any supernatural phenomena. He wrote the Book of Mormon without divine assistance. He also gave revelations to suit his purpose and the situation without divine assistance."
No man can honestly read the Book of Mormon and then say that this boy Prophet wrote it himself, and the most persistent search has failed to reveal that he stole the book. There is too much in the book to have been written by a boy whom his hostile critics brand as an ignoramus. And it should be said here, he had no opportunity for consulting either the little-known sources, which hostile critics have disinterred in trying to destroy him, or the more widely-known sources of which he probably had no knowledge whatever because they were inaccessible to him. No man of his age could have had in his mind, no matter how much he had studied, merely the allusions contained in the Book of Mormon to the holy scriptures, and all that we have of his that came from him when speaking or writing normally, gives not even a suggestion of his power to compose or to utter those great gems of majestic literature which are so plentifully found in the Book of Mormon and the D&C.;
"6. The value of Mormonism is in its practice and in its system. Its origin need not be basic to one's belief in or acceptance of Mormonism for its value."
Many of us have heard this heresy before. No shallower view of Mormonism can be taken than is thus expressed. The achievements of our people, the growth of the Church, the people's endurance of hardship, misery, penury, persecution, and even martyrdom itself, would have been wholly impossible without the spirituality which lay behind and vitalized their whole lives. This people of ours had the Spirit of God to direct them. Take away from us that Spirit, take away the divinity which lies behind the gospel, and there is nothing left. Had our work not been divinely fathered, we Would not have outlived our first ten years of life.
"7. The three-degrees-of-glory story is a myth."
That is, Paul was mistaken, the Prophet Joseph was mistaken, all who have thought and taught that glory might come to those who live righteously and die with a testimony, some of them as martyrs, were all mistaken and all they believed in was a myth. Such a concept destroys the teachings of the restored gospel. The words of Paul and the words of the Prophet Joseph were divinely inspired and are the eternal truth.
Here is another mean thrust:
"8. Temple work may occupy old people in pleasant pastime but it is absurd and foolish in its objectives."
Thus these antichrists would not only abandon the living but discard the dead, their ancestors and loved ones; nothing would be saved, indeed salvation would for no one be a reality. Every instinct of justice and mercy, every really rational concept of man and his being cries out against any concept such as this. Temple work is part of the restored gospel.
"9. The belief that man might become as God is equally foolish."
This doctrine would, of course, wipe out the great truth of eternal progression. It would thus cut off from man even the hope of advancement hereafter; it violates every concept of the future brought to us by the restored gospel.
"10. Practically every theological idea advanced by Joseph Smith can be found in some ancient religion or in some current beliefs contemporary with his time."
There is truth in the conception that the restored gospel does contain among its truths beliefs held by ancient religions and by modern ones. However, the Prophet Joseph never had the opportunity, never had the books, never had the time to search out from these sources all these various truths from the paganism and the Christianity of the past. It was not humanly possible for him to do so at his age and with the meager facilities at his command. But we know how it came to be that these partial truths were found in pagan teachings of pre-Christian eras: the gospel was on the earth from the time of Adam, and from then on down, there appeared here and there in the world, among this people and that, recollections of the doctrines and principles of the gospel as they were taught to Adam. Some of the truths of the gospel have always been on the earth.
ADMONITION TO TEACH THE TRUTH
Brethren, this whole brood of false propaganda is an insidious approach and attempt to destroy the gospel plan and to overturn the Church. We must be on the lookout for it. We must fight against it wherever we find it. Hunt out those who preach it, seek to win them to a knowledge of the truth, seek to bring them really into the Church, because as they now stand and as they teach and believe they have no place among our membership; pretending membership they are worse than wolves in sheep's clothing; they are as it were, Satan trying to appear as an angel of light.
Let us care for our youth. Let us not be parties in any way to the paganism, the atheism that is abroad in the world and that is expressed in these statements that I have read, for they will destroy our civilization if they shall come to be the belief of the people and to direct their lives.
God give us the power and the strength to combat these evils, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 123-126
I am sure, my brethren, this has been a joyous experience to all of us, to be here in the house of the Lord and rejoice in his blessings. I want to emphasize what President Clark has said to the effect that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, that it is the power of God unto salvation, that Jesus Christ was our Elder Brother and lived upon the earth and died that we might live again, that he brought about the resurrection and has appeared to the children of men since that time. I marvel how some of our people can lose their faith and go off on a sidetrack when the evidences are as great as they are as to the truth of the gospel.
DIVINITY OF THE CHURCH
Among the strongest evidences of the divinity of the work in which we are engaged, and of the mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith are the facts that the Church exists today, more powerful than it ever was, and that the predictions that were made by Joseph Smith as a prophet have been fulfilled and are still in course of fulfilment. There are no people in the world anywhere, who enjoy the blessings that we enjoy, physically and spiritually. The majority of people do not know God; they do not understand the purpose of life. They have been sidetracked by some of the men whose philosophies have taken the place of the truth. That is the reason that the world is in the condition that it is.
THE VALUE OF A TESTIMONY
I am grateful to be here. To look into your faces is a testimony to me of the divinity of this work. Go where you will, you will find no other group assembled, each of whom has faith in God; and if we were to ask all of you how many have a testimony, not a belief because somebody else has said so, but how many of you have an assurance that this is God's work, that Jesus is the Christ, that we are living eternal lives, that Joseph Smith as a prophet of the Living God, you would answer that you have this testimony that buoys you up and strengthens you and gives you satisfaction as you go forward in the world. And just to test my belief in regard to that, all of you who have this testimony, raise your right hands. Thank you. It is evident by this show of hands that most of you who are here tonight, have received a testimony and know that the truth is upon the earth. Of course the adversary will try to blind the human family. He will try to lead them into by-and forbidden paths; that is his business. However, if we will live the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, if we will observe the advice and counsel of the prophets of God, if we will carry out the program that the Lord has given to the Church with which we are identified, we will lead all the world in knowledge and intelligence and in power, because we may have all that the world has, plus the inspiration of the Almighty.
I know that it will not be very long before my work will be finished, in the natural course of events. I have had many experiences and have traveled in the world and mingled with many wonderful men and women, and I would like to say that I learned when I was a boy that this is the work of the Lord. I learned that there were prophets living upon the earth. I learned that the inspiration of the Almighty would influence those who lived to enjoy it, so we are not dependent upon one or two or a half dozen individuals. There are thousands of members of this Church who know-it is not a question of imagination at all-they know that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ and that we are the children of God. He is the Father of our spirits. We have not come from some lower form of life, but God is the Father of our spirits, and we belong to the royal family, because he is our Father.
ARISTOCRACY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
We talk about the philosophies of men and hold them up sometimes as a pretty picture, but when they conflict with the teachings of our Heavenly Father as contained in Holy Writ, they are valueless. They will never lead anybody into eternal happiness, nor help him to find a place in the kingdom of our Heavenly Father. We cannot retain that testimony unless we keep the commandments of God. A knowledge of truth will not remain with us unless we live as our Heavenly Father desires and advises us to live.
We sometimes hear people speak of the aristocracies of the world, the royal families of the world. I want to say, the only true aristocracy in the world is the aristocracy of righteousness, and the only families that will persist are those who keep the commandments of our Heavenly Father.
OUR MISSIONARY OBLIGATIONS
So tonight, let me say, brethren, our missionary field is before us. Our Father's sons and daughters need us. We are grateful for the responses being made to the call that has gone out for missionaries. Some are anxious to go, but because they are not physically able or other conditions are unfavorable we cannot accept their offer. There are in this Church thousands of men and women who are capable of teaching the gospel and who can become more capable by doing their duty in the mission field. They will be blessed with means, sufficient to take them to perform the work that the Lord wants us to perform. I would like to say to the men who would retain their means in preference to laying up treasures in heaven, their wealth will decay in their hands, and their opportunity to gain eternal life in the celestial kingdom will pass them by.
PREPARATION FOR THE CELESTIAL KINGDOM
This is the Lord's work. It is his Church. It is his way of preparing us for eternal happiness in the celestial kingdom, and surely not any of those who have seen the result of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the world will question its divinity. Judge the tree by its fruits, and you will find no other tree in the whole world that compares with the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no other plan in all the world that leads to the celestial kingdom of our Heavenly Father; knowing that, surely we will not be misled by the philosophies and the sophistries of men who pretend to know that which they do not know.
In conclusion, let me say, I am grateful to be here. I want to thank you for your kindness to me, one of the weakest of all our Father's sons. I know my limitations. I don't stand here with the idea that I am more than an ordinary individual, but I thank you for your faith and your prayers for me and for my associates and the brethren who lead this Church. I thank you for the manner in which you stand for that which is righteous and put aside that which is not righteous. I hope that in the near future when another opportunity will be given to the people of this state to manifest their desire to observe the Word of Wisdom and keep the commandments of God, that this group of men here will not be afraid to stand for what our Heavenly Father has advised us to do, regardless of what the habits of the world may be.
DISOBEDIENCE DESTROYS FAITH
I would like to say that the loss of faith in this Church, in many cases, is traceable directly to a violation of the Sabbath day, failure to observe the Word of Wisdom, the advice of our Heavenly Father, failure to attend to our prayers and to thank him for the blessings we enjoy, refusal to give of our substance to those who are less fortunate than ourselves. All these things that are intended to uplift us, if we observe the teachings of our Heavenly Father, become a pitfall for us if we fail to keep his commandments.
God does live; Jesus is the Christ; Joseph Smith is a prophet of the Living God; and the authority of the priesthood is with this Church today and will continue to administer to those who are willing to be ministered unto under the inspiration of our Heavenly Father. I bear you this testimony tonight, knowing the seriousness, if it were not true, of saying it, and I bear it in love and kindness and gratitude to God, and say that I know these things are true, and I bear you that witness in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Elder John A. Widtsoe
John A. Widtsoe, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 127-131
A new age began when the atomic bomb was dropped upon the deserts of New Mexico. Thenceforth, man could set free the forces which, under the creative power of God, become our material world. For the first time the solid earth could be made "to fail beneath our feet." An apparently impossible dream had come true.
A POWER THAT BEWILDERS
This occurred in the midst of the madness of murder we call World War II. The hearts of men were already bleeding from the wounds of long years of warfare. Now, the new power seemed as an added unspeakable horror that promised a new type of destruction so awful that the hearts of men failed them. The rising ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki appeared as burnt offerings to the incarnation of the world's evil.
Before the possible consequences of this power, we stand bewildered. We imagine our cities, homes, and loved ones, laid low by an irresistible, merciless force. A helpless, hopeless gloom clouds the future. A fear never known before stalks the footsteps of thinking people. True, there is no danger of the whole world exploding into nothingness. So far only uranium 235 can be dissolved into imponderable forces, but the energy that may be released from the limited quantities available, is sufficient, if so directed, to destroy all mankind. In future wars, it is reasoned, since the secret of the atomic bomb will soon be common knowledge, the importance of armies and armaments will fade away. In all disputes, he will be victorious who reaches the enemy first. In view of the history of mankind, filled with contention and bloodshed, can such power be safely entrusted to the world of men? That is the lingering question that disturbs us today.
FEARS ROOT IN DISTRUST OF MAN
Such a question and such fears root in a distrust of man. We are really afraid of ourselves. We have lost faith in humanity and look with suspicion upon every human act. We forget that man was made in the image of God-not merely in bodily form, but in his very nature. The sparks of divinity lie within every human soul, waiting to be kindled into flame. Remember the words of the Lord God, "... Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil". And, in the depths of all of us, we prefer to live under the will and loving kindness of God. Could we recover faith in ourselves, the terror of the atomic bomb would vanish.
We have also been inclined to forget God or to give him lip service. Too many of us accept him as a mysterious force or figure, distant from us, who demands appeasement one day a week, in competition with our golf and baseball. We do not believe him to be concerned with our daily needs or the constant issues of our lives. If that be faith, it is spindly, bloodless, useless.
Yet there is nothing more certain than that God in heaven watches over his children on earth; and is concerned with our every act. He permits events to happen, but there are limits beyond which mankind in all its folly may not go. God remains the governor of the universe. His work on earth is not yet finished, and he will not allow his children, here, to perish, despite any discovery or invention of man. Full faith in God banishes all fear.
THE NEED FOR RE-ESTABLISHING FAITH
Our problem then, mine and yours, is how, under the atomic bomb to re-establish faith in God and man; and how to re-educate, regenerate, if you prefer, the will of man, so that the fierce power of the shattered atomic nucleus may be used only in the constructive service of mankind.
We should really be glad that the atomic bomb has come; that we know how to loosen the energies of the universe, to compete with the lightnings of the sky. It should be as a challenge to us. If a new danger has come, then we must gird ourselves with the corresponding strength to meet it, and to compel it to serve us. Really, the coming of the atomic bomb merely calls with increased emphasis for a revision of human ideals, action, and faith.
Re-education or regeneration for faith, may not be easy. To turn a race of men from evil to good, from error to truth, from hate to love, means a battle with many an opposing force. The battle will often be against false but well-established, moss-covered traditions, hiding or obscuring eternal truth; and as often against unsound appetites of body or mind, catering to momentary pleasures, or temporary satisfactions, but leading away from spiritual realities.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE HOME
The work of world regeneration for faith must begin in the home. Every man lives out in spirit and in deed the teachings of his childhood. In the home, faith is born and made alive, or unbelief is sown. As the homes of a nation are, so the generations of men therein will be. For good or for evil, there is no efficient substitute for the home. Life and the safety of life in the age of atomic energy will depend upon the full acceptance by the home of its responsibilities and obligations. That homes may do so is the clamoring demand of a world starving for peace and the enjoyment of the earth's bounties.
Sadly, it must be admitted that in these restless times, the home has fallen upon evil days. Its purpose is too often forgotten. Parents look more and more to other instrumentalities to perform their natural duties. The family circle has shrunk, by limitation of children and the multiplicity of assumed activities, until it seems incapable of its natural functions. Especially under the threat of the atomic bomb, the careless assumption of home obligations becomes perilous.
Here we must face about. In the home must be taught the most important things of life; faith in God, faith in self, and our proper conduct toward others. There must be a daily outreaching to God. That will engender a trust in him and a desire to love him. By daily family prayer, every member upon his knees, there will be established the habit of communing with the powers of the unseen world, to which atomic energy and all other powers are subservient. To be in touch with the author of all things will do more than all the governments of earth to change the hearts of men from evil to good, and to protect weak humanity. He who thinks of God, and appeals to him daily, has no room for thoughts of destruction.
But one cannot love God without loving the children of God, and trusting them. Let a home make it a practice to speak well of others, and to seek out their virtues. Soon, such a family will discover the virtues, and speak well, of other nations. Inevitably, were this done everywhere, the sun of goodwill would warm the hearts of men; and peace would cover the earth. By such people, and perhaps only by such methods, will the atomic bomb be tamed to useful ends.
SCHOOLS TO TRAIN YOUTH FOR LARGER LIFE
The school, likewise, a close ally of the home, must turn its face toward the greater light. It must courageously train our children for the larger life. During the long years of childhood and youth, our children have been taught every kind of knowledge, from atoms to star clusters, from amoebas to monkeys. But their proper conduct among their fellows and before God is mentioned, if at all, casually, in occasional assemblies. Geography and arithmetic have been raised to the warmth and dignity of required disciplines of the mind, but ethics, not to speak of religion, which determine human behavior, and which always act as restraints upon evil, stand, unwelcomed, shivering before the closed schoolroom door. Such a dangerous taboo was not intended when it was agreed that, in our land, sectarian religion should not be taught in public schools. By the present method, our schools are sending out generations of men of little faith, who are unmindful of their eternal obligations.
The home and the school together could soon eliminate fear from the hearts of men, and in the face of any new power man could discover, establish the day of peace on earth.
THE CHURCH SHARES RESPONSIBILITY
The church also carries blame. It could have given us more courage to meet times like these by teaching the true dignity of the human being as a very son of God, with a divine destiny. Pride of ancestry has saved many a soul from wandering away into forbidden paths.
What is our true relationship to God? We are told, somewhat glibly, that we are the children of God, of his image and of his nature. Divinity lies within every one of us. Then, says modern man, looking into his own soul for eternal answers, we must be more than figures molded from clay; we must be of God's very substance. Our history must go back into times not understandable to the human mind, into the region of pre-existence. Our bodies may be of the dust, but the essence of us is of God. That conception explains man's divine nature. That changes the whole outlook upon life. As very sons and daughters of God, we feel new nearness to God, a new responsibility for our actions. Our works must be of godlike character, else we are untrue to our divine origin. Then, looking upon the atomic bomb, with clear eyes, we know what to do-it must be used as God would use it, for we are his very children.
We may also have failed to give to striving man, wrestling with the deep questions of the soul, a clear comprehension of his destiny. We shall live after death. What then? In that other world we shall possess in a greater degree all the powers we have enjoyed on earth. They will be used actively in an endless, progressive existence. If used properly on earth and in the eternities of the hereafter, we shall by small steps, grace for grace, approach more and more the likeness of God, our very Father. To rise towards such heights, from the dim beginning, has ever been our destiny. Every righteous act has promoted that progress; every unrighteous act has retarded it. The knowledge of our divine destiny, and the conditions of it, would tend to regulate our course on earth. We are to be leaders against all evil, the final conquerors of earth. We dare not hinder our progressive, ascending destiny. Therefore, sober answers are found to the questions of life. Will this act help me in my eternal progressive existence? Then I will perform it. Does it hinder me? Then I will have none of it. I cannot use atomic energy to destroy or murder men, for that would set me back in my eternal advancement towards the likeness of God.
ACCEPTANCE OF THE WORD OF GOD VITAL
Perhaps it is all said in one sentence. The acceptance of the word of God as laid down in the Christian gospel will turn fear into joy, will make the atomic bomb our humble servant.
To that end, home, school, and church must cooperate.
But, it is protested, it cannot be done; it is an idle dream. That is the answer of those who will not accept and prove the truth. The earnest desire for good in every human heart may be covered with uncertainty and the indifference that follows uncertainty; but it is there. No matter how far we have strayed, in every one of us is a feeling of revulsion against evil. The very children of God cannot feel otherwise. If but a few will live the law, they will leaven the lump.
We have the right to believe that man, who learned to release atomic energy, and who made the atomic bomb, will use it for our benefit. It is our task to teach faith in God, ourselves, and our fellow men, in home and school and church. Then we shall remake the world for peace. Remember the subtle power of words. Ignore war in our speech. Raise our voices everywhere in faith for peace. Then the hearts that now fear the future will be at ease. In time the atomic bomb will become our servant to beautify the life of man on earth.
May it be so, I pray in the name of Jesus, the Christ. Amen.
Elder Milton R. Hunter
Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 141-146
My dear brethren and sisters, it is indeed an inspiration to look into the faces of this vast audience of Latter-day Saints who have assembled here to worship God. I do humbly pray that the Spirit of our Heavenly Father will be with me in what I say this morning. I ask also for an interest in your faith and prayers.
Expressions of Gratitude
I wish to express, on this occasion, my gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the privilege I have of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know that all the blessings I have received and do receive, and all that is good that comes to you and me, comes from our Heavenly Father. I do appreciate these things. I am especially grateful for the philosophy of life given to us by the gospel with its assurance of immortality, of the perpetuation of our family ties, and all the things which are near and dear to us as Latter-day Saints which we have received through the inspiration and revelation from God, through Joseph Smith and other prophets. I am grateful for the privilege I have of serving in this Church and do pray to God in humility that I will have strength to do my share in this great and mighty cause with which you and I have affiliated ourselves.
Last night in our priesthood meeting, President S. Dilworth Young gave an excellent talk on missionary work, and President George Albert Smith confirmed the fine things that were said. Since it is the duty of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to preach the gospel to all the world, I desire this morning to say a few words on the great and important theme of missionary work.
Importance of Missionary Work
God has informed us through his holy prophets that one of the most important assignments given to members of the Church of Jesus Christ is that of preaching the gospel. In fact, Joseph Smith declared that-
... the greatest and most important duty is to preach the gospel.
Throughout history the most outstanding men who have lived, such as Adam, Enoch, Nephi, Alma, Paul and-greatest of all-Jesus Christ were missionaries. It was in that work that each of them contributed so greatly in altering the history of the world. We are told that the work and the glory of God the Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son is-
... to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
Certainly that is missionary work. It is not surprising, therefore, to have the prophets inform us that to preach the gospel is our most important duty.
The final injunction that the Son of God gave to his apostles before his ascension was:
... Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Yet the Savior fully understood that that would not be the last time before his second coming that it would become necessary for his missionaries to receive a divine commission from on high and be sent forth to teach the plan of salvation to the world. He definitely pointed out to his apostles that after they had preached the gospel a great apostasy from the divine plan would take place which would necessitate a restoration of the Holy Priesthood and of the gospel of Jesus Christ. for an understanding of Jesus' description of the events which should take place before his second coming.) In the course of these instructions, the Son of Man pointed out to his apostles that as one of the final events preceding his advent-
... this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
Apostasy from the Truth
Students of history know that during the Middle Ages Christianity was adulterated with many false pagan beliefs and practices, fulfilling the words of Isaiah wherein he had said:
The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.
It became necessary, therefore, for God to withdraw the Holy Priesthood from the Christian Church.
The Protestant Reformation, which resulted in the establishment of numerous Christian denominations-approximately two hundred and fifty of them existing in America today-bears unimpeachable evidence to the fact that a great apostasy did occur as the Master and the prophets of old had predicted it would. Martin Luther, John Calvin, the Wesley brothers, and the other protestors against the erroneous doctrines which had corrupted Catholicism did not claim divine restoration of the Holy Priesthood nor of the principles and ordinances of the gospel.
The Restoration of the Gospel
John the Revelator, however, had looked down through the stream of time and had beheld that a divine restoration from the heavens would take place. He declared what he had seen in vision as follows:
And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
This prediction was fulfilled on September 21 and 22, 1823, when the Angel Moroni appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith and told him of a sacred record buried in a hill not far from the boy's home. This record, the angel said, contained the everlasting gospel as understood and practiced by the ancient inhabitants of America, the Nephites. In due time Joseph received from the angel this holy scripture, and acting under the power and inspiration of God, he translated and published its contents in a volume known as the Book of Mormon. No event in history fulfills John's prophecy as did the coming forth of that sacred book.
Yet, in addition to this heavenly manifestation, other angels came from the presence of God to restore to earth the particular gospel keys and blessings which they had held in their dispensations. For example, John the Baptist, and Peter, James, and John, bestowed upon the heads of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery the Holy Priesthood without which neither missionary work nor the ordinances of the gospel could be officially performed. And finally on April 3, 1836, Moses appeared to Joseph and Oliver in the Kirtland Temple and gave to them-
... the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north.
Missionaries Divinely Appointed
Thus every missionary that is called by the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ and set apart by one duly authorized goes into the mission field to speak and act in the name of the God of Israel, and the actions performed are as valid as if Jesus Christ did the missionary work personally. Furthermore, these missionaries are the only servants of God in the entire world who have been divinely appointed, called, chosen, and set apart by the powers of heaven to preach the gospel to the world.
In due course of time after the Church was organized, the Lard placed upon the Twelve Apostles the responsibility of opening the doors of the gospel to all the nations of the earth, and the seventy were commissioned to build up the Church under the direction of the apostles.
... purify your hearts before me; and then go ye into all the world, and preach my gospel unto every creature who has not received it; And he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not, and is not baptized, shall be damned.
Missionary Work Under Hardships
History records no human experiences filled with greater love and acts of unselfish sacrifice than those connected with the story of the missionary work of the Latter-day Saint elders. During the past one hundred years, thousands and thousands of them have left their homes when called and have traveled over land and sea, paying their own expenses, to preach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Hunger and fatigue, and on certain occasions, even imprisonment and martyrdom have been experienced; yet each Latter-day Saint missionary declares that his services while preaching the gospel gave him the happiest experiences of his entire life.
Every time a crisis has arisen in the Church it has been met with a renewed and increased missionary campaign. For example, in 1837, the panic struck Church members just as it did the rest of the inhabitants of America. Many members apostatized. Conditions were critical. The Lord through the Prophet Joseph, however, met the situation by sending Heber C. Kimball and other elders to England to open a field where hundreds of souls were anxiously waiting to receive the gospel. Again, after the Saints had been driven from their homes in Illinois and had established themselves over a thousand miles west in the heart of the Utah desert, Brigham Young inaugurated a worldwide missionary campaign. During this period, thousands of people were headed westward toward the gold fields of California, but the elders of Israel turned their backs upon gold and their hearts toward winning souls for the kingdom of God.
Today we have reached another vital point in the Savior's missionary program. The guns have ceased firing, and thousands of human hearts are yearning for peace, for rest, for truth, and for righteousness. Surely the field is white ready for harvest; and God is going to give us another chance to fulfill his commandment of taking the gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people preparatory to the coming of the Son of Man to reign on the earth for one thousand years.
Proclaiming the Gospel a Responsibility for All Latter-day Saints
Brethren and sisters, it is our responsibility to preach the gospel to the world. God has given us the priesthood and the true gospel of Jesus Christ, and he will hold us responsible to teach the plan of salvation to all other peoples. Parents, send your children on missions. Instill in their hearts in their youth the desire to proclaim to the world the eternal principles of truth. If you love your children and desire to do good things for them, you could make no greater investment than to send them on missions. While they are bringing souls unto God, they will as a natural result of their missionary services increase their love, understanding, and testimony of the gospel. Therefore, by sending them on missions you are saving the souls of your children while they are working to save the souls of other people, demonstrating the Savior's statement that "it is more blessed to give than to receive".
Young men and young women, live clean lives, study the principles of the gospel, and carefully prepare yourselves to go on missions so that God can use you in performing his great work. In no other way can you gain more happiness and store up greater rewards of eternal joy in the mansions of your Heavenly Parents. The Son of God has declared:
Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God; For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh: wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him. And he hath risen again from the dead, that he might bring all men unto him, on conditions of repentance. And how great is his joy in the soul that repenteth!
Wherefore, you are called to cry repentance unto this people. And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!.
Remember, missionary work is not the work of any man. It is God's work, and we have been given the opportunity to help him accomplish his holy purposes. He is directing the missionary work of the Church of Jesus Christ today through his prophet, President George Albert Smith, even as he has done whenever his Church has been on the earth. Thus missionaries are being sent into the world in increasing numbers. Last month one hundred and fifty of them were sent to various parts of the earth to carry good tidings to the honest in heart.
I humbly pray that God will touch the hearts of all Latter-day Saints that we may unite our efforts and means for the purpose of preaching the gospel to the entire world. The gospel must be preached, and it is our responsibility.
I bear testimony that God lives and that Joseph Smith was the instrumentality in his hands in establishing the true Church on earth again. May God bless us in our efforts to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, that we might be found blameless at the great judgment day, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Charles A. Callis
Charles A. Callis, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 146-149
I am deeply conscious that without God's help I can do nothing. A frequent recurrence to fundamental principles will increase the strength of the Church.
When I speak about a recurrence to fundamental principles increasing the strength of the Church, I think this is applicable also to the national government and the state governments. If we would return to the fundamental principles of the Constitution of the United States and observe them more closely, "it would from many a blunder free us, and foolish notion."
Strength of Church in Personal Testimonies
The secret of the strength of this great Church is the personal testimony that the members enjoy-the testimony of the Holy Ghost.
Our spiritual safety is secured by staying on the main stream, that stream of living truth that flows by the throne of God. It is sad to see men spiritually wrecked by being washed ashore by immaterial crosscurrents and spend "all the voyage of their life bound in shallows and in miseries." If we keep on the main stream, we are going to finish our mission on earth in a manner pleasing to the Lord.
Shakespeare said:
But 'tis strange: And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence.
Why should men be so unstable that they will run after every wil-o-the-wisp, tempted by plausible, deceptive theories? The devil himself is plausible; he can assume a pleasing shape. He can fashion himself into resembling an angel of light, and he can cite scripture to suit his purpose.
Support of First Presidency
Every truth essential for the salvation of the people of God is deeply imbedded and enshrined in the glorious plan of salvation. The instruments of darkness approach us by the way of flattery. They will say: "You are all right; you are a pretty good man, and the gospel is true." Then they will say: "But the First Presidency of the Church are wrong." Against such appeals let us guard ourselves lest we be "betrayed in deepest consequence." I testify to you in humility and in the inner sureness given by the Holy Ghost, that from the days of Adam there has never been a First Presidency with more power and authority to act in the name of God, for the salvation of man than the present First Presidency, whom we love and sustain.
I love President George Albert Smith, a friend of man. You cannot associate with him without being impressed with a Christlike feeling. I love President J. Rueben Clark, Jr., a wise counselor, a statesman, and a man devoted to the work of God. I love President David O. McKay, a Christian gentleman, made by his religion, filled with the spirit of godliness and desirous of helping the children of God.
I repeat, from the days of Adam no First Presidency of the Church has ever exercised more authority, and the right to bless the children of men, than the Presidency that are seated on this stand.
Preparations for Second Coming of the Son of God
Brethren and sisters, why do we want missionaries? They are sent out for a purpose. It is for the purpose of preparing the way for the second coming of the Son of God. I recall the history of that great apostolic delegation that went to Great Britain: Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, George A. Smith, and others. They went to that foreign country without purse and without script. A man giving them a lift in his wagon was accosted by a passer-by who said, as he looked at the ghostly appearance of these missionaries, who were sick, who were leaving their families in sickness and in poverty: "Mister, what graveyard have you been robbing?"
Let us pause here a moment for reflection.
Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, George A. Smith were no weaklings. They were men among men. Do you for a moment think that these stalwart men, these men of God, would have undertaken that long and perilous journey unless they knew deep down in their hearts, by the power of the Holy Ghost that this Church was founded by the Lord?
We are filled with hope and faith. We are looking and praying for the glorious second coming of the Son of God. When the apostles looked steadfastly toward heaven as Jesus ascended to heaven, two men in white apparel said:
... Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye razing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
He will rule the world with truth and grace And make the nations prove, The glories of His righteousness And wonders of His love.
This promise of a visible, certain return of the Messiah made the apostles happy, and they rejoiced in the knowledge of the second coming, just as we rejoice today.
Tennyson caught a flash of the vision of Christ's reign as King of kings and Lord of lords, from the rivers unto the ends of the earth, when he said:
For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be:... 'Till the war drum throbbed no longer and the battle flags were furled In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful world in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law.
Jesus Christ to Inaugurate Millennium
When the Lord Jesus Christ comes, he is going to inaugurate the millennium. War will cease; enmity shall disappear; and the King of kings shall reign as only Christ can reign, in the midst of and over a world of peace. Barbaric war shall end forever. What heavenly joy in the contemplation and in the future enjoyment of this blessed condition! Oh, what hope there is in this majestic event. You mothers who mourn the loss of your brave boys who went to save the world for freedom will be compensated in the resurrection. Even now, though you know your sons have made the supreme sacrifice, you still are listening for the sound of returning feet.
It will be a pity if this United Nations organization shall fail to harvest the fruits of this victory which was won by the shedding of rivers of blood. May the Lord grant them wisdom; may they listen to peace, and the call of peace. May they have the Golden Rule always before their eyes; and in their hearts the fear of the Lord, who shall come to the earth as the Prince of peace.
The Apostle Paul said:
... the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive, and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
The last prayer in the Bible reads as follows:
Behold, I come quickly.
And John prays, as we today pray:
Even so come quickly.
Come and stop this carnage and misery. God grant that this gospel may be preached to the great Russian people and to "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people".
O, Father, send Jesus Christ quickly that the millennial reign, the golden rays of which are already brightening the hills of coming time, shall begin that we may rest and reign with Christ on earth a thousand years, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Thomas E. McKay
Thomas E. McKay, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 149-154
President Smith and counselors and my brethren and sisters: I love music. I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate the music committee or whoever it is that has been responsible in arranging for the inspiring music that we have had during this conference. The very beautiful, appropriate music furnished by the Singing Mothers on Friday brought us all closer to our Heavenly Father, and then we were thrilled yesterday by those more than a hundred young voices from the Manti district of the South Sanpete Stake. I attended a conference a few weeks ago in that stake, and was so impressed with the singing of that young lady soloist that I asked the stake president about her. I was informed that she is one of a family of thirteen, in fact she is the thirteenth, a very lucky number in her case, I should say. And then the inspiration that we receive from this great Tabernacle choir and the organ and our one and only Brother Evans whom we love so well. No one can estimate the good that this great organization is doing. I join with Brother Kirkham in suggesting that we make more in our organizations and our wards and stakes of our music. There should be a choir in every ward, choruses, Aaronic Priesthood choruses, girls' choruses, and others. I know in the mission field what a great value our choirs are. Scores of families are in the Church today because of our choirs. Our friends who love music and can sing are invited to join the choir, and after singing the songs of Zion for a while, and associating with the missionaries and members, they begin studying the gospel, and then, quite often, apply for baptism. These contacts change their lives. As one young man expressed in a testimony meeting, where he was confirmed a member of the Church, his getting acquainted with the missionaries and the members, and especially the singing of the songs of Zion, had entirely changed his outlook on life. He said, "It is really like coming from the darkness into the light."
The Savior declared:
I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
RELEASED AS ACTING PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN MISSION
With the appointment of Elder Ezra Taft Benson as president of the European Mission, I was given a very kind complimentary letter, signed by the First Presidency, releasing me from my very interesting service in looking after the European Mission. Because of the war my work has had to be carried on largely by correspondence.
I wish to take this opportunity to express publicly my sincere thanks and appreciation for the wonderful opportunity that this appointment, and also, and especially, my other missions in Europe, have afforded me. These missions, spaced as they have been, have given me an exceptionally fine opportunity to observe the practical working of the gospel-to see what a blessing it really is to all those who accept and obey its teachings, to see them come into the light after walking in darkness.
LABORS IN EUROPEAN MISSIONS
My first mission was from 1900 to 1903. I was home six years and then was again honored by another call, this time as president of the Swiss-German Mission, which comprised at that time-1909 to 1912-Switzerland, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and France. I found that an absence of six years had made quite a difference; many of the children who were, for example, Sunday School pupils, were now Sunday School officers and teachers. I saw the development of these young people as well as all other members who had accepted and were living the gospel. The acceptance of the gospel had given these people also an entirely different outlook on life.
Twenty-five years after this second mission I again had the privilege of returning to Europe, with my headquarters again in beautiful Switzerland. The children who were pupils in the Sunday School in 1900, and Sunday School officers and teachers in 1909 were now, many of them at least, married and had children of their own; some were or had been missionaries; some had emigrated. As I say, these three missions, spaced as they were, gave me a most wonderful opportunity to see what obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ will really do for people. It had touched every phase of their lives. Their supervised recreation had influenced them socially; the courses of study and outlines for the priesthood quorums and the auxiliary organizations, especially the Sunday School of the Church, had afforded them splendid educational opportunities. They had been affected financially through the great tithing system and fast offerings. Some who had previously spent their money for tobacco, beer and wine and liquor were now using that money to purchase better clothes, more conveniences for the home, better entertainment, and there was as a result more love in the home. The gospel affected them also and especially morally and spiritually. Oh, of course, some were not strong enough to change their way of life and overcome their life-long habits; these as stated, for reasons best known to themselves, had found the requirements too much. We find that true here at home, even more so I think than in the mission field. It is so easy, for example, to find other things to do on Sunday than attend meetings. This seems to have always been true; at least I find the following admonition in one of President Brigham Young's sermons on the subject of the Sabbath day:
Now, remember, my brethren, those who go skating, riding, or on excursions on the Sabbath day-and there is a great deal of this practiced-are weak in the faith. Gradually, little by little, little by little, the spirit of their religion leaks out of their hearts and their affections, and by and by they begin to see faults in their brethren, faults in the doctrines of the Church, faults in the organization, and at last they leave the Kingdom of God and go to destruction.
When I read this sentence: "Gradually, little by little, little by little, the spirit of their religion leaks out of their hearts and their affections," I thought of a statement which I recently read which says:
We never lose our religion by a blowout, usually it is just a slow leak.
And also this:
Many treat their religion as a spare tire, they never use it except in times of emergency.
COMMANDMENTS GIVEN FOR OUR DEVELOPMENT
What President Young states with reference to keeping the Sabbath day holy is equally true with reference to the breaking of the Word of Wisdom, remaining away from sacrament and priesthood meetings, taking the name of the Lord in vain, the nonpayment of tithes and offerings. Tithing for many is one of the most difficult of spiritual exercises we are asked to take. And do you know why? Because it strikes at one of the most effective weapons used by Satan for the destruction of mankind, namely, the love of money. A person or a nation that will pay an honest tithing will never worship gold instead of God. The love of money, we are told, is the root of all evil. At any rate we all know that it is the love of money, of power, of dominion of the sea as well as of the land and the people themselves that has caused many of our wars-yes, the principle of tithing properly understood and lived would go a long way to doing away with wars. This commandment and all others given by our Father in heaven are for our spiritual development, for our happiness and joy in this life. They are to keep us alive and growing spiritually, our guideposts. They are reflectors along life's highway to keep us from becoming lost, or, to quote a famous radio voice:
We are much like travelers driving along a highway by night. There faithfully placed are reflector signs to warn of hazardous curves and dangerous crossroads. The light of our cars picks up the signs, and they reflect to us their warning or direction-if we have the light! But if our light is dark the signs are dark. They have no meaning for the unlighted lamps.
These commandments I have referred to, and others, are given us as means of keeping the light burning, keeping alive spiritually. One of Dr. Karl G. Maeser's sentence sermons says:
One who has lost the spirit of the Lord is spiritually dead.
THE GOSPEL APPRECIATED IN WAR-TORN COUNTRIES
The gospel has certainly been a light shining in the darkness for our members in the war-torn countries, and also and especially for our servicemen and women during the terrible war years just ended-at least we hope they are ended. Scores of letters have been received testifying of the comfort and blessings of the gospel. I will take time to refer to only one or two. Here is a paragraph written by one of our Mormon chaplains, addressed to the servicemen's committee:
Not many days ago I had a deeply spiritual experience that gave me added proof of the power of the gospel to make men brothers spiritually By chance I read in one of the theater news sheets the reports of a Christmas program conducted by Protestant and Catholic German P.O.W. chaplains stationed at the 99th Field Hospital near Pisa. The news item stated that the special music was presented by the P.O.W. orchestra and a "Mormon" vocal soloist. The following day I went in search of this "Mormon" P.O.W., and with the help of an American chaplain I found him, a former Dresden District missionary, who served for a year and a half under President Rees in the East German Mission-Elder Hans Karl Schade, 25 Sebnitzer Street, Dresden, Germany. A few days previous to our meeting, the theater chaplain, Colonel Frank Brown, had met Elder Schade at a worship service and when he found Elder Schade was a Latter-day Saint, he gave him my name. And so when I first saw Elder Schade in the eye clinic where he now works, he extended his right hand and said, as he walked towards me, "Brother Braithwaite, thank God for this meeting." I shall never forget that expression-nor Elder Schade. In the presence of another chaplain and my interpreter, we spoke with complete freedom and with an understanding that destroys distrust, vengeance, or hate. We met on common ground, and thanked God for our fellowship in the Gospel. It was the time when I asked him to sing for me and our men, and to attend our L.D.S. services in Leghorn, that he reminded me he was a prisoner of war. However, even the restrictions involved caused no seeming barriers in our relationship. An understanding commanding officer gave permission for him to sing for us, and for us to go to his office to visit him.
The work of the army occupation tests the moral fiber of our men as perhaps it was not tested in war. Temptations are great and many. It demands a clear understanding of why we are here, patience, self-discipline, and self-control. Our job is important, and by and large, the L.D.S. men are meeting the demands it makes on them.
LETTER ATTESTS FAITH OF EUROPEAN SAINTS
The following is quoted from a letter dated March 14, 1946, at Basel, Switzerland, from Elder Ezra Taft Benson, president of the European Mission: I hope you will pardon me for reading this first paragraph; it is quite personal but I do appreciate it so much:
Dear President McKay:
As you will note, I am here at the spot which you loved so much, with the people who love you so dearly. Everywhere we have been we have found many people who know you and love you and have asked about you and shown disappointment in your not being here.
As you probably know, we have already made a trip into France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and now we are here in Switzerland preparatory to making a complete tour of the Occupied Areas. We have already attended district conference at Karlsruhe last Sunday. During the next two and a half weeks we will be in the military zones and in Czechoslovakia. From there we will return to Basel, and then continue on to Paris, Belgium, and Holland again before returning to London.
I will not comment on conditions which we found except to say that the deep faith of the Saints in these missions has been a source of joy and satisfaction. The willing service and clean, exemplary lives of the many Latter-day Saint servicemen who have been among the people of Europe have left a splendid impression over here.
Yes, the gospel is a light shining in this war-torn world, and it will also show the way to a permanent peace if our "Father's children," as President Smith so kindly and tolerantly refers to his fellow men, would but do the will of the Father. He loves us; he is our Father-we are all his children; and he has given us the gospel for our happiness and joy in this life. We could have a heaven on earth if we would but keep the commandments of God.
... men are, that they might have joy.
The Savior says:
If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
TESTIMONY COMES THROUGH SPIRIT OF GOD
I cannot give you a testimony of the divinity of the work-you cannot give me one-it must come through the Spirit of God. There are laws governing these spiritual matters as well as the physical and mental. President Grant used to quote so often:
There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.
And a testimony of the divinity of the Church is received only by obedience to the spiritual law-"If any man will do his will, he shall know"-that means study, work, pray, keep the commandments, and our Heavenly Father will reveal to each of us, as he did to Peter, the divinity of his Son. When Jesus asked Peter, "But whom say ye that I am?" Peter answered, "Thou art the Christ, the son of the Living God." Notice what Jesus answered: "For flesh and blood"-the Christ was flesh and blood-"for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven".
I feel very humble and extremely grateful that I am able to bear you a similar testimony. I too know that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that this is his Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not the church of Joseph Smith. He was the Servant however, the prophet called of God to establish the Church in this dispensation, with the same organization that existed at the time of the Savior, and it is here for the last time, never again to be taken away or given to another people, until the Savior shall come to rule and reign in person. May we keep oil in our lamps-keep the light burning, that others seeing our good works, our example, may glorify our Father in heaven, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
Joseph Fielding Smith, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 154-159
My beloved brethren and sisters, I feel very dependent upon the Spirit of the Lord and your faith while I stand here before you. We have heard a great deal about the preaching of the gospel and the burden which is upon us to carry this message to the world. I would like to add a few words in regard to this responsibility and something in regard to the condition of the world into which we are sent.
GOSPEL TAUGHT BY ADAM
Adam was commanded by our Father in heaven to teach his children the everlasting truth. We read in the scriptures the following:
And Adam and Eve blessed the name of God, and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters. And Satan came among them saying: I am also a son of God; and he commanded them, saying: Believe it not; and they believed it not, and they loved Satan more than God. And men began from that time forth to be carnal, sensual, and devilish.
PROPHETS REJECTED BY MEN
So they turned away from the truth unto the worship of all manner of false doctrines and gods, refusing to hearken to the prophets that were sent among them, and it became necessary for the Lord to bring in the flood upon them and cleanse the earth of its iniquity. Once again the world started out with just one family, and as men began to spread upon the face of the earth, they were taught by the prophets and were given revelation from the Almighty; but they, too, in course of time rebelled and set up their own churches and worshiped their own gods and graven images. Under these conditions the Lord called a man out of the land of the Chaldees and sent him into the land of Canaan, promising him great blessings and his posterity after him, through obedience to the Lord's commandments. Today we call that people Israel. But in course of time Israel also rebelled. They would not listen to their prophets, so they were scattered over all the face of the earth for their rebellion. This has been the history all through the ages, because men became carnal, sensual, and devilish.
One of the ancient prophets on this continent, speaking of our day, said:
But behold, in the last days, or in the days of the Gentiles-yea, behold all the nations of the Gentiles and also the Jews, both those who shall come upon this land and those who shall be upon other lands, yea, even upon all the lands of the earth, behold, they will be drunken with iniquity and all manner of abominations-
And when that day shall come they shall be visited of the Lord of Hosts, with thunder and with earthquake, and with a great noise, and with storm, and with tempest, and with the flame of devouring fire.
GOSPEL RESTORED THROUGH JOSEPH SMITH
The Lord saw fit to restore, after a great apostasy, the truth of the gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith. He sent angels from his presence. In fact, this great prophet was visited by both the Father and the Son and was given authority to commence this great dispensation of the fulness of times and to teach the truth of the everlasting gospel, because again men had turned away from the truth to the worship of their idols and the practice of false doctrines. They have set up churches of their own where the Spirit of the Lord is not found. The Lord sent out his missionaries in the beginning of this dispensation to preach the restored gospel, and he said to them that he was sending them with this message of truth among the "congregations of the wicked"; and this he repeated many times. In a revelation given in October 1830, when the Church had been restored but six months, the Lord said this:
For verily, verily, I say unto you that ye are called to lift up your voices as with the sound of a trump, to declare my gospel unto a crooked and perverse generation.
For behold, the field is white already to harvest; and it is the eleventh hour, and the last time that I shall call laborers into my vineyard.
WARNING OF CALAMITIES TO COME
By the "last time" the Lord meant the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times.
The Prophet Joseph Smith instructed his brethren and informed them of the calamities that were to come. He warned the world of its wickedness, and he told these good men of the Council of the Twelve, who were associated with him, that because of the wickedness of the world and its corruption, destruction would come upon it. Some of these brethren say that as he told them of these things he wept as our Savior wept when he looked upon Jerusalem. President Wilford Woodruff, speaking of this testimony and this warning to the world which the Prophet had seen in vision of things which were coming upon the earth, said: "I heard the Prophet Joseph Smith bear his testimony to these events that would transpire in the earth," and after predicting that they were now at our doors, he said also; "We cannot draw a veil over the events that await this generation. No man that is inspired by the Spirit and power of God can close his ears, his eyes, or his lips, to these things." I think we have no right to close our ears, and we have no right to be silent and shut our eyes against the warnings that the Lord has given and placed before us which we are commanded to declare to the nations of the earth.
Again the Lord says:
For all flesh is corrupted before me; and the powers of darkness prevail upon the earth, among the children of men, in the presence of all the hosts of heaven-
Which causeth silence to reign, and all eternity is pained, and the angels are waiting the great command to reap down the earth, to gather the tares that they may be burned; and, behold, the enemy is combined.
PROPHECIES OF WILFORD WOODRUFF AND NEPHI
I heard President Wilford Woodruff, in this stand, this same place where I stand, bear witness as he had done in other places, in 1893, and up to the time of his death, that the angels who had been waiting to go forth to reap down the earth had now been sent upon that mission and they were in the earth. Therefore, he said we may look for calamities, for destruction, for plague and bloodshed. Now let me read a little to you by way of warning, something given by prophecy to Nephi concerning our own day. Speaking to the people who are living now, he said:
O the wise, and the learned, and the rich, that are puffed up in the pride of their hearts, and all those who preach false doctrines, and all those who commit whoredoms, and pervert the right way of the Lord, wo, wo, wo be unto them, saith the Lord God Almighty, for they shall be thrust down to hell!
Wo unto them that turn aside the just for a thing of naught and revile against that which is good, and say that it is of no worth! For the day shall come that the Lord God will speedily visit the inhabitants of the earth; and in that day that they are fully ripe in iniquity they shall perish.
But behold, if the inhabitants of the earth shall repent of their wickedness and abominations they shall not be destroyed, saith the Lord of Hosts.
But behold, that great and abominable church, the whore of all the earth, must tumble to the earth, and great must be the fall thereof.
For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger, and perish;
For behold, at that day shall he rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good.
And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well-and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.
And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none-and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance.
Yea, they are grasped with death, and hell; and death, and hell, and the devil, and all that have been seized therewith must stand before the throne of God, and be judged according to their works, from whence they must go into the place prepared for them, even a lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment.
WICKEDNESS INCREASING IN THE WORLD
There is much more that I would like to present if time would permit. Let me call your attention to the fact that this world is not growing better. If I may be pardoned for the expression: We need not "kid" ourselves into thinking that this world is growing better. If so, then the prophecies have failed. This world today is full of wickedness. That wickedness is increasing. True, there are many righteous people scattered throughout the earth, and it is our duty to search them out and give unto them the gospel of Jesus Christ and bring them out of Babylon. The Lord has said to them: "Go ye out of Babylon", which is the world.
Now the Lord has said this is the last time the gospel should be given to men and his servants should cry nothing but repentance, and he has further said:
For behold, the field is white already to harvest; and it is the eleventh hour, and the last time that I shall call laborers into my vineyard.
And my vineyard has become corrupted every whit; and there is none which doeth good save it be a few; and they err in many instances because of priestcrafts, all having corrupt minds.
And verily, verily, I say unto you, that this church have I established and called forth out of the wilderness.
GOSPEL PREACHED AS A WITNESS
And for what purpose is the gospel preached? To bring the people to a knowledge of the truth and as a witness before the end of the world shall come or the end of wickedness. Even before the organization of the Church, back in 1829, the Lord drew attention by revelation to the preaching of his servants, and he said:
And their testimony shall also go forth unto the condemnation of this generation if they harden their hearts against them.
This was said more particularly in reference to the testimonies of these men who are witnesses of the Book of Mormon, and their testimony has gone forth through all the world. But this is also true of the testimonies of all others who have gone forth to preach the gospel. Then the Lord adds:
For a desolating scourge shall go forth among the inhabitants of the earth, and shall continue to be poured out from time to time, if they repent not, until the earth is empty, and the inhabitants thereof are consumed away and utterly destroyed by the brightness of my coming.
Behold, I tell you these things, even as I also told the people of the destruction of Jerusalem; and my word shall be verified at this time as it hath hitherto been verified.
MISSIONARIES TO WARN THE PEOPLE
The Lord has placed upon us the responsibility to preach the gospel, but there is another great responsibility. I think some of our missionaries have had an idea that all we had to do was to make friends, and if they wanted to come in the Church, well and good, and the missionaries have not realized that they were under the obligation to leave a warning, and it is just as necessary that we warn the world as it is to declare the way of eternal life. The Lord said to the missionaries who went out in the early days:
That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you. Behold, I send you out to testify and warn the people, and it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor. Therefore, they are left without excuse, and their sins are upon their own heads.
Every missionary who goes out should see to it that he leaves his testimony, so that he will be free as the Lord has declared he should be in section four of the Doctrine and Covenants; and so that every man with whom he comes in contact should be warned and left without excuse, and thus the blood of every man may be upon his own head.
OPPOSED TO MILITARY CONSCRIPTION
If you think the world is getting better, just observe and witness the vulgarity and the near-approach to indecency that we find published in some pictorial magazines, and so frequently on the screen. Think of the corruption and the debasing conditions due to the indulgence in liquor and tobacco and other narcotics and drugs. Think of the immorality which is so prevalent throughout the country. We are made aware of the evils which existed in our army camps by the reports in the paper, the magazines, and from the lips of our own boys who have returned. Now pressure is brought upon us to bring to pass the compulsion of our youth at the tender years when they are most impressionable, and force them into military camps where they will have no protection, or very little, from the vices which are so prevalent in army camps. I want to say to you, my brethren and sisters, for one, I am opposed to it!
Now let us go forth and preach this gospel with the understanding that we have the dual responsibility of bearing witness and leading the righteous, the honest, to a knowledge of the truth, and then leaving all others without excuse by the witness which we bear to them.
I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
Joseph L. Wirthlin, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 160-167
Whenever called upon, my brethren and sisters, to perform this great task, I always ask the Lord to quicken my mind and loosen my tongue, and I hope that that prayer has a response in your hearts in my behalf today.
MANY EVIDENCES OF CHRIST'S DIVINITY
We frequently hear the question asked: "What is there in a name?" And thinking of names, we always think first of family names. We think of the great names in the fields of education, industry, statesmanship, but what about the names in the great realm of religion? In retrospect there are many that come before us-the names of Confucius, of Buddha, of Mohammed, and of Jesus Christ. As we think of the first three, their names identify them as men who endeavored to teach their followers certain philosophies, philosophies of men, with some elements of truth in them. But what about Jesus Christ and his teachings, and furthermore, what do we find in his name? In the use of his name, there is also an immediate mental connection with the Godhead. His followers proclaimed that he was the Son of God, for we read:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
To the early followers of Jesus Christ, he was with God in the beginning. He was God, and to him was given the great commission of creating the earth and all the things that are now upon it. And furthermore, because his plan of salvation was accepted in the pre-existent councils in heaven, he revealed himself to mankind in the flesh, the only Begotten of the Father. In analyzing this declaration and comparing it with the theories and teachings of Confucius, Buddha, and Mohammed, we find a great difference in the claims of these great religious teachers.
The above declaration of John must of necessity be supported with tangible evidence that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, a member of the Godhead who revealed himself to mankind in the flesh for the purpose of redeeming mankind from the sin of Adam. The great evidence to sustain the above claims is found in a promise made by the Savior wherein he declared:
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.
The great difference between Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the other great religious teachers of the world was that after he left the earth, the third member of the Godhead, even the Holy Ghost, would testify to the races of men on earth of the divine mission of the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Nearly two thousand years have elapsed since Christ was upon the earth, but untold thousands have enjoyed the revelation of the Holy Ghost that his mission was divine. A modern-day prophet, Brigham Young, states most emphatically that any honest searcher of truth can know that Jesus was the Christ in the same way that Peter knew it. As you recall, the Savior was traveling in the country with his disciples and turning upon them asked this question: "... Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" As I visualize that scene, his followers were dumb-founded and rather hesitantly answered: "Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets," The second time the Savior asked the question: "But whom say ye that I am?" Peter, the humble fisherman, without any reservation declared: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," and the reply immediately came from the Savior: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven". How was it possible for Peter to answer this question without any hesitation or reservation? It was possible because the Holy Ghost revealed this great truth to him, and in this event we see that the Holy Ghost does reveal the fact that Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh, the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world.
Again we ask the question: "What is there in a name?" In the name of Jesus Christ there is salvation and exaltation to the children of our Heavenly Father, for we read in the Acts of the Apostles:
Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
In his ministry Christ taught the people to accept his name, to take his name upon them. In the matter of prayer he said:
And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
PRINCIPLES TAUGHT BY THE SAVIOR
With reference to belief and faith he said:
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on his name.
He taught the principle of repentance, forcibly declaring in Luke:
And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
John the Baptist, forerunner of Christ, taught the gospel of repentance and baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, and in the course of events, the Savior appeared applying for baptism. Ecclesiastical history declares that when he came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and the Holy Ghost appeared in the form of a dove, and the assembled multitude heard the voice of the Father saying: "... This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" again proclaiming the great truth that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world.
... Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Admission into the kingdom by baptism, as the Savior so declared to Nicodemus, was in the name of the Godhead including the name of the Savior. Other promises he made in his name:
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
THE TRUE CHURCH OF CHRIST CARRIES HIS NAME
In contemplation of the great ministry of our Lord, his name stands out preeminently as the only name under heaven whereby the children of men can enjoy the blessings of salvation and exaltation. In fact, his name is the pass-word into the kingdom of our Heavenly Father.
Paul in preaching to the Ephesians declared that Jesus gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and some teachers, and may I also point out to you that in the New Testament, there is an abundance of scriptures to prove without question wherein high priests, seventies, elders, priests, teachers, deacons and bishops were selected, these offices being made an integral part of the great Church organization. After the selection of Church officers and its organization did the Church carry a name, and if it did, what was its name two thousand years ago? Did it carry the name of Peter; was it the church of John or Matthew? It was not; it carried the name of its great organizer, the Lord, Jesus Christ. Read, if you will:
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. It logically follows that if the Savior was to have pre-eminence in all things, the most pre-eminent of all these would be this great organization called the Church which should carry his name. We read:
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
We see in this comparison that the Church was to take the name of Jesus Christ, its head, and become subject, just as the wife takes the name of her husband and becomes subject to him. So the Church in the days of Jesus Christ carried his name.
At the trial of the Savior, when he stood before Pontius Pilate, the Roman ruler declared that he could find no guile in the man, but to appease the Jews, his subjects, he ordered the crucifixion. He did something more to please his subjects, for John declared:
And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.
Little did Pontius Pilate realize when that name was nailed to the cross at his command, whereon the Son of God hung, that name would become the best known among the children of men, the only name under the heavens whereby we might enjoy a place in his kingdom.
While the Savior's body lay in the tomb, we are told by Peter that his Spirit visited the spirits who, in the time of Noah, were a disobedient people upon the earth and were swept away by the flood, teaching them the importance of his name and that by obedience to the gospel that he had proclaimed upon the earth, they too should enjoy salvation.
APOSTASY FROM THE CHURCH OF CHRIST
According to the records found in Third Nephi in the Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ as a resurrected being appeared to the inhabitants on the American continent, teaching them to take upon them his name, and furthermore that the application of the ordinances of the gospel was to be done in his name. Shortly after the departure of the resurrected Savior from the earth. Paul declared to the Galatian Saints:
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
This statement is an evidence that other principles and doctrines were being taught and that the great apostasy from the Church of Christ was already in process, and furthermore that as a result of the apostasy, the name of Jesus Christ had lost its significance among men. Men were taught to pray in the names of men and women who out of the changed doctrines of the Savior became so-called saints, standing between the people on this earth and God rather than Jesus Christ. During this period we hear no more about apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, high priests, seventies, elders, bishops, priests, teachers, and deacons, but new officers with new titles took their places. The efficacy of faith was lost in that men were taught to believe that they might be saved by faith and grace rather than by faith and works. The principle of repentance became one wherein the forgiveness of sins could be purchased. The ordinance of baptism was changed and the organization lost its identity as its first title "Jesus Christ" had another substitute. As the dark clouds of apostasy settled ever the earth, there were some great men who declared that there would be a change, a reformation. Among these were Martin Luther, John Calvin, Roger Williams, who declared that the Church of God was no longer upon the earth. Sincere in their declarations and in their efforts, they were unable to restore the Church organization with its name, ordinances, and principles as the Lord, Jesus Christ first gave them to the world.
THE TRUE CHURCH RESTORED
Out of the turmoil and the adverse opinion in the world, a young man, sincerely wishing to know which of all the churches was the Church of Christ fell upon his knees among the giants of the forest, calling upon God for divine direction to the end that the true Church might be revealed to him. In answer to the prayer of the fourteen-year-old boy, God, the Eternal Father, and Jesus Christ, his Son, appeared, the Father saying to Joseph Smith: "This is My Beloved Son, Hear Him!" reaffirming to the world that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, a resurrected being, that the Father and the Son were two distinct personages with bodies, parts, and passions. Joseph Smith received instructions from the Father and the Son and thereafter was visited by heavenly beings who indicated that their visits were in the name of the Savior, again establishing upon the earth that all things were to be done in his name as the apostles of old taught the people.
The eighteenth section of the D&C; parallels the verses found in the book of Acts, wherein the significance and the power of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ was restored to the earth. It reads:
Behold, Jesus Christ is the name which is given of the Father, and there is none other name given whereby man can be saved; Wherefore, all men must take upon them the name which is given of the Father, for in that name shall they be called at the last day.
It is a grand and glorious truth to contemplate that in this day, your day and my day, Jesus Christ has again spoken to the world, restoring the gospel and all its saving ordinances to the end that the children of our Heavenly Father might enjoy salvation and exaltation in his kingdom.
Here are familiar words spoken two thousand years ago and again reiterated in the words of the Savior to the Prophet with reference to prayer, indicating again that his name was to become the watchword of salvation:
And thou shalt continue in calling upon God in my name, and writing the things which shall be given thee by the Comforter, and expounding all scriptures unto the church.
And if ye are purified and cleansed from all sin, ye shall ask whatsoever you will in the name of Jesus and it shall be done.
PRIESTHOOD GIVEN TO MAN
John the Baptist appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, bestowing upon them the Aaronic Priesthood, with these words:
Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the priesthood of Aaron.
May I ask the question, was there ever a time in the history of the great reformers or any other religious leaders when they claimed that divine messengers came from the heavens above in the name of Jesus Christ or in the name of the Messiah, bestowing upon them any or part of the priesthood? The answer is no. The restoration of the ordinance of baptism brought with it the mandate that men and women were to be baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The confirmation of members of the Church and the promise of the gift of the Holy Ghost were to be done in the name of Jesus Christ. Administrations to the sick were to be performed in his name. The revealed blessings on the sacrament were to begin with these words: "O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy son, Jesus Christ," and so on.
Follow through the restoration of the gospel, if you will. The significance of the name of Jesus Christ is most impressive, restoring to it the same place that it held when he taught men upon the earth two thousand years ago. With the restoration of the ordinances and principles of the gospel, the Lord again, as Paul once declared, gave some apostles, prophets, evangelists teachers, pastors high priests, seventies, elders bishops, priests, teachers, and deacons, and with the restoration of these offices in the priesthood of the Church the Church was again organized just as perfectly as it was in the days of Peter and John. Something more than the restoration of the gospel, ordinances, principles, and organization was necessary, and what was that? The name by which it might be identified in the world, which name had been taken from the earth when the great apostasy took place, and is it not singular then that all the great religionists failed to call the churches organized by them the Church of Jesus Christ but through the providence of God, it was not to be. Hence, the name was reserved for the day when through the Lord's instrument, Joseph Smith, the Church was again restored to the earth. We read in a revelation known as the one hundred fifteenth section of the D&C; the words of the Savior to the Prophet relative to this matter:
Verily thus saith the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and also my servant Sidney Rigdon, and also my servant Hyrum Smith, and your counselors who are and shall be appointed hereafter; And also unto you, my servant Edward Partridge, and his counselors; And also unto my faithful servants who are of the high council of my church in Zion, for thus it shall be called, and unto all the elders and people of my Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, scattered abroad in all the world; For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Verily I say unto you all: Arise and shine forth, that thy light may be a standard for the nations.
MEANING OF NAME LATTER-DAY SAINT
With the restoration of the name, the organization was now complete with the priesthood, all its officers, ordinances, and principles that existed in the ancient Church as Christ taught them. The restoration of the name is one of the greatest evidences of the divine calling of the Prophet Joseph, the Church in the latter-days being known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The members of this Church carry a great and grave responsibility in using the title Latter-day Saints. As I think of my own life, I wonder if I merit the name Latter-day Saint. Do you ponder over this divine title, determining whether or not your lives are compatible with the title of Latter-day Saint? We only become Latter-day Saints insofar as we live the gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ, and a real Latter-day Saint is willing to take upon him the full name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, keep his commandments, his covenants. It demands wholehearted, devoted loyalty to the anointed of the Lord who preside over his Church, and beyond that cleanliness of life is a prime requisite, for I am convinced that anyone who claims to be a Latter-day Saint and drinks a glass of beer or smokes a cigarette is not entitled to the divine title of Latter-day Saint.
The Lord's people are a covenant people under solemn obligation to him so to live as he has declared to the Prophet Joseph to become a standard to all the nations, and if there was ever a time in the history of the world when it needed a people that would manifest in its lives all the principles of the gospel, that time is today.
Joseph Smith declared prophetically on the banks of the Mississippi River on the sixth day of August 1842, almost two years before he was murdered, that this people would move to the Rocky Mountains, becoming a great and a mighty people. I wonder what he meant by the word "mighty." Were we to become mighty in politics, in the industrial world, or were we to become mighty in righteousness? My interpretation of this prophecy is that we were to become mighty in righteousness, and out of our might in righteousness we would set the world an example. We would become a light, a standard to a misdirected, misled, and faithless world. So in the final analysis of the Lord's plans, he bestowed his name upon the restored Church to identify us from the rest of the world by being called Latter-day Saints.
THE IMPORTANCE OF A NAME
It is a far cry from the days of Pontius Pilate when he ordered the name of the Savior nailed to the cross: "Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews", to the day when John the Revelator saw in a vision and declared:
And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh, a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
In his name the Lord promised that he would appear as the Lord of lords and King of kings to all those who live the gospel of Jesus Christ, meriting the title of Latter-day Saints, and they should have this blessing:
They are they who are the church of the Firstborn. They are they into whose hands the Father has given all things-They are they who are priests and kings, who have received of his fulness, and of his glory;... These are they whose names are written in heaven, where God and Christ are the judge of all; These are they who are just men made perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood. These are they whose bodies are celestial, whose glory is that of the sun, even the glory of God, the highest of all, whose glory the sun of the firmament is written of as being typical.
Again the question is submitted: "What is there in a name?" What is there in the name of Jesus Christ?
Behold, Jesus Christ is the name which is given of the Father, and there is none other name given whereby man can be saved; Wherefore, all men must take upon them the name which is given of the Father, for in that name shall they be called at the last day.
May God bless you and may he bless me, that we will so revere the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we will keep his commandments and enjoy all the blessings involved therein, I ask in his name. Amen
Elder Mark E. Petersen
Mark E. Petersen, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 167-172
I rejoice with you in the return of our Latter-day Saint Servicemen from their many assignments overseas. I am grateful for the strength they will bring to us in our various organizations in the wards and stakes. I sincerely hope that every returning Latter-day Saint serviceman will resume his activity in the Church without delay.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF OUR SERVICEMEN
These servicemen have accomplished some great things during the last few years. They have rendered great service to the Church and likewise to their country. In the main, they have been true to the standards they have been taught. I am sure they have been loyal and patriotic, fighting in defense of freedom. It has been a great sacrifice for our one hundred thousand servicemen under the Stars and Stripes, to leave their homes and schools, their work, and their families. But it has been a greater sacrifice for those who have borne the brunt of battle, for many of our boys have been wounded, some of them severely. Some of our boys are blind; some have suffered severe nervous and mental injuries; and there are those among them who will never walk again.
Many have died. We at The Deseret News have endeavored to determine about how many Latter-day Saint servicemen were killed in the war. Our study is as yet incomplete, but if we were to estimate the total for the whole Church, based upon the figures that have thus far been compiled, the number of Latter-day Saint servicemen who have given their lives in this war would exceed five thousand. Our hearts go out in deepest sympathy to the families thus bereft.
Those boys fought and died that their families at home might enjoy peace and safety. They died, also, in the cause of freedom, in the cause of free agency, freedom of action, free enterprise if you please. In spite of the sacrifices these boys have made, together with the thousands of other Americans who have died in defense of liberty, there are still those in our land to whom freedom means nothing. There are influences and movements and groups and organizations within the borders of the United States which today, if they could, would rob us all of our free agency.
Latter-day Saints, of all people, should stand firm in defense of freedom. Free agency has a special meaning to us. We know that without free agency there would be no progress. We all know that the gospel itself is based upon the principle of free agency. Yet there are some among us who have allowed themselves to slip to one side or the other, and they need to reorient themselves in line with the divine revelations we have received concerning the principle of freedom.
AMERICA, A LAND OF DESTINY
Let us look for a moment at one or two of the phases of freedom that are so important to us. Most of us believe that America is a promised land, a land of destiny, and so it is. But what is that destiny?
Anciently, the Lord made it known that the gospel would be restored in these last days; that it should come forth after a period of apostasy and that it should come forth upon this land of America. It was necessary that the gospel should come forth under a free form of government in order that the modern people of God could carry on their work without regimentation or restriction, and, therefore, God dedicated America to freedom.
When the Savior was among the Nephites, he predicted the coming forth of the Gentiles upon this land; he told about the coming forth of the gospel itself and said: "For it is wisdom in the Father that they should be established in this land, and be set up as a free people by the power of the Father, that these things"-meaning the gospel principles-"might come forth from them," that is, from the believing of the Gentiles, "unto a remnant of your seed, that the covenant of the Father may be fulfilled which he hath covenanted with his people, O house of Israel".
FREEDOM ESSENTIAL FOR RESTORATION OF GOSPEL
Note that language if you will. The Gentiles were to come forth upon this land of America. They were to be set up as a free people. They were to be thus established by the power of the Father, and the purpose of it all was that the gospel might come forth and be preached to the children of men in order that God could fulfill the covenant that he had made "with his people, O house of Israel." And why was freedom so necessary in connection with the restoration of the gospel and its promulgation among the children of men? In order that those to whom the gospel would be restored might have the freedom of speech to preach the gospel; the freedom of the press to publish the gospel; freedom of assembly so they could gather together in congregations and worship the Lord; and religious freedom so that they could worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience.
President Joseph F. Smith discussed this subject in this way:
This great American nation the Almighty raised up by the power of his omnipotent hand, that it might be possible in the latter day for the kingdom of God to be established in the earth. If the Lord had not prepared the way by laying the foundations of this glorious nation, it would have been impossible to have laid the foundations for the coming of his great kingdom.
And along the same line, President Brigham Young said:
We believe that the Lord has been preparing that when he should bring forth his work, that, when the set time should fully come, there might be a place upon his footstool where sufficient liberty of conscience should exist, that his Saints might dwell in peace under the broad panoply of constitutional law and equal rights. In this view we consider that the men in the Revolution were inspired by the Almighty to throw off the shackles of the mother government, with her established religion. For this cause were Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, and a host of others inspired to deeds of resistance to the acts of the King of Great Britain.
So Spoke Brigham Young.
Did our American colonist feel that they were assisted by the Almighty in winning independence from their mother country? They certainly did and so expressed themselves. Among them was George Washington who, in the inaugural address he delivered on April 30, 1789, said this:
No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of Providential agency.
CONSTITUTION WRITTEN UNDER INSPIRATION
But merely to be given their independence did not mean that they were set up as a new nation. A government must be established. Did God follow through and fulfill the prophecy in the Book of Mormon as uttered by his Beloved Son to the Nephites? He did by raising up and inspiring the men who drafted the form of government for this land. He inspired those men to write the Constitution of the United States and that Constitution is the means by which God wrote into the law of this land the principles of free agency. So the Lord said:
... it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another. And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose.
And, furthermore, not only did the Lord raise up these men and inspire them to write free agency into the government of this land, but he declared his intention that the elders of this Church should defend that Constitution and the freedoms and the rights allowed us in that great document. And so he said, "that law of the land, which is constitutional," and I call your attention to the phraseology:
... that law of the land which is constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom in maintaining the fights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before me. Therefore, I, the Lord, justify you, and your brethren of my church, in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land; And as pertaining to law of man, whatsoever is more or less than this, cometh of evil.
In regard to that last sentence, it is my interpretation that laws which are not in harmony with the principle of free agency and therefore not in harmony with the spirit of the Constitution, "cometh of evil."
Then the Lord continues:
I, the Lord God, make you free, therefore ye are free indeed: and the law-
that is the constitutional law-
also maketh you free. Nevertheless, when the wicked rule the people mourn.
OUR OBLIGATION TO DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION
And so the Lord seems to teach us that it is a part of our religion to preserve and fight for and defend the Constitution of the United States with all its rights and freedoms as provided therein. It was with this thought in mind that President Heber J. Grant said:
From my childhood days I have understood that we believe absolutely that the Constitution of our country is an inspired instrument, and that God directed those who created it and those who defended the independence of this nation. Concerning this matter it is my frequent pleasure to quote the statement by Joseph Smith, regarding the Constitution: "The Constitution of the United States is a glorious standard; it is founded in the wisdom of God. It is a heavenly banner; it is, to all those who are privileged with the sweets of liberty, like the cooling shades and refreshing waters of a great rock in a weary and thirsty land. It is like a great tree under whose branches men from every clime can be shielded from the burning rays of the sun."
Then, President Grant continues, after quoting the Prophet:
And such the Constitution of the United States must be to every faithful Latter-day Saint who lives under its protection.
Brigham Young also believed that it was part of our religion to defend the Constitution of the United States. Said he:
We mean to sustain the Constitution of the United States and all righteous laws. We will cling to the Constitution of our country, and to the government that reveres that sacred charter of freemen's rights; and it necessary, pour out our best blood for the defense of every good and righteous principle.
He continues:
To accuse us of being unfriendly to the Government, is to accuse us of hostility to our religion, for no item of inspiration is held more sacred with us than the Constitution under which she acts.
At another time, with this same thought in mind, Brigham Young again spoke and said:
How long will it be before the words of the prophet Joseph will be fulfilled? He said if the Constitution of the United States were saved at all it must be done by this people. It will not be many years before these words come to pass. When the Constitution of the United States hangs, as it were, upon a single thread, they will have to call for the "Mormon Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth and do it.... if it is sustained on this land of Joseph, it will be done by us and our posterity.
DIVINE PRINCIPLE OF FREE AGENCY
I appeal to every Latter-day Saint to accept the divine principle of free agency and to adopt it in his life. I appeal to you to remember this principle when you are confronted by organizations and groups and movements in this country, which are now arising and assuming great power. Before you become engulfed in them, measure their practices and their purposes by the measuring rod of free agency, and you remember that God said it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another. Remember, also, what Richard Evans told you yesterday, that it is not right that we should be commanded in all things, and don't you allow yourself to be commanded in all things by any group or agency. You preserve the free agency that God has given to you, because if you don't you will suffer all the days of your life.
You remember that you are to be true to the Constitution of the United States. I appeal to you to accept as the word of God, the declaration that appears in the revelation in section one hundred one of the D&C;, wherein the Lord says he did raise up men and inspired them to write the Constitution. I appeal to you, every one, to be true to the trust that God has placed in you, to preach the gospel throughout the world, as has been declared here today. But remember that you cannot preach that gospel without freedom of speech, and you cannot publish that gospel without freedom of the press, and you cannot gather together in congregations without freedom of assembly, and you cannot worship the Lord your God according to the dictates of your own conscience without freedom of religion. And remember that every time you give up any of your freedoms, whether it be to some economic or political group, or to any other group, you jeopardize these four freedoms of which I have spoken.
I appeal to you to accept as the word of God that which I have quoted to you which says that you, the elders of Israel, are justified by God in defending your constitutional privileges. I appeal to you to be true to your one hundred thousand sons who have fought for liberty, to the eight thousand of your sons who have been wounded and bled in battle. Do not betray the five thousand Latter-day Saint boys who died that freedom might live. Remember that you have a responsibility to preserve freedom in America. Remember always the glorious prayer that is written into the last stanza of "America" which was sung so beautifully this morning by the Tabernacle choir.
Our father's God! to thee, Author of liberty, To thee we sing; Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light! Protect us by thy might Great God, our King.
I pray that we may have the courage and the wisdom to accept the truth, that the truth may keep us free, and I ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Albert E. Bowen
Albert E. Bowen, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 176-181
In the last three days we have heard reference many times to the disturbed condition of the world. Brother Widtsoe put his finger on the nerve center of it all. He told us that it is due to a feeling of uncertainty that afflicts the minds of men. I believe that uncertainty is due to a breakdown of faith in the principles by which men have heretofore lived. They are not sure any more that those principles are valid, and having nothing in lieu thereof, they are adrift with no settled convictions. In such circumstances life cannot be stable, and instability means weakness and unrest. To be strong men we must have faith in the integrity of something. Collectively they must have such faith if they are to make strong communities or enduring nations. Because of the absence of deep conviction we have unrest and shifting and uncertainty, and that condition reflects itself in all the concerns of men, their political concerns, their moral concerns, and their religious concerns.
UNSTABLE CONDITIONS OF THE WORLD
It needs no proof that all the nations today are politically a seething mass of unrest and instability. Morally the situation is about the same, and for the same cause.
With beliefs gone, and nothing to take their place, many have indulged the presumption that all moral values are gone and that each is left to set his own standards and to live according to his own heart's desires. That means moral anarchy. That is a notion all too prevalent over the earth today.
Others subscribe to the fallacy that men can live by ethical codes and that the so-called Christian ethics can be separated from the Christian religion in which those ethics are founded. We see the result of following either of these fallacious notions. Evil and corruption are self-destroying. They contain in themselves the seeds of their own ruin. They debase, they destroy everything they touch. Ethical codes on their part must draw their strength from the religion in which they have been founded. To try to separate them from it is like separating the twig from the root whence it has drawn its nourishment. That is true of so-called Christian ethics which were spread and accepted and took root and bore fruit as a part of the religion which Christ established.
From the breakdown of faith with resultant uncertainty and shattering of conviction it is only a short step to a scoffing cynicism about all ideals. The way is made ready for the iconoclasts, and they have not been slow to seize their advantage.
GREAT MEN DISCREDITED BY CYNICS
Once in awhile only, a great man appears upon the stage of this world or of a nation. He renders a service so signal that after the curtain has rung down upon his life and he has receded far enough into the past for time to have softened some of the harshness and imperfections which revealed themselves while he performed his part, his grateful countrymen, or perhaps the world, set him up as a symbol of the ideals he portrayed, and do him homage. Perhaps they weave some legends about his name, but what does that matter, since he has become more of a symbol than a person anyway? As an ideal he becomes an inspiration to succeeding generations throughout time. We have had in this country two such men on the political scene. One of them is George Washington. He was human, therefore, he must have had faults, but they were dwarfed into nothingness by the overtowering majesty of his virtues, and his bequest to humanity. By soul-stirring steps, he passed progressively through various commanding positions to the high pinnacle, where he sits in stainless honor, the proper object of reverence by all men who prize pure patriotism, love justice, and cherish liberty. But the cynics have been at work on him.
Four or five years ago an unknown man wrote what he calls a history. It is reported that he is a teacher in a college and so can prescribe his book as a text and insure its being read. He has discovered that Washington was a vain, glory-seeking mediocrity, affecting a modesty which was merely a pose for effect, without military capacity or the least trace of statesmanship. He says that Washington "never had any clear conception of the dynamic force of ideas," and "he never formulated coherent theories of government."
This newcomer in the firmament has also turned his cold and luminous eye on Abraham Lincoln. He has pierced him through, with his gimlet gaze, and has found no substance there. With one dexterous twist of his wrist, he has torn off the mantle from "honest Abe" and has left him standing bare, exposed to the cruel public gaze. His big, understanding, humanitarian heart shrivels, and he is left with only intellect enough to supply the needs of a yokel. For our new genius finds that the Lincoln-Douglas debates were "dull," and "Lincoln himself disingenuous, shifting, self-contradictory, evasive, opportunistic, deceptive; with a peasant brand of intellect, unable to grasp a complicated economic or constitutional problem; without capacity ever to understand the forces behind the party he represented; whose prose was lucid and beautiful, but charmed by its style rather than its content, whose conclusions were indefensible non sequiturs." Thus summarily is disposed of the man of whom a colleague, looking on his still form in its casket said: "Now he belongs to the ages."
I know of nothing quite so fit to apply here as the observation of President Coolidge. Angry men demanded that he do something to stop the defamers of Washington. Looking through his window to where the graceful shaft pierced the blue, President Coolidge said simply: "I see the monument still stands."
IRRELIGION BEING TAUGHT
So will it ever be with reputations founded on the rock.
But bold as this historian is, he shrinks to small size by comparison with the ambition of another who does not hesitate to reach up and pull God himself down from off his throne. This one tells us that "a new world must be born out of the dead world of the past." He wants just one all-encompassing world state, set up by social contract, which is to take complete charge of human lives, and in which parents, teachers, and church are to be mere agents to carry out the supreme will of the state, where the "myth of God, of the Bible and of Jesus Christ is to be replaced by the fact of brotherhood by social contract." Did anybody ever hear anybody complain about authoritarianism in religion?
Yet another one of them tells us that:
The things of highest value for individual experience and for the ethical standards in America will not be found out so long as intellectual leaders maintain a sensitivity over the supernatural significance of Christian mythology, or a sentimental personal attachment to the character of Jesus. It may as well be frankly recognized by American educators that the days of Christian cultural solidarity in America are over.
Now we know the worst. America is no longer to be a Christian nation.
This is all of a piece with the action of a teacher who, evidently determined to do his part about getting rid of the "myth of God," under the guise of giving what he called a "maturity test," submitted two questions: first, "Do you believe in a supreme being?" second, "Do you rely upon him for aid?" The student answered "yes" to both, and the teacher promptly marked him down as woefully immature. This same teacher, no doubt, would be very explosive if anyone taught religion in the school, but he does not have enough respect for the law, whether written or resting in a code of honor, to refrain from violating the spirit of it himself, by teaching irreligion even to the extent of disbelief in Deity.
He cannot prove that the student was wrong, yet unhesitatingly he marks him so, and so declares. Then some people complain about authoritarianism in religion. That teacher is not very smart either, for, dependent upon his caprice for graduation, the student soon learns what kind of answer the teacher wants, and gives it to him, even though he does not believe a word of it.
Now, lest anybody think that this is intended as a wholesale charge against teachers, I at once file my disclaimer. I know that in the schools are many of the most highly honorable and punctilious, who revere God and practice true religion, but the occasional ones, such as I have instanced, show what forces the church and the home and society have to meet, if they desire to preserve the stabilizing power of religious faith. Parents, at least, should know the task that is cut out for them.
CHURCH FOUNDED IN THE TRANSCENDENTAL
For two thousand years now, men have regulated their lives by the teachings of Jesus. They hold sway among five hundred millions of civilized people. Do you suppose that five hundred millions of civilized people have been held together and their lives ordered by a myth? Impostors do not make history. The transcendental may be beyond our full grasp, but no man who has lived his life in this world can shut his eyes to the fact that daily we have to accept many, many things that we cannot explain. The fact that a proposition does not admit of analysis, and taking apart and examination and setting up in its parts, does not prove that it is not a reality.
This church is founded in the transcendental; so was the early Christian Church. Jesus was the Messiah proclaimed. He was resurrected from the dead. No man can explain that. Paul had a vision on the way to Damascus. I have read where it is said that it was a spiritual vision, but he heard a voice, too. What was that?
Whether it was spiritual or some other form of vision makes not the slightest difference to me. He had a vision! And this Church rests in the declaration that Joseph Smith had a vision from heaven, that celestial beings attended him and taught him, and on the basis of their teaching, he established this Church. It has approximately a million members. Hundreds of thousands of others have died. Perhaps in the course of time, nearly two million members have adhered to a belief in the verity of his statements. That kind of thing does not come out of imposture. Men can be wrong, may be deceived, but out of insincerity this Church could not grow.
UNFOUNDED ATTACKS ON PROPHET JOSEPH SMITH
Over the last half century, perhaps half a dozen writers have cited a court record, supposed to show that Joseph Smith made admissions which show his insincerity and his imposture. And the whole case for that is built upon that alleged court record. When you come to examine it, there is no court record at all produced. What is produced is an article in an encyclopedia, written by nobody knows whom, and obviously full of poison, or by an author full of poison, and including what purports to be a court record. Why doesn't anybody who hangs a case on a record of the court produce the record? Even that encyclopedia deleted that part of the article consisting of the alleged court record in a later publication, presumably because there was not good enough foundation for it.
There is another peculiar thing about that alleged record. It purports to be a record of a justice of the peace court. Everybody who knows anything about courts knows that justices' courts are not courts of record. They do not usually take, nor preserve as part of the record, the testimony of witnesses. There are certain essential things. It should show the charge. It should show that witnesses were sworn. It should show the findings and the sentence. This alleged record contains everything but what it ought to contain. It contains a statement of charge that is subject to objection because it states two offences, or attempts to do so. It is well-known that no man in a case has to testify against himself. No man charged criminally has to testify until a case has been made against him, but this alleged record starts out with Joseph Smith, the first witness, testifying for himself, before anybody has testified against him.
There is no record that any witness was sworn. There is the announcement that he was found guilty, but of which of the charges it is not said, and there is no sentence. That record could not have been made of the alleged trial as it proceeded. The order of occurrences prohibits it. It rests on no better foundation than the worthless affidavits which it is dragged out to support, and so we could go down the line and bit by bit tear to shreds the threads of evidence by which the alleged imposture is said to have been perpetrated.
Let's get over the idea of thinking that everything must be true because it is written in a book. It derives no sanctity from being reduced to print. It has no higher validity than the honesty of thought behind it.
I apologize for this imposition upon your time, and pray the blessings of God upon you, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1946, pp. 181-186
It is just five minutes to three-in San Francisco. This has been a very delightful experience for me to be at this conference, notwithstanding the fact that some of the dearest friends I have ever had, who were here a year ago, are not here today. We have listened to the members of the Quorum of the Twelve, and I realize that for every one now in that quorum, a very dear friend of mine and member of that group has passed away. Their places have been well filled. These brethren are really servants of the Lord, but I miss the men who are gone. Aunt Augusta Grant has sat through this conference attending most of the meetings. That blessed woman sat by the side of President Grant, helped him rear his family, and blessed this community. I am grateful to see her here today. I am sure that quite a number of elderly people are here that some of us do not know about. I mention Aunt Augusta Grant because President Grant stood here not long ago. Aunt Mary, wife of President Joseph F. Smith, is here also and is always at our meetings, and many others whom we love. I am sure they are blessed by being here, and we are blessed by their presence. It will not be long before many of us will pass on. We will not all leave as fine a record as some of those I have referred to, probably, but it is a wonderful thing to have that kind of companionship throughout life.
Just to look into your faces and see the earnestness of your lives is a joy, because that earnestness is written in your faces. I want to say to many of you that I know personally, I can never repay your kindness and helpfulness to me in many ways. I say never-I'll say I can't do it in this life, but I believe that we are living eternal lives, and perhaps some of these failures here may be remedied hereafter.
LASTING GREATNESS OF THE PROPHET JOSEPH SMITH
Much has been said in this conference about the Prophet Joseph Smith. There isn't much that I could say, except that which is good. Many of the benefits and blessings that have come to me have come through that man who gave his life for the gospel of Jesus Christ. There have been some who have belittled him, but I would like to say that those who have done so will be forgotten and their remains will go back to mother earth, if they have not already gone, and the odor of their infamy will never die, while the glory and honor and majesty and courage and fidelity manifested by the Prophet Joseph Smith will attach to his name forever. So we have no apologies to make.
It is a wonderful thing to live in an age like this when so many problems are being solved. It is also a disquieting age to live in when people find pleasure in harshness and unkindness toward those who are seeking to bless mankind.
CHOICE ASSOCIATIONS IN THE CHURCH
I am glad that I belong to a Church that has produced such men and women as this Church has produced. I have traveled approximately a million miles in the world in the interest of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have been in many climes and in many lands and in many nations, and I have never seen any place that I thought was as rich in the sweet companionships of life as I have found in the valleys of these grand mountains and in the organizations of the Church established in other parts of the world. It is a wonderful thing to have such friendships of good, true, honorable, sweet, faithful men and women. I have often said no man in the world has been more blessed than I. From my childhood, ever since I can remember, I have never been compelled to associate with evil individuals. I have been fortunate in having my life so adjusted that I could choose the very finest men and women that could be found in the world to be my companions. This has enriched my life, and I am grateful.
THE PRIMARY ASSOCIATION
I think of my early experiences in the Primary Association. Mentioning the Primary calls to my attention the fact that it is a marvelous institution. It was the Savior of the world who said: "... Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God". In this organization there is a program to develop little children and to give them the advantage of education, refinement, and culture equal, if not superior, to any other in the world. Personally I feel today to thank the general officers and the stake and ward officers of this organization who give their time to developing these little children. I am reminded of it because yesterday and today I see quite a number of these children sitting in the aisles, on the steps, and elsewhere, paying attention and listening to what has been going on. It is lovely to have so many little children here, and it makes me feel comfortable to have them in the audience. The Lord loves them, and I am sure we love them.
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
And we have our great Sunday School organization. There is no such Sabbath School group in all the world as we have in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is marvelous what has been accomplished, and its teaching has been so adjusted that anybody, old or young, may find development and uplift in it. So I would like to thank those who have made it possible for me, in the Primary and in the Sunday School, to associate with men and women whose ideals are real Christian ideals, not make-believe, and who train those under their watchcare to walk uprightly before the Lord, to honor father and mother, to love one another, to be honest and true and chaste and benevolent. These are great organizations.
MUTUAL IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATIONS
I think of what the Mutual Improvement Association has done for me. It is one of the most remarkable organizations in all the world, prepared and adjusted for those above twelve years of age. It has given me the companionship, as the other organizations did, of a little older group, but a group of the same fine quality, having faith in God, love for their fathers and their mothers, and honor and respect for those who preside over them in the Church and state and nation. What a wonderful help the Mutual Improvement Association has been to me. I feel to thank and bless whose who made it possible for me to have those companionships. There are in this audience today men and women with whom I have associated in that great group for many, many years, and I would like them to know that I appreciate their love and their kindness.
THE RELIEF SOCIETY
There is another fine organization in the Church, the Relief Society, organized under the direction of a prophet of God, for the development of women. This organization is unsurpassed by any woman's organization in all the world. What a wonderful thing it is to have in each of our wards and branches, these mothers of men and women, who give their lives to uplift and bless the communities in which they live. What a blessing they are and have been to this Church and will continue to be!
THE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY
The Genealogical Society is another marvelous organization. It has the task of gathering the names of those who have passed on, generations ago, bringing them into a great depository where they may be sorted over and classified, so that we may trace our ancestry. I said to a man one day. "You can find out all about your ancestors if you will go with me to the Genealogical Library." He said, "I don't want to know anything about them." I wouldn't either if I thought my ancestors could be traced back to an orangutan or a baboon. But like William Jennings Bryan, those who have any pride in that kind of ancestry will not connect me with their family tree. I want to say that we don't appreciate what this great organization has done in gathering our genealogy and in tying together all the family lines that have been broken and lost.
CHURCH WELFARE PROGRAM
We have our welfare program. It has been organized only a short time, and yet today is in a position to ship carloads of food, clothing, bedding, and other materials, to men and women and children on the other side of the sea, who are starving and freezing to death for the various things that we have in abundance, gathered by that great organization.
This Church and its organization prepare us for the kingdom of heaven if anything does that is in this world. So today, as I stand here and look into your faces, I realize what the gospel of Jesus Christ has done for me. I have no words to express my gratitude to God for the ministry of this Church and the blessings of its members to me as an individual; then multiply that by what it has done for all the rest of you.
It is a wonderful thing to go through life, hand in hand with the Master of heaven and earth, and this Church comes as near giving me this privilege as anything can do in mortality. I am grateful as I look around this group and see what God hath wrought for us, and I thank these elderly men and women who have borne the burden in the heat of the day and carried on, that we who have come on might have the blessing of a knowledge of the purpose of life to prepare us for eternal happiness.
CHURCH SCHOOL SYSTEM
We have our great educational institutions, our schools and seminaries, where our sons and daughters may not only be taught the rudiments of education but may be taught the fundamentals of eternal happiness. I am thankful that Karl G. Maeser, when I was only a child, put into my life a part of that which goes to make up the organization of the great Church school system of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are many things that I might mention, but these are just some that come to my mind as I stand here.
OUR MISSIONARY OPPORTUNITIES
As we approach the conclusion of this great conference I have only good will in my heart for mankind. I haven't any animosity in my heart toward any living human being. I know some that I wish would behave themselves a little better than they do, but that is their loss, not mine. If I can get my arm around them and help them back on the highway of happiness by teaching them the gospel of Jesus Christ, my happiness will be increased thereby. That is the purpose of the missionary work of this great Church. I would like to say to the brethren who are mission presidents, you have a real responsibility in your various fields. You do not have very many missionaries from Zion as yet, but they are coming. I want to say that you will have all you can do to take care of them and train and develop them, as well as to assist the local people who have been so faithful and helpful during these long trying times. The letter we read from Brother Benson today indicates that many of the people over there are nearly starving and freezing to death, but the thing they are thinking about apparently, as indicated by his letter, is not how they may have a palace on earth, but how they may help other people to enjoy a mansion on high. That is what the gospel does for us. It is not what we have that makes us happy; it is not the material things of life that enrich our lives; but it is what we are. The nearer we are like our Heavenly Father and his beloved Son Jesus Christ, the happier we are. Surely, therefore, not any man or woman under the sound of my voice, or in the world who understands, will hesitate to go out and teach these people who do not understand, and radiate sunshine. You cannot drive people to do things which are right, but you can love them into doing them, if your example is of such a character that they can see you mean what you say.
GRATITUDE FOR HELPFULNESS OF ASSOCIATES
I thank my brethren and my associates for their help and their kindness. When I think of what a weak, frail individual I am to be called to stand in the midst of this great Church, I realize how much I need the help of every soul that is in it, if I am to succeed; so I thank my brethren, my faithful counselors, who have helped me in the unusual experience of becoming accustomed to a great responsibility. I am grateful to my brethren of the Quorum of the Twelve, the Patriarch, the Assistants to the Twelve, the First Council of the Seventy, the Presiding Bishopric-all these men who are servants of the Lord and who are seeking to keep his commandments and teach us the way of eternal life. I am grateful to them, and I invoke upon them, and upon all of you, my Father's children, here or wherever you may be, the blessings of peace and love and joy, and the companionship of the Spirit of God, and in the end eternal life in the celestial kingdom. I pray that that may be our privilege. When the Lamb's book of life is opened and the names of those are recorded who are to inherit the celestial kingdom, I hope and pray that you and all those you love, all these sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father who are associated with you here, may have their names recorded there-not one missing. If that is the case, how happy we will be throughout the ages of eternity. Thanks to the prophets of old, to our Heavenly Father who sent them, thanks to his beloved Son Jesus Christ who died that we might live again, thanks to Joseph Smith whose name has been belittled by some ignoramuses in the world, that is, they have sought to belittle him, but they cannot. Thanks to him who was willing to lay down his life and seal his testimony with his blood as evidence of the fact that he knew whereof he had spoken. God bless you, my brethren and sisters; may peace abide with you in your hearts and in your homes. Love one another; love mankind; reach out to those who need you. If we do that happiness such as can be found in no other way will be our portion.
God grant that it may be, I humbly ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 3-8
I have sometimes said to my friends in different parts of the world, when referring to these great gatherings, the annual and semiannual conferences of the Church, that they will see no other spectacle like them in all the world, and I believe this to be true.
UPLIFT OF GENERAL CONFERENCES
These conferences offer the opportunity for the officers of the Church from all parts of the world to meet and to become acquainted with one another, and to be edified under the influence of the Spirit of the Lord. Fortunate are we that those who came to this valley in an early day erected this splendid structure. There is not anything like it to be found elsewhere, a building that will make comfortable approximately ten thousand people in which all can hear the speaker. Of course with our modern devices, we can hear very well.
We come together, not just to visit, not just to be seen; but as sons and daughters of the Living God, we assemble in his name, and he has never failed to fulfill his promise made of old, that when two or three shall meet together in his name, he will be there and that to bless them. And so we look forward to these gatherings every six months and have joy in being able to go back to our homes with the statement that the Lord was with us, and blessed us, and we enjoyed the power of his Spirit.
EARLY CONFERENCES
Of course this is only a little handful of the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints compared to the great number that belong to it. The first conference of the Church was held on June 9, 1830, and there were eighteen present. The second conference was held a few months later with about the same number present; then the first annual conference of the Church was held June 3, 1831, just one year later, and there were present in that conference forty-three elders, ten priests, and ten teachers, making a total of sixty-three present.
In those days the meetings were held for the officers of the Church, and the public was not generally invited to attend, but later in Nauvoo, it became customary to invite the public, and from that time on, each six months, the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been invited to meet with the Lord in a general conference of such a character as the one we assemble in this morning.
As I look out into this congregation and see the men and women who are here, I recognize those that I have known, many of them from my childhood. I have been in many of your homes and have been entertained most graciously, when I have been visiting the stakes of Zion and the mission field. Every once in a while we are able to get together here and enjoy the companionship of one another, and more than that, to feel the power that comes from our Heavenly Father in fulfilment of his promise that he will be with us.
UNSATISFACTORY CONDITION OF WORLD
The conditions in the world today are anything but desirable. After nearly six thousand years of teaching by the Lord through his prophets, the world is still in a pitiable condition, with about two-thirds of the population not accepting the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They have their own deities whom they worship, their own false gods who have kept them far from the truth during the centuries that have elapsed. Of the other one-third of the population of this world, so-called Christians, about fifty percent do not have membership in a church or if enrolled, they are inactive, so that it leaves a small portion of the people of the world who have, after all these years of advice and counsel, taken advantage of their opportunities. Unless the people of this world hasten their repentance and turn to the Lord, the conditions that we have recently passed through in this great world war will be intensified in wickedness and sorrow. So this morning, my dear brothers and sisters and I speak that word "dear" with all my heart-I am grateful for your fellowship and your companionship. As we meet together, how thankful we ought to be, how grateful our souls should be when we contemplate our surroundings and our wonderful opportunities!
... Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues,
was written about two thousand years ago.
SPIRIT OF MISSIONARY SERVICE
The gospel of Jesus Christ was restored in the year 1830, after centuries of darkness had passed. When the call was given, the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints went out into the world-not to criticize others, not to find fault, but to say to our Father's other children:
Keep all the good that you have received, keep all the truth that you have learned, all that has come to you in your homes, in your institutions of learning, under your many facilities for education, keep it all; and then let us divide with you additional truths that have been revealed by our Heavenly Father in our day.
Under that ministry, beginning, as I have said, in that conference when there were only sixty-three members of the priesthood present, there have been thousands upon thousands of missionaries; more than seventy thousand have gone out into the world, and in love and kindness they have gone from door to door saying to our Father's other children:
Let us reason with you; let us explain to you something that we are sure will make you happy as it has made us happy!
That is the history of the missionary work of the Church with which we are identified. Today we have missionaries scattered in many parts of the earth; some of them are in the armed services and rejoicing in their testimonies, they have been glad to divide the truth with those with whom they came in contact.
SHORT WAVE BROADCAST TO JAPAN
Just a few weeks ago I was invited to have a little visit with some of our servicemen who are in Kyoto, Japan. One of our brethren here in the valley telephoned me he had a licensed shortwave station and said, "If you will come down, Brother Smith, I will let you talk to the men and women in the armed services who are absent from their homes and are now over there serving the Government of the United States." I did not know just what it was going to be like. I went to his little station, and after a moment or two he called a station and talked back and forth with the man at the other end. That was the Philippine Islands, so he said: "We are not visiting with you today. We are going to visit Japan." Then he switched from there to one of the other islands in the Pacific and told them the same thing. And then when he was ready, after a little conversation with the station in Japan, he said: "Now, Brother Smith, there are two hundred and three members of the Church that will hear your voice as soon as you speak."
So I stood there for fifteen or twenty minutes and talked to them of the blessings of God bestowed upon them, of their lives being preserved during a terrible war, and of the love of those who are here waiting for their return. I urged them to keep the commandments of God and assured them that there was no other road to happiness but by keeping the commandments of God. I encouraged them to retain the fine records that they had already made and to come home clean and sweet to their loved ones with the favor of the Lord upon them. When I had finished, they took their turn, and several of these men said: "Thank you, Brother Smith. It has been a great encouragement to us to hear a voice from the tops of the Rocky Mountains, one that some of us are familiar with, and to know that you are thinking of us and are anxious for us. We will not let you down."
I thought that was a beautiful experience, and that is just one of many that we have. Personally, I have traveled more than a million miles in the world to divide the gospel of Jesus Christ with my fellowmen, but that was the first time I ever delivered a religious address to a congregation seven thousand miles away. Short-wave broadcasting will continue to improve, and it will not be long until, from this pulpit and other places that will be provided, the servants of the Lord will be able to deliver messages to isolated groups who are so far away they cannot be reached. In that way and other ways, the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord, the only power of God unto salvation in preparation for the celestial kingdom, will be heard in all parts of the world, and many of you who are here will live to see that day.
We are here today as a great family waiting upon the Lord. I see people in this house who are farmers, mechanics, who are active in the various pursuits of life. I see those who represent us in Washington and at home. I am glad to see here those who represent us as officers in our city. We are all sitting under the same roof, without differences, all having the same opportunity, and if we have come with the Spirit of the Lord resting upon us, each of us will be fed the bread of life, not by the individual who speaks, but by the Lord who gives voice.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF RELIEF SOCIETY SISTERS
I want to congratulate this fine group of singers who have sung for us thus far. It is lovely to know that our sisters are so interested in the work of the Lord. I did not have the pleasure of being in this hall yesterday, but I am informed that there were as many women here in this building as there are today, or nearly so. The sisters are active. I would like to say to you husbands, fathers, and brothers, these women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are a great strength to the Church.
Yesterday the great national Relief Society of the Church, the first great women's organization and the oldest now in existence, met in conference. Their representatives were here from all parts of this country and other countries, just as anxious to be what our Heavenly Father would have them be as we who are here today.
REWARDS OF MISSIONARY WORK
I am lifted up in my heart today as I look into the faces of my brethren. Some of them have been in the mission field for many, many years. They have remained away from home and reared their families. They are back to visit with us in conference, and ready to go again if they may be needed. That is the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A mission president who had been away from us about ten years was released and game home recently. He and his wife reared their three children down in the South Pacific among the descendants of Father Lehi. When he came home, he was glad to come back to this marvelous country that we live in and to associate with his family; and then when the matter of going into the mission field was talked about briefly, he was ready to turn around and go right back.
That is the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to labor without a salary, to labor without the comforts that we sometimes have at home, but to labor for the salvation of the human family, to bring our Fathers other children to a knowledge of the truth. The great reward that missionaries expect as the result of these years of service is to have the companionship of these men and women that they have brought into the Church in the world, the companionship of their own families that they love, right here upon this earth throughout the ages of eternity.
I would like to say to you mission presidents that you are doing a wonderful work. The Lord has blessed you and magnified you, and the work of the Church has only just begun. All of us may have to go again and again into the mission field, but it is the one way that we can lay up treasures in heaven and be sure that they will await us when we go to the other side.
PRAYER FOR SAINTS
May the Lord add his blessing. May we so live that every day of our lives the world will be better for our having lived in it. May we so live that our neighbors and friends will be constrained to seek after the wisdom of our Heavenly Father and his righteous purposes and thereby gain happiness, not only here but hereafter.
I pray that in our hearts and in our homes there may abide that spirit of love, of patience, of kindness, of charity, of helpfulness that enriches our lives and that makes the world brighter and better because of it.
I pray that we may continue to rejoice together under the influence of the Lord here until the end of the conference, and when that time comes that we may go to our homes renewed in our determination to keep the commandments of the Lord, that our happiness may be perfected as a result of our righteousness. If we will do that, then our visit here will not have been in vain. On the contrary, it will be a tremendous blessing to us.
I pray that the Lord will bless you in your hearts and in your homes. I pray for those of our people who are isolated in distant lands, far from the organized wards and branches of the Church, many of them almost alone in great communities. I pray that the Lord will bless them and that they may feel today the influences that we enjoy here, and in the due time of our Heavenly Father that they may be permitted to "come out of her", as the Lord indicated his people should do, prior to the winding-up scene when this earth will be cleansed and purified by fire, when all mortality will be taken away and only those who are prepared to dwell in the celestial kingdom under the guidance of our Heavenly Father, under the leadership of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, will be here. I pray that they and we and all the men and women of the world who have the desire to live righteously and are keeping the commandments of God may be among that number.
I pray that our homes may be sanctified by the righteousness of our lives, that the adversary may have no power to come there and destroy the children of our homes or those who dwell under our roofs. If we will honor God and keep his commandments, our homes will be sacred, the adversary will have no influence, and we will live in happiness and peace until the winding-up scene in mortality and we go to receive our reward in immortality.
God bless you; peace be with you; joy and satisfaction abide with you all, henceforth and forever, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Elder John A. Widtsoe
John A. Widtsoe, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 12-15
My dear brethren and sisters: With you I have listened with great interest and profit to the address of the man who stands at the head of the Church at this time. I am always glad, with you, to be under the leadership of inspired men. The world is hungering, I believe, for that kind of leadership.
DISTURBED CONDITION OF WORLD
The world is in a disturbed condition. There is discouragement everywhere. No man seems to see the end from the beginning. I have pondered in my heart for some time what my obligation is in this state of worldly confusion. What is the obligation of my Church, the restored Church of Christ in these latter days? Perhaps all of us have entertained such thoughts in these unhappy days.
There is a world cry for peace; everybody wants peace. In newspapers, magazines, books, from the public platform come cries for peace. As far back as I can remember, there has never been such a worldwide appeal for peace among the children of men. Yet it begins to look as if we are farther away from peace today than we were during the heavy and difficult war years.
It is a curious commentary on human nature that men who cry for peace look upon peace as something that may be picked as an apple from a tree, something that lies about within easy reach of humanity. If I pick an apple from a tree, I have first planted the tree, cared for it, watered it, brought it to maturity. Then in due time I may have the fruit.
So with peace. It is not a thing by itself to be picked up casually; but it is the fruit of something precedent. Like the tree, something must be planted and nourished and cared for, if we are to obtain peace.
PEACE RESULT OF OBEDIENCE TO GOSPEL
It is a marvel to thinking men that those who write on peace fail to understand that it can be obtained only by the use of a body of principles which, if obeyed, in time would give us peace. We cannot begin with peace; we must begin with the philosophy or the system which, if accepted and honored, will lead to peace. Failure to understand that seems to be the error of the nations at this time, of the organizations and conventions of nations, assembled in great meetings on this side and the other side of the Atlantic. They have so far failed to touch upon the foundations of peace, upon the issues which are the aids to peace. They clamor for the peace they want, without yielding obedience to the methods by which that peace may be obtained.
The Latter-day Saints, from the beginning of our history, have taught that the good things of life, above all, peace, can come only through acceptance of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the Prince of Peace. He is the Prince of Peace. It is only as the men and women of the world, all children of God, accept the gospel of the Son of God that peace shall come to rule and reign and be established upon earth. That has been our message from the beginning of the restoration of the gospel in this day. We still proclaim without hesitation, that there is only one way to peace, one way to the perfect human happiness, the way of the gospel, paved with the principles that constitute the gospel.
We make a further claim, brethren and sisters. It is a claim that often makes us hesitant in stating it, because it is so vast in its meaning, in its implications. We claim that this people, this Church, organized by God's own voice in this generation, possesses the only system of truth containing all of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, by that token, there can be no full peace, no complete happiness upon earth, until the men and women of the world accept the great latter-day message. We stand humbly before this claim, I know, but it is our claim. The Lord has said so.
He has said further, that the time shall come in these latter days when every ear shall hear and every eye shall see, and every heart be penetrated by the eternal message of the gospel, and that this great message shall be delivered by "the mouths of my disciples, whom I have chosen in these last days", those spoken of by President Smith in his opening address to this conference.
OUR OBLIGATION TO TEACH THE TRUTH
Now, then, if all this be true, in my thinking about these things, there lies my obligation. It is my divine obligation somehow, through my feeble efforts, and through yours, and through all the members of the Church, to teach all the world the truth of the restored gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I must try to plant this truth in the hearts of men and women. I must contribute every day in my way, as best I can, toward the teaching of the truth which alone can bring peace to our unhappy world. It is a tremendous obligation when we view it as a whole; but with the help of the Lord easy to meet, if we take the tasks one by one, always keeping our obligation in mind, as we travel through life.
Missionary work must grow in foreign fields, as never before; missionary work at home must increase as never before. We shall employ every modern device-the telephone, telegraph, radio, printing press, the short wave systems as mentioned by President Smith, and the other devices that are coming. We shall use them all in our attempt to win men and women from wickedness to righteousness, from untruth or near truth to full and complete truth which is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This Church is not merely for me and for you who are in the Church. I must begin with myself, undoubtedly. My own salvation comes first; but unless I give of my strength to the winning of other souls for God, my own salvation will be incomplete. That applies to all of us. It cannot be otherwise if we follow the message given us this morning by our prophet and leader. We have a calling, not merely to build the Church of Christ, and to save ourselves therein, but also a commission to save the whole world. We are, as it were, set apart, consecrated for that great purpose. All of Israel must remember, every man or woman who enters the waters of baptism must keep in mind, and every child that comes into the Church must be taught that by the ordinance of baptism we accept the great and divine commission to serve the Lord in building his Church. It will then be easy to keep the commandments of God, to lay aside or meet courageously the temptations that face us. To stand alone, saying selfishly, "I have received the gospel; it is good to be a Latter-day Saint" will not be doing our duty; but, when we say, "Now, I have received this great blessing. I shall pass it on to others"; there comes the flowering in the hearts of men of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
COMMISSION TO SUPPLANT EVIL WITH GOOD
We are not as other people; we are different. We are humble acceptors of the truth, yielders to God's will and word, under a commission to change the whole world, from evil to good. It is a great commission. It has been our commission from the beginning.
The great men who led this Church from the beginning have voiced this commission or calling to which we are consecrated. When we talk about this commission, about our duty or obligation, let us not forget the lesson of these mighty men. In the midst of confusion let us look back to the labors of those who have gone before us, our fathers who founded the Church under God's direction, who toiled from city to city, across the plains and the desert to build a commonwealth. They left behind them, not necessarily the heritage of their methods, for the world has changed, but the heritage of their undaunted, unchanging spirit. We must be as eager to fulfill God's word as they were in their day. We must do that, my brethren and sisters, if we are to fulfill and meet our full obligation in this difficult age. To those who catch the spirit of this obligation, of this commission, of this calling to a great people will come strength to resist, as I have said, the temptations of the world. It will be easy to reject the cocktail; the cigar can be laid aside easily; to divide with the Lord in tithing will not seem difficult; to converse with the Lord in prayer will be a joyful experience. Men are changed and transformed who enter into partnership with God in helping to establish his great cause upon the face of the earth.
GOD'S WORK IS ETERNAL
This work is not an ordinary cause. It is God's cause. It is not a cause for a day. It is a cause for the eternities, both gone and coming. We are working out an eternal project, you and I, all of us. We of today must do as well as those who went before us, a bit better perhaps, for new opportunities have come to us in our day. We should do better in this Church in the cause of righteousness than grandfather or great-grandfather. More light has come, more opportunity is given, more means are at our command. We should do better. And we all, especially the youth of the Church, should dream about the future of the Church, and give our own earnest endeavors to the fulfilment of our commissions.
These are the thoughts that have been running through my mind, and crystallized during President Smith's address this morning.
I want to bear this testimony to you that as I have traveled through the world, and while I have not traveled as much as President Smith, I have traveled far and wide, I have found thousands of people not acquainted with the gospel; good, clean, wholesome people, walking in darkness, who are looking for light, who, misled by untruths, are looking for truth, and unhappy because of the untruths handed to them by tradition. There are a vast congregation of men and women throughout the world, in every country, of every creed and color, waiting for us and our great message. The field is ripe unto harvest.
Now I pray, my brethren and sisters, that we may rise in our strength, the strength of Zion, and fill and fulfill our commission. Let us forget at least a part of the time the daily duties that hold us down, and give ourselves to thoughts and actions, in building actively under our great obligation, the great latter-day kingdom of God, the Almighty Father. May it be so, I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Thomas E. McKay
Thomas E. McKay, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 16-19
President Smith, counselors, and my brethren and sisters: It has been my privilege since our return from Europe in the spring of 1940, to visit three of the missions and nearly all the one hundred and fifty-eight stakes in the Church, and participate in their quarterly conferences. This is an opportunity that I have appreciated very much.
COMMENDATION FOR GOOD WORK
It is a fine thing for one to keep busy, at least, it is a fine thing for me. Work is a great blessing. Someone has said that even a mule can't kick while he's pulling. It has been very interesting as well as instructive to get better acquainted with you fine stake and ward leaders, to see you in action, to observe how you do things, and I was going to say, how some of you don't do things, but that wouldn't be fair, because all of you, as far as I have been able to observe, are doing a splendid job. Of course, some of you are doing better than others. For example, in some of the stakes we find but very few young people in the meetings, not only in our conferences, but also in the sacrament meetings, and in other stakes nearly half of the congregations are made up of young people of twenty-one or under; most of them are there because they have been asked and trained to furnish the music; others have been given definite assignments. In some of the quarterly conferences we have had as high as three hundred young people, furnishing very excellent music. An Aaronic Priesthood chorus of two hundred thirty-eight clear-toned young voices gave some very choice selections in the general priesthood session of the conference; one of the numbers was so outstanding they were requested to repeat it in the evening session. A number of the stakes have choruses of from fifty to two hundred fifty voices made up entirely of Aaronic Priesthood members. In one stake, an adult Aaronic Priesthood chorus furnished at least part of the musical program. May I take this opportunity to compliment the Presiding Bishopric of our Church upon the splendid efforts they are putting forth in behalf of both the boys and men in the Aaronic Priesthood. After they had made a survey of the Aaronic Priesthood members, and it was shown that there were nearly as many men, as boys under twenty-one, they set about to discover the cause-the source that brought about such a condition, and are now trying to remove the cause. They are fencing the cliff. Many of you know the poem on "The Fence or the Ambulance," that illustrates what I mean by discovering and removing the source of evil.
"THE FENCE OR THE AMBULANCE"
The community was divided into two factions: one favoring the fence around the cliff; the other, the ambulance down in the valley. And the ambulance, it seemed, had the majority; and so they put the ambulance down in the valley. Then an old sage remarked, "It's a marvel to me that people give more attention to repairing results than to stopping the cause, when they had much better aim at prevention."
"Let us stop at the source, all this mischief," cried he, "Come, neighbors and friends, let us rally, If the cliff we will fence, we might almost dispense With the ambulance down in the valley."
"Oh, he's a fanatic," the others rejoined, "Dispense with the ambulance, never! He'd dispense with all charities, too, if he could, No, we'll support them forever."
But the sensible few who are practical, too, Will not bear with such nonsense much longer; They believe that prevention is better than cure, And their party will soon be the stronger.
Better guide well the young than reclaim them when old, For the voice of true wisdom is calling, To rescue the fallen is good, But it is best to prevent other people from falling.
Better close up the source of temptation and crime, Than deliver from dungeon and galley; Better put a strong fence around the top of the cliff, Than an ambulance down in the valley.
PRESIDING BISHOPRIC FENCING THE CLIFF
It is shown by a survey made by the Presiding Bishopric that as a rule the twelve boys in the deacon's quorum remained and were worthy to be ordained teachers, but some of them were lost as teachers, and more of them as priests; thus, the adult Aaronic Priesthood group kept getting larger, and the Church and the State were put to more expense and trouble in furnishing more ambulances. The Presiding Bishopric is doing a splendid job in removing the source-in fencing the cliff. The bishops in the wards are also carrying out a program of definite assignments. The bishop, who is president of the priest's quorum, receives the priests from the teacher's quorum as a body, and this group of boys are made to feel that they belong to the bishop-are his special bodyguard, and they are prepared to be recommended to be ordained elders in a body-not one of them left behind to add to the number of adult Aaronic Priesthood members, and the number of ambulances can be reduced.
PRIVILEGE OF THE BALLOT
It is a fine thing to study causes. Ambulances, so-called, are increasing in so many ways, and they will continue to do so until the sources are discovered and removed. The ballot is a most convenient method that we have in this great free country of ours to remove causes or sources that make it necessary to pay thousands of dollars for ambulances, and may I urge with all the emphasis possible that every person show his appreciation for his citizenship in this land of freedom by voting every time the opportunity presents itself, and thereby help to keep this country free. I feel so keenly about this matter of voting that I wish at times when I see the indifference manifest by so many of our people that some penalty could be imposed upon those who neglect this God-given right. I feel that every person who is entitled to vote and doesn't do so is not a good loyal citizen. And especially is that true of members of the Church. They are not only not good citizens, but I think that they are not good Latter-day Saints, and should be very much ashamed.
It may be wise for me, right here, to get back to the discussion of "The Fence or the Ambulance," as exemplified by the Presiding Bishopric. These brethren are not only getting at the source, taking care of these boys, but they are also trying to offer a remedy for those who have already fallen over the cliff. They have prepared a definite outline-a course of study-a book of songs-have assigned these adult members to see that everyone is made comfortable as far as seating and ventilation are concerned. Many of them are also assigned to welfare projects. In one ward in a southern stake that I visited, every member of the adult Aaronic Priesthood was reported active. In another stake, a ward sent down quite a large group, eight men who had qualified themselves as worthy of having received the Melchizedek Priesthood, and they came to the temple in a body and were sealed to their wives and their children for eternity, and not just "until death do ye part."
RETURNED SERVICEMEN
I am very happy that the Presidency of the Church appointed a servicemen's committee to look after our one hundred thousand servicemen. Prevention again is better than cure. You can't estimate the good that this committee and the coordinators have accomplished, putting their arms around our servicemen, guiding them over dangerous places, talking to them at the crossroads. I am delighted also that President Hugh B. Brown has been appointed to work at Brigham Young University to continue his splendid work with the servicemen and women. It might be well if such a committee were appointed also to look after the hundreds of young people who are scattered throughout the land, some of them away from organized wards, stakes, or branches, many of them occupying very responsible positions in business, politics, education, and various other professions. These are fine young men, intelligent, and I am sure that the mission presidents would welcome men especially qualified to help them in contacting these very intelligent young men who in the words of the Ancient in Three Wise Fools, have reached the age of reason.
PRESIDENT SMITH-AMBASSADOR OF GOOD WILL
These young people are surely worth saving, and I am very delighted that President Smith-our ambassador of good will-is leading the way in this respect; in his kind, tolerant, sweet spirit he has put himself out to speak to many such persons. I know personally of two or three who, because of President Smith's interest in them, are now using the talents with which they are abundantly blessed, for the Church instead of against it. President Smith, like those presidents who have preceded him, is the right man in the right place at the right time. He is the prophet for us in this day.
The Savior also set a very splendid example for all of us to follow. Saul, another brilliant young fellow who had arrived at the age of reason, was so sure of himself that he was persecuting the Christians, even assisting in the stoning of one of the prophets, but that did not deter the Savior from extending his hand, speaking to Saul, and eventually Saul became Paul, one of the greatest of the apostles, the great apostle to the Gentiles. Our Lord also left the ninety and nine and found supreme joy in rescuing the lost one.
May God bless us all, brethren and sisters, with wisdom, especially you stake and ward leaders, in our efforts to discover and remove causes, sources of evil and at the same time keep working diligently to cure and remove the evils that do now exist, I pray in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Mark E. Petersen
Mark E. Petersen, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 19-22
JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
A man we shall call Bishop Brown, for the sake of anonymity, sat reading his evening newspaper and came across one item that especially interested him. After reading it he said to his wife who sat nearby, "I see that Jones boy has finally gone to jail. It's a wonder he didn't go sooner, considering the record he had." And then he recalled that this Jones boy, when he used to go to Church, was rather rowdy and hard to handle. Later he became a truant at high school, sluffed his classes to go out joy riding with the boys, and then later with a group began to steal automobiles. Then, one night when the boys were short of money, a few of them decided to rob a store. It was for this crime that they were being sent to jail. The bishop, turning to his wife said, "It's certainly terrible, isn't it, how the young people carry on these days?"
This was a favorite theme with the bishop. He would talk about it quite frequently in his Sunday evening meetings and would quote statistics to prove his point. Among the statistics he would use were some like these:
The F.B.I. reports that the first six months of 1946 show the highest rate of increase in crime in the United States of any period since crime figures have been compiled on a national basis. The increase was fifty percent higher in rural areas than in cities, contrary to the prevailing opinion. More arrests were made among seventeen-year-olds than in any other age group. In 1945, arrests of boys, seventeen years of age or under, increased twenty-nine percent over the three-year average for the period 1939 to 194l. Arrests of girls, seventeen or under, for this same period showed an increase of one hundred and fifteen percent.
What is the picture in Utah? Figures provided by the state child welfare department reveal that from 1936 to 1944, the number of cases referred to the juvenile courts in Utah increased more than three hundred percent. Stealing by juveniles in Utah nearly doubled during this period. Truancy more than doubled. Children listed as ungovernable increased more than four times, and juvenile traffic violations went up twelve times.
Whose children are these? Are they yours or someone else's? In the first six months of 1946, the little town of Layton, Utah, had fifty-one cases of juvenile delinquency, serious enough to be referred to the juvenile courts. Clearfield had thirty-three; Price had fifty-one; Cedar City, thirty-five; Fillmore, twenty-two; Brigham City, thirty-seven; Murray, twenty-seven; Vernal, forty; Provo, one hundred seventy-eight; Ogden, four hundred eighty-one; Salt Lake City, one thousand forty-eight; and many other cases distributed over the remaining parts of the state in proportion.
RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS AND BISHOPS
When Bishop Brown would quote these figures to his people, he emphasized the fact that national authorities in child welfare declared that a large part of the responsibility for this condition rested upon the parents, and the bishop made a grand appeal to the parents to improve their home life in order to hold on to their children and avoid as much of this delinquency as possible.
I do not in any way wish to minimize the responsibility of the parents with regard to their children, but if Bishop Brown had read further into the reports of these national experts, he would have discovered that these same authorities declare that a large part of the responsibility for the juvenile delinquency in America must also be borne by the local leaders of various churches; that the religious leaders of our communities must shoulder a good part of the responsibility. Some of the young people who had gone astray came from that bishop's own ward. Did he ever connect their delinquency with his own work as a bishop? Did he connect it at all with the work being done by his Sunday School, Primary, Mutual Improvement Associations, or Aaronic Priesthood leaders? Did he trace the difficulty in which these young people found themselves to any failure on the part of the leadership of the various organizations in his ward to carry out successfully the youth program of the Church?
The good bishop forgot that his Aaronic Priesthood work was at a low ebb and failed to reach a great number of the boys in his ward. Yet the Aaronic Priesthood program is designed to build character and strength and spirituality in the boys of the ward. When boys are not reached by it, they lose the strength which the program provides and thus weakened, some of them fall into sin when temptation comes along.
The good bishop also forgot that his M.I.A. work was very weak, and like the Aaronic Priesthood activity in the ward, failed to build strength of character among the young people. And he forgot that there was very little enlistment work done in his Sunday School.
He forgot, too, that he had failed to adopt the Latter-day Saint girls' program, because he didn't agree with all of the minor details in it. And he forgot that his ward provided little or no recreation for the young people, and that all last year it had given only two dances for the young people who like to come there. During the remaining fifty weeks of the year, the doors of the recreation hall of that ward were closed against the young people who would have liked to go there for their dances. And yet that same good bishop would stand up on Sunday night and denounce some of these young people because they went to public dance halls.
Did the bishop ever think to ask how often young people like to go out? Did he content himself with two dances a year when he was young and when he went courting?
YOUTH NEEDS RECREATION
Do you know, my brothers and sisters, that all last year the average ward in this Church gave fewer than five dances for the young people and that the average stake gave only a little more than three? If we put them both together, then last year there was an average of only eight dances given under Church sponsorship, to which the young people of any given ward or stake could go, and during the remaining forty-four weeks of the year, our young people had to shift for themselves? And do you know that every summer when the weather gets warm, except for a few canyon or park outings, the wards and stakes of this Church very generally go out of business and close their doors so far as recreation is concerned?
I know that you do not approve your young people going to public dance halls where so often liquor is available and where frequently undesirable elements are present. Yet, like Bishop Brown, we do so little about it. Our young people would far rather dance in good places with good people to good music, but they want to do it more than eight times a year. Likewise, our young people enjoy their Fireside groups, their M Men and Gleaner work, their Boy Scout and Aaronic Priesthood, their Junior girl and Bee Hive activity when there is an interested leadership present. But put yourselves in their places. Which of you would stay with an organization that was only half alive?
SOULS PRECIOUS IN THE SIGHT OF GOD
The worth of souls is great in the sight of God.
When our young people fall, can you count the cost of it? Remember there is a price tag attached to every evil deed, and that price tag is a big one. The cost of sin is so great that it can hardly be measured by mortal men, but it must be counted in remorse, broken hearts, lost opportunities, and lost souls. Compare that price with the price of well-supervised, Church-sponsored recreation. Compare that price with the expenditure of time and effort required to conduct good M Men and Cleaner activity, or a good Boy Scout, Aaronic Priesthood, Junior girl, or Bee Hive program. Which price would you rather pay?
A wise man said:
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
He did not say, neglect the child and let him run the streets. Neither did he say, forget the youth program of the Church, and let the children shift for themselves. The Lord loves the children; it was he who said:
Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
Do we ever forbid the children? When we close the doors of our recreation halls most of the year, do we forbid the children? When we fail to adopt the youth program of the Church, which is specially designed to bring the children unto the Lord, do we forbid the children? The Good Shepherd not only said, "Feed my sheep", but he also said with great emphasis, "Feed my lambs". May we do so, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
Joseph L. Wirthlin, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 29-35
I sincerely trust, my brethren and sisters, that I may enjoy the Spirit of the Lord during the moment or two that I might stand before you.
I am profoundly grateful to the Lord because in this day and in this dispensation he has raised up a Prophet and prophets who have followed him. Through these prophets he has given his word to us that pertains to all of the phases and activities of life. I am thinking particularly now of that phase of our life that has to do with the law of the land. He made it known unto us through the Prophet Joseph:
According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles;... And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.
FREE AGENCY VS. FORCE
I have thought many times of the men who were selected by God in Revolutionary days to set up a government, a government predicated upon the great principle of free agency, that principle which was fought for in the councils of heaven when two of the Lord's sons stood before him, one of them advocating a plan whereby he would redeem all of the Lord's children that were to come to the new earth, whether they desired redemption or not; and the other one advocating a plan that he would extend to each man his agency to decide whether or not he would follow the commandments of God or whether he would follow the commandments of the opposite power. As a result of advocating these two plans, a great war took place in the heavens, and Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, was cast out; and from that day until now, these two great forces have been in a gigantic struggle. Jesus Christ came to earth and gave each and every one of us the right and the privilege to follow God's commandments as we saw fit, while, on the other hand, Satan has done all within his power to ensnare the souls of the Lord's children and have them follow after him.
These two philosophies have been found in government. We find that in the days of George Washington, in the day of these wise men that the Lord raised up to found a republic, founded upon the principle of free agency, that there were those who opposed the idea; there were those who fought against the principles as advocated by Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the Revolutionary fathers. And from that day until this, the world over, these two philosophies have been struggling with each other. The Lord gave Joseph Smith another revelation, one that should be a warning to all of us, with reference to the principle of force as advocated by Lucifer, for the Lord said:
And again, I say unto you that the enemy in the secret chambers seeketh your lives. Ye hear of wars in far countries, and you say that there will soon be great wars in far countries, but ye know not the hearts of men in your own land.
DANGEROUS TENDENCIES IN GOVERNMENT
I am sure that this revelation, brothers and sisters, pertains to this day and to this time. While our attention is attracted to foreign countries where there have been wars and where there are still wars, there are within the very borders of this great republic those who would change our form of government and who would force upon us the same type of government that Lucifer advocated in the councils of heaven.
Now these wise men that the Lord raised up during the days of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Robert Morris, and Hamilton, provided a pattern of government for us to follow, a pattern of government which has brought to us numerous blessings, a form of government that has made us the strongest, and, may I say, the richest nation in all the world, because it has been founded upon the principle of free agency. Every individual has had the right to do the thing that he has wanted to do in the fields of industry, agriculture, or whatnot. He has had the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. He has had the right to own property. He has had the right to speak as he sees fit, and he has enjoyed the privilege of a great and free press. But, on the other hand, we find that the philosophy of the evil one would teach us that, after all, our government should be centralized in the hands of one or two men. Some advocate changing the form of our government. They advocate regimentation of industry and labor. They advocate that deficit spending is the sure way to prosperity. They would pervert the Constitution. They have endeavored through the various educational systems of this great country to teach us doctrines that are contrary to the doctrines and the principles upon which this great republic is founded. They would restrict us in our religious worship. They would disrupt family relationships. And so as we compare these two great systems, we can readily see that they are but a carry-over from that great battle which took place in the spirit world.
When I think of these wise men, George Washington and Jefferson and Franklin, I think of men who were servants of God, raised up for the purpose of establishing the Constitution and establishing this great government. Thomas Jefferson was endowed from on high with prophetic power. If you will study the Doctrines of Democracy as advocated by Thomas Jefferson one hundred thirty years ago, you will find that in many respects we have departed from the principles that made us a great and powerful nation.
JEFFERSON'S STATEMENT ON CENTRALIZED GOVERNMENT
Those who would change our form of government would centralize all its powers and functions into the hands of a few. Let us refer to this man of God, Thomas Jefferson, who was raised up by the Lord to help establish this great republic. What did Jefferson say with reference to centralized government?
Our country is too large to have all of its affairs directed by a single government, and I do verily believe that if the principle were to prevail of a common law being in force in the United States, it would become the most corrupt government upon the earth. What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all of the state powers into the hands of the general government. The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations.
Over the years that have passed, the states have given up many of their rights to the federal government. As a result, we are becoming a closely supervised nation in many respects. This man of God understood this and warned us and forewarned us to protect our rights as states and as individuals.
Jefferson foresaw the time when, should we be regulated in our businesses, in all our endeavors, there would come a day of famine. I shall read to you one of his statements: "Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
We are living in that very day. We have seen the need for bread; we have seen the need for meat; we have seen the need for sugar; we have seen the need for many of the necessities of life. I am sure this wise man of God enjoyed the inspiration of the spirit of prophecy when he made the above declaration.
There are those who would change our form of government, would regiment us in all of our endeavors. It would be only a short time when men would be called to perform work whether they were qualified to do it or not. They would be forced into the harness of labor without any opportunity to express their own desires. Serfdom would soon dominate the lives of the people.
And again, this wise man of God saw that if there ever came a time when we were regimented that we would lose our independence, that we would lose all the blessings that have come to us through the Constitution of the United States. He said this, in speaking of regimentation, which is nothing more nor less than nazism, communism, or fascism, which are the forms of government that have shackled the peoples of Germany, Russia, Italy, and other nations Should we adopt foreign "isms,"
... it will be as in Europe, where every man must be pike or gudgeon, hammer or anvil. Our functionaries and theirs are wares from the same workshop, made of the same materials, and by the same hand. If the states look with apathy on this silent descent of their government into the gulf which is to swallow all, we have only to weep over the human character formed uncontrollable but by a rod of iron, and the blasphemers of man, as incapable of self-government.
DEBT BRINGS SERVITUDE
Then there are those who would change our form of government, these wicked men that the Lord spoke of in a revelation to the Prophet Joseph as scheming and planning to do away with what the Lord had given us; one of their lines of attack is that of perpetual debt. It may be of some interest for you to know, and no doubt you already know it, that one of the greatest advocates of one of these "isms," Lenin, the great Russian revolutionist, said: "As far as America is concerned, we will let America spend and spend herself into bankruptcy, then we will take over."
What did Thomas Jefferson, this wise man of the Lord, say with reference to perpetual debt? He said:
I am not among those who fear the people. They are our dependents for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude.
I hope we have not gone so far in this nation of ours that because of the profusion which we have had we have brought upon ourselves servitude.
Now is the time. Now is the time if we are to preserve our independence and liberty to let those know in whose hands we have given the affairs of government, that we are not going to stand for continued extravagant spending, for as surely as that policy continues we will face bankruptcy and with bankruptcy there will come that inevitable, dreadful thing that we call revolution. And with revolution comes the opportunity for those within the borders of our land who would destroy our government, to step in and take over. They would also change our form of government, and what did this wise man of the Lord, Thomas Jefferson, say with reference to this change?
I said to President Washington that if the equilibrium of the three great bodies, legislative, executive, and judiciary, could be preserved, if the legislature could be kept independent, I should never fear the result of such a government; but that I could not but be uneasy when I saw that the executive had swallowed up the legislative branch. When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we are separated.
Brethren and sisters, these are the words of one of God's inspired servants, one of those whom he told us through revelation he had raised up to help establish the government of the United States.
BENEFITS OF FREEDOM
I ask you to compare the fruits of this great republic with the fruits of those nations where they have accepted or had forced upon them these "isms" of the evil one. For example, in the United States, with roughly six percent of the world's population in six percent of its area, America enjoys forty-four percent of the productive wealth of the world. Thirty million families live in American homes valued at a hundred and two billion dollars. They cultivate six and a half million farms with an estimated value of fifty-eight billion dollars. American families enjoy the use of twenty-five million automobiles, nineteen million telephones, and forty-five million radios.
And so I could go on and point out to you the fruits, the temporal fruits, that have come to us because we have had the privilege of living under a government founded upon the divine principle of free agency. These figures, after all, brethren and sisters, are a tribute to the wisdom of our system of government with its freedom and its individual initiative which have always been the urge to these accomplishments.
Now I ask you to compare these accomplishments and fruits with those nations that have adopted a system where men and women are regimented, where they dare not express their thoughts nor have the right to worship God as their conscience dictates to them. Have they achieved any such results as these? You and I know that they have not, and they never can, because so long as the individual is shackled, there will be no opportunity for individual progress. And one of the grand and glorious things about our republic is the fact that it is the individual that counts, and the state is but to serve him. He does not become a mere pawn of the state and a cog in a great machine; he is the objective of the government. And as long as the individual is the objective of this great government, you can rest well assured that we will continue to make progress and enjoy all of the blessings in the future that we have in the past.
CONSTITUTION SHOULD BE APPRECIATED
It is of vital importance that in our homes we should teach our children that this great government and its fundamental law were given to us by God, that he inspired men who framed the Constitution of the United States. Oh, I am fearful that in our schools little consideration is given to the Constitution! I am fearful that our young men and our young women are not learning very much about this great republic, and that being the case, it is time that in the home we, as parents, take upon ourselves the responsibility of teaching the youth of the land the very truth that God revealed for the establishment of the Constitution of the United States and the organizing of our republic.
RESPONSIBILITY OF PUBLIC SERVANTS
It is time that public servants should look upon the matter of serving in government capacity as a great and a sacred calling, not one wherein they receive special benefits for themselves, but one wherein they are willing to serve the people to the best advantage.
Whenever I think of the obligation of serving in government capacity, there comes to mind one of those old patriots who lived shortly after the Revolutionary War and prior to the Civil War, Henry Clay. When he was about ready to lay aside the mantle that rested upon him as one of the servants of his great state, he said:
I can with unshaken confidence appeal to the Divine Arbiter for the truth of the declaration that I have been influenced by no impure purpose and no personal motive, have sought no personal aggrandizement, but that in all of my public acts, I have had a full and single eye and a warm and devoted heart directed and dedicated to what, in my best judgment, I believed to be the true interest of my country.
I would to God that every public servant should have that attitude, and I am sure if they had it, we should receive a service at their hands which would perpetuate and preserve the great principles that this republic rests upon. We have been blessed with prophets of God, who from time to time have called our attention to the Constitution of the United States as being a revelation from God.
Brigham Young declared, and I am sure he echoed the sentiments of all of us when he said:
We need to sustain the Constitution of the United States and all righteous laws. We will cling to the Constitution of our country and to the government that reveres that sacred charter of free men's rights and, if necessary, pour out our best blood for the defense of every good and righteous principle.
A Frenchman whom I do not know made this statement:
It has been stated that America is the only country that pretends to listen to the teachings of its founders as if they were still alive.
I humbly pray that we will more than pretend to hearken unto the teachings of the founders of this great nation, that we will make their teachings a part of our religion to the end that we will become acquainted with these great men of Revolutionary days and revere them and hold them up as servants of God, which I pray we will all do, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
Joseph Fielding Smith, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 35-39
My beloved brethren and sisters: With the help of the Lord, I hope to present to you one of the most vital principles connected with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in order that I may get it before us properly, I intend to read statements from President Brigham Young and other Authorities, because their statements will have far greater weight than anything that I might say. What I am going to talk about is marriage.
PRESIDENT BRIGHAM YOUNG'S COUNSEL ON MARRIAGE
President Brigham Young, in giving a counsel to the members of the Church said:
When a man and woman have received their endowments and sealings, and then had children born to them afterwards, those children are legal heirs to the kingdom and to all its blessings and promises, and they are the only ones that are on this earth. There is not a young man in our community who would not be willing to travel from here to England to be married right, if he understood things as they are; there is not a young woman in our community, who loves the gospel and wishes its blessings, that would be married in any other way; they would live unmarried until they... were as old as Sarah before she had Isaac born to her. Many of our brethren have married off their children without taking this into consideration, and thinking it a matter of little importance. I wish we all understood this in the light in which heaven understands it.
Again:
Be careful, O ye mothers in Israel, and do not teach your daughters in the future, as many of them have been taught, to marry out of Israel. Woe to you who do it; you will lose your crowns as sure as God lives.
Now, I would hardly dare say that. Again:
What was the cause of the first, or one of the first, curses that came upon Israel? I will tell you. One of the first transgressions of the family called Israel, was their going to other families or other nations to select partners. This was one of the great mistakes made by the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for they would go and marry with other families, although the Lord had forbidden them to do so, and had given them a very strict and stringent law on the subject. He commanded them not to marry among the Gentiles, but they did and would do it. Inasmuch as they would not do what he required of them, then he gave them what I call a portion of the law of carnal commandments. This law told them what they might and whom they might not marry. It was referred to by the Savior and his apostles, and it was a grievous yoke to place on the necks of any people; but as the children of this family would run after Babylon, and after the pride and the vanity and evils of the world, and seek to introduce them into Israel, the Lord saw fit to place this burden upon them.
Again:
How is it with you, sisters? Do you distinguish between a man of God and a man of the world? It is one of the strangest things that happens in my existence, to think that any man or woman can love a being that will not receive the truth of heaven. The love this gospel produces is far above the love of women; it is the love of God-the love of eternity-of eternal lives.
ADVICE TO MARRY IN THE CHURCH
Now this from President Joseph F. Smith:
I would rather go myself to the grave than to be associated with a wife outside of the bonds of the new and everlasting covenant. Now, I hold it just so sacred; but some members of the Church do not so regard the matter. Some people feel that it does not make very much difference whether a girl marries a man in the Church, full of the faith of the gospel, or an unbeliever. Some of our young people have married outside of the Church; but very few of those who have done it have failed to come to grief. I would like to see Latter-day Saint men marry Latter-day Saint women; and Methodists marry Methodists, Catholics marry Catholics; and Presbyterians marry Presbyterians, and so on to the limit. Let them keep within the pale of their own faith and church, and marry and intermarry there, and let the Latter-day Saints do the same thing in their Church. Then we will see who comes out best in the end..
This from Elder Orson Pratt, which was delivered by appointment and endorsed by President Brigham Young:
We cannot feel justified in closing this article on the subject of marriage without saying a few words to unmarried females in this Church.
You will clearly perceive, from the revelation which God has given, that you can never obtain a fulness of glory, without being married to a righteous man for time and for all eternity. If you marry a man who receives not the gospel, you lay a foundation for sorrow in this world, besides losing the privilege of enjoying the society of a husband in eternity. You forfeit your right to an endless increase of immortal lives. And even the children which you may be favoured with in this life, will not be entrusted to your charge in eternity, but you will be left in that world without a husband, without a family, without a kingdom, without any means of enlarging yourselves, being subject to the principalities and powers who are counted worthy of families, and kingdoms, and thrones, and the increase of dominions forever. To them you will be servants and angels-that is, provided that your conduct should be such as to secure this measure of glory. Can it be possible that any females, after knowing these things, will suffer themselves to keep company with persons out of this Church?
It matters not how great the morality of such persons may be, nor how kind they may be to you, they are not numbered with the people of God; they are not in the way of salvation, they cannot save themselves nor their families, and after what God has revealed upon this subject, you cannot be justified, for one moment, in keeping their company. It would be infinitely better for you to suffer poverty and tribulation with the people of God, than to place yourselves under the power of those who will not embrace the great truth of heaven. By marrying an unbeliever, you place yourselves in open disobedience to the command of God requiring his people to gather together. Do you expect to be saved in direct violation of the command of heaven?.
ONLY COVENANTS MADE BY GOD ARE ETERNAL
I have some other quotations on another phase, but I want to refer now to what the Lord has said in a revelation to the Church.
Will I accept of an offering, saith the Lord, that is not made in my name? Or will I receive at your hands that which I have not appointed? And will I appoint unto you, saith the Lord, except it be by law, even as I and my Father ordained unto you, before the world was? I am the Lord thy God; and I give unto you this commandment-that no man shall come unto the Father but by me or by my word, which is my law, saith the Lord. And everything that is in the world, whether it be ordained of men, by thrones, or principalities, or powers, or things of name, whatsoever they may be, that are not by me or by my word, saith the Lord, shall be thrown down, and shall not remain after men are dead, neither in nor after the resurrection, saith the Lord your God. For whatsoever things remain are by me; and whatsoever things are not by me shall be shaken and destroyed.
Now, I challenge anybody on the face of the earth to disprove this argument. I say it is sound. It is common sense. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It cannot be successfully disputed. That being true, then the Lord says:
Therefore, if a man marry him a wife in the world, and he marry her not by me nor by my word, and he covenant with her so long as he is in the world and she with him, their covenant and marriage are not of force when they are dead, and when they are out of the world; therefore, they are not bound by any law when they are out of the world. Therefore, when they are out of the world they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but are appointed angels in heaven; which angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory.
IMPORTANCE OF ETERNAL MARRIAGE
There is much more here, and you are acquainted with it. I do not need to read it, but I want to call your attention to the fact that a great many of our beautiful girls and our fine young men that have been born under the covenant are being married out of the Church and out of the temple of God. Furthermore, I have discovered by reading the newspapers that the parents of many of these young people seem to rejoice in it, and so they put big articles and fine pictures in the papers in regard to the entertainments, the receptions, that are going to be given, and they seem to be very proud of the fact that their daughters are to be married or their sons are to be married and they are going to be married by some minister of some other church, maybe by a bishop of this Church who can only marry them for time-he cannot marry them for eternity-and they seem to be happy about it. I do not know how they can, in the face of all that the Lord has revealed. For every contract, every bond, every covenant that is made that is not according to the Lord's will and commandment, and enforced by his law will of necessity come to an end. These young people who seem to be so happy now, when they rise in the resurrection, and find themselves in the condition in which they will find themselves, then there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, bitterness of soul, and they have brought it upon themselves because of their lack of faith and understanding of the gospel, and from, I am sorry to say, the encouragement they have received many times from their own parents.
I am quite satisfied in my own mind that the parents are not teaching their children in the home the importance of marriage as the Lord has revealed it. Out in the world they have a false notion about marriage, because they have not the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and they cannot understand and properly interpret the scriptures.
The first marriage that was ever performed in this world, that is on this earth, let me say; not in this world, but on this earth-was performed before there was any death. What the Lord said in answering the question of the Jews:
... What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder,
means nothing more nor less than this: that where God joins in marriage, man cannot put it asunder. And the Lord never does anything just for time. Everything is for eternity.
TEMPLE FOR WORTHY MEMBERS
To those who are satisfied with a marriage for time only, I want to raise a warning voice, to both parents and to the children who have that sort of idea. Of course there are people who are not worthy to go to the temple, and therefore should not go to the temple. No one should go to the temple except those who are worthy, as the Lord has said, "who have overcome by faith," and are cleansed and are just and true. Then they can go to the temple. If they are unclean, if they lack the faith, they had better stay out until they get the faith and are clean.
I wanted to say those few things.
LORD'S COMMAND TO MULTIPLY
Now, just for a moment or two in regard to another matter closely connected with this. When young people are married properly, the Lord commands them to multiply. Now that is not in accord with the teachings of the world, nor the practice of the world, especially the practice, and so I want to read one or two other passages now; this from President Young:
There are multitudes of pure and holy spirits waiting to take tabernacles, now what is our duty?-To prepare tabernacles for them; to take a course that will not tend to drive those spirits into the families of the wicked, where they will be trained in wickedness, debauchery, and every species of crime. It is the duty of every righteous man and woman to prepare tabernacles for all the spirits they can.
To check the increase of our race has its advocates among the influential and powerful circles of society in our nation and in other nations. The same practice existed forty-five years ago, and various devices were used by married persons to prevent the expenses and responsibilities of a family of children, which they must have incurred had they suffered nature's laws to rule pre-eminent. That which was practiced then in fear and against reproving conscience, is now boldly trumpeted abroad as one of the best means of ameliorating the miseries and sorrows of humanity. Infanticide is very prevalent in our nation. It is a crime that comes within the purview of the law, and is therefore not so boldly practiced as is the other equally great crime, which, no doubt, to a great extent, prevents the necessity of infanticide. The unnatural style of living, the extensive use of narcotics, the attempt to destroy and dry up the fountains of life, are fast destroying the American element of the nation; it is passing away before the increase of the more healthy, robust, honest, and less sinful class of the people which are pouring into the country daily from the old world.
Now I think you bishops, you presidents of stakes, and you presidents of the quorums of the priesthood, ought to consider these things most carefully, and be prepared to teach the people that which the Lord would have them taught, and when our teachers go to visit them in their homes, let them teach the revelations of the Living God and magnify their callings. This I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Milton R. Hunter
Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 39-44
My dear brethren and sisters, it is in deep humility that I stand before you today. I have a prayer in my heart that God will sustain and be with me on this occasion.
AS A MAN THINKETH
The ancient statement, "As thinketh in his heart, so is he", is a divine, sublime, and eternal truth. Every act that we have committed and every word that we have spoken have come about as a result of our thoughts. Your character and my character today are the results of the complete sum of all our thoughts. Thus a man is literally what he thinks. Every plant springs forth from its seed. So it is with the deeds of man. Every one of his acts springs forth from the hidden seeds of thought. Our minds are as fertile gardens. If we plant in these gardens seeds of impure and unholy thoughts, these seeds grow as weeds and crowd out that which is pure and noble. Under these conditions, our lives become filled with filthy, ungodly, and immoral actions. Paul, the ancient Christian apostle to the Gentiles, warned humanity against sowing evil thoughts which always result in wicked deeds.
Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
In my humble opinion, there is no single passage of scripture that would do more toward saving the world from misery and destruction if the human family would heed its injunction. If all the holy scriptures were suddenly taken from mortal beings but one single passage, and if I were asked to select the passage which I thought would be of most benefit to the human family, I believe I would choose that statement made by Paul. Furthermore, I would print that statement indelibly on a large placard and hold it before the eyes of the people continuously.
Human beings are so prone to flatter each other and to use the art of sophistry that a true measure of character cannot always be accurately ascertained by the words we speak. We adults are not as little children. They are frank and honest in expressing their opinions. Perhaps that is one reason why Jesus declared that except we become as little children we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.
CHARACTER SUM TOTAL OF THOUGHTS
The only sure measuring rod of character, therefore, is the sum-total of all our thoughts. The claim has been made that if we could look into the hearts and minds of boys and girls and perceive their thoughts-especially their thoughts when their minds are operating undisciplined away from their daily assigned tasks-we could have a rather safe criterion by which to judge their future happiness and sorrow. It is a well-known fact that as thoughts blossom forth into actions, joy and sorrow are the results. Thus it can be said to a young man or to a young woman: "You tell me your thoughts, and I will tell you your future."
Jesus, the Master of life and salvation, proclaimed that:
... out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
Since all that is evil and all that is good in human nature comes forth from the heart of man, we shall be held accountable before the judgment seat of God for all that comes from the heart. In fact, the gospel plan of salvation proclaims that every man and every woman who have their free agency to choose the course that they follow and who are mentally sound and capable of making choices are held responsible for the actions that they commit. God our Eternal Father is both merciful and just. He is very merciful in that he gave to the human family the gospel; and to be completely just, he requires each of us to obey every word that has come from his mouth.
RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR WORDS AND ACTS
Alma the Younger, a great Nephite prophet-teacher, declared that all men, women, and children who come into this mortal world will eventually be "brought before the bar of God, to be judged according to our works". If we have lived wicked lives while in mortality, according to this Nephite prophet, at the judgment day:
... our words will condemn us, yea, all our works will condemn us; we shall not be found spotless; and our thoughts will also condemn us.
At the judgment day, so great will be the shame of those who have lived wicked lives in mortality that they will cry for the mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the presence of God. But this cannot be the case. Every individual will have to acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world, and that his judgments are just and true.
Alma was not the only prophet of God who declared that we shall be held responsible for every act that we commit, for every word that we speak, and for every thought that we think. Jesus, who is the great Judge, Law-giver, and Savior of the world, proclaimed that we shall be held accountable for the secret thoughts of our hearts. He also declared:
I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
The Savior also maintained that all of our secrets eventually shall be made public. To quote his exact words:
For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.
If it is true that our baa unspoken thoughts are recorded against us, will it not be just as true that all our good thoughts unspoken, the kindness, tenderness, sympathy, pity, love, beauty, and charity that enter the breast and cause the heart to throb with silent good, find remembrance in the presence of God, also? Yes, I firmly believe that all of our good impulses and thoughts will find remembrance with the Lord just as much as will the evil that we have thought, said, or done; and certainly Since God is our loving Father, he will remember the good with a greater degree of satisfaction and joy than he will the evil.
THINK PURE THOUGHTS
My friends, it will pay high dividends for us to guard our lips, as James, the ancient Christian writer, so plainly taught. "... If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body."... for the tongue which is unbridled "is a fire, a world of iniquity".
If it pays well to guard our lips, it pays just as well and even better to guard our thoughts, for every word that we speak is preceded by the thought. We, as Saints of the Most High, should accustom ourselves at all times to think such pure thoughts that if our minds and hearts were laid open before the world, nothing would appear which when brought to light would cause us to blush. Since the key to every man is his thoughts, we should thoroughly understand that our habitual thoughts will completely determine our character, for the soul is truly dyed by the thoughts. Therefore, thought and character are one. Our reputation is what men believe us to be, but our character is what God and angels actually know of us. The Lord gave us the key in modern revelation by which we can build lives of righteousness:
Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.
If we would do as the Lord has commanded, we could rest assured of receiving blessings in great abundance. Surely then we could sing with the psalmist of old:
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
God has revealed to us as Latter-day Saints the true plan of salvation; therefore, it is not only our opportunity, but, according to modern revelation, it is the duty of each of us to "serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day". Let us heed the solemn warning found in Ecclesiastes which is one of the greatest statements in the Old Testament:
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
ROOTS OF SIN IN OUR THOUGHTS
Throughout history, men of God have put forth strenuous efforts to reform those individuals who have strayed from the path of truth into the byways of sin. Repentance has been their theme. It is true that repentance is the only pathway back from sin to God; but when one becomes steeped in iniquity, repentance is a long and difficult process. The Master Teacher had a more keen insight into the building of character than did any of the other great teachers of history. He declared:
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
In this and similar statements Jesus declared that the roots of sin lie in our thoughts. This being true, the proper time to reform people is not after they have formed thought habits but to teach our children while they are in their childhood and youth to think no other than pure and noble thoughts. At that time their minds are clean and pliable, and it is possible for us more easily to implant in their hearts seeds of purity, truth, and righteousness. Surely, as the writer of the proverb aptly stated:
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
RESPONSIBILITY TO DEVELOP PROPER HABITS
Parents in Israel, a heavy responsibility rests on each of us to help our children develop proper habits of thinking. The Savior has laid the responsibility on us to be the principal agents in teaching our children the gospel plan of salvation. I tremble when I realize the responsibility that is mine as a father. To quote one of the commandments:
And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents. For this shall be a law unto the inhabitants of Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized. And their children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of the hands. And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.
Teachers throughout the Church who are working in the seminaries and institutes of religion, in the Sunday Schools, Primaries, and Priesthood classes, your opportunities and responsibilities are as great as any opportunities and responsibilities that can rest on the shoulders of men. In your charge is given our most priceless blessing-our sons and daughters. It is your duty and calling to assist the parents in Israel in planting in the hearts of the youth of the Church seeds of thought that will shoot forth into deeds of righteousness. What greater calling could men and women have than to be the molders of character? May God bless you in your noble callings; and may he continuously bless every one of us that we may think pure and holy thoughts, for "as thinketh in his heart, so is he".
In conclusion, I desire to bear testimony that I know that God lives and is indeed our Eternal Father, that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world, and that Joseph Smith is the Prophet whom God foreordained and sent into the world in the last days to establish the only true Church of Jesus Christ, which Church is endowed with power from on high to bring salvation to the human family. I also bear witness that President George Albert Smith is also a prophet of the Most High and that he holds the keys of the priesthood just as the other holy prophets have done. I humbly pray that God will bless us all in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Charles A. Callis
Charles A. Callis, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 44-47
"I can no more remember the books that I have read than the meals that I have eaten," said Emerson, "but they have made me." To countless thousands, who have basked in the spirit of the Book of Mormon, the truth that Joseph Smith spoke comes home to their souls. He remarked that "a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book."
TEACHINGS OF BOOK OF MORMON
The Nephite record testifies in a heavenly spirit to the truth that the Bible is true. They are one in God's hand to confound false doctrine and to establish peace in the hearts of men. This sacred book tells us that little children are alive in Christ. They need no baptism until they become accountable for their actions. For many years a great many good people believed in the doctrine of "infant damnation." They didn't understand; but the Book of Mormon brought into the world, into the hearts of men and women, the peaceable thought that children, though unbaptized, do not go to Hades.
A few years ago these people met in solemn convention, and the action they took was a credit to their righteousness and to their sense of the justice of God. They passed a resolution repealing the doctrine of "infant damnation," and what a beautiful thing they did when they made that decision retroactive. President Woodrow Wilson, himself a member of that great body of good people that decided against the doctrine of "infant damnation" and declared "the decision retroactive," laughed and said, "Think of all those dear little babies that have been burning in hell so long; now they will all be released."
The Book of Mormon teaches the nobility of service. What is man without work? Work is known by the angels of God. They are immersed in its atmosphere, and that service is eternal. He is a poor "Mormon" elder, hardly worth his salt, who believes that when he goes to heaven, he will sit in inactive, endless bliss. Centuries before he was born in the flesh, according to the Book of Mormon, Jesus said:
... for my work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever.
And in another place he said:
For behold, this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
Think of it, brethren and sisters, our work is immortal. As Brigham Young said, "This life is a part of eternity."
I think the spirit of the Book of Mormon with respect to the character of Christ's work is wonderful. It entrances the soul. One of the prophets said of him:
... for it behooveth the great Creator that be suffereth himself to become subject unto man in the flesh, and die for all men, that all men might become subject unto him.
My brethren and sisters, we do become subject to men in the flesh by the work of the ministry, but in God's own due time the people will look upon us as saviors upon Mount Zion, and they will become subject in a heavenly way unto those who taught them the gospel.
NOBLE CALLING OF WIVES AND MOTHERS
I think that the most wonderful being on the earth is a wife and a mother. To be a wife and a mother transcends in glory and in service all the missions she can perform, that is, preaching missions. And a mother, uncrowned by any visible diadem, is crowned with a diadem of affection; she becomes subject unto her children, and by and by they become subject unto her. Joaquin Miller, the poet, said:
Beneath our forty stars is she The purest woman, sweetest, best, Who loves her spouse most ardently And rocks the cradle oftenest: Whose home is filled, whose heart is fed With halo of a baby's head.
ECONOMIC SYSTEM OF ANCIENT AMERICA
The Book of Mormon teaches us a glorious economic system. For nearly two centuries after the ascension of Christ, the people were covered with a mantle of the prosperity of Christ. There were no poor, no rich, no one in bonds, and I think that meant the bondage of debt, for debt is a grievous bondage, and we should steer clear of it. For two centuries they lived in peace; they had no strikes; industrial disturbances were not known; but by living the spirit of industry by the golden precepts of the Son of God they prospered and grew in the prosperity of Jesus Christ. God hasten the day when we shall work-the rich and the poor in the kingdom of peace-submitting our troubles to arbitration, for I know that deep down in the hearts of the captains of industry and also of the laboring men, there is an inherent desire to do unto others as they would have others do unto them. We let selfishness repress this feeling that God has placed in our hearts.
IMMORTALITY TAUGHT IN BOOK OF MORMON
In the Book of Mormon we read of the great intermediate state, the great principle of immortality. Horace Greeley lost a boy five years old, and he said to a friend:
Now all that concerns me is the evidence... that we shall live with and know those we loved here.... If I felt sure of the point of identifying and being with our loved ones in the world to come, I would prefer not to live long.
In our hearts, inspired by the Book of Mormon, by its holy and matchless spirit, and it is the spirit of Christ which runs through the Book of Mormon like a golden thread, we know that we shall meet our loved ones, be recognized by them, and we shall recognize them, and throughout eternity, believing that God is a God of work, we shall work with him as co-laborers.
A Presbyterian minister caught this flash of glory in service, and in a hymn which he composed, he said:
We serve no God whose power is spent, Who rests amid his firmament. Our God his labors but begun Toils ever more with powers unspent.
God be praised for the glory of the resurrection, the beauty of eternal life, the knowledge that we shall live with each other, with our wives and our children, with our friends, and live with them in perfect understanding. Did not Paul speak of the whole family in heaven and on earth? These great sections are going to be joined by the eternity and glory and power of the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation.
The Book of Mormon prophets give great comfort to this nation. They declared that this nation was set up by the Almighty and should be pre-eminent among the people of the world. It is pre-eminent in glory and in power, but alas, there are corroding and corrupting influences that are trying to sap the strength of this great republic. This republic is the house of our fathers, our fellow citizens, our friends, and our brothers, and with them we shall stand, by the grace of God, to contest the supremacy of any communist or foreign-born element who seeks to destroy the Constitution.
NEW WITNESS THAT JESUS IS THE CHRIST
The testimony that the Book of Mormon gives us last of all-no, not last of all-from the first page to the last page, is that Jesus is the Christ. If we serve God, this nation will survive, but listen to this solemn warning: Moroni told the people of his day that this was a land of promise, and that God would not suffer any nation to dwell on this earth except they serve him, for if they departed from him they should be swept into the oblivion which lawlessness always provides.
Listen to Moroni's warning:
... this cometh unto you, O ye Gentiles, that ye may know the decrees of God-that ye may repent, and not continue in your iniquities until the fulness come, that ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done.
Here is the warning of a prophet of God. He gives a glorious promise with this solemn warning attached.
Fellow citizens, shall we heed this voice of warning? Shall we bend our necks no more to the bondage, to the yoke of sin, but rising in the full fruition of righteousness, in the strength of God, may we stand before him, acceptable as a nation, correct in government, lenient to the poor, righteous in the sight of God; and, oh, how happy we shall be, and then, as Webster said, it shall not be written that this nation had a "decline and fall," for God is our strength.
The spirit and the main purpose of the Book of Mormon is
... to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations.
May I humbly answer to this glorious declaration by testifying that I know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. He is the resurrection and the life, the author and the finisher of our faith, and if we will obey his commandments, this nation shall prosper and with him all of us shall go into eternal glory, is my testimony, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Albert E. Bowen
Albert E. Bowen, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 48-52
President Smith, in his opening address this morning, spoke about the present confused floundering of the world consequent upon a waning devotion to fundamental principles. Dr. Widtsoe adverted to the same theme and particularly as evidenced by the frustrations of men in their gropings after a longed-for peace without adherence to the principles upon which peace depends. There is one exemplification of the drift away from peace and a powerful contributing factor to the prevailing instability about which I desire to speak. I hope I may do so without offense.
HISTORY OF REDRESS OF WRONGS
You all remember the accounts of earlier times when men took upon themselves the redress of their own grievances. If, for example, one killed a member of my family, I promptly went out and killed him or some member of his family. Then that family sought revenge against me or my family and so the course of reprisal and counter-reprisal ran, growing into family and clan feuds. In like manner, if one took or damaged the property of another, the injured one sought, through his own means, to recover his goods or their equivalent or to visit punishment on his despoiler. It is easy to see that there could be neither stability nor security under such a system. An orderly, stable society of individuals could not exist under such conditions. It was intolerable. The remedy, perhaps the only remedy, was to enact public laws applicable to all alike which defined the rights of individuals and provided remedies for the protection of those rights. A law defined murder and prescribed a penalty for him who committed it. Now if a murder were committed, it became not a private wrong against the murdered person to be avenged by his kindred, but rather an offense against the state which assumed the exclusive right to execute against the offender, the retribution of the law. The injured family may not always have been satisfied with results, but they had to learn to accept them. They no longer had a right to take punishment into their own hands and would themselves be subject to penalty if they did so. Similarly the law forbade theft and fixed the consequences for its violation. So if one's property were stolen, he did not seek by violence to recover it or to punish the offender. The state took care of that through its own processes. These more serious wrongs were called crimes punishable by the state, not for restitution to the injured person, but for the preservation of public order. Other less serious trespasses were still recognized as offenses for the commission of which the injured one might seek recompense to himself. But his remedy was through the processes established by law and not by physical force or violence administered by himself.
Thus, for example, if one wrongfully entered upon or occupied the land or dwelling of another, the owner would file his complaint with the court. In orderly manner the cause would be heard and determined, and then the officers of the law would remove the trespasser, instead of the owner's seeking by violence to do that for himself.
JUSTICE UNDER LAW
The finding of the judicial tribunal set up by the law ultimately became final, and the parties in dispute had to abide by it. Thus punishment of grievances, or protection of person and property, was taken out of the realm of private feuding and reprisals by physical might and put over into the realm of impartial judicial determination by reason and the application of principles of justice. This achievement marked a great day in the progress of civilization. Anarchy gave place to order, and it became possible for human beings to live together with a large degree of stability and freedom from haunting fears. Without such an accomplishment, large numbers of people could not have lived together.
INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES
By now, someone will surely be asking what all this has to do with the purpose of a worshiping assembly such as is convened here today. I will tell you. I have presumed to present this sketchy background for the express purpose of drawing a parallel between that and the barbaric methods we now employ in our handling of industrial disputes. I have no hesitancy in saying that the strike is a totally uncivilized way of dealing with them. Strikes arise out of disagreements. Sometimes the dispute is between the employer and his employees; sometimes the employer has nothing to do with it, but it is between two different organized groups of employees, each claiming the right to negotiate with the employer. Sometimes workers are compelled to go on strike when they have no grievance at all and would prefer to go on working, but are compelled to walk off the job by the orders of the organization to which they belong. Sometimes they are voluntary members of such organizations, but often they are forced into membership against their will by violence or threats of violence. Often they are coerced into membership because otherwise they will not be permitted to work at all or to earn their daily bread.
Employees claim that they have long suffered injustices and are now balancing accounts, while employers assert that the demands of the workers are unreasonable and impossible of granting. Obviously, neither party to the dispute is in a condition to make an unbiased appraisal of the merits of these conflicting positions.
I am not here trying to fix the blame or to say who is in the right or to what extent. But I do say that such a situation breeds lawlessness, eventuates in anarchy, and will destroy any government or society that does not find an effective way of dealing with it.
There is no more excuse for permitting those with an industrial complaint, real or fancied, sincerely entertained or shammed, to cover up a sinister purpose, to take into their own hands the redressing of their own grievances, than there is for permitting any private individual to take upon himself the satisfaction of his own wrongs of whatsoever nature without regard to the good order and welfare of the whole society.
There is no more justification for permitting an organized group to stop a farmer carrying his own produce, the fruits of his own toil, to market and tip over and break his truck and destroy his foodstuffs unless he will take on and pay another driver whom he neither wants nor needs, than there is for permitting a man whose son has been killed, perhaps in a brawl, to go out and without investigation kill the perpetrator of the death.
There is no greater right in an organized body to obstruct public streets or to throw picket lines in front of entrances to places of work and hold others out by violence, intimidation, threat, and injury than there is in any person whose property has been stolen to retrieve it by force of arms, killing or maiming if need be in the process.
Neither does it help the cause any to say, even though true, that workers have in the past suffered gross wrongs. An evil is never cured by transferring the power to perpetrate it from one set of hands over into the hands of those on the opposite side. Wrong is just as sinister and just as fatal to orderly living when perpetrated by one side to a controversy as if perpetrated by the other. Former wrongs are not righted by the commission of new ones by the other party.
DEFIANCE OF LAW DECRIED
Our method of handling these industrial disputes belongs to the age of barbarism and is a national disgrace. So long as we tolerate law defiance, disorder, private usurpation of the right to redress wrongs, we have no right to be castigating other nations for their delinquencies or to assume the role of instructor to them. If we cannot maintain domestic order, how may we hope to achieve international order, or to have persuasive influence in establishing it?
The crying need of this age is for men of stature and character in the seats of power-men who have the intelligence to discern the right and the courage to pursue it without regard to personal consequences to themselves or their ambitions, men who will not succumb to the lure of expediency, but who dare to stand on principle though they stand alone. There are too many favor-currying little men sloshing around in positions requiring big men of unwavering integrity to fill them.
Why should great cities be thrown into darkness and their citizens exposed to the marauder because two contending parties choose to be belligerent? Why should water shipping and land transportation be stopped and whole innocent populations be reduced to hunger and cold and privation because two private parties, or perhaps only one of them, sets up its imperious will regardless of the good of the law-abiding public?
If laws are needed to define the rights, privileges, and obligations of the respective contenders, let such laws be passed, but let them be fair, impartial, and unbiased laws. You will never cure the evil with laws that shackle one of the disputants while leaving the other to roam at large with unrestrained license to do evil. If tribunals be needed to administer and enforce the laws, let them be impartially constituted, not packed with personnel so biased that their decision may with certainty be predicted before the cause is heard. And when a judgment has been rendered by a duly constituted tribunal, let that body not be dissolved and its judgment vacated under pressure and another tribunal set up to render the kind of decision the dissatisfied party wants. That practice only brings the whole system into disrepute and the government itself into contempt.
The authority of law must be preserved, orderly procedure maintained, the rights of the unoffending but suffering public made secure regardless of the wishes of the contending parties or the pressures they may bring to bear.
FUTURE FREEDOM OF RELIGION AT STAKE
Another reason for the appropriateness of this discussion here is that the whole future of freedom of religion is at stake. There is war between the concept of a free people under a free government and totalitarian government with its inevitable stifling of individual freedom. That warfare involves religion. If the insufferable and inexcusable condition now prevailing is not corrected, then free government will give way to some form of totalitarianism, whether the despotism of one man or of a class or group or even of the state will not much matter. And totalitarianism must always destroy religious liberty. Free government as we have known it, what commonly is spoken of as our democracy, is foundationed in the great spiritual principle of the supreme importance of the individual and the divine derivation of the human soul. This concept finds its highest political exposition in the Declaration of Independence which proclaims in words of fire that men at birth, by the creative's decree that gave them being-from the mere circumstance that they are men-are God-endowed with certain rights which are "unalienable" and which of right and by force of our basic law are inviolable and which no power on earth, not even the government itself, may properly infringe. Among these inalienable and inviolable rights are the right to life and to liberty. The right of man to liberty-to be free-is thus made coordinate with the right to life itself. The history of human struggle loudly proclaims that life without liberty is intolerable. For a fulness, the two must go together. These conceptions incorporated in the immortal Declaration are the product of more than a century and a half of the teachings of the Christian religion out of which they must draw their nourishment. If this wellspring is suffered to dry up, then individual freedom will wither and die.
CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY
For it is out of that religion that the whole concept of the common brotherhood of men as the children of the same God derives, each equal before the law. So intimately are the two intertwined that democracy and the Christian religion must survive or perish together. Neither has worked perfectly in human hands. But the failure of the perfect working of the principles of free government probably is fairly in proportion to the failure of men to live the Christian religion. The perfect working of the latter would insure the perfect working of the former. We may not, except at our peril, discard either of them. Together they have provided an atmosphere in which, in spite of imperfections, we have lived and flourished as has no other nation in recorded history. It is important to note that in those countries where freedom has perished, there has gone side by side with its decline, a breaking down and denial of the Christian religion, and in that country where the breakdown has been most complete, there has been accomplished the most thorough regimentation of the bodies and spirits of men. But a superficial, unbelieving profession of the Christian faith will not withstand the disintegrating forces at play in the world today. Only a genuine, deep-seated religious conviction carried over into practice can do that. The disciples who established the Ancient Church were not men who rationalized Jesus and his doctrines away, nor were satisfied with proclaiming him merely a great ethical teacher. When Jesus asked his disciples, "Whom do men say that I am?". Peter gave him the various conjectures that men had ventured concerning him. Jesus then put it to him directly, "But whom say ye that I am?" Peter answered without equivocation or hesitancy, "Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God". That is the kind of living faith which carried the Christian religion into ascendancy in the western world and ultimately gave to the world our democracy. It is the only kind of faith that can save the world from the unchristian doctrine of regimentation and authoritarian dominance over the lives of men.
It is that faith which it is the mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to keep alive in the hearts of men and to perpetuate in this land.
President Levi Edgar Young
Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 54-55
In connection with the voices of the servants of the Lord at this conference, the fundamental to be established in the hearts of humanity for the return of the world to God is the fact that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not a system of thought but a true revelation of God. God makes one man the channel of communication to other men. This channel is never closed.
Three things have the servants of God emphasized in this day: the immortal appeal to fortitude and faith; the returning to God through repentance; and holy baptism by immersion in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
... Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
A century ago, the most majestic character of history gave us with other scriptures, the D&C.; In that book, man is carried to his high destiny. Man is divine. He is in the image of God. He has endless spiritual power and grace. Herein is the Prophet Joseph Smith's masterful idea. The soul's relationship to God. His was a sorrowful life, but he nurtured through all hazards the divine truths God revealed to him, and finally came triumphant when he left us these immortal words:
And now, remember the words of him who is the life and light of the world, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God.
His teachings lead us to the dominion of joy, as witnessed here today.
And so my brethren of the Holy Priesthood, go forth and remember:
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 55-64
My brothers and sisters: To preface my remarks may I quote Paul:
And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
Today I wish to bear witness of Jesus the Christ and to quote the word of the Lord.
I read recently in a local paper of a pastor of a church in Illinois, who said that he felt the same reverence for Santa Claus that he did for Jesus Christ. He said:
I consider both of them to be folk tales, but in different categories.
He finds one difference, however; he does not question the fact that "a man named Jesus" did exist, and he regards Santa Claus as a "figure of the imagination."
In the magazine, Time, in a recent issue, a noted professor emeritus in one of our largest universities, was quoted at length on his rationalizing. To Jesus of Nazareth he gives human warmth; a great capacity for love; unusual understanding. He calls him a great humanist, a great teacher, a great dramatist. As a typical rationalization, he explains that Lazarus was not dead, but was merely
... brought "back to health" by Jesus, the power of mind and learning, and by the "therapy of his own abundant vitality!"
JESUS LIVES ETERNALLY
I want to bear testimony today that Jesus is not only a great teacher, a great humanist, and a great dramatist, but is in very deed, the Son of the Living God, the Creator, the Redeemer of the world, the Savior of mankind. I want to testify further that he not only lived in the Meridian of Time for approximately thirty-three years, but that he lived eternities before this, and will live eternities beyond it.
He first comes into our knowledge in the pre-existent state, when with a host of spirits, he stood before his Father in solemn assembly.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
PRIMEVAL GATHERING
The vision of this primeval gathering is recorded as follows:
Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou are one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born. And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.
And one of the number proffered to go down to the earth and by compulsion, save all men, but another "like unto God" came forward with a plan of free agency by which the plan of redemption and exaltation would be offered by him to the people of the earth. And this latter plan, proposed by Jehovah, or Jesus Christ, was accepted.
... and the Word was God.... All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
JESUS THE CREATOR
The time finally came when the earth was to be created.
And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth.
And Jesus the Christ created the earth and gave it light and established upon it the plant and animal life, and finally man, created in his image.
In confirmation, he says long centuries later to the Nephites:
... I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are.
After the creation, the Redeemer bears witness again to Adam:
And in that day the Holy Ghost fell upon Adam, which beareth record of the Father and the Son, saying: I am the Only Begotten of the Father from the beginning, henceforth and forever, that as thou hast fallen thou mayest be redeemed, and all mankind, even as many as will.
REDEEMER'S VISIT TO ENOCH
Generations later the Redeemer came again to the earth to visit his choice servant and mighty leader, Enoch, who because of his righteousness, was permitted to hear the voice of Jehovah. Enoch bowed himself to the earth before the Lord, and spake:
... Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, and am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech; wherefore am I thy servant?.
And the Lord spake unto Enoch, and said unto him: Anoint thine eyes with clay, and wash them, and thou shalt see. And he did so.
And he beheld the spirit world and all creations not visible to the natural eye. From hills and high places, Enoch warned them, and
... no man laid hands on him;... for he walked with god.
In concluding his preaching to his people, he bore this testimony:
... I stood upon the mount, I beheld the heavens open, and I was clothed upon with glory; And I saw the Lord; and he stood before my face, and he talked with me, even as a man talketh one with another, face to face.
The transgressions of the people of Enoch's generation continued unabated, for Noah comes forth to continue throughout the long years of his ministry, a vigorous warning and preachment against the sins of the world, which had become ripe in iniquity.
And thus Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord; for Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation; and he walked with God.
EXPERIENCE OF BROTHER OF JARED
Again at the time of the tower of Babel, the Lord Jesus came to earth when the Jaredites prepared to cross the ocean for the promised land, now known as America, and they went into the mountains and "did molten out of a rock sixteen small stones", and the prophet entreated the Lord to touch these stones that they might shine forth in the darkness of the enclosed vessels to give light while they crossed the sea. And as the Lord touched each stone
... the veil was taken from off the eyes of the brother of Jared, and he saw the finger of the Lord; and it was as the finger of a man, like unto flesh and blood.
The prophet fell to the earth with fear lest he should be smitten,
... for I knew not that the Lord had flesh and blood. And the Lord said unto him: Because of thy faith thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood; and never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye could not have seen my finger.... And when he had said these words, behold, the Lord showed himself unto him, and said:... Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ....
Seest thou that ye are created after mine own image?... Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit;... and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh.
JEHOVAH SPEAKS TO NEPHI
Again Jehovah speaks. Some centuries later in what is known as the first year of the Christian era, the people on the American continent were watching for fulfilment of prophecy and for the signs of the coming of the Messiah. The wicked ones figured that the day had passed, but Nephi, being greatly concerned, prayed devoutly unto the Lord all day, at the end of which there came to him the voice of the Lord, saying:
Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.
And that night the darkness did not come, and two days and a night were as one day, and the righteous people knew that that day would see the birth of the Savior of the world. A new star appeared as further evidence that the Christ was born.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
BIRTH OF JESUS
And far across the ocean in the land of Judea that same star shone forth and led the wise men from the East to a stable out of Bethlehem. Here they found a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Mary had become the mother of the Son of God. The shepherds called and paid homage, the angels sang hosannas and the Savior was born into mortality, into his flesh and blood tabernacle. And "his name was called Jesus".
And the child Jesus was presented in the temple and blessed by the righteous Simeon.
Little is known of the childhood of Jesus, but it is related:
And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him.
Again we hear of him in the temple at Jerusalem at twelve years of age:
And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
He said to his concerned mother:
... wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?.
Of his days of preparation we are informed:
And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
HIGHLIGHTS OF MORTAL LIFE OF JESUS
The mortal life of Jesus Christ is well known to us so we mention only a few highlights at this time.
John the Baptist, come from the wilderness and preached repentance.
Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.
And when Jesus came up out of the water
... the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
We follow our Savior down the dusty roads of Judea over the rocky paths of the highlands and the sandy beaches of the seas, into the synagogues to reprove and rebuke, in the byways to call to repentance.
We find the Redeemer at the marriage at Cana turning water into wine; at the temple at Jerusalem where with his handmade scourge of small cords, he drove from the temple the desecrating traders and money-changers, saying to the cowards:
... make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. The mortal life of the Lord was a hard one. He said:
... Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
He was followed by great multitudes of interested disciples, curious sign-seekers, and critical annoyers with always the vicious lurking in the group, seeking his very life.
He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
Even in his old home town he was not appreciated, but was thrust out of the synagogue, out of the city, and led to the brow of the hill to be killed, but he escaped.
And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
And he saw James and John mending their nets and likewise called them and subsequently called other eight from all walks of life to lead his Church, and he "named them apostles".
MIRACLES PERFORMED
The numerous miracles of the Redeemer brought him early attention. The curious followed with wonder; the believers looked on with awe, and because of his increasing popularity, his enemies followed to catch him in lawbreaking, that they might dispose of him.
He blessed loaves and fishes and fed thousands of hungry people. He placed his fingers in the ears of a deaf person, saying "be opened," and the man heard dearly. He "spit, and touched" the tongue of one with an impediment in his speech, "and he spake plain". He touched the eyes of the blind saying, "According to your faith be it unto you, and their eyes were opened".
The multitudes marveled saying, "It was never so seen in Israel," as he cast out the devil. His enemies found him healing on the Sabbath and accused him when they heard him say to the man with a withered hand:
... Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other.
"We never saw it on this fashion," the people said as they saw the roof opened, a sick man let down at the foot of Jesus and saw him carry away his bed at the command: "-take up thy bed and go thy way-" and "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee".
He stopped a funeral procession and touching the bier of the son of the widow of Nain said, "Young man, I say unto thee, Arise." And he that was dead sat up and began to speak.
He astounded the people when he said to the dead daughter of Jairus, "Damsel, I say unto thee arise." They had laughed him to scorn, but now they were shocked when the damsel arose and walked.
The woman who for twelve years of affliction had "spent all her living on physicians, neither could be healed by any"... "came behind him and touched the border of his garment"-and immediately was healed.
Again he forgave the sinner, stilled the tempest, cleansed the lepers, stirred souls, and raised the dead; even his friend Lazarus who was four days dead, and "by this time stinketh"-when the voice of Jehovah commanded: "Lazarus come forth".
CLOSING EVENTS OF MASTER'S LIFE
And toward the end of his ministry:
... Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.... While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold a voice out of the cloud which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
Knowing that his hour had come he repaired to the room which had been prepared, and there he gave to his disciples the Last Supper, after which he retired into the Garden of Gethsemane, where he poured out his soul unto his Father:
... O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
Then mobsters came, headed by the betrayer.
They stripped him and put on a scarlet robe; they pushed down upon his head a crown of thorns, and placed a reed in his right hand and bowed the knee and mocked and spit upon him, and smote him on the head, and led him to Calvary to be crucified.
Between thieves he was nailed to the cross, and they parted his garments.
Those that loved him crouched about his feet and wept in their helplessness. As his life ebbed, he called:
... Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do.
... Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: And having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
They took his body carefully down, and wrapped it in linen and laid it in a sepulchre.
The three days ended, and Jesus came forth as he had promised. His disciples, both women and men, had been to the tomb and found it empty and were surprised, still not comprehending the fact of the resurrection.
The same day he appeared in the locked room with his apostles and revealed himself to them, convincing them that he lived again. Many hundreds were similarly convinced.
Now his Church was organized, the program clarified, and leaders developed into whose hands he could leave his kingdom. And when his followers were gathered together in Jerusalem:
... he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
CHRIST'S VISITATION TO WESTERN HEMISPHERE
On the western hemisphere, also, was darkness and destruction, cities burned, mountains leveled, and plains raised, and in the suffering and lamentations of the people a voice was heard among the inhabitants, explaining the disasters and saying:
Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are.... I came unto my own, and my own received me not.... I am the light and the life of the world. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.... Behold, I have come unto the world to bring redemption unto the world, to save the world from sin.
Again the Nephites were conversing about Jesus Christ, the sign of whose death had been given to them, and a small, penetrating voice came out of heaven, which pierced them to the very soul and caused their hearts to burn, and the voice again uttered these memorable words:
Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name-hear ye him.
And as they looked toward heaven:
... they saw a Man descending out of heaven; and he was clothed in a white robe; and he came down and stood in the midst of them; and... he stretched forth his hand and spake unto the people saying: Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.... I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world,... the whole multitude fell to the earth; for they remembered that it had been prophesied among them that Christ should show himself unto them... saying...thrust your hands into my side... feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.
And all the people felt the prints of the nails and of the sword and
... did know of a surety and did bear record, that it was he, of whom it was written by the prophets, that should come.
And they worshipped him.
And he organized his Church here, and called his twelve apostles and taught them the doctrines and blessed their children. He restored sight to the blind, strength to the infirm, and wholeness to those who were ill, and after his impressive and continued appearances among them,
... there came a cloud and overshadowed the multitude that they could not see Jesus. And while they were overshadowed he departed from them, and ascended into heaven.
Another day he returned, and when he blessed them, they were transfigured and became
... white as the countenance and also the garments of Jesus.
A third time he retired to pray:
And tongue cannot speak the words which he prayed, neither can be written by man the words which he prayed.... he came again to the disciples, and said unto them: So great faith have I never seen among the Jews; wherefore I could not show unto them so great miracles, because of their unbelief.
Such great faith was manifest by his apostles that he touched with his finger the nine who were not to tarry. Again he departed from the earth.
VISION GIVEN TO JOSEPH SMITH
And time passed and the darkness of ages was beginning to be dissipated; the new world of America had been discovered, and honorable God-fearing people had settled upon it. The war had been waged and freedom gained, and religious liberty granted, and the Lord Jesus Christ appeared on earth again to restore and re-establish his kingdom upon the earth, and a young boy with an open and unbiased mind, knelt one beautiful spring morning in a grove, and prayed for light, and though the evil power attempted to destroy him, he was relieved by the appearance of a pillar of light above the brightness of the sun.
Joseph Smith continues story:
... It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound When the light rested upon me I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said-pointing to the other-"This is my beloved Son, hear him ".
There followed warnings, instructions, and commandments and finally, as Joseph says:
When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven.
Following this vision came numerous other visitations from heavenly beings, in the restoration of the gospel and the establishing of his kingdom upon the earth.
The work went forward, the Church was organized, the Book of Mormon was printed, the revelations were given, twelve apostles were called, the temple in Kirtland was built, and during the dedication of it in 1836:
... Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery retired to the pulpit, the veils being dropped, and there bowed in silent prayer. After rising from their knees the Savior appeared to them standing on the breastwork of the pulpit and blessed them, accepting the building in his name..
TESTIMONIES OF CHRIST'S DIVINITY
And so, having traced the appearances of the Redeemer from pre-existence to date, we look forward now to his second coming as he promised. This promise will be literally fulfilled as were his many other promises, and in the meantime, we praise his holy name and serve him, and bear testimony of the divinity of his mission, with the prophets through the generations! We testify with John the Baptist, who, as he saw the Lord approaching to him, saith:
... Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Not just a man of human warmth, but the Lamb of God.
We bear witness with Nathanael, an Israelite in whom was no guile:
... Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.
Not merely a great teacher, but the very Son of God.
We testify again with John the Beloved, who seeing Jesus on the shore, said with conviction, "It is the Lord!" not only a great humanist, but the Lord God of heaven.
And with Simon Peter, who, when asked by the Lord, "But whom say ye that I am?" said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God", and received this statement from the Savior:
... Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
And finally, we bear witness with the Prophet Joseph Smith who was willing to give his life for his testimony, which comes to us in his own words as follows:
I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two personages, and they did in reality speak to me;... I have actually seen a vision, and who am I that I can... deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it, at least I knew that by so doing I would offend God, and come under condemnation..
I repeat my testimony:
I know that Jesus, through eternities past and future, is the Creator, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Son of God. I bear it in his holy name. Amen.
Elder Antoine R. Ivins
Antoine R. Ivins, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 64-67
It is a thrilling sight, my brothers and sisters, to stand before you on this occasion, and I trust that you will give me your faith and prayers, that the short time I occupy, my words may be directed by the Spirit of God.
It is two weeks today since Sister Ivins and I finished a tour of the East Central States Mission which was the third mission that I had inspected during this season. I have met the sons and daughters of many of you, and I bring you, from them, a good word. I want to tell you that they are interested in their work, they are devoted to it, and they are striving to the best of their ability and their utmost power to teach and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I pray that you will have faith in them, that you will have no misgivings as to their future, for they are in the hands of God and are striving to do his work. It was interesting to study with them their problems, and to strive to help them in the solution of these problems. One of the questions that they confront most often, is the statement of many people, "We could accept your teachings and the principles which you advocate, if it were not for the supernatural conditions that you allege surrounded the birth of your organization."
WORLD'S RELUCTANCE TO ACCEPT MODERN REVELATION
Brother Kimball has told us in the address which he has just finished, of the mission of Jesus Christ, of his appearance to the Prophet Joseph Smith. That seems the hardest thing for Christian people to accept when they think of us, for we allege in that statement that Christ is actually the Son of God, that God is a separate and distinct personage from Christ, and that man is made in their image. That statement topples the Christian idea which prevailed at the time of the Prophet Joseph Smith; it had prevailed for ages before him, and it still prevails. It is the most difficult thing for them to accept. It is miraculous that God and Christ should appear to a human being. At the same time, they will tell you that they accept without reservation the statements of the Bible, and some of them will go so far as to tell you they believe every word that is in it. When we read it, we find that one great prophet of God, Jacob, wrestled during the night with an angel from heaven. That doesn't seem difficult to them. We come down through history, and we find the Israelites in bondage in Egypt, their liberation necessary. We find that God, through the faith of those people, turned back the waters of the Red Sea, so that they walked through on dry ground, and the hosts of Egypt which followed were overcome by the returning waves, and the people were thus liberated. They accept that; it doesn't seem beyond their powers of belief. Those people wander on into the desert, and they find themselves thirsty. They want water, and Moses strikes a stone with his rod, the water gushing forth to quench the thirst of that unhappy people. They accept that. Then they find themselves hungry, and God causes them to be fed from heaven with divine food; and they accept that. Again we find a prophet who is able to call down from heaven fire to consume those who are obstructing the work of God. And thus it goes. We find the Savior himself, praying to his Heavenly Father in Gethsemane. These are all miraculous things, and people accept them more or less as in the ordinary events of the work of God, but they say, "Now why should there be a miracle in our day?" I can't bring myself to believe that those people were in any greater need of divine help than are people in our day. I can't bring myself to believe, either, that they were any more dear to God their Heavenly Father, as his children, than we and our fathers and grandfathers. And I can't bring myself to believe that we are any more unworthy of the aid of God than they were. So to me, it seems a more or less proper thing and a natural thing, that God should so manifest himself.
PERSONALITY OF DEITY AGAIN REVEALED
To me that is the great and underlying reason for the restoration of the gospel in the latter days-the fact that people had come to misunderstand the personality of God; they had come to question his power of intervention in the affairs of men, and it was necessary that they should be taught again the things which they were taught in the testimony that was given at the baptism of Christ, and in the testimony that was given in the appearance of Christ to the Nephites. They were again to be taught that Christ is the Son of God. It is one of the most difficult things for sectarian peoples to accept because of the indoctrination that they have received over these many generations. That is one of the problems that your boys and your girls, young and old, have to present to the people in the mission fields.
Many of them have gone out, not knowing too well these things, sometimes because we at home have failed to do our full duty in explaining these truths to them. Some of us perchance depend upon our Sunday Schools, our Mutuals, and our priesthood quorums entirely for such instruction. But I feel that it is the duty of every father and every mother in Israel to see that their son and their daughter know these things, and to qualify them to testify to the world that it is true, that God came back and visited the Prophet Joseph Smith, and spoke to him thus bringing back to the world the testimony as to the true personality of God. I believe that they should further teach them the various and sundry teachings of the Church, regarding these things; baptism, repentance, faith in God, charity in their lives, chastity, and all the virtues that go to make fine men and women, so that those who may be called for missionary service shall go into the world fully convinced in their hearts that God lives; that he is the Father of their spirits; that he is the guardian of them all; that he actually has personal interest in our welfare; and that he can be sought in prayer for aid and assistance. If they go into the world understanding these things, they will be effective and efficient missionaries for the Church.
SPECIAL CALLING OF THE SEVENTIES
I represent the great body of the priesthood, whose purpose by ordination is to disseminate these truths. Many of those men have family obligations which prevent them from actually going into the world themselves to do this preaching, but they frequently have sons and daughters who can represent them, and I feel it is their duty, after preparing those boys and girls, young men and young women for that work, to present them, even at a sacrifice, if you want to call it such, to the Church for the short period of time that is required in the mission field. That is the work of the seventy, to testify to the restoration of the gospel; and if they can't do it personally, why can they not do it through their sons and their daughters?
It is a pleasing thing to me that there is an increasing percentage of men in the missions of the world. It has been our experience in the stake missions, that as the percentage of men decreased, the hours required for baptism increased. It seems that there is a power in the priesthood of God that is necessary to the ultimate conversion of men. And I would like to see this percentage increase beyond its present status, both in the foreign missions and in the stake missions. When our stake missions began, we had a percentage of sixty from the seventies quorum, whose special duty it is to teach, and today that percentage is as low as thirty-five. I personally would like to see that restored to its original percentage, or better, so that the seventies of the Church will actually be doing the work for which they are set aside by ordination.
Now, that is our duty; it is the duty of the Church to break down the unfounded traditions of the past and to teach the restoration of the gospel. Every man who is warned should warn his neighbor. We are doing a valiant work, but we are likely not doing all we could and all we ought to do in this capacity.
I pray that God may give us a proper appreciation of our obligations to each other and to the world, that he may give us a proper understanding of the principles of the gospel, that may enable us to teach our young men and young women, our boys and our girls, our sons and daughters, the doctrines upon which they should rest their faith, in such a way as to build up in their hearts an undying faith regarding this great work in which we are engaged; so that at such time, when the Presidency of the Church sees fit to ask them for a service, they may be ready for it. May he bless us all, that we may live more near to him, that we ourselves may understand better our obligations to each other, that we may be able to purify our thoughts and our emotions and our actions so as to be worthy recipients of the Spirit of God, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Joseph F. Merrill
Joseph F. Merrill, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 67-73
My dear brethren and sisters: In the few minutes allotted me, I shall not deliver a sermon or make an address or a speech. I propose to make a few remarks relative to a few current matters that I believe to be important. These remarks are made to Latter-day Saints only, and on my own responsibility. Others may listen if they care to. But since other people do not believe our religious teachings, it is hopeless to expect that they will be influenced by anything I say at this time.
THE PRESENT SINFUL CONDITION OF THE WORLD
But to continue: We live in a sinful world. Much wickedness abounds. Crime is rampant and much of it goes unpunished, for many criminals are never even apprehended. Lawlessness is everywhere. There is also an immense amount of wrongdoing going on all the time that can hardly be classed as wickedness or crime. Selfishness, greed, smoking, drinking, profanity, Sabbath breaking, are examples. It is needless to say that any Latter-day Saint who indulges in any of these things, or in many others not mentioned, is violating his covenants. But since many Latter-day Saints do indulge, to a greater or less extent in these things, the need of repentance is ever present among us, and the obligation to repent is much greater with us than it is with other sinners who have not covenanted to keep the commandments of the Lord.
For of him unto whom much is given much is required.
NEED FOR REPENTANCE AMONG LATTER-DAY SAINTS
Regrettable as it may be, sinful indulgences among Latter-day Saint people are often a real handicap to our stake missionary work because non-members see so much bad in many of us that they feel we should first convert ourselves. In other words, they cannot hear what we say because what we are rings so loudly in their ears. They would rather see a sermon any day than hear one. Our principles are lofty, but our indulgences often seem to belie our sincerity, "for a tree is judged by its fruit". For example, we teach total abstinence from the use of narcotics, and Utah is rightly regarded as a "Mormon" state-a state wherein our people are in the majority. Yet, reputably reliable statistics show that Utah's people consume as much alcoholic beverage per capita as is consumed on an average per capita in the United States. According to official figures, during the fiscal year 1946, there was paid in Utah for liquor and tobacco, two hundred eighty percent more than was paid in the fiscal year 194l.
Yes, frankness compels us to admit that the sins of the world exist among us to a greater or less extent. For this reason, responsible leaders in the Church, the stakes, and the wards are continually calling our people, as well as the people of the world, to real, sincere repentance. Repentance from what, does someone ask? The answer is obvious: Turn away from and do no more those things that are out of harmony with the teachings of the Master, Jesus Christ. These are summarized in two great commandments-to... love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.
MAN GIVEN POWER TO CHOOSE GOOD OR EVIL
Why love God, I was once asked. Because he is our Father who loves his children dearly and is the giver of every good we have. It is his work and his glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, as he told Moses. Due to these facts, he has given us a way of life to follow, which, if we do, will bring us great joy both here and hereafter. But he does not compel us to pursue the way indicated. He has given us our free agency which we may exercise without severe condemnation only so long as we do not infringe upon the rights of our fellow men, and I repeat, only so long as we do not infringe upon the rights of others. But because of an evil power in the world during the life of the human family, many of the Father's children have yielded to temptation and departed more or less widely from the ways of the Lord. In consequence, sin, wickedness, and crime have developed among men, resulting in misery and suffering in various degrees, depending upon the extent of the departure from the divine path. The Apostle Paul's description of the last days certainly fits these times. He wrote:
... perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy... incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.
These deplorable conditions in the world are now even worse in some respects than Paul described them. Because of man's increasing power to control the forces of nature, he has multiplied the ways of injury both to himself and to his fellow men. As an example, we now have the atomic bomb.
PEACE CAN COME THROUGH FOLLOWING THE GOLDEN RULE
Up to this point, I have spoken only in general terms and have said nothing new. Let me now specify a little. The world at the moment is in a critical and very unsettled condition. Notwithstanding the fact that we have just emerged from the most widespread and destructive war the world has ever seen, there is little or no evidence that men have repented from the sins that brought on the war. The inhabitants long for peace, but there is yet no peace, because selfishness and greed are still dominant, and too many people are determined to get what they want, using to this end, any and every means within their power.
Some keen and wise observers in this country have recently asserted that the United States now faces the most critical period in its history. Various groups of men are striving to agree on terms of peace, but success has not yet been sighted. The spirit of the Golden Rule does not yet dominate the hearts and minds of the negotiators, and so another war may be imminent; it is being talked of in hushed terms. Apparently it can be avoided only if certain great powers will recede from positions they have taken. During the recent war, ideals were set up and efforts to implement them are now meeting with determined opposition, just as was the case following World War I. This country fought then, as it did in the recent conflict, that war should be no more.
Why can't the same rules govern nations as govern individuals? In civilized countries, no two men can go at each other with their fists or guns without subjecting themselves to prosecution in a court. Why can't a similar rule apply to nations? Why is it legal to slay in masses and not in singles? Shall we not continue to hope and pray that efforts to outlaw war will soon succeed? God grant that this may be so, and that we shall not have to await the millennium for this great boon!
THE REPEAL OF CERTAIN LAWS URGED
But international war is not the only danger we face. The outlook internally is very dark. The struggle to get more and more for less and less seems to be growing in intensity and is spreading to more groups and individuals. In all of this, the idea of universal brotherhood and the Golden rule seems to be forgotten. Furthermore, the fundamental principle of the Declaration of Independence from England giving the right to the individual of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is currently violated in the case of millions of people, not only by organizations, but in certain cases, I very much regret to say, apparently by the federal government itself. The right to labor is denied except through membership in organizations, exempt from rules and regulations that govern individuals and industrial organizations engaged in business. Equality before the law does not exist in the relationship of employers and labor unions. Why is this so? One reason is because too many politicians are so deeply afflicted with the itch for office that they will do nothing that is opposed by officers of labor unions. These organizations could be of great benefit to their members and still function within the letter and spirit of the divinely inspired Constitution as it was made by the Fathers of our Republic. The "closed-shop" and so-called jurisdictional and sympathetic strikes should be outlawed at once by the federal government and every state in the American Union. Shall America be as the founder-fathers planned the land of the free and the home of the brave? If so, the repeal of some laws and the making of better ones is the need of the hour. Who can deny it?
LABOR STRIKES IN AMERICA
Let us glance for the moment at some recent events. Some months ago, a great labor strike was called which directly involved hundreds of thousands of people and indirectly the entire country. An increase of thirty percent in wages was demanded in order that the same take-home pay, enjoyed during the war should continue. But it was requested that there should be no increase in the cost of living-a request impossible to implement. Those making these demands seemed to have forgotten that in order to hasten war production, war workers were given their wage demands and were thus placed in a highly favored class in comparison with all other civilians who received no wage increases. When these workers returned to civilian production, was it fair, right, and just to continue this discrimination? Remember that these discriminated-against civilians greatly outnumbered the war workers. But even so, the politicians know that the majority of the people are unorganized and that labor unions hold the balance of power in elections; hence their subservience to labor unions.
What have the great strikes of the last several months accomplished? Among other things, they have impoverished many of the members of labor unions and it will take years to recover all the wages lost during the prolonged strikes; they have increased the cost of living for everybody; they have brought labor unions into disrepute; they have delayed the production of much needed civilian goods; they have brought unrest, suffering, and uncertainty into millions of homes, and have thrown great multitudes on to public relief; they have brought indecision and trouble to the government, both federal and state, and have weakened the influence of America abroad. The method of the strike has been the mass-picket and the closed shop. What difference, in principle, is there between this method of holdup and that of a gun? In both, force is applied. Then are not both methods forms of robbery? And is not robbery intolerable to our American way of life? Does not freedom demand that all forms of robbery shall be outlawed? Shall not the cries of a suffering people be heard and relief be granted? Do we not need statesmen and fewer weak-kneed politicians in public office? Shall the selfish interests of a few continue to prevail over the interests of the many? Are not the interests of the public always involved in strikes and lockouts? Hence, does it not appear that a means of bringing peace to management and labor is an imperative need of the hour, if we are to revert to the way of life given us by the founders of our Republic-a way that made our country great? Various means to this end have been proposed by both writers and speakers; but as I see it, no means of bringing permanent peace can succeed unless they are characterized by the spirit of the Golden Rule. I discussed this phase in a radio address given last November, showing that fairness, right, and justice must be the basis of settlement to attain permanent peace. To this end arbitration courts seem necessary.
A WARNING AGAINST COMMUNISM
I would like to call attention to what appears evident to me the similarity of the spirit seen in some phases of certain labor troubles with that of communism as it exists in some parts of Europe. I again remind you that I am speaking to Latter-day Saint people. I ask your attention while I read a circular given to the people of the Church by the First Presidency ten years ago and published in The Improvement Era of August 1936. It is as follows:
WARNING TO CHURCH MEMBERS
With great regret we learn from credible sources, governmental and others, that a few Church members are joining, directly or indirectly, the communists and are taking part in their activities.
The Church does not interfere, and has no intention of trying to interfere, with the fullest and freest exercise of the political franchise of its members, under and within our Constitution which the Lord declared: "I established... by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose" and which, as to the principles thereof, the Prophet dedicating the Kirtland Temple, prayed should be "established forever".
But communism is not a political party nor a political plan under the Constitution; it is a system of government that is the opposite of our Constitutional government, and it would be necessary to destroy our government before communism could be set up in the United States.
Since communism, established, would destroy our American Constitutional government, to support communism is treasonable to our free institutions, and no patriotic American citizen may become either a communist or supporter of communism.
To our Church members we say: Communism is not the United Order, and bears only the most superficial resemblance thereto; communism is based upon intolerance and force, the United Order upon love and freedom of conscience and action; communism involves forceful despoliation and confiscation, the United Order voluntary consecration and sacrifice.
Communists cannot establish the United Order, nor will communism bring it about. The United Order will be established by the Lord in his own due time and in accordance with the regular prescribed order of the Church.
Furthermore, it is charged by universal report, which is not successfully contradicted or disproved, that communism undertakes to control, if not indeed to proscribe the religious life of the people living within its jurisdiction, and that it even reaches its hand into the sanctity of the family circle itself, disrupting the normal relationship of parent and child, all in a manner unknown and unsanctioned under the Constitutional guarantees under which we in America live. Such interference would be contrary to the fundamental precepts of the gospel and to the teachings and order of the Church.
Communism being thus hostile to loyal American citizenship and incompatible with true Church membership, of necessity no loyal American citizen and no faithful Church member can be a communist.
We call upon all Church members completely to eschew communism. The safety of our divinely inspired Constitutional government and the welfare of our Church imperatively demand that communism shall have no place in America.
Heber J. Grant, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., David O. McKay
I have read this letter because I feel the need for it is more evident today than it was ten years ago. The spirit of communism is unquestionably wholly foreign to the spirit of true Americanism. As seen in the country where it has long been dominant, it is wholly atheistic; it denies the existence of God; as frequently manifested, it is extremely cruel and inhuman. Confiscation and murder have been employed to reach its end. It should be impossible to get any Latter-day Saint to give the least degree of sympathy to communism as it is manifested in Europe.
Brethren and sisters, there is but one safe course for us-which is to be steadfast, loyal, and true to the Church and its leadership. May the Lord help us to be so, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Elder Marion G. Romney
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 73-78
My brethren and sisters: This is a tremendous experience for me. I know that the importance of this occasion is far above personalities, but I never get up to address you in general conference but what something happens to my voice, and my spirit, and my body.
RESPONSIBILITY OF ADDRESSING A GENERAL CONFERENCE
I know the gospel is true. I doubt if I shall know it better, that is, with more certainty, when I stand before my Maker and give an account of the deeds done in the flesh. So I am not frightened on that account. But somehow it seems that the enemy of all righteousness keeps suggesting to me, "You can't do it; you can't address this great congregation in conference assembled."
I suppose the reason why the responsibility seems so great is that I accept, without any reservation whatever, the truth that this is a general conference of the citizens of the literal kingdom of God. I know that the Redeemer is here in spirit today, and I know that the men through whom he speaks to all the rest of his brothers and sisters now on the earth, all of God's children, are right behind me on my right. I know that if the Savior should come to earth today, he would come here. I know that you know that, and I know that you have come here to get spiritual food and to be built up in your faith.
And since I am called to speak, I know that I have the responsibility of giving a message worthy of this occasion, and so I pray that while I stand here, you will support me with your prayers. I want to say something that will be worth your while and that will help to build up God's kingdom in the earth. The thing I have had in mind to say has been referred to in almost every sermon given in this great conference. President George Albert Smith mentioned it. He said, speaking of world conditions, that there is no way to improve them other than by obedience to the plan the Lord has outlined. Brother Widtsoe talked about the way to peace, and as I understood him, he said there is no way to peace except through obedience to those principles upon which peace is founded.
THE PRINCIPLE OF OBEDIENCE
I want to say a word about the principle of obedience, and I pray that the Lord will bring the thoughts to my mind in organized fashion. We who are here have great hopes for peace in this world and exaltation in the presence of God in the world to come. That is our objective. We hope for something more than the rest of the world hopes for in this respect. We are no better than the rest of the world, let me say, except to the degree to which we accept the commandments of the Lord and obey them. But we have great hopes that we can gain an exaltation in the presence of our Heavenly Father.
It is my firm conviction, however, that the only saving hope we have in this matter, is that hope which is based upon a faith strong enough to impel obedience to the things which we know are right. I don't have very much respect for a man who testifies that he has faith in the principle of tithing, unless he lives it. Neither do I think his faith will do him any good unless he does pay his tithing. And I almost have contempt for the men who say they have faith in the leadership of this Church, who do not follow in their living the things which the leadership of the Church teach them. I refer, of course, to the men whom we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators.
The principle of obedience to the laws of the gospel is fundamental. It lies at the base. The Prophet Joseph Smith learned it very early in his ministry. He learned it when he went that first morning, after the visits of Moroni, to the Hill Cumorah. He had gone there under the direction of the angel, who had told him that he should have no thought in mind other than to bring to pass the righteousness of God and the accomplishment of his purposes in the earth. Joseph's family was very poor, and as he walked toward the hill, he thought about the intrinsic value of the things that the angel had told him were buried there. He wondered if the plates, or something else to be found with them, could not be used to relieve the poverty of his parents and their family. When he uncovered the box and saw the gold plates, he reached to take them out and received a shock that set him back. He reached again and received a more severe shock. Then the third time, thinking all he needed was physical strength, he reached with all his might to take the plates and received still another shock which sapped his strength, and he cried out, "Why can I not obtain this book?" And unexpectedly to him, the angel said, "Because you have not kept the commandments of the Lord." And then Joseph received a great manifestation that I have not time here to tell you about, but it kept him reminded all the days of his life that he had to obey in order to receive the promised blessings. The angel told him that he could not get the plates then, and that he would not be able to get them until he was not only willing to obey the laws of God but also was able to do so.
OBEDIENCE BRINGS BLESSINGS
That is a great lesson we all must learn. The Prophet, later, through the inspiration of the Lord, stated the principle thus:
There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.
Our obedience, brothers and sisters, must be self-impelled. We should not render obedience because we are forced to do it, or because the bishop is looking, or because the General Authorities are present. We must render obedience because we love righteousness and have a testimony of the truth in our hearts, and because we want to go back to our Father in heaven and help take all his children with us.
Furthermore, we ought to obey his commandments as they are given. We ought not to twist and turn and bend them to our will; we ought to obey them as they come from the mouths of these men who sit here on this stand, because they speak for God. If we do not, our faith is vain.
SAUL AND THE AMALEKITES
Now, I want to take an example from the Old Testament scripture to illustrate what I have in mind and to help drive this principle home. There was a very wicked clan of people, a nation, who lived in the days of Saul, known as the Amalekites. They had been wicked for a long time. Even back in the days of Father Abraham, they had persecuted the people of God, and he had said, through his prophets, on numerous occasions, that when they became ripened in iniquity, they should be destroyed.
That time came in the days of Saul. Through the Prophet Samuel, the Lord told Saul to go and destroy the Amalekites, every one of them and all their livestock. Saul went with his army and destroyed all the people except their king, Agag, whom he spared in violation of the commandment of the Lord. He likewise destroyed all the ordinary livestock, but when he came to the choice sheep, and the cattle, and the fatlings, and the lambs, the pressure of the people, who desired to possess them, was so great on Saul that he yielded and took them with him as he returned.
The Lord told Samuel what had happened, and Samuel went out to meet Saul, who greeted him with the salutation:
... Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?.
Then Saul began to justify himself. He argued that his partial performance was a complete performance, and that he had done what the Lord had asked him to do. Samuel called to his attention that when he was humble, "When thou wast little in thine own sight," he said, the Lord took you out of obscurity, and raised you up, and magnified you, and made you king over Israel, and now you have chosen to disobey the commandment of the Lord. Saul hit on the best excuse he could find when he said that they had brought the cattle and sheep and lambs and failings back to offer as sacrifices unto the Lord. He thus claimed to be relying on the commandment to offer sacrifices
And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
That brought something home to Saul. He was being told by the prophet who had anointed him king, that he had been rejected because he had not obeyed the Lord. He then showed some regrets. But he did not exhibit that godly sorrow which worketh repentance, but rather the sorrow of the world which worketh death. He asked Samuel to pray with him that he might again prevail with the Lord. Samuel said he could not do that, but at Saul's persistent urging he did so without success, for the Lord did not again accept Saul. You know the sequel. Saul lost his kingdom, and David was chosen to take his place.
FULL OBEDIENCE REQUIRED
Now, there are a number of things in this incident which can be applied in our lives today. First, Saul received his directions through the prophet living in his day. We come to conference to receive directions from the living prophets in our day. Second, Saul used his own judgment as to whether he would perform the commandment given to him, and decided that he would not do it exactly as he was commanded. And third, when he was called to account, he prevaricated about it. He said, "I have done it."
There is another very interesting thing about this incident. When Samuel confronted Saul with what he had done, Saul said, "Because I feared the people,... obeyed their voice". That reminded me of the statement of the Lord in the third section of the D&C;, where he told the Prophet Joseph that he should not have yielded to the persuasions of men. This revelation was given, you will remember, after Martin Harris had lost the one hundred and sixteen manuscript pages of the Book of Mormon translation. With Saul, it was the fear of the people, and with the Prophet it was the persuasions of men. The Prophet learned never to yield again.
That is where our temptations come from, my brothers and sisters. The people around us do not believe what the prophets say, and we yield to their arguments. I know, of course, that there is great faith in Israel, and I suppose you do not need this talk, but there are many people who do need it.
The other day I was at a conference not far from here, and a man stood up to talk, a humble middle-aged man who had a house full of children to rear with only a limited amount of means with which to do it. He said, "I want to tell you about a letter I received from my mother." And this is about what she had written in that letter: "My son, for many years I have been looking forward to the time when I would reach my present age, in order that I might receive an old age pension so that I would not need to call upon you for support out of your limited income. And now, just as I reach it, the Church says, don't take it. I don't know that I understand all the reasons why the Church says don't take it, but I do know that the Church has always been right. Therefore, please continue to remit each month." And the man said, "I am glad to remit."
ADAM'S IMPLICIT OBEDIENCE
I liked that. I like that spirit and that action. It reminded me of the obedience evidenced by our great progenitor Adam, the first man. He was commanded by the Lord, you remember, after he and Eve had left the Garden, that they were to build an altar and offer sacrifice, and he did it. He built an altar and offered sacrifices, and after many days an angel of the Lord stood by Adam and said,
... Why dost thou offer sacrifice unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me.
What a lesson! Here was a man, a great man. In our understanding, he stands next to the Redeemer of the world. He built an altar and killed the offering and offered it on the altar without knowing why he did it. How men have changed! Had Adam been a modern, he would not have offered that sacrifice until someone had presented to him a human argument which to his mind justified sacrificing the animal rather than putting it in his cold-storage locker.
But, thank goodness, Adam was not a modern. He had faith, a faith which impelled him to obey the commandment of the Lord, and after he had obeyed he learned why the commandment was given. The angel told him that the sacrifice was in the similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, and he taught him the principles of the gospel, which Adam accepted and obeyed, thereby receiving all the blessings thereof which he never could have received without that obedience.
As Adam had to obey, so must we. God help us to listen to his living prophets and get their messages and obey them as they are given, that we may gain the great rewards which the Lord holds out to us, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 84-89
My brothers and sisters: In humility I ask for your help that what I may say today may be in that same sweet spirit which has been with us during this conference until the present time.
As the Savior and the apostles were on the shores of the Sea of Galilee on that early morning, Jesus asked Peter:
... lovest thou me more than these?... Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.... Feed my sheep.
And the only excuse and likewise the only reason that any of us have for standing before you in this conference is that we shall feed you.
Brother Widtsoe yesterday made allusion to a principle, spoke somewhat about it, to which I wish now to refer. He spoke of our duties and our obligations as those who held the truth. It is a very great blessing, not only, to have the truth, but it imposes likewise a great responsibility. We of this Church are possessors of the truth in so far as it has been revealed, the ultimate truth, and we are the possessors and custodians of the power of the Holy Priesthood.
MORE BLESSED TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE
We speak often, and properly, of the great blessings which we have, the blessings that are given to us by the Lord. But sometimes I wonder if our thought may not be mostly concerned with what we get instead of what we give. In that great sermon of Paul to the elders of Ephesus, he said Jesus had declared:
... It is more blessed to give than to receive.
There is something very remarkable about what we have to give under the gospel plan. No matter how much we give of truth, of good example, of righteous living, our stores, our blessings increase, not decrease, by that which we give away. There are two or three miracles in the Bible that impress me in this connection. One was the barrel of meal which Elijah blessed after the good woman who owned it said that if she gave it to him it would take all she had. That barrel of meal, blessed by Elijah, did not thereafter fail. The more she took from it, the more she had to give. Elisha blessed that cruse of oil for the widow who was in dire debt and about to lose her sons as bondmen, so that she filled from that cruse not alone the utensils which she herself had, but those which, pursuant to the prophet's orders, she went out and borrowed. All were filled that she could obtain. The Savior on the banks of the Sea of Galilee fed five thousand with five loaves and two little fishes, yet when they had finished they gathered up twelve baskets full of what was left. So when on the plain he fed the four thousand, from seven loaves and a few little fishes.
And so it is with God's spiritual blessings to us. We have the truth; we possess the priesthood; both are given into our care. We are responsible for the use we make of them. We are expected to give out of our store all that we possibly can give away, and in proportion as we give unto others, we become thereby more and more enriched ourselves. "It is more blessed to give than to receive". I repeat, as possessors of truth, our mission is to minister therefrom to others. And the more of truth we give away, the more we shall have. The more we righteously use the priesthood, the greater its powers will grow in us.
PRINCIPLES GOVERNING IN TIMES OF WAR
As all of you were, I am sure, I, too, was much impressed yesterday by the talk which Brother Bower gave. As he proceeded, I thought perhaps it might be useful if I were to trace out very briefly and imperfectly some of the principles governing the intercourse of nations in times of war. We have fallen just as far in our concepts there, as in the respects to which Brother Bower referred. Brother Romney this morning referred to one of the terrible incidents in the Old Testament history where the Lord, not man, commanded the imposition by Israel of a penalty of the extermination of a people. In the early history of the world, wars of extermination or enslavement were more or less the rule. However, when the Roman Empire became all powerful, it adopted more temperate rules; it had more humane feelings about war, its deceits, stratagems, and artifices. A certain honor was observed towards enemies, so much so, indeed, that it is said that on one occasion the Romans declined to recognize one of their generals in a victory he had won by using bribery. On another occasion they declined to take advantage of an offer made to them that by the use of poison they could accomplish the destruction of certain of their enemies.
HUGO GROTIUS' WORK ON INTERNATIONAL LAW
However, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the world fell into the Dark Ages, and then apparently every excess that could be invented by man was practiced as nations went to war. Things became so bad that finally at about the period of the Reformation, men's consciences became shocked at man's inhumanity to man, and they began to try to see if something could not be done to bring more humanity into the conduct of war. Along in the late fifteen hundreds a very great Dutchman was born, Hugo Grotius, who, in the course of his life, prepared the first great work on international law. In the preface to that monumental work which has stood as the great classic from that time until this, as I say, in his preface, he made this statement of the reasons why he wrote this treatise:
I saw prevailing throughout the Christian world a license in making war of which even barbarous nations would have been ashamed; recourse being had to arms for slight reasons or no reasons; and when arms were once taken up, all reverence for divine and human law was thrown away, just as if men were thenceforth authorized to commit all crimes without restraint.
Because of this condition Grotius wrote his work De Jure Belli et Pacis, which was the beginning of the bringing into war of something of humanity, if humanity may be properly spoken of in connection with war.
First, an effort was made to draw the distinction between combatants and non-combatants. War was to be waged between armies and not between civilian peoples. Statesmen and nations sought to relieve non-combatants from the woes, cruelties, and horrors of war. Old men, women, children, the decrepit and infirm were to be protected, not slaughtered. Many other humanizing elements came in, relating to prisoners of war and the treatment of wounded.
PRINCIPLE OF NEUTRALITY
When our nation was formed, we contributed to the world some great principles, among the greatest being that of neutrality, the intent thereof being to confine the war conflagration in as narrow a space as possible with the purpose of providing that the peoples of the nations that were not fighting might conduct their intercourse as usual. The miseries and woes of war were not to be inflicted upon innocent, disinterested peoples. We came to the brink of war in the last years of the eighteenth century to maintain this principle as applied to ourselves. The effort was to make it impossible to have what we have now come to glorify as "global war" and "total war." We then knew such a war was a curse.
RULES GOVERNING CIVIL WAR
Then came our own Civil War. Up until that time there never had been a written code of rules governing war between nations; and up until that time civil war was a war by traitors; those who were taken as prisoners of war were treated as traitors. But Francis Lieber, a political refugee from Germany, drew up for Lincoln what were known as "General Orders 100," which went out to the Federal armies in the field, and thereafter governed the conduct of our armies in the Civil War. These rules went further than any practice of nations up until that time in international war. These rules forbade the bombardment, without notice, of places where there were civilian peoples. It provided for the protection of museums, of libraries, of scientific institutions. These were to be saved from the ravages and destruction of war. Undefended towns were not to be attacked. Civilians were to be spared. Old men, women, and children, the wounded, all were to receive the maximum possible protection. As time went on and as a result of that code, other codes were framed by various international conferences, notably The Hague conferences of 1899 and 1907. Furthermore, they provided certain inhibitions on the waging of war which I think you might be interested in hearing me name. They adopted a declaration prohibiting the dropping of projectiles from balloons; they provided that poison gases should not be used; that poison itself should not be used. They repeated the prohibitions that undefended towns should not be bombarded. Family honor was to be respected; pillage and rape and arson and the whole train of like crimes that we read so much about today were forbidden.
WORLD WARS I AND II
Then came World War I, and we began to sag back into barbarism. World War II followed. All distinctions between combatants and non-combatants disappeared. This was inevitably so, if they used the kind of weapons they employed. So we had destroyed in England many towns, some of those suffering most being Sheffield, Hull, Manchester, Coventry, and London. There were many towns in Germany equally destroyed, including Berlin, and particularly Dresden, and as to this last city, some of our people, Americans, are affirming that the bombardment of Dresden was in violation of a tacit understanding that if Germany would leave Oxford and Cambridge alone, we would not touch Dresden. I do not know how true this report is; but we know the result.
TRAGEDY OF USE OF ATOM BOMB
Now do not forget that all of the nations had prepared before World War II to use aircraft; they had already used submarines in World War I; and we in this area know we were prepared to use poison gases. Then as the crowning savagery of the war, we Americans wiped out hundreds of thousands of civilian population with the atom bomb in Japan, few if any of the ordinary civilians being any more responsible for the war than were we, and perhaps most of them no more aiding Japan in the war than we were aiding America. Military men are now saying that the atom bomb was a mistake. It was more than that: it was a world tragedy. Thus we have lost all that we gained during the years from Grotius to 1912. And the worst of this atomic bomb tragedy is not that not only did the people of the United States not rise up in protest against this savagery, not only did it not shock us to read of this wholesale destruction of men, women, and children, and cripples, but that it actually drew from the nation at large a general approval of this fiendish butchery.
The other day there appeared in the New York Times, it may have appeared here, too, but I have it from the New York Times, an article which I shall read to you.
A new super-deadly poison, the most potent known to man, has been developed by the special projects division of the United States Chemical Warfare Service.
An innocent-looking crystalline toxin, the poison is so powerful that an inch-cube size of it, roughly an ounce, could kill every person living in the United States and Canada, silently and swiftly.
"If World War III comes, which we pray will never happen, it will be a war in which most people may die from silent, insidious, anti-human weapons that make no sound, give no warning, destroy no forts or ships or cities, but can wipe out human beings by the millions," Dr. Gerald Wendt of New York City, editorial director of Science Illustrated magazine, declared in a General Electric Science Forum address.
Dr. Wendt said: "The United States has already spent $50,000,000 in research off it, a small sum compared with the cost of radar and the atomic bomb. Most startling are two facts: These killers are invisible, microscopic in size, capable of spreading to reach every living enemy"; "and they can be easily and cheaply prepared by any belligerent who has as much as a brewery and the skill to operate it.
"If any small nation is competent in biological warfare, a large nation, even with atomic bombs, may be helpless against it."
There are other new biological weapons, Dr. Wendt asserted, that "operate through the slow agony of starvation. It is the attack on plants and animals."
PROTEST AGAINST SAVAGE METHODS
Thus we in America are now deliberately searching out and developing the most savage, murderous means of exterminating peoples that Satan can plant in our minds. We do it not only shamelessly, but with a boast. God will not forgive us for this.
If we are to avoid extermination, if the world is not to be wiped out, we must find some way to curb the fiendish ingenuity of men who have apparently no fear of God, man, or the devil, and who are willing to plot and plan and invent instrumentalities that will wipe out all the flesh of the earth. And, as one American citizen of one hundred thirty millions, as one in one billion population of the world, I protest with all of the energy I possess against this fiendish activity, and as an American citizen, I call upon our government and its agencies to see that these unholy experimentations are stopped, and that somehow we get into the minds of our war-minded general staff and its satellites, and into the general staffs of all the world, a proper respect for human life.
May God give us the strength to stand in these times of stress and trial and crisis. May he give us the wisdom and the inspiration to put hate out of our hearts, a hate that is consuming us. May he give us the power as a people so to bring our influence to bear that men, mankind, may be saved, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder Matthew Cowley
Matthew Cowley, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 103-108
As one reads the signs of the times there comes a certain conviction that the redemption of man comes not from the kingdoms of the earth; that if the race is to ascend from the valley of darkness into which it has been cast by "man's inhumanity to man," it will do so only by seeking a power outside and beyond the limitations and wisdom of the world.
MANKIND RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EVILS OF THE WORLD
Granting that the kingdoms of the earth are sincere in their present efforts to seek deliverance from the forces which persist in striking at the very existence of humanity, if proof may be found in precedents, then it may not be presumptuous to say that their efforts are doomed to failure. The outlook, to say the least, is not encouraging.
The perverted use of man's free agency, arising as it does from a false sense of values, has brought down upon all earthly kingdoms, with crushing impact, the fears and frustrations which now beset them. The God of the universe, who "ordereth all things well," did not design, neither did he desire, that the destiny of man should be so fearful and awesome.
The evils that men do are of their own making. God always proposes that the divine impulses implanted within man be released to reach out to the divine beyond; but man, much to his own sorrow, too often disposes otherwise.
During the tragic days of the recent war, when men's hearts were failing them, and the road to victory seemed so long and hazardous, rulers of nations and kings of the earth appointed days of prayer, when their subjects and citizenry were enjoined to cry unto the Almighty for mercy and help.
From desperation and anxiety came these spontaneous expressions of the nobler impulses which are inherent within the human heart. When men, however, thus seek divine assistance, from necessity rather than from practice, they may but seek in vain. At such times the will of God may be identical with the desires of men, but this, more often than not, is coincidental rather than the result of infrequent prayers. But notwithstanding his intermittent prayers, the fact that man prays at all is to some, convincing evidence that there is a power beyond himself which brings him to his knees in his hour of despair.
SEEKING THE KINGDOM OF GOD
The most urgent need of our time is for that same power to govern in the affairs of nations, to the end that peace will dwell regnant in the hearts of all men. Without some manifestation of the divine power,
... the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.
With it, "the kingdom of God is at hand".
In that memorable Sermon on the Mount, the Master set forth in the Beatitudes, some of the conditions upon which citizenship in the kingdom of God is predicated. And in continuing he said:
... seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
The promise here is that those who seek the kingdom of God, will find righteousness, and that all things should be added unto them.
The kingdoms of this earth are not, in and of themselves, righteous kingdoms. Within them, however, there are many righteous souls who have found, by earnest seeking, the kingdom of God in the midst of evil.
In teaching his disciples to pray, Jesus said:
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
This prayer suggests the coming of a kingdom which was not to be set up during Christ's mortal existence; for while Jesus sojourned among men the will of God was not done in the earth as it is in heaven. And this is not the same kingdom as the one referred to when he said: "The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel", as this kingdom of God he did establish during his earthly ministry.
THE INTERPRETATION OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM
In the interpretation of the human image dream of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the Prophet Daniel foretold the establishment of four great kingdoms, each of which would be of empire proportions. Also he divined the breaking up of the last of these world powers into many kingdoms. And then he prophesied as follows:
And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
This, no doubt, is the kingdom for the coming of which, Jesus taught his listeners to pray; and when God's will would be done in the earth as it is in heaven. This then would be a kingdom of heaven.
As a matter of historical record, the Meridian of Time was not in the days of these kings when the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom, never to be destroyed.
Instead, Christ's life and ministry were during that period when the fourth of the great kingdoms of Nebuchadnezzar's monarchy vision was a world empire. Indeed it was by order of a tribunal of that empire that the Son of God was crucified. Had the heavenly kingdom of Daniel's prophecy been established in the Meridian of Time, Christ would have reigned over it as King of kings and Lord of lords; and certainly his crown would not have been one of thorns.
So that Jesus in teaching his followers to pray: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as in heaven", foresaw, as did Daniel, the coming of a kingdom which would stand forever and whose king would not be crucified. CHRIST'S TEACHINGS REGARDING THE KINGDOM OF GOD
The kingdom about which the Master spoke when he said:
... The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel,
is a kingdom of God which is at hand whenever the priesthood of God is upon the earth, as it was in the Meridian of Time. Of this kingdom it has been said:
... strait is the gate, and narrow is the way,... and few there be that find it.
The Pharisees demanding of Jesus when the kingdom of God should come were answered as follows:
... The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Strange words these: the kingdom of God is within you, yet it cometh not with observation!
In one of his epistles to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul wrote that:
... the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
The universe holds within it many forces or kingdoms of power, which come not with observation, and yet man converts these hidden forces to his own use and purpose, and he knows, without questioning, that these forces are eternal. The elements, for instance, which are transmitting the sound of my voice to many distant points do not come within my observation, neither does the powers which sets them in motion come with observation, yet no one questions the existence of that power.
Christ went about healing the sick, restoring vision to the blind and hearing to the deaf; making the lame to walk and cleansing the leper. These gifts of the spirit and powers of his priesthood were made manifest throughout his ministry. These powers, like the air waves in the kingdom of the radio, were powers that could not be seen, but they could be set in motion for the good of mankind.
In the baptism by John to which Jesus submitted himself, because, as he said:
... for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,
whatever agency or force the water set in motion to the end that righteousness would be fulfilled, could not be seen, but the Father's voice of approval came down from the heavens, saying:
... This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Of those who sought the kingdom of God, Christ required complete conversion, or the second birth as explained by him to Nicodemus: "The kingdom of God is within you"; therefore, conversion must needs come from within. And by conversion the kingdom of God within man impels him to reach out for the guidance and tuition of the organized kingdom of God with which he will seek affiliation
If the kingdom within man does not impel him to an earnest quest for the established kingdom among men, then the kingdom within has not attained unto its fullest expression.
"Seek, and ye shall find", said the Master.
THE POWER WITHIN THE KINGDOM OF GOD
The kingdom of God would be a New Order, and yet it would not be elusive. It would become known to all who would reach down within themselves and discover that other kingdom which "cometh not with observation".
It would be both corporate and spiritual, and be endowed with power and gifts which would be available to all members. It would be the body of Christ. It would be his Church. And it would provide a design for living that would make for righteousness in the earth. Both its principles of faith and form of organization would be eternal, unchangeable, and indispensable to God's purposes in the regeneration of men.
In the redemption of souls, efficacy would obtain only in "One Lord, one faith, one baptism", and the gospel of the kingdom would be the power of God unto salvation. In the corporate organization of his Church, he would give
... some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.
God would not withhold his will from the priesthood of the kingdom, because, as the Prophet Amos said:
Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
Divine revelation would be the foundation rock of the Church, for hath it not been said that:
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
And did not Christ promise to be with his organized kingdom even unto the end, if men would but "believe and be baptized" and "all nations be taught to observe whatsoever he commanded".
God would call men to the ministry in his kingdom. They would not if they could and could not if they would, arrogate the authority unto themselves.
And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.
The works that Christ did, his authorized ministry would do also. And greater works would they do because he must go to his Father.
After his departure, the Father would send the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, to all those who would seek the kingdom. It would come as a gift to the repentant and the baptized-just as Peter had promised on the day of Pentecost in these words:
... Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
ADMONITION TO SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD
So, in brief, these are some of the principles of faith and distinguishing marks of God's kingdom among men.
To seek this kingdom should be man's first concern. As someone has said: "We have tried Christianity for two thousand years, now let us try the religion of Christ."
Peace cannot come in our time; nor in any time, if as the foundation thereof the kingdom of God is ignored. Neither will men nor nations be lifted from the "Serbonian Bog" of a sordid and selfish world, until they "seek... first the kingdom of God and his righteousness". This is the only way out.
The old Hawaiians knew whereof they spoke when they adopted as a motto of government these words: "Ua mau keea o ka aina i ka pono." "The strength of the land is in righteousness." In other words, it is "righteousness that exalteth a nation".
The world cannot be set right unless man becomes right. Confucius understood this procedure when he said:
Their hearts being rectified, their own selves were cultivated; their own selves being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated then states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole empire was made tranquil and happy.
Without starting with the individual, peace could never become international. As with Confucius, so with Christ: "Ye must be born again". This is the way, and there is none other. It is irrefragable and eternal; and the call still rings down from the Mount as it did nearly two thousand years ago:
... seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
... The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 111-117
"I charge thee," wrote Paul to Timothy, "before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ,... Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering".
In the same letter he prophetically declared "that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves,... lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.
It is in the spirit of Paul's charge and prophecy that I approach the subject of safeguards against delinquency of youth. In naming these safeguards I have nothing new to offer. You have heard them mentioned frequently, but I think as with the gospel principles, it is fitting that we be active in season and out of season, that we reprove, rebuke, exhort, admonish, with all long-suffering as we contemplate the rising crime wave and bring home to each of us, if possible, the realization that greater diligence is needed.
Few will question that we are living in perilous times, that many people have lost their moorings and are being
... tossed to and fro... with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
A short time ago, a commission on evangelism, appointed by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, made a report revealing some astounding facts on the present-day status of "Christian" England. The report said:
The present irrelevance of the Church in the life and thought of the community in general is apparent from two symptoms which admit of no dispute. These are the widespread decline in Church going; and the collapse of Christian moral standards.
Associated with this was the statement that only from ten to fifteen percent of the population are closely linked to any Christian church.
Commenting upon this report, one of the daily papers in England said, among other things:
Youth is largely indifferent to Christianity-finding in religion no relevance to life, and in life itself no meaning. If we inquire what it is that has caused these alarming symptoms of national decline and fall, the answer is that our generation has succumbed to the age-long delusion of a self-sufficient humanism which puts man in the center of his world, and regards man as the standard of reference. The worst, however, is not yet told, for the Church itself has become infected with the spirit of the age, and has thereby lost its vision, its vitality and its spiritual authority. The real problem is not the ninety percent which stand outside the churches, but the ten percent inside the churches, so many of whom are only half converted and ill-instructed.
Truly it would seem that men and women are either groping blindly for the truth or have become lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.
Among the glaring evil products of the war and postwar periods are two which seem to me to be most portentous and which should be curbed if we would preserve true Christian ideals. These are: first, an increasing tendency to dishonor the marriage vow; and, second, the upswing in juvenile delinquency. Careful research would undoubtedly disclose a close relationship between these two unwholesome social conditions.
MARRIAGE LOOSENESS AND INFIDELITY
As evidence of the first, we need only to glance at the number of divorces even among temple marriages, mentioned impressively in his appeal last evening by President George Albert Smith. In the country at large, one out of every five marriages are separated by the ever-grinding divorce mill. Recent statistics disclose that we now have one out of three.
Bearing tragic witness to the lessening regard for purity in marriage is the large number of so-called war brides whose husbands have returned to face broken promises and tragic instances of infidelity.
JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
But it is to the ever-increasing crime wave that I desire to call attention this morning. Children are being corrupted by it; youth are caught in its whirlpool, and are being contaminated overwhelmingly by it. According to the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
... it is mounting in intensity. It is growing in severity. It is not isolated. It is nationwide.
Referring to conditions during the war, he comments:
There was the spirit of wartime abandon, for example, with its lasting philosophy which provided justification to less resolute wills to violate the conventions of society. Lessons in school became secondary. Girls sacrificed virtue on a false shrine of patriotism. Arrests for prostitution increased three hundred seventy-five percent, disorderly conduct three hundred fifty-seven percent, and drunkenness and driving while intoxicated one hundred seventy-four percent among girls under eighteen in the wartime years. To those who were not grounded in fundamentals, established values disappeared, and an attitude of impermanence superseded individual responsibility. Conflicts between liberty and license manifested themselves in wrongdoing. Personal responsibility in too many homes has become archaic and old fashioned.
The passing parade of crime presents a sordid spectacle.
Out of each one thousand marching in this endless parade, five hundred twenty-one have marched before to a prior arrest, and two hundred ten are under twenty-one years of age. More persons aged seventeen are arrested than in any other age group. Of each one thousand murderers, one hundred forty are under twenty-one years of age; of every one thousand robbers, three hundred sixty are under twenty-one; of burglars, five hundred ten; of thieves, three hundred forty; of arsonists, two hundred fifty; of one thousand car thieves, six hundred thirty are under twenty-one; and of one thousand rapists, three hundred twenty are under twenty-one years of age.
In calling attention to these conditions, and in my comments later, I would not have you think that young people generally do not merit our confidence. It is the few, not the many, of whom we now speak.
When, a few years ago, a little four-year-old lad wandered into the bad lands of North Dakota, the whole countryside was aroused and organized for the rescue. They gave no thought, however, to the hundreds of four-year-olds who were safe in their mothers' keeping. A train wreck or an airplane disaster shocks us to attention, awakens sympathy and a demand for more safeguards, while to the hundreds of trains and airplanes carrying millions to safety, we give scarcely a passing thought.
So while we solicitously call attention to the tragedies in the stream of human life, let us not be unmindful of the much greater group who move steadily and successfully along, avoiding the sandbars and rapids of sinful indulgence and spiritual decay, whose noble lives confirm and increase confidence in the growing generation. As we seek the lost sheep, let us be appreciative of the "ninety and nine" that are safe in the fold.
But no matter how firm our confidence in the majority of the young, we must not close our eyes to the fact that the number of delinquents and youthful criminals is increasing. In the interest of the moral atmosphere of our communities, the welfare of the state, the perpetuity of our democratic form of government, we must search for the causes of this upswing in crime, and, if possible, remove them and apply the proper remedies.
THE HOME THE FIRST SAFEGUARD
One cause of the increase in child delinquency is a letdown in home ideals. The exigencies of war induced many mothers to take up war work, and to leave their children in the care of others, or, too often, to let them shift for themselves. A growing desire for economic independence, or a too eager willingness to improve financial circumstances, has influenced some mothers to neglect the greatest of all responsibilities-the rearing of a family. The national director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation makes the definite statement that
... in the background of these youthful offenders lies the story of shocking neglect. Boys and girls are being deprived of the care and guidance necessary to the proper foundation of their characters. Their lawlessness had its roots in every instance in broken homes, in homes where mothers and fathers because of their neglect, misunderstanding, or irresponsibility had failed in their primary obligation. More often than not, God was unknown, or, more important, was unwelcome in their homes.
On the other hand, in nearly every instance the youthful offender would have been a strong, upright citizen had he been given a chance.
If his pent-up energies and desires had been directed along wholesome channels; if his problems-the problem that made him a problem child-had been solved by patient and attentive parents, he would have proved to be an influence for good in his community.
You may think me extreme, but I am going to say that a married woman who refuses to assume the responsibilities of motherhood, or who, having children, neglects them for pleasure or social prestige, is recreant to the highest calling and privilege of womankind. The father, who because of business or political or social responsibilities, fails to share with his wife the responsibilities of rearing his sons and daughters, is untrue to his martial obligations, is a negative element in what might be and should be a joyous home atmosphere, and is a possible contributor to discord and delinquency. A President of the United States once said:
Our country has a vast majority of competent mothers. I am not so sure of the majority of competent fathers!
Fathers may and should exercise a helpful, restraining influence, where a mother's tenderness and love might lead to indulgence on the part of the children. In this respect, however, every father should ever keep in mind that he was once a mischievous youngster himself, and deal with his boy sympathetically.
The home is the best place in the world to teach the highest ideal in the social and political life of man; namely, perfect liberty of action so long as you do not trespass upon the rights and privileges of another.
The great need in the American home today is more religion. Parents should make it obvious both by their actions and their conversation that they are seriously interested if not in outward forms in the fruits of true religion. Example of parents should emphasize the need of honesty in our dealings with our family, our neighbors, and all with whom we come in contact; of kindness to our employees, of fair play to our employers, or good measure to our customers. "Talk about these intangibles should become as common practice in our homes and offices as talk about golf, parties, and profits, if we want to succeed in solving the family problem."
The Lord places the responsibility directly where it belongs, wherein he says that it is the duty of parents to teach their children the principles of the gospel and to walk uprightly before the Lord, and if they do not so teach, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.
THE CHURCH
Next to the home as a safeguard to delinquency, the church should be a dominant force. In the Church of Jesus Christ every child should be more or less safeguarded; first, by the ward teacher, whose duty it is to "... watch over the church always, to be with and to strengthen them". Today the perfunctory obligations of the ward teacher are fairly well performed, but the looking after of individuals is woefully neglected. If every teacher, as an appointed representative of the bishopric of his ward, were properly and fully to perform his duty, he would be aware of the activity or inactivity of every child, and of every youth in the Church, each teacher watching over the assigned families.
In more direct contact with individuals are the quorum officers and instructors. It is the duty of these officers and instructors to know the status of every youth from twelve years to twenty, and to take personal interest in each. I pause to let you comprehend the significance of this divine organization.
A third dominant force is the auxiliary associations, comprehending in their enrollment every child and youth from six years of age and upward.
Indifference manifest in the world generally towards church should tend only to spur men of the priesthood and teachers in the auxiliaries in the Church of Christ to more earnest and diligent activity.
THE SCHOOLS
If the reports be true, with reference to the indifference of the country as a whole toward Christian churches, we shall have to place next to the home, not the church, but the public school, as the most influential factor in lessening delinquency.
Present-day conditions emphasize the fact that the most paramount objective of the public school system from kindergarten to the university should be character building and the evolving of true, loyal citizens of the republic. The teaching of the three "R's," of the arts and the sciences, even the delving into research work, should be but a means to the development of true manhood and noble womanhood. Education for loyal citizenship! Ralph Waldo Emerson truly said:
Character is higher than intellect; a great soul will be fit to live as well as to think.
A few years ago inquiry made into the school status of juvenile delinquents in one of our Utah school districts, revealed the fact that eighty-one percent of the offenses were found committed by five percent of school pupils. A committee appointed to deal with this situation made the following report:
1. Since the school offers one of the best resources in the state to prevent and treat delinquency, every effort should be made by both school and court to help the delinquent make a satisfactory school adjustment in order to accomplish this result, cases which come to the court should be immediately referred to the school coordinator or attendance department of the school district in which the juvenile resides in order to determine whether or not the delinquent has a satisfactory school or work record. If he has not the court and schools should not cease their efforts until the delinquent is either in school full time on a satisfactory program, or is employed and under proper supervision.
2. That immediately after the juvenile court has disposed of a case, the school coordinator should be notified of the disposition made.
3. That the industrial school notify the proper school authority when it releases a boy or gift to his or her own home.
THE COMMUNITY ATMOSPHERE
A fourth and final safeguard against delinquency of youth is the moral atmosphere of the town or community. This is determined by the ideals and actions of adults, and particularly of civic officers and those who are entrusted to enforce the law. The following from one of our leading columnists referring to the "pervasive example of the behavior of adult civilization," is pertinent:
As long as we publicize and condone violence; reward profiteering; intensify civil strife; glorify personalities with the sexual morals of rabbits; teach in our high schools and colleges a cheap relativism which denies personal responsibility and places all our sins upon the "economic system" or "infantile conditioning," so long will we have juvenile criminals. Our children are reflections of ourselves, or of the things in our communal life that we tolerate. England, now, is making special films to be shown in special theatres for teenagers-films which are partly educational and partly pure entertainment, made by first rate artists, and frankly designed to magnify and make attractive virtue.
The writer then quotes Thomas Jefferson who "did not believe that you can get a good society except through good, honest, well-mannered, considerate, law-abiding, clean-living citizens. He thought, in fact, that if education concentrated in the first line on creating these, society and the state would take care of themselves."
Yes, we are living in perilous times, but let us hope that they may be to the present generation as the fiery furnace that consumes the dross but purifies the gold.
A clean man is a national asset. A pure woman is the incarnation of true national glory. A citizen who loves justice and hates evil is better than a battleship. The strength of any community consists of and exists in the men who are pure, clean, upright and straightforward, ready for the right and sensitive to every approach of evil. Let such ideals be the standard of citizenship.
They are fundamentals in the Church of Jesus Christ.
God bless the workers in the priesthood and auxiliary organizations that they may search out the young, be constant in season and out of season, guarding well those boys and girls who are not bad but who lack proper guarding. Victor Hugo was not far from the truth when he said:
There are no bad boys, and there are no bad men, there are only bad cultivators.
God give us power to be good cultivators of youth, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Alma Sonne
Alma Sonne, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 118-119
Brothers and sisters: We have just listened to a great sermon, a sermon of precious truths. I hope and pray that during the few moments I stand here I may be prompted and directed by the good Spirit, for I desire to bear my testimony and to make acknowledgment of the rich spiritual heritage which is mine, and which I know is yours, because of our membership in the Church.
CONVICTION NECESSARY TO ACTION
The other day there came to my office a man to dissuade me, and to discourage me from accepting the call to the mission field. It was the same line of argument which I had heard thirty-five years ago. "Why must you go?" he asked. "Isn't the soul at home as precious to save as the soul in Europe?" he asked. I answered him very briefly. "I suppose," I said, "it's a matter of conviction." And then he replied, "It is very important what we believe." Alma Sonne, Conference Report, October 1946, p. 118 I knew this man; I knew his background; I knew his family. I remember that from his youth he had walked in a road that led away from the Church. I recall his old grandfather, a pioneer. As a boy I had heard his testimony. He had seen the Prophet. He had heard him speak. This veteran came to Nauvoo when mobocracy and persecution were rampant. He later left his home and his little farm and cast his lot with the persecuted and driven people, driven across the prairie to the Rocky Mountains. Why did he do it? Because he had conviction!
A TESTIMONY OF THE TRUTHFULNESS OF THE BOOK OF MORMON
When I was a young man, feeling my way cautiously and thoughtfully, and I hope, prayerfully, I asked my father, "Why did you join the Church?" The question came to him as a challenge. He hesitated for a moment and then replied, "Because I read the Book of Mormon." He had come to America, not for the gospel's sake, but because he believed America was a land of opportunity, in which a person could make headway if he worked and saved and struggled toward an end. And then someone handed him a Book of Mormon. "Read it," he was urged. He read a chapter or two every night, before retiring, until the book was read from cover to cover. He put it aside, not particularly impressed. Then one day as he was working in the field a thought came to him: "That book is God-given. Joseph Smith never wrote that book." And then he came to a logical conclusion: "If that book is a revelation, then 'Mormonism' is true, and the gospel and the priesthood are upon the earth." Then he sought out the bishop of the ward in which he was residing, and asked to be baptized a member of the Church.
A MOTHER'S FAITHFULNESS
I recall now that my mother, when she was not yet in her 'teens, walked across the prairie from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Cache valley, Utah, behind a yoke of oxen and a covered wagon; she, and her parents, trudged along over the dusty and sun-baked plains, until they reached the "valleys of the mountains." The first year was spent in a dugout; they endured hardships and privations. Why? Because a humble missionary had brought the gospel to their home and explained it to them in such a way that they could understand it. So it seems to me that we all have such a heritage. I am thankful for it.
PREPARATION FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE GOSPEL
We have been talking about America, the land of the free. There is an old American motto which is inscribed on our coins. It reads, "In God we trust." I am convinced if freedom in America; and elsewhere, is to be preserved, we must return to God. Indeed, I believe that years before the gospel was restored, preparations were made for its restoration. It was no accident that Christopher Columbus reached the shores of San Salvador in three flimsy vessels. It was no accident that the invincible armada of King Phillip of Spain was scattered by a storm which arose at an opportune moment on the high seas. It was no accident that a few drops of water, more or less, as Victor Hugo said, fell on the battlefield of Waterloo and brought about the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was no accident that thirteen loose, unorganized colonies on the Atlantic seaboard, without money, without credit, without a navy, without an army, were victorious in the Revolutionary War. It was no accident that the profound and great political truth set forth in the Declaration of Independence found expression through the pen of Thomas Jefferson. Why? Because he was inspired, and freedom of worship was an essential part of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
May God help us to appreciate the blessings which are ours. May he preserve our land and our nation in these crucial days, that America may live and freedom may go out to all the world, so the gospel of the kingdom can be preached without fear or favor to the nations everywhere, I pray humbly, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Clifford E. Young
Clifford E. Young, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 120-122
I never was more conscious, my brothers and sisters, of the truthfulness of the statement that "A speech, to be immortal, should not be eternal." I recognize the value of time here this morning. May I just say in passing, with reference to President Penrose, to whom President Smith has alluded, in harmony with what President Dunn related to us yesterday of his experience in the Islands in translating for one of the brethren, that it was my good fortune to travel with President Penrose in the northern part of the German Mission and to translate for him. I can bear witness to you that if there was any doubt in my mind as to the gift of tongues, that doubt vanished as I stood by the side of that great leader and prophet and endeavored to convey to the Saints in German what he said in English. President Dunn bore witness of this yesterday, and I can testify to that truth.
IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING TO SERVANTS OF GOD
I desire to call attention to a matter or two that I think need to give us concern, and may I preface it by relating to you the circumstance of the Savior as he went into the wilderness after his baptism. You recall that he fasted for forty days and forty nights and then was hungered, and Satan came to him and tempted him, saying:
... If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
Of course, the implication was that by bread, hunger may be appeased. And then Jesus said:
... Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Supplementing this, is the statement of the Lord where he says:
... whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.
We have had brought to our attention during this conference many of the problems confronting us, but it seems to me that if we could burn in our hearts the truthfulness of that statement that we should live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God, we would go a long way in solving these problems. These brethren whom God has called to preside and give us direction, when they speak they do not speak flippantly, they officially declare to us what we should do. "It is the same," the Lord says. "It is my word," and we should recognize it as such.
GET OUT OF DEBT
Now in harmony with that thought may I call attention to a matter about which I have considerable concern, and I am sure you do. In this pulpit in 1903, President Joseph F. Smith admonished the Saints that they should get out of debt. At that time we were enjoying a good deal of prosperity, and President Smith admonished the Saints to pay their debts and be free from bondage while money was plentiful. Well, many of them did, but some did not. As is the case now, so it was then-all did not accept the advice and counsel. By and by the first world war came on and the demand for commodities increased; prices soared; money was plentiful and again the temptation to borrow! Farmers bought more land; livestock men increased their flocks and herds, much of this on borrowed money, overlooking the possibility that there might again come a day of reckoning. And so, many of our people took on the obligations of debt. In 1930-32, we felt the pinch of it, and I may say without fear of contradiction, had we not had the bondage of debt as we did at that time, the depression would not have been so tragic with many of us. But being in debt, not being able to pay our interest, not being able to pay our obligations due to the fact that commodity values had gone way down below any level that had existed at the time the debts were incurred, the result was that it was impossible for men and women to pay their debts, and bankruptcy, sorrow, and tragedy followed.
COUNSEL TO RETURNED SERVICEMEN
History is again repeating itself, my brothers and sisters. We have come again into a time of complacency. Money is easy; wages are high; very few people are out of work-indeed, we may say no one needs to be out of work now if he will work. And yet we have still the same danger, and there is one phase of it that comes home to us: Our boys are coming home from the service, and by the way, we brethren who hold the priesthood must not overlook the counsel that was given to us a year or so ago that we should take cognizance of these boys as they come home, and advise with them. Their coming home is becoming a common thing with us, and we are neglecting them and failing in many instances to give advice and counsel where it is needed. And so may I remind us again of our obligation to these boys.
As our boys return, they are in need of homes, and opportunities to borrow money and invest in land or livestock are before them, as such opportunities were before us twenty-five years ago. Money is easy, and my apprehension, my brothers and sisters, and it comes from some experience in contacting many of our boys, is that we are not protecting them against heavy obligations-obligations that they cannot meet. It is an easy thing, under the present system, for our boys to go heavily in debt for the purchase of a home. I am not decrying that-I went in debt for my own home, and I suppose nearly every other young man as he started out in life and had nothing to begin with did that very thing and thought himself justified in doing it, as many no doubt were. The danger, however, lies in taking on ourselves debts that we cannot pay. Now with these young men, the tendency under the G. I. Bill of Rights is to incur obligations that it will be impossible to meet when the day of reckoning comes. Values are high and when you consider a boy, who has nothing, obligating himself for a seven or eight thousand dollar home, with good wages now, but with the possibility that when the leveling off comes his wages will be very meager, one can see the danger that confronts our youth. And so, my brethren and sisters, we should give them the benefit of our experience, our counsel and advice in these most serious problems.
May we avoid debt just as far as possible, and may we help our youth to avoid these pitfalls. Some of them are justified in obligating themselves if they can see their way out, but we should bear in mind that we cannot always maintain the wage level that obtains today, try as we will. I don't care what the theories of the economists are, it just simply can't be done. There is a law of retribution that operates in these matters, just as in everything else, and some day we shall have to pay. High wages will not always exist, hopeful as we are; neither will jobs be as plentiful as they now are. And so when that day comes, we do not want our boys in bondage as many of us were in the early thirties when the depression broke.
And so I say to you, it is well for us to accept the counsel and advice that is given us by the men whose right it is to give it, and I repeat again:
... whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.
And God help us so to do, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Bishop LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 122-127
I don't know that I have ever attended a conference of the Church that I have been more inspired and lifted up, or more grateful for my membership in the Church and my association with the Saints of God. At the close of the last April conference I said to my wife, if I had two million dollars I wouldn't know what in the world I could buy with it that would mean as much to me or bring me as much joy and happiness as my membership in this Church and my opportunity to associate with the Saints and minister among them. And more than anything else this day, I desire that my ministry and efforts may be acceptable to God and a blessing to the people of this great Church.
YOUTH NEED TESTIMONIES
President McKay spoke this morning about our responsibilities to the youth of the land, and I thought over my own life and I believe, my brothers and sisters, that what our young people need more than anything else in this world, is a testimony of the divinity of this work, and if in all our auxiliaries and our priesthood quorums we lay a little more stress on the spirit of the work rather than on the letter of it, I believe we would find the results in the lives of our boys and gifts most acceptable.
I think of the time when I was a boy and the things that impressed me, and I remember reading the Life of the Prophet Joseph Smith by George Q. Cannon. It did something for me and caused my soul to burn within me, and I couldn't help wishing that I might have shared some of the responsibilities of those early days. Then I read his own statement where he was so concerned, and wondered because he was persecuted for telling the truth. He said he felt as he imagined Paul felt when he stood before Agrippa. He said, "I had seen a light; I had heard a voice; I knew that God knew that I knew it; and I dared not deny it, for I knew that by so doing I would come under condemnation before the Lord". Then I remember how that impressed me, and I thought that does not sound like the testimony of a deceiver or a false prophet, and I remembered the testimony of Paul, which I think is one of the most wonderful testimonies we have ever heard about, when he stood before King Agrippa and most noble Festus and bore his testimony how he, on the way to Damascus, had seen a light and heard a voice, and knew that God knew that he knew it. And how, when he had borne that testimony, Festus turned to him and said, "Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad," to which Paul replied, "I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness." To that Agrippa replied unto Paul, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian," and Paul replied, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds".
I tell you, brethren and sisters, there is no motivating power in this world in the lives of boys and girls, or men and women, comparable to a testimony of the truth because God does something for men and women, and he does it for boys and girls when they have a testimony of the divinity of this great latter-day work.
TESTIMONY OF THE THREE WITNESSES
I remember leading the Sunday School in one of our Sunday School conferences when Brother Karl G. Maeser and Brother George Goddard were present, in reciting the testimony of the three witnesses, and I would like to read that to you today. I believe I could recite it without the book, but I will keep it here for fear I cannot: "Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And well also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen".
Now, if you want to read the conclusion of those testimonies, just read the histories of those three men when they lay on their deathbeds, and when a peace came over them when they lifted their voices before they went into the eternal world to bear witness that the testimony they had given was of God.
I want to tell you, brothers and sisters, that when your boys and girls feel that, they have something that will hold them against all the powers of wickedness in this world. I would rather trust my boys and my girls in this world with a testimony of this work burning in their souls than all the information you can give them out of all the schoolbooks that have ever been written.
DIVINITY OF BOOK OF MORMON
I think the Book of Mormon is our greatest and most tangible evidence of the divinity of the mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith. When that book was first handed to my grandfather, Willard Richards, he opened it in the middle of the book and read a few pages; he then closed the book and said: "That book was either written by God or the devil, and I intend to find out who wrote it." He read it through twice within the next ten days, and he said the devil couldn't have done it; it was from the Lord. It is from the Lord, brothers and sisters, and that is what our boys and girls ought to know.
APPRECIATION OF GERMAN E. ELLSWORTH
I want to express here a deep appreciation for my friend, President German E. Ellsworth. I have reason to call him friend beyond just the common friendship of brother to brother. I think possibly outside of the early founders of the Church, no other man has sponsored the distribution of the Book of Mormon as has Brother Ellsworth, and I noted here a little statement he made in the meeting of the mission presidents last Wednesday when we spent from nine o'clock in the morning until four-thirty in the afternoon listening to the inspiration of these men who are laboring with your boys and girls in the mission field. Brother Ellsworth spoke of the time when he was president of the Northern States Mission and of the thousands and thousands of copies of the Book of Mormon he published that were distributed to the world. He said as he walked off the Hill Cumorah one day, the voice of the Lord said unto him: "Push the distribution of the record taken from this hill; it will help bring the world to Christ." I think that when all other evidences fail, the Book of Mormon will do that very thing in this world, and as far as I am concerned, I think we haven't all the evidence yet. There will be plenty more to come.
VALUE OF ARCHEOLOGICAL RESEARCH
I believe it was in 1934 that I read an article in the newspapers of a visit here to the United States of a William A. Kennedy from Lima, Peru. He was here in the interest of gathering funds for the erection of a research institution in Lima, Peru. The article indicated that with the money that was promised by the small Americas to match what could be gathered in the United States, that he already had the assurance of thirty million dollars, and that this amount would be increased to sixty or seventy million dollars within ten years. Former President Herbert Hoover was named as one of the board members of that institute, and it was to be erected for what purpose? To investigate the early civilization of America, particularly dealing with the Inca and the Maya civilizations.
I heard Brother Callis once say that when Joseph Smith received the plates he got down on his knees before the Lord, and said, "O, God, what will the world say?" And the voice of God came to him, "Fear not, I will cause the earth to testify of the truth of these things." And by the time this institute spends this sixty or seventy million dollars, we may have evidences, far beyond anything we have read of up to this time, of the divinity of the story told in the Book of Mormon.
APPRECIATION OF BOOK OF MORMON TRUTHS
Ten years ago Brother Nicholas G. Smith, one of my dearest friends, stood in this pulpit in the general conference. He was then presiding over the California Mission, and I was president of the Southern States Mission. He told this story. You can find it in the conference report; I didn't need to look there because I remembered it. He told about being invited by the dean of religion from the University of Southern California at Los Angeles to come to his church to listen to him preach, and he asked to borrow a copy of the Book of Mormon. One of the missionaries handed him his copy. Now all you missionaries know how we underline certain passages in red, and the minister stood up before his congregation, Presbyterian, as I remember, with Brother Smith and some of our missionaries present. He held that Book of Mormon up to his congregation. He said, "I have here a volume of scripture which has been in our midst for over one hundred years, and we haven't known anything about it." And then he opened it, and turned page after page, reading the passages that were underscored in red, and then, holding it before his congregation again, he said, "Why can't we fellowship a people who believe in such beautiful things as I have read to you out of this volume of scripture?"
Two years before that, we received, from a man who visited on this block, a letter from down in Texas, in which he said that he had been a minister in a Methodist church for thirty-seven years. He said, "I have spent over twelve thousand dollars building a library of the choicest books I could find. I have now in my library one book which is worth more than all the others because it is a volume of holy scripture," and he named it as the Book of Mormon.
Brothers and sisters, we just don't know the value of the Book of Mormon. I was out on the Boston Commons one night, holding a street meeting. Following the meeting, a young missionary walked up to me and said, "Brother Richards, I don't know the gospel is true." I said, "You don't?" And he said, "No." "Well," I said, "you take the Book of Mormon and live with it and think with it and pray about it, and it will not be very long before you will know the gospel is true." We were back there again, a few weeks later-I didn't happen to be laboring in that town, but we came in for a conference or a priesthood meeting. That night I was in charge of the meeting. That same missionary walked up to me and said, "Brother Richards, may I speak tonight?" He had been in the field only a short time, and I said, "You surely can." He walked out before the group that had gathered and held up the Book of Mormon, and pulled out of his pocket some postcards of buried cities in Central and South America that had been uncovered, and said, "If that Book of Mormon isn't true, you tell me how Joseph Smith knew those cities were buried out in Central and South America." It didn't take him long to find the truth.
MISSIONARY GAINS TESTIMONY
Then we had another missionary come to us in the South, who said, "I had a hard job to make up my mind to come on my mission. My professors told me it would be a waste of time." He was a college student. He said, "You know, I am a very practical sort of a fellow. I like to be able to walk out in a garden and pick the pears off the pear tree, and then I know it is a pear tree." "Well," I said, "my boy, I wouldn't worry too much about that if I were you. Pears grow on our tree, too. Now you take the Book of Mormon, and you apply all the analysis you can to it from every source; how it could have been written; who could have written it; who could have put in it the information that is there save God the Eternal Father, or someone to whom he gave that information."
Well, I sent this boy out into Alabama. A few weeks later I went over to attend a conference, and I said to the district president that I would like to hear from that young man down there. He called on him. He bore a magnificent testimony. I walked up to him after the meeting. I said, "You must have found some pears on the pear tree." And he said, "Oh, President Richards, forget it."
My wife was in company with me one day when we met a boy we had helped rear and who had learned about twelve languages and had a Ph.D. She turned to him and said, "What do you think is the greatest evidence of the divinity of the Book of Mormon?"
"Why," he said, "every page in it! No human being could have written that book of himself. No knowledge in this world could have given it, save it was from God."
Now brothers and sisters, I must not take more time, but I want to tell you that when our boys and girls get to feel the truth of that book, there will be less worry about where their feet are leading them by day and by night. God bless the youth of Zion. God bless every man and every woman who bears responsibility in the home and in the organizations and in the priesthood quorums, and may our testimonies and our lives so affect theirs that they will become powers for good in this world, and may this book yet fulfill this great decree, as written in the preface, that it shall be a witness of the Lord Jesus Christ, unto all nations. I pray, and leave you my testimony, in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
President George F. Richards
George F. Richards, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 137-141
I have carried in my pocket the manuscript of a talk which I thought I might give should I have the opportunity of speaking in conference, but I have not received the inspiration to use it. I have tried to assemble some of my thoughts so as to express them in a way that will be of interest to you, my numerous friends, brethren and sisters, and to say a few words upon the greatest thing in the world. I read a book a few years ago entitled The Greatest Thing in the World, and that thing was love.
THE GREAT COMMANDMENT
The Savior has had something to say upon this subject, and the thought just occurred to me that if he were here in the presence of this large congregation so that we could look upon him and hear what he would say, perhaps his words would be more impressive than they have been to us by reading them in the scriptures.
A learned man, a lawyer, approached him on one occasion and asked him:
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
On another occasion he said:
... Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite fully use you, and persecute you.
We are also told in the scriptures that we should walk in the light as he, Jesus, was in the light, or, in other words, to follow his example.
When he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, his perspiration was like blood dropping upon the ground. We are told, by an angel to King Benjamin, a great Book of Mormon prophet, that blood would ooze from the pores of his body, so great should be his anguish, because of the wickedness and the abominations of his people, occasioned, of course, by the love that he had for the people.
We mourn and have anguish of soul if a daughter goes wrong, or a son, because we love them so.
GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD
Then we read that,
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
We also know that the Savior gave himself voluntarily for all; that his atonement meant, in life and in death, a voluntary gift for us, a manifestation of love that has no comparison. When he was upon the cross in the agonies of death, he turned his thoughts toward his Father in heaven and prayed earnestly:
... Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
There is the example of the Prophet Stephen, who, when being stoned to death, knelt upon the ground and prayed God not to lay that sin to the charge of his persecutors.
LOVE WOULD SOLVE PRESENT DAY PROBLEMS
If such love obtained in the world today as the Lord intended that it should, love of God and love of fellow men, there would be no wars, contentions, and strife among the children of men. And that there is such, is due to an indifference by men to heed the admonitions and teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I profess love for you, my brethren, sisters, and friends, my hearers. I hope to be able to comply with the law to the extent that I can love all who hear my voice, whether they be in the Church or out of the Church, whether they be good or bad, whatever their condition of life. They are the children of our Eternal Father; they are our brothers and sisters.
No doubt we with them rejoiced and were happy together,
When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,
that the plan of salvation had been made and that the Savior had been chosen. We, no doubt, were happy together, all of the children of God. The Prophet Joseph tells us that we were all present in the spirit, intelligent beings able to sit in council with the Gods. We must have been living in love and helpfulness under those conditions, and the fact of our having come to earth should not change our thoughts and our feelings. We ought to love one another just the same here as when we lived in love and happiness in our heavenly home.
MEANING OF LOVE REVEALED THROUGH DREAM
The Lord has revealed to me, by dreams, something more than I ever understood or felt before about the love for God and the love for fellow men. I believe in dreams, brethren and sisters. The Lord has given me dreams, which to me, are just as real and as much from God as was the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar which was the means of saving a nation from starvation, or the dream of Lehi who through a dream led his colony out of the old country, across the mighty deep to this promised land, or any other dreams that we read of in scripture.
It is not out of place for us to have important dream, for we read in the scriptures:
And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.
More than forty years ago I had a dream, which I am sure was from the Lord. In this dream I was in the presence of my Savior as he stood in mid-air. He spoke no word to me, but my love for him was such that I have not words to explain. I know that no mortal man can love the Lord as I experienced that love for the Savior unless God reveals it unto him. I would have remained in his presence, but there was a power drawing me away from him, and as a result of that dream I had this feeling, that no matter what might be required at my hands, what the gospel might entail unto me, I would do what I should be asked to do, even to the laying down of my life.
And so when we read in the scriptures what the Savior said to his disciples:
In my Father's house are many mansions:... I go to prepare a place for you... that where I am, there ye may be also.
I think that is where I want to be. If only I can be with my Savior and have that same sense of love that I had in that dream, it will be the goal of my existence, the desire of my life.
OBLIGATION TO LOVE OUR ENEMIES
Then a few years ago, at the closing of a conference of the St. Johns Stake, we had had a wonderful conference I thought, and I was very happy on retiring. I was sleeping in the home of the president of the stake, Brother Levi Udall, and that night I had a remarkable dream. I have seldom mentioned this to other people, but I do not know why I should not. It seems to me appropriate in talking along this line. I dreamed that I and a group of my own associates found ourselves in a courtyard where, around the outer edge of it, were German soldiers-and Fuhrer Adolph Hitler was there with his group, and they seemed to be sharpening their swords and cleaning their guns, and making preparations for a slaughter of some kind, or an execution. We knew not what, but, evidently we were the objects. But presently a circle was formed and this Fuhrer and his men were all within the circle, and my group and I were circled on the outside, and he was sitting on the inside of the circle with his back to the outside, and when we walked around and I got directly opposite to him, I stepped inside the circle and walked across to where he was sitting, and spoke to him in a manner something like this:
"I am your brother. You are my brother. In our heavenly home we lived together in love and peace. Why can we not so live here on the earth?"
And it seemed to me that I felt in myself, welling up in my soul, a love for that man, and I could feel that he was having the same experience, and presently he arose, and we embraced each other and kissed each other, a kiss of affection.
Then the scene changed so that our group was within the circle, and he and his group were on the outside, and when he came around to where I was standing, he stepped inside the circle and embraced me again, with a kiss of affection.
I think the Lord gave me that dream. Why should I dream of this man, one of the greatest enemies of mankind, and one of the wickedest, but that the Lord should teach me that I must love my enemies, and I must love the wicked as well as the good?
Now, who is there in this wide world that I could not love under those conditions, if I could only continue to feel as I felt then? I have tried to maintain this feeling and, thank the Lord, I have no enmity toward any person in this world; I can forgive all men, so far as I am concerned, and I am happy in doing so and in the love which I have for my fellow men.
I love the Saints of God, as I love the Lord and his work. I love you faithful men and women who are laboring for the Lord, and for your fellow men.
FAITHFULNESS COMMENDED
I would like to endorse what Brother S. Dilworth Young said in complimenting the mission presidents of this Church. I feel as he feels in that regard. The picture was not overdrawn, and I think we could draw a similar picture of the presidents of the stakes in this Church, and of the bishops of wards, and of many other faithful men and women.
I remember on one occasion going by train to Alberta, Canada. As we approached Raymond, the wind was blowing, and there had been a light snowfall which was drifting, and I saw a woman and two or three children out in the beet fields working among the beets, and I have never forgotten the feeling I had. Those people working, almost their finger ends off, to make a living, and because God has said that one tenth of their interest should be given annually to him for the building up his kingdom when they get their meager returns, as faithful Saints, they will give to the Lord one tenth. And that is going on all through this Church.
As we visit the stakes and learn that these stake officers and ward officers, almost universally, are full tithepayers and keep the Word of Wisdom, hundreds of thousands of them, manifesting their love for God, their faithfulness in keeping his commandments, their willingness to help carry on this great latter-day work, how can we do otherwise than love them?
God bless you, brethren and sisters, for your faithfulness, and reward you abundantly therefore in time and throughout eternity, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Harold B. Lee
Harold B. Lee, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 141-146
I sincerely pray that the Spirit of the Lord might guide my few remarks and that they might be in full harmony with all that has been said on this occasion.
We have a scripture recording the words of the Master:
... I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
MODERN CONCEPTS OF ABUNDANT LIVING
That scripture has been the text for certain economic philosophies that are with us today, and from that text has been coined a term. "The abundant life," which has been used frequently to refer to a condition of plenty or sufficiency or a profuseness of the material things of life. But if we are to strip those philosophies of all their high-sounding phrases and explanations, we might describe them in this language: "Giving more and more to an individual in return for less and less from him."
As I think back over my life, I remember that these philosophies did not begin with the last few years. When I think of the first political campaigns that I, as a young boy, heard about, and fortunately we did not hear as much about them in those days as we hear about them today, I remember that some of the slogans of those days sounded very much like the kinds of philosophy we have today. I remember in one campaign there was one something like this: "We stand for a full dinner pail," and on another occasion: "We stand for a chicken in every pot," and still later, "Two cars in every garage." I remember picking up a magazine and seeing a picture of a family in a beautiful convertible, off to the movies, and underneath it said: "This is the American way of life." And more recently, we have a philosophy, or slogan: "Full employment for everybody in America and a pint of milk for everybody in the world."
Now, I call these sayings to your attention, and you, who are older than I, can add other slogans along the same line, not to ridicule, but to call your attention to the fact that in this land, and perhaps other lands, we have been choosing as ideals these material benefits, and we have called them the way to an abundant life.
In commenting about these things that seemingly have existed here in America, the president of one of our great American universities said this:
But the ideal of comfort which is the best we have been able to think of for ourselves will never do as an aim for a world order. Men can never be comfortable enough; we can never have enough material goods, if material goods are what we want. Any world order with this ideal will be torn to pieces by the divisions to which it leads.
As long as it is assumed, then, that it is the duty of all of us to get all we can and make the ideal of comfort our goal in life, then we may expect a similar fate to that nation, or community, or that family which builds on such an ideal. They will certainly be torn to pieces by the divisions to which such an ideal will lead.
I think I would be safe in saying, and I believe you would agree with me, that perhaps never before in the history of the world has so much been said about the abundant life and so little effort expended in obtaining the essentials that make for an abundant life.
THE MASTER'S STATEMENT
I should like to read you the parable that preceded the Master's statement of that text to which I referred. These were his words:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber... Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep... I am the door: by me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
And then he closed his lesson with this statement:
... I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
To his disciples on another occasion he said:
... I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
It was the same message that he gave to Nicodemus who asked what he must do to be saved and in reply the Master answered:
... Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Those who seek for the abundant life in any other way, then, but by the way the Master has laid out in the gospel plan, or, "as a thief and a robber," to use the Master's words. But the tragedy is that he who does so rob, is also the victim of his own robbery, and his own house is left to him desolate in the day of his great spiritual need. Then, certainly, such a one is poor indeed, and he is as the man to whom the Master referred in his Sermon on the Mount as, one who builds his house upon the sand and when the storms come, the winds blow and the rains descend, his house will fall, because it is founded upon the sand.
SCRIPTURES CHART WAY TO ABUNDANT LIFE
But the scriptures have given us unmistakably a charted way for the living of the abundant life and the preparation therefore. It was the Apostle Paul who said to the Hebrews:
Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection.
In explaining what salvation means, the Prophet Joseph declared that:
Salvation is nothing more nor less than to triumph over all our enemies and put them under our feet. And when we have power to put all enemies under our feet in this world, and a knowledge to triumph over all evil spirits in the world to come, then we are saved.
But apparently, as I read the scriptures, the Lord did not intend to convey that a fulness of the abundant life was attainable even in this life, for we find him saying in a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith:
Wherefore, fear not even unto death; for in this world your joy is not full, but in me your joy is full.
The Apostle Peter has reduced that teaching to a formula, a pattern, or a way of life. These were his words:
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was pursed from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
When I understand the full import of the Apostle Peter's words, describing that way of life by which we might obtain that abundance, or in other words that "abundant entrance" into the kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I am made aware that we cannot obtain it by spiritual gratuities any more than we can obtain a temporal abundant life by receiving temporal gratuities, for the Lord declared:
Not every one that saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Only can an individual receive that joy and that abundant life whose life is patterned to the standards as laid down in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have a splendid illustration that I should like to call your attention as to how this might be obtained.
LIFE OF SAUL OF TARSUS
Saul of Tarsus was one who had been valiant and conscientiously engaged in trying to stamp out Christianity which he believed to be a sect defiling the word of God. He even held the coats of the men who stoned Stephen, and having obtained letters of authority was on his was to Damascus there to prosecute his work, and it was about noonday:
And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said. Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.
He went and found Ananias, a humble man of God. Ananias taught him the way to an abundant life. He baptized Paul and then sent him to the apostles where he received his commission that sent him out to be one of the greatest missionaries among the Gentiles, and we know him from that time forth as the Apostle Paul.
The rewards that come from a life of sacrifice and service are also illustrated in an incident in his life. You recall, he was now a prisoner on his way to Rome. As they put out from an island in the
Mediterranean Sea, he had the impression that all would not be well, and they were hardly out of sight of land until a furious storm broke, and for fourteen days that frail ship was tossed about, and when, as the scriptures say,
... neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.
Then it was that the Apostle Paul went down into a place by himself and prayed, and here are the words that are recorded in the scriptures which describe his experience:
... after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said,.. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.
Then the Apostle Paul quieted his shipmates with this testimony:
Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.
There we might find illustrated the essential steps toward the abundant life, of which the Master spoke. The first step is to live the kind of life that permits up to receive the light of heaven, and a testimony that Jesus is a living reality, and that he can speak to us. One possessed of such testimony, then, from the depths of his heart, will say, as did the Apostle Paul: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?".
DOING THE WILL OF GOD
I wonder if you will think about that, you who preside in the missions and the stakes of the Church, in the various organizations, and priesthood quorums, those of us who sit in places in the presiding councils of the Church, whenever we come to the selecting of an officer or the determining of policy for the welfare of Zion, how well it would be if always we would say, we who have that testimony of Jesus, "Heavenly Father, what wilt thou have me do?" And if we will remember that, as fathers and mothers in dealing with a wayward child, if we will remember that when we sit in judgment upon the sinner, in all our business affairs, and the youth in his love affairs! May we who have the testimony remember that lesson of the Apostle Paul and from our hearts cry out to our Father: "Lord, what wilt thou have me do?"
And if we pray in real sincerity and faith, there will come back to us from out of the scriptures the answer to that prayerful inquiry. The answer has come oft repeated, time and time again, that all that we do should be done "with an eye single to the glory of God".
What is the glory of God? The Lord told Moses that:
... this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
With that goal always before us, seeing every act of our lives, every decision we make as patterned toward the development of a life that shall permit us to enter into the presence of the Lord our Heavenly Father, to gain which is to obtain eternal life, how much more wisdom there would be in the many things of life. Cannot you see, mothers, if yours is the responsibility and you sense it, as the Lord has placed it upon you, to teach your little children that there is a Heavenly Father and that life has a purpose, and that purpose is to prepare to go back to his presence in a day not far distant, then when that child, thus possessed of faith from such motherly teachings, comes to a decision in the choice of educational subjects in school, shall it be a course in home economics, or a career in theatrical fields, I am wondering if this child may not well choose rightly in such a question?
If there should come a problem as to what kind of business a man should be engaged in, whether he should invest in this matter or that, whether he should marry this girl or marry that girl, where he should marry, and how he should marry, when it comes to the prosecuting of the work to which we are assigned, how much more certainly would those decisions be made, if always we recalled that all We do, and the decisions we make, should be made with that eternal goal in mind, with an eye single to the ultimate glory of man in the celestial world.
DIVINE GUIDANCE AVAILABLE
If all our selfish motives, then and all our personal desires, and expediency, would be subordinated to a desire to know the will of the Lord, one could have the companionship of heavenly vision. If your problems be too great for human intelligence or too much for human strength, you too, if you are faithful and appeal rightly unto the source of divine power, might have standing by you in your hour of peril or great need an angel of God, whose you are and whom you serve. One who lives thus worthy of a testimony that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ, and who is willing to reach out to him in constant inquiry to know if his course is approved is the one who is living life to its full abundance here, and is preparing for the celestial world, which is to live eternally with his Heavenly Father.
I bear you my humble testimony, as one of the humblest among you: I know there are powers that can draw close to one who fills his heart with the kind of love of which President Richards has spoken so beautifully this afternoon. I came to a night, some years ago, when on my bed, I realized that before I could be worthy of the high place to which I had been called, I must love and forgive every soul that walked the earth, and in that time I came to know and I received a peace and a direction, and a comfort, and an inspiration, that told me things to come and gave me impressions that I knew were from a divine source. I know that these things are true and that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that each of us might live the abundant life by drawing thus close to him, and I bear you that testimony, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, October 1946, pp. 147-153
This has been a wonderful conference. The Lord has said that if two or three shall meet together in his name, he will be there to bless them, and this house has been filled to overflowing seven times during the last week by the sons and daughters of the Living God.
ALL ARE CHILDREN OF GOD
I esteem it a great privilege to be here with you, my brethren and sisters, and when I say "brethren and sisters," I am reminded of the fact that every man is a son of God, every woman, a daughter of our Heavenly Father. Wherever they may be, all that have been born upon the earth are the children of the Lord, and our Master taught that to love our neighbors as ourselves is the second great commandment. If we would follow the advice of Brother George F. Richards to love our neighbors, it would go a long way towards bringing happiness into the world.
I trust that during the few moments I occupy I may be blessed of the Lord to say the things that he would have me say. I trust that we who are here may be inspired of our Heavenly Father to rejoice in the blessings that are ours, and that we may be here today as brothers and sisters in the sense in which he desires that we should be.
This is only a small congregation compared to the multitude of our Father's children scattered over the earth, but it is a very choice congregation, because so many of those who are here have devoted most of their lives to going about doing good. That, in a measure, is the sum of the meaning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to go about doing good. While there are in this congregation men and women who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I hope that you will feel that you are welcome in this great congregation, and then realize that wherever you may go and find members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who are worthy of the name, you will be welcome, and they will be glad to do you good.
Last night over ten thousand men assembled in this house and the adjoining building, all listening to the same voice at the same time. It was probably the largest group of men that have ever been assembled together in a priesthood meeting since the world began. The fact that so many of you brethren have the priesthood, of course, is one principle that many people do not understand.
THE PROBLEM OF SAFETY
In this fast-moving age, the problem of safety is of great importance. We pick up the papers day by day to find that this man has been run over by an automobile, or that automobile has overturned and been wrecked, and those riding in it have been killed. We hear of collisions between railroad trains and automobiles. Nearly every day the headlines of our papers tell how many people have lost their lives by accident, and I may say to you that in almost every case, if proper precautions had been taken, those lives would not be lost. So, today, safety campaigns are being carried forward in an attempt to preserve the lives of people that are being wastefully destroyed. I hope that the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be among those most anxious and most willing to lend their efforts to preserve life. It is very precious. We have only one life, and if we keep the commandments of God and live as we should, it will be an eternal life of happiness. That is the blessing which comes to us from the gospel.
On our highways, some turn over high-powered cars to children, as soon as they can handle the wheel, and they do not always wait until they are entitled to drive by procuring that privilege from the state in which they live. They do not measure the danger and the result is that many accidents occur. Many accidents result because some men, and some women, I am sorry to say, presume to sit down at the wheel of an automobile and drive off into traffic when they themselves ought to be in bed under the care of a physician, and some of them ought to be in jail sobering up.
Now, what can we do? Let us join with the nation. Let this group of men and women here exercise their influence in encouraging our sons and our daughters and our neighbors, while we are setting the example ourselves, to safeguard the lives of every one of these, our Father's children. They are his, and he will not be pleased with us if by our carelessness, or our wickedness, we destroy their lives.
A number of years ago we did not drive so fast. I remember when the governor of this state drove a car at a time the limit was thirty miles an hour. Of course that was flying in those days, it was so much faster than a horse. I was riding with the governor and noticed that he drove very carefully. As we rode along the highway, I said: "You are a pretty safe driver, aren't you?"
He said: "I want to be."
I said, "This is a lovely car you are driving."
"Yes," he said. "The state furnishes me this car, and just as soon as I got it, my boys and girls wanted to drive it. I couldn't very well keep them from doing it, and so we had this agreement, that whenever we were in the car it would be law-abiding. So," he said, "this is one car in the state that observes the law."
I have thought of that a good many times. If we teach our children to be law-abiding and reasonable, perhaps we will be the means of preserving lives that are very precious to our Heavenly Father. In this day when we are talking about safety everywhere, let us do something about it. Let each of us do our part.
There are so many things that crowd my mind, I do not know what to talk about. I hope you will not be in the position of the little fellow who sat through a long meeting. When the last speaker got up and said: "I just don't know what to talk about," the little fellow helped him by saying, "Talk about a minute."
DISOBEDIENCE BRINGS DISTRESS
What a blessed thing it is to know that we are living eternal lives. What a wonderful thing it would be if all the people in the world knew that they are living eternal lives. How blessed it would be if all men knew that our Heavenly Father was the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and that he is our Father, the Father of our spirits. What a happy world it would be if men everywhere recognized their fellowmen as brothers and sisters, and then followed that up by loving their neighbors as themselves. Think of the sorrow and the distress that have been in this world for the last few years, due to the great war. Of what benefit has it been? Millions of lives have been sacrificed; millions in treasure have been wasted; and beautiful cities have been wrecked and destroyed. Many people tonight will be sleeping, either on the ground or in wrecked homes because of the great war. There are widows who have been left, and orphans who will have to go through life without father and mother. Why? Because men have refused to keep the commandments of God.
One of the great commandments that was given at Sinai was: "Thou shalt not kill".
I wonder if we realize how easy it is to violate a commandment of God? Think of the Ten Commandments that were given to ancient Israel when they were in the wilderness, spoken by the Lord and written by his finger upon tablets of stone. If the people, during the hundreds of years that have elapsed since that time, had honored those Ten Commandments, this earth would have been heaven, most of the time, and the men and women who have lived upon it would have attained great blessings that we have not known yet.
It was a simple thing for the prophet of God, Moses, to bring those Ten Commandments among the people, but it seems to have been most difficult for the men and women who have lived upon the earth to observe them. I fear that the time is coming, unless we can find some way not only to prevent the destruction of human life by careless accidents, but also unless we can call the people of this world to repent of their sins and turn from the error of their ways, that the great war that has just passed will be an insignificant thing, as far as calamity is concerned, compared to that which is before us. And we can avoid it if we will; if we will each do our part, it can be prevented.
EARLY SCENES IN SALT LAKE CITY
I am standing here today not more than about three hundred yards from the very spot where I first breathed the breath of life. It was just across the street in a little humble home, a little adobe house with four or five rooms, surrounded by a little garden and orchard. That is where I began. Salt Lake City at that time was a village. We did not have any water pipes. All our water was picked up in buckets and barrels at the side of the ditches that ran down our streets, and then it was carried to the house in smaller receptacles. We did not have any electric lights in those days. We had tallow candles, or kerosene oil lamps, but no electric lights. The gas did come a little later while I was a child.
At that early day we did not have a foot of pavement in the city, either on the roads or on the sidewalks. I can remember this great wide road just at the west of us here. There used to be about six inches of dust upon it in the summer time, the finest dust that you could ever put your feet into. That is the way we used to play, bare-footed, running up and down the street playing ball. We did not have to dodge automobiles. Nobody had ever dreamed of an automobile at that time, I think; at any rate it was a long time after that before the first one came here, and then it was a curiosity. I am thinking of what has happened since. This house was built at the time I was a child. The temple was begun before that time, and when it was completed I still lived across the street.
During the time that has elapsed since my birth I have traveled in many parts of the world and met many of our Fathers other children, men and women of various creeds and nationalities; and what occasion I have this day to be grateful for the kindness they have extended to me! It is not difficult for me to love my fellow men because I have known so much kindness from them, wherever I have been. Of course I have found, occasionally, individuals who had not grown up. They had bitterness and jealousy, and suspicion, and hatred in their hearts for their fellows, but that was not the kind of training that I had.
MOTHER'S TEACHINGS
I was trained at the knee of a Latter-day Saint mother. One of the first things I remember was when she took me by the hand and led me upstairs. In the room there were two beds, the bed in which my parents slept, and a little trundle bed over on the other side. I can remember it as if it were yesterday. When we got upstairs, she sat down by my little trundle bed. She had me kneel in front of her. She folded my hands and took them in hers, and taught me my first prayer. I will never forget it. I do not want to forget it. It is one of the loveliest memories that I have in life, an angelic mother sitting down by my bedside and teaching me to pray.
It was such a simple prayer but I can repeat it today.
Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.
That was my first prayer. That prayer opened for me the windows of heaven. That prayer extended to me the hand of my Father in heaven, for she had explained to me what it all meant as far as a little child could understand. From that day until now, while I have covered approximately a million miles in the world among our Father's other children, every day and every night, wherever I have been, when I have gone to my bed or arisen from it, I have felt I was close to my Heavenly Father. He is not far away.
My mother gave birth to eleven husky children, three of them girls. It was the gospel of Jesus Christ that prompted her to bring us into the world, notwithstanding the anxiety we gave her. She wanted to do what God had commanded our first parents to do, to multiply and replenish the earth. As long as she lived upon the earth, I was taught to love my Heavenly Father. I had an angel mother, for she was an angel, as we understand angels these days to be. And as I stand here today, after the experiences of a long life I realize that she was only one of the daughters of my Heavenly Father, and he loves them all.
Just a few days ago the national Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints filled this building with women, many of them wives and mothers and grandmothers. They, just like the men who were here in this building last night, had the training given to them when they were children that we believe in God the Eternal Father, and in his Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. That is the training of the children of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and of course of many other churches. But I am thinking of what your privileges have been, of how the Lord called you out from the world, that call which was heard by one of old:
... Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL
Many of you who are in this house came from foreign lands, from sections of the world where there were not the blessings you enjoy here. You have come to the tops of these everlasting hills, to the headquarters of the Church, and what has been the result? When you started, you found that the Lord had promised this:
... seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
That is what brought your parents and mine, your grandparents and mine, from other lands, and from other parts of this country. They came because they felt that they held their Father's hand. Many of them had a hard time when they came. There was not very much food, not much clothing, and housing accommodations were poor, but they held their Heavenly Father's hand. Morning and evening they bowed in thanksgiving and prayer to him who is the giver of all. They taught us who were born later to adjust ourselves so that we could be happy by being filled with the love of God and the love of our fellows in the world.
THE TABERNACLE CHOIR
I am thinking of how the Lord's promise has been fulfilled. Here you are today, listening to this great choir. This choir has been singing not only to the United States, but during the war the broadcast has also been carried to our boys and women in the armed services in different parts of the world. Year after year, the faithful men and women in this choir have given their time, without compensation, because they wanted to sing the sacred things of our Heavenly Father to his children.
EVAN STEPHENS
We used to have here a number of years ago a young man who came from Wales. He did not have the opportunity of a college education, but he was a Welshman, full of Welsh music. When he came here, he became the leader of this great choir. He it was who had joy, along with those who preceded him and those who followed, in building a choir not just to sing but to sing praises to our Heavenly Father.
I want to tell you a little incident about Evan Stephens. Some very prominent people were coming here. In that day we did not have so many visitors of prominence. We were too far out in the wilderness. One of our good bishops came to Even Stephens and said: "Brother Stephens, I have some company coming next Sunday to the religious meeting"--"and I hope you are going to have some good music."
Brother Stephens said: "All right, Bishop, we will have good music."
The bishop did not think that was enough assurance so he pressed it a little. He said: "These people are not ordinary people. They are men of affairs and wealth. Their families are wealthy, and I would like them to see just what a fine choir we have. Now, won't you give us something just a little extra?"
Brother Stephens said: "Bishop, we have already had our practice. The music has all been prepared. I don't see how we can make a change. I think it will be good enough for your friends."
Then the bishop pressed him a little harder, and then Brother Stephens' Welsh got up, and he said: "Now look here, Bishop, we have prepared the music for next Sunday to sing to the Lord, and l suppose if it is good enough for the Lord, it is good enough for your company."
That is the spirit that has always been here. This house was dedicated to the worship of God, by the spoken word and by music, by song and by story. I stand in a pulpit here that has been sanctified by the righteous men and women who have stood here and have testified of their knowledge of God and have encouraged others to keep his commandments, that they might be happy. I feel very grateful for my blessings.
WARNING AND TESTIMONY
In conclusion let me say: We are not out of the woods. This world is in for a housecleaning unless the sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father repent of their sins and turn to him. And that means the Latter-day Saints, or the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, along with all the rest, but we, first of all, ought to be setting the example. We have sent over seventy thousand of our sons and daughters into the world, paying their own expenses, to divide the gospel of Jesus Christ with his other children. Why? Because we know it is the only plan God has given to the children of men to earn a place in the celestial kingdom. That is why it is so important. In this great building that has been so sacred to all, after listening to the splendid choir and the organ, listening to the prayers that have been offered here, listening to the testimonies that have been borne, I want to leave my testimony with you and say to you: I know that God lives. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Living God, and had restored to him the true gospel of Jesus Christ in these latter days.
That might sound like boasting if it were not so serious. It is serious, and I know that I will have to answer for that testimony as I leave it with you today. It will not be long until this man who is talking will have finished his work and passed to the other side, and when I go, I want to be worthy to join my grandparents and my parents, my brothers and sisters who have passed on. I know they have earned a place that is worthwhile. I want to go where they have gone, and I know that if I were not to tell you the truth in regard to this matter, I might lose that opportunity.
So, realizing the seriousness of a testimony like that, realizing what it means, and with love unfeigned and a desire to be a blessing to all our Father's children, I leave this witness with you that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the only power of God unto salvation in preparation for the celestial kingdom, into which kingdom we may all go if we will, but it will be on his terms, and I bear you that witness this day, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 3-6
It is my pleasure this morning to bid you welcome to the house of the Lord. It is a beautiful picture to see this great tabernacle filled, the seats occupied and people standing, at the beginning of the one hundred seventeenth annual conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church was organized under great difficulties and unpleasantness to those who became its members. People who accepted the gospel did so because they knew it was the Lord's will, and the result was that they were able to endure the persecutions and difficulties and sorrows that followed them until they finally were driven from the East and came here to these desert lands to make their homes with the wild animals, and at that time, the still more savage red men.
PERSECUTIONS OF CHURCH
Remarkable at it may seem, but running true to form, the Church from its inception endured persecution. It was so in the days of the Old Testament, also during the mortal life of the Savior as well as in our day. The people were moved about, buffeted from place to place, but I think it could be safely said that every day when the sun went down the Church was stronger than it had been the day before.
Representatives from many parts of the world are in attendance today. Many of you have traveled a long distance, and I am sure you will receive a blessing because of your investment.
SEVENTY-SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY
This happens to be an unusual occasion for me. Seventy-seven years ago today I came to Salt Lake City. My mother's home was just across the road west of us, and that is where I was born. From the best of my recollection the ground was covered with snow that morning, just as it is now. In addition to my memory I have the testimony of my mother who later told me there was deep snow on the ground.
Many things have transpired since then. I have seen this city grow and develop. When I was a child, there were no paved streets. The dust on West Temple Street was the most delightful playground the children could have. We ran barefoot in it, and we had a happy time.
SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Little by little conditions improved, and now in this year of the one hundredth anniversary of the coming of the Pioneers, on the 24th of July next, we see one of the beautiful cities of the world, one of the most delightful places in which to live that can be found anywhere. Fortunately for me, I have been able to observe and enjoy that development. The Lord made a promise a long time ago. It was this:
"Seek ye first"-not last-"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all and all these things shall be added".
And when our people abandoned their comfortable homes in the East because of force, also in different parts of the world, and began to trek their way across the plains to this then wilderness, they had to have faith to believe that they could enjoy in this desert land the blessings that people enjoy elsewhere. The Lord never fails to fulfil his promise, and I stand here today a witness to the fact that in this promised land, are some of the happiest people that can be found on the earth, and the advantages and opportunities here are unsurpassed. Not only do we have the blessings that our Heavenly Father has bestowed upon us as individuals, but people also come from all parts of the world to see what has been accomplished.
In an earlier day, if anybody wanted to hear the best music and be trained in great universities, he had to go away from here. Today those who have been trained here in our universities are serving in many parts of the United States as instructors in other educational institutions. Those who used to go away to receive their musical training and learn how to operate a pipe organ may now get that instruction here, and from this Tabernacle the Choir sings to the world, and the music of the organ is sent everywhere that radio reaches.
UTAH KNOWN FOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
After one hundred years the Lord has made his people known for good. It is remarkable what has been accomplished. This state is classified as number one among the states of the Union for the largest number of high school students and the largest number of university students in proportion to population. We are recognized because there have been more scientists and more men and women of affairs born in this state than in any other state in the Union in proportion to population. You cannot go anywhere in the world where Utah is not known. As you sit here this morning, you are doubtless in the most comfortable, the most desirable meeting place for its size-and it is one of the largest-to be found in all the world. You are in an edifice where a pin drop can be heard two hundred feet away. And all these things, with thousands of others that might be mentioned, have been coming one by one that we might enjoy them in this favored land. The Lord revealed to his prophet a long time ago that this was a land choice above all other lands, and at this time those who are fortunate enough to dwell in this part of it feel that there is no better place in which we may live.
"COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE"
I see these mission presidents from the various missions of the earth, stake presidencies, bishops, counselors, high councilors, and as already has been said, on this stand are all the General Authorities of this Church with one exception. I welcome you all. We have this marvelous chorus of singing mothers who have already entertained us delightfully, and the great organ that is famous the world over. Think, if you can, of any place in all the world that you could go to attend a service that would compare with this. Surely the Lord has fulfilled his promise. In our homes we have not suffered for the necessities of life during this terrible war period. A commandment was given long ago through a prophet of old to "... Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues". Many of you who are in this audience today are descendants of those who followed this advice, and some of you have come yourselves from distant lands for the gospel's sake, and by so doing you escaped the ravages of world wars. Our Heavenly Father is mindful of his own.
FORMER MISSIONARIES PRESENT
We are here this morning not to see and be seen, but we are here to worship, and there will address us from this stand a group of men whose lives are devoted to disseminating the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this audience there are hundreds who have filled missions, have been away from home for a term of years, at their own expense or the expense of their loved ones, to divide the gospel of Jesus Christ with our Father's other children. I would like to have all those who have filled missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints outside the states in which they live, raise their hands. Thank you.
I wish all who are outside the building could see that sight. Hundreds, both men and women, have indicated that because of their assurance that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Lord, they have been willing to leave home and loved ones and go from door to door among the homes of our own and other lands, asking for the privilege of sharing the truth that the others did not possess in order that they too might enjoy greater happiness.
GRATITUDE FOR BLESSINGS
These are some of the things that come to my mind this morning. I am grateful to my Heavenly Father that I was born in this land of the free, in this great nation, in this valley, among the people who have dwelt here. I am thankful for the companionship during my life of the best men and women that can be found anywhere in the world both at home and abroad. This morning we are here to wait upon the Lord. We are here to listen to the inspiration that will flow from him to us. We are here to say by our prayers and by our singing voices, "Heavenly Father, we thank thee for all that we enjoy." This is a blessed privilege.
We have here this morning mayors of cities, the governor, and other officials of the state, some members of the Church and some not, and how happy we are to have our visiting friends with us. While you are here in the city, I would like to plead with the Latter-day Saints to see to it that everyone has a place to stay in comfort. Let this conference be notable for the generosity of the people who reside here, and let us see to it that everybody is properly taken care of.
I take this occasion to thank dozens of my friends, that I cannot thank in any other way, for their greetings and good wishes on my birthday. It has been a very delightful experience, and I thank you all, wherever you may be who are listening in, who have written to me or telegraphed or telephoned your good wishes. Surely it is a blessed thing to be associated with such people, and from the depths of my soul I pray that our Heavenly Father will now give us the satisfaction of listening to his voice and his instructions during this conference, and when the meetings are finished and we return to our homes, that we may take with us the influence and the truths that we have enjoyed here to share with those who are not fortunate enough to come here. I pray for these blessings, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Elder Clifford E. Young
Clifford E. Young, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 20-22
It must be a source of pride, my brethren and sisters, to all of us to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and in the light of the reports to which we have just listened we ought to be more grateful than ever before for the goodness of our Heavenly Father. Frequently we hear complaints of the requirements that are made of us, and many times these complaints are presented in "lump sum," so to speak.
THE WELFARE PROGRAM AN OPPORTUNITY FOR SERVICE
The welfare budget, for example, is regarded from the totals that are presented, and as we see the program in the light of these totals, we think of it as a burden on us as members of the Church. As we analyze it, however, the per capita assignment is not so heavy, and this field of activity becomes not a burden, but an opportunity for service. As a matter of fact, the welfare program is not measured in dollars and cents but in kind, and it may be possible in the future that our money may have little value. But we shall still be in a position to render relief to those who may be in need by reason of this program of producing through the concerted efforts of all the members of the Church. Is it not a source of satisfaction to know and to feel that if and when the day of need comes to us, we may go to those whose right it is to extend help and that help will be available? As I said, it may not be in dollars and cents, but it may be in the very things of which President Clark spoke; the example in Germany to which he referred. It wasn't money that those poor people needed. It was something to put on their backs, and food to eat, and warmth. Money couldn't buy what they needed because the things they needed were not to be purchased. But in this great program to which we have subscribed, food and clothing were available without money. This is the reason that to the Latter-day Saints the welfare program has in it the elements of security, and how grateful we ought to be for it.
EXPERIENCES OF A PIONEER FAMILY
This is a great year, an anniversary year, and I think we may reflect on some of the things that have gone before, and they may give us inspiration for the future. I am thinking this morning of a little log cabin that stands down in Liberty Park, built by my grandfather Riter. It was transported there from one of our pioneer lots by the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and others who are interested in preserving shrines that they may be a source of inspiration to the people. This little log cabin is no different from many that were built in 1847. It was originally a one-room log cabin and built in that year. Later on a partition was placed in it so that there were two rooms. The mother who lived in that little log cabin was a convert to the Church from Pennsylvania. She, her sisters, her mother, and her husband were caught in the "Gospel Net" to use the term that Brother Widtsoe affectionately uses in speaking of his worthy mother, and may I say in passing, the type to which he refers in his delightful book is the type that sometimes we forget. They too were pioneers. They came out of the world. The physical hardships may not have been quite so severe when they came, but they pioneered, nevertheless. They left their homes, their kindred, and many times their own parents for an unpopular faith because they had in their souls a testimony of the divinity of this work. Well, this little family to which I referred, the mother who at one time lived in this little log cabin, came to Nauvoo, there to find not a home as she expected, because shortly after she came, she was to witness the martyrdom of the Prophet and his brother, the patriarch. Then the family moved on, and they started across those boggy Iowa plains of which Brother Preston Nibley has been telling us so vividly in his News Church Section articles. I doubt that you and I can visualize, can appreciate, the difficulties under which they traveled. As they began their journey they met with discouragement, hunger, lack of things to keep them warm. The conditions were indescribable, yet there was no complaint. Oh, some of them felt and wondered why. In this little band there was a father who was a practical fellow. He was a Pennsylvania Dutchman. He left a home where things were reasonably secure, and he said one day to his wife, "We'd better turn back. We'd better go back whence we came. Conditions are so uncertain." That is a natural thing for any father to say. It is a natural thing for a mother to think. They were traveling among Indians and were not sure just where they were going, and conditions were not very favorable. They naturally would think of their children. They had two boys. They thought of the boys' welfare, not of their own. I am wondering how many of us would want to turn back, but that mother wouldn't turn back. She had been caught in the "Gospel Net", and she knew it was true, and so she said, "We will not turn back-we'll not turn back; we're going on!" That was my grandmother Riter, and her faith and indomitable spirit have always been an inspiration to me, and that spirit should be a source of inspiration to all of us.
NO "TURNING BACK"
This Church is now celebrating the one hundred seventeenth anniversary of its organization. There has been no turning back since that memorable day; there must be no turning back now. Some perhaps have dropped by the wayside. One of the great contributions of pioneer life and of pioneer colonizing was the fact that the "Mormon" people did not turn back. You have read the story of other pioneer companies who came to the West in those early periods. Many of them started out perhaps with thirty or forty people and ended with half the number. They were not home builders; they were trappers; they were men seeking something else than homes. But it was different with the Latter-day Saints. They were to come West under the direction and inspiration of a great leader to build homes, and there was little turning back, and that is the inspiration for us today, my brethren and sisters, that there be no turning back, there be no wavering.
Brother Anderson read of the growth of the Church, of its membership. We are gratified about that, but when we come to analyze it, numbers mean very little. We are only strong, we're only powerful and influential insofar as we live the things that God has revealed for us, his children. We are only a great people as we cling to those concepts that were revealed for our benefit and blessing.
The welfare program and every program of the Church are strong only as we support them with our faith and with our devotion. And we are strong only as we live the concepts of right as revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ.
God help us that we may live so to do and that we may not turn back and not waver, but be worthy and strong in the faith, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder George F. Richards
George F. Richards, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 23-28
In listening to the reports this morning, notwithstanding there are a great many of us here, this building being filled to overflowing, having a variety of thoughts and reflections, I believe that we will be united upon this point, that this work in which we are engaged is a marvelous work and a wonder. As Elder Young has suggested, we should appreciate our membership in this Church with all that it means to us, and I believe the Latter-day Saints do. In fact, we have an abundance of evidence of that fact. But for the faithfulness of the Latter-day Saints in the payment of their tithes and offerings and answering the call of authority that comes to them, what has been reported of accomplishment during the past year would have been impossible.
MANY OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORK IN THE CHURCH
As General Authorities of the Church, if I may speak for them, we regard it as an honor shown to us by your presence here in such great numbers. We appreciate your faithfulness as Saints in the living of your religion and as officers constituting the leadership of the Church and the ministry of the Lord. We pray for you, and you pray for the General Authorities of the Church, and there is harmony existing. I know of nothing to the contrary, and the Lord is blessing this people abundantly, and we have opportunity of showing our appreciation of his blessings. There is no person that can fear being shelved in this work if he is worthy to be used. There is ample opportunity for every member to work to his full capacity to the one end, the accomplishment of God's purposes, looking to the saving of souls of the children of men, the living and the dead.
I would offer a few words of caution to the Latter-day Saints. We are apt unwittingly to find ourselves, if we are not careful, deviating from that straight and narrow way that leads to life everlasting. Perhaps a few words of caution will not be out of place. I would like, if I could, to give to you, my brethren and sisters and friends, some of the real bread of life and have you take it with a relish and proper assimilation, or in the words of the Apostle James:
... be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
BEARING FALSE WITNESS COMES FROM THE EVIL ONE
I would call your attention to two important characters about whom I have something to say, the acquaintance of one to be cultivated, the other to be ignored. The one is the friend and Savior of men; the other is the enemy of God and of mankind.
Why did the Lord give the commandment?
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
He gave it because of the subtle methods of the adversary in his effort to divide and tear asunder the love and the unity of the Lord's people! To bear false witness may not appear to be a very serious offense, but its results are far-reaching and cruel, hence, the use made of it by the instigator of evil. The Lord warns us against this evil practice. Bearing false witness, talebearing, slander, gossip, scandal, fault-finding, backbiting, and evil speaking are in the same category of evil practice and are some of the means employed by Satan to disunite us as a people and destroy brotherly love, kindness, and helpfulness toward one another.
... Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
We do not knowingly injure whom we love. No one loves a character assassin. By the Spirit of God one is led to love his fellow men and to speak well of them, magnifying their virtues. Such a one has the spirit and the kingdom of peace, the kingdom of God within. By the spirit of Satan one bears false witness and broadcasts the weakness of his neighbor. He becomes a talebearer, a character assassin. He robs his neighbor of that which greatly impoverishes his neighbor without enriching himself. He makes others miserable and unhappy and has within himself the kingdom of Satan.
. .. choose you this day whom ye will serve.
SATAN'S PLAN TO HINDER GOD'S WORK
Satan is an enemy of God and of man and is constantly working to defeat the purposes of the Lord in his efforts to save the children of men. We should be on the alert lest we be found rendering aid to Satan and hindering the work of the Lord. When we say anything bad about the leaders of the Church, whether true or false, we tend to impair their influence and their usefulness and are thus working against the Lord and his cause. When we speak well of our leaders, we tend to increase their influence and usefulness in the service of the Lord. In his absence our brother's character when assailed, should be defended, thus doing to others as we would be done by. The Lord needs the help of all of us. Are we helping or are we hindering? Quoting:
Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed, saith the Lord, and cry they have sinned when they have not sinned before me, saith the Lord, but have done that which was meet in mine eyes, and which I commanded them.
But those who cry transgression do it because they are the servants of sin, and are the children of disobedience themselves.
... All other sins are not to be compared to sinning against the Holy Ghost, and proving a traitor to thy brethren.
I will give unto you one of the keys of the mysteries of the kingdom. It is an eternal principle, that has existed with God from all eternity: That man who rises to condemn others, finding fault with the Church, saying they are out of the way, while he himself is righteous, then know assuredly that that man is on the hi road to apostasy; and, if he does not repent, will apostatize, as God lives.
It is possible for us, by bearing false witness, to destroy the faith of others. It may be a child, a parent, a wife, or some other dear friend. We may later repent, but we cannot repent for them. We should be doubly careful not to do any injury we cannot repair. When we bear false witness, we injure at least four: ourselves, him about whom we speak, him to whom we speak, and the Lord.
... inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these, ye do it unto me.
THE WAY TO HAPPINESS
Are we sure that upon the screen of life there is no picture of which we would be ashamed to have exhibited? Or do we doubt the ability of God to record and reproduce at will what man can do, the voice, the actions, and even the thoughts and intents of our hearts?
George Eliot writes:
It is the glory of Christianity that it requires its followers to do good to men: to rejoice in their prosperity, not in their failures: to offer sympathy and not to make their position a terrible one in the sight of others.
We should so live and labor that our friends will not credit anything bad that may be said of us, so that it would require a preponderance of evidence to convict us, in their minds.
And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
Said the Lord:
... I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.
We would be lonely if we had to live alone on the earth. If we appreciate one another, we should show it by living together in love and sympathy and by making the association pleasant. This is done by sacrifice and service for one another. We should avoid those things which disrupt and tear asunder these finer feelings. As a people, the Latter-day Saints are well taught and know the course they should pursue in order to obtain happiness and the blessings of salvation and eternal life. What we most need, it seems to me, is being impressed with the necessity of doing as well as we know.
The inspired words of the poet, in poetic form, are calculated to make the truth attractive and impressive, so upon the subject of bearing false witness and kindred evils, let me here use some of their expressions:
Don't look for the flaws as you go through life; And even when you find them, It is wise and kind to be somewhat blind, And look for the virtues behind them.
Just stand aside and watch yourself go by, Think of yourself as "he" instead of "I," Pick flaws, find fault, forget the man is you, And strive to make your estimate ring true.
-"Watch Yourself Go By," by Strickland Gillilan.
There is so much good in the worst of us, And so much bad in the best of us, That it hardly becomes any of us To talk about the rest of us. -Author uncertain.
BEARING FALSE WITNESS A GRAVE OFFENSE
A small boy returned from Sunday School one morning and found his father reading the newspaper. He called to his father, "Daddy, Daddy, which is worse, to steal or to bear false witness?" The father raised his glasses and, looking over his newspaper, answered let's see, the Lord said, "Thou shalt not bear false witness". He also said, "Thou shalt not steal". What do you think about it, Sonny?" "Why, it's worse to bear false witness." "How do you make that out?" "Well, if I were to steal something from my neighbor and afterward be sorry for it, I could take back what I had stolen and ask forgiveness and thus make right what I have done, but if I were to bear false witness against my neighbor I might be ever so sorry afterwards, but I wouldn't be able to undo the wrong which I had done." An application of this principle is found in the poem entitled, "Scandal."
A woman to the Holy Father went, Confession of sin was her intent; And so her misdemeanors, great and small, She faithfully rehearsed them all. And chief in her category of sin, She owned that she a talebearer had been- Had carried a bit of scandal up and down, To all the long-tongued gossips of the town. The Father, for other sins granted the absolution asked him;
But, while for all the rest he pardon gave, He told her this offense was very grave And that to do fit penance, she must go, Out by the wayside where the thistles grow, And gather the largest, ripest one; Scatter its seeds; and that when this was done, She must come back another day, To tell him. His command she did obey.
The woman, thinking this a penance light, Hastened to do his will that very night, Feeling right glad she had escaped so well. Next day, but one, she went the Priest to tell. The Priest sat still and heard her story through. Then said, "There is something still for you to do. These little thistle seeds which you have sown, I bid you go regather, every one." The woman said, "But Father, 'twould be in vain, To try to gather back those seeds again; The winds have scattered them both far and wide, Over meadow, vale, and mountainside."
The Father said, "Now I hope from this, The lesson I have taught, you will not miss. You cannot gather back those scattered seeds, Which, far and wide, will grow to noxious weeds; Nor can the mischief once by scandal sown, By any penance be again undone."
Those who have yielded to temptation and committed sin of a grave character may have done so because of the weakness of the flesh rather than through sinful desire. They are to be pitied rather than to be censored and condemned.
A PLEA FOR THOSE WHO ERR
Finally:
Think gently of the erring one; O let us not forget, However darkly stained by sin, He is our brother yet.
Heir of the same inheritance, Child of the selfsame God, He hath but stumbled in the path We have in weakness trod.
Speak gently to the erring ones; We yet may lead them back, With holy words, and tones of love, From misery's thorny track.
Forget not, brother, thou hast sinned, And sinful yet mayst be; Deal gently with the erring heart, As God has dealt with thee. -Henry A. Tuckett.
Quoting from James:
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue... this man's religion is vain.
We are benefited by a discourse of this character only as we make use of it in our course of life, being governed by its precepts. Is there anything of merit in this message, brethren and sisters, worthy of serious thought and reflection? If so, I shall be happy, and I pray the Lord will sanctify it to our mutual good and benefit, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder S. Dilworth Young
S. Dilworth Young, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 33-35
I have been much impressed, as I read in the history of the Church, by the simple faith and desires of the men who began things over a hundred years ago. When they discovered that Joseph Smith the Prophet had access to their Heavenly Father, there were many men who came to him and asked if he would inquire of the Lord what was desired in their behalf.
THE WORD OF THE LORD TO EARLY MEMBERS
I suspect this importuning sometimes embarrassed the Prophet and at times made him impatient, but he did many times go to the Lord on behalf of his friends and his brethren, and he invited the Lord to tell him what they should do in the kingdom of our God. His father, Joseph Smith, Senior, inquired. Oliver Cowdery invited instruction. Hyrum Smith, his brother, Joseph Knight, Senior, David Whitmer, Thomas B. Marsh, Ezra Thayer, and Northrup Sweet were among those who received reply. Nearly all of these brethren, in the course of the Lord's instruction to them, were told that if they wanted to serve God, they were called to do the work and that now was the time. They should thrust in their sickles and reap while the day lasted, for there were many souls that were ready to be harvested. The main burden of the refrain which I catch from the spirit of the Prophet Joseph's utterance is that if men desire to be called, they may be called. I believe that is the way it has always been.
The other day in the Tooele Stake a sister came to me and said that a certain member of the stake wanted to go on a mission but that the family concerned was sitting back waiting for the inspiration of the Lord to tell the bishop of this particular person's desire. Well, I think the Lord will eventually inspire the bishop to feel that way about it, but it would be a lot easier if the person concerned would go to the bishop and express his desires, thereby putting himself in line with what these brethren did over a hundred years ago.
What does the Lord want in our behalf? He wants us to serve him and do all things which his servants, the leaders of the Church, ask.
THE SPECIAL CALLING OF THE SEVENTIES
May I say a few words to the seventy concerning this matter? It is that particular group which I have a desire to help. The seventy are the missionaries of the Church, if I read the D&C; correctly. I do not mean by that that they are the only missionaries but that they are called especially to be missionaries. When a man becomes a seventy and is ordained as such, he ought to begin immediately to develop his powers of expression, to understand the principles of the gospel, and to seek every opportunity he can to express himself, that he might some day be able to fill his calling and do missionary work. I can recall about fifteen or sixteen years ago when President J. Golden Kimball came to Ogden and asked all of the seventy assembled in the Ogden Stake how many would go on missions if they could. All raised their hands. Then he wanted to know further how many would be willing to die for the gospel's sake, if necessary. Again all raised their hands. I thought at that time, how in the world can all these men go on missions? They work; they have families; there is no way they can leave their dependents behind and let the Church take care of them. How can they fill that particular call? Now it is easy to see. There are missions in the stakes of Zion. Each stake has its mission. From these missions the missionaries are prepared and are sent to the non-members of the Church who should hear the gospel, should have it preached to them, should be given an opportunity to accept it. Any man who is a seventy, who wants to do missionary work and thus fill his calling as a seventy should waste no time in reporting to his stake president that he so desires to do it, and in the due time of the Lord, as these brethren are inspired, they will call this seventy to the work of the ministry and to the mission field. Let it not be thought that this work is not important. One of the most fruitful places that we do missionary work is among our people right here at home. There were two brethren in my stake who went out on a missionary call. Before they went out, they said to themselves and to the Lord, "We shall give every minute of our time away from our business to this work," and so they did. Soon they were spending five evenings a week of their time visiting people and teaching the gospel to them. Within sixteen months after holding a series of cottage meetings and promulgating the truths of the gospel to their neighbors, they had baptized, after conversion, the unbelievable number of twenty-two adults-twenty-two adults in sixteen months! You can find no more fruitful field than that in this day anywhere, and those brethren told me that as they went down the street to do their tracting, very often they felt the whisperings of the spirit saying to them, "Turn into this place," and having turned into that place, they were able to convert the family. I cannot recall ever hearing my father or any of my relatives telling any better stories of missionary experiences than that. That happened right at home, right among our own people. These brethren did not spend any money going into the mission field. They were right where they could be every night with their families after getting through with their evening's labors. The Lord blessed their labors, and he will bless your labors.
So, brethren of the seventies' quorum,, when you say to the presidency of your stake, "What may we do?" when you inquire of the Lord what he desires of you, perhaps the reply will be, "We shall call you to a mission, as your office requires; and we shall ask you to spend what spare time you have in teaching the gospel to our friends who do not belong." If such a call should come to you, it is my personal hope that you will accept and go forth with your might and reap while the day lasts. I believe that is the call to us as seventies. It matters not whether we go far afield or whether we stay at home, so long as the call comes, and our brethren who preside want us to do it.
I have only a desire to preach the gospel personally. I am to be sent away from you for awhile. All I can promise in that respect is that I shall do my best to build upon the foundations laid by those who shall have been my predecessors, and to teach the people of the New England States, through your lovely missionaries, the gospel of Jesus Christ, for I know it is true. It is an honor to me to be sent to do this thing with your boys and your girls, who are so anxious to tell the world, as they know and I know, that Joseph Smith was a Prophet; that through the power of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith was able to bring back the gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth. This is my hope and my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder Matthew Cowley
Matthew Cowley, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 35-38
President Smith first announced me as Matthias F. Cowley. He has been dead for a number of years, but nothing would please me more than to have him speak through me at this time. I only wish that I were as well prepared to propound the scriptures and explain the gospel after my many years in the missionary service as my father was at the age of nineteen when he first went to the Southern States, at which time he knew by heart four hundred eighty-three passages of scripture.
I am very grateful to be at this great conference today. I am grateful for the privilege I have to engage in the missionary service in this Church wherever the call may take me.
VISIT TO THE LEPER SAINTS
A week ago yesterday I was in a little settlement known as Kaulapapa on the Island of Molokai in the Hawaiian group. That is a leper settlement. I flew over there to spend an afternoon with our leper Saints. It was my first experience with those people. I went expecting and apprehending that I would be depressed. I left there knowing that I had been exalted. I attended a service with those people. I heard a chorus sing our beautiful anthem, conducted by an aged man, blinded by the dread disease. I heard them sing, "We Thank Thee. O God, for a Prophet," and as long as I live, that song will never ring in my soul with such beautiful harmony as came from the hearts and the voices of those emaciated lepers of that colony.
PRESENT DAY PIONEERS
When I heard the brethren from Europe speak this morning, my heart went out to the people who live in those countries. We are here today paying tribute to the great pioneers who came here a hundred years ago to make this desert blossom as the rose. I have often wondered if we still had great pioneers in this great Church, as great as those who came here a hundred years ago. After hearing the two brethren from Europe this morning, I am reassured. We have just as great pioneers living today in this Church as we had one hundred years ago. When we think of those who pioneered through the great war years of Europe, who have suffered the horror and the devastation of their homes and cities, but who have pioneered through all those experiences faithfully and devotedly to the gospel of Jesus Christ without such leadership as our pioneers had when they came to this desert wasteland, I say we still have as great pioneers in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as we ever had.
FASTING AND FAST OFFERINGS
I have a message for you, my brothers and sisters. It is based upon one of the things that was referred to in the statistics this morning, and I offer this message in connection with our people in the war-torn areas of Europe who suffer: That message has to do with fast offerings. We heard it read here that our death rate is very, very low. If we are honest in the payments of fast offerings, we are living miracles. We are not obeying the principle of the fast, and it is a principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are not paying to the Lord and to the Saints in Europe who have neither bedding nor clothing nor food, that which God expects us to pay. We are paying less, I suppose, than ten cents a month in fast offering. Does that represent the cost of the food we are eating or that we are refraining from eating on fast day? All you have to do is take one look at me and know that I know that I owe more than a dollar a month fast offering to this Church, and yet it was announced here that we had not reached our goal. What is it, one dollar a year? I don't know. The goal is, brothers and sisters, an honest offering for that which we refrain from eating in accordance with the plan of God on the first Sabbath of each month.
We cannot appreciate the suffering, the wants of our brothers and sisters in the countries of Europe unless we fast and fast often, and we need to fast! The great pioneers who came here were fasting pioneers. They were not men and women of financial means. This building, the great building east of here, all of this temple block was built, not with money, but with faith, with privation, and the foundation of it all is righteousness, good character, initiative, independence, self-reliance. If we are building upon the foundation which our pioneer fathers laid for us here, we will not build better buildings; we will build better characters. I know that this is the greatest force in all the world to develop character, to bring righteousness into the lives of men and women. Christ said, "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin", and when man becomes the servant of sin, he loses his freedom. Men who drink say they have the right to drink, that is their freedom, but too often they lose that freedom by becoming the servant of drink and not the master of it. Our freedom, brothers and sisters, is the freedom which our pioneers brought here, the freedom to do what God wants us to do and what we ought to do, rather than what we ourselves desire and are pleased to do, and it is our responsibility to hold high that great torch of freedom founded upon righteousness which those great parents of yours and of mine carried here into this valley.
Now, in conclusion, may I say that we are all here in fulfilment of the promise of God through his prophets, that in the last days would the mountain of the Lord's house be established in the tops of the mountains and be exalted above the hills and that all nations would flow unto it. We are all here today in fulfilment of that prophecy, and yet throughout the world we have thousands of Latter-day Saints, in Germany, Scandinavia, in the islands of the sea, who have a burning desire in their hearts to fulfil that same prophecy just as you and I have fulfilled it, and their eyes are looking up, and their hopes are reaching out to the tops of the mountains, and the only way we have of bringing them here to us is by reaching out to them where they are and seeing that they do not suffer, that they do not want for food, that they do not want for clothing.
We came here to these valleys to be sustained on the foundations of this Church. We must extend now into all the world the same sustenance which we have received here. Pay your fast offerings, obey the principles of the welfare plan, and let us take the mountain of the Lord's house and all its gifts and blessings to the four corners of the earth, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Bruce McConkie
Bruce R. McConkie, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 38-41
I know that Jesus is the Son of the Living God and that he was crucified for the sins of the world. I know that he came into the world with the definitely appointed mission to be the Redeemer and the Savior of men. I know of him, as he himself said to the Nephites:
... I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me. And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross.
A TESTIMONY OF THE RESTORATION OF THE GOSPEL
This I believe to be the great burden of the message of the restored gospel.
I believe and know also, by the revelations of the Holy Ghost to my soul, that Joseph Smith was the instrument in his hands of restoring in this day the fulness of those principles and authorities and graces whereby you and I can go back into our Father's kingdom. I testify and know of Joseph Smith, as the inspired document which announced his martyrdom states:
Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.
I think that this is the second great message of the restored gospel in this day. And in addition to that, because a testimony must be brought up to date if it is to have any saving force and value in the lives of men, I testify that I know that the keys of the kingdom have continued with the Saints from the days of Joseph Smith, and that George Albert Smith who stands at the head today is the Lord's anointed and the Living Oracle.
It is all well and good to sing praises to the ancient prophets and build sepulchres to their names, but there is no salvation in that fact standing alone. If men in this world in our day want to go back to our Father's kingdom, it is incumbent upon them to come to the Living Oracle and have exercised in their behalf the authority of the priesthood. They must accept and live in harmony with the counsels of those men whom God has chosen today.
... he that receiveth my servants receiveth me.
And on the other hand if we do not receive the servants of the Lord, we do not receive the Lord.
HOW A KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH IS OBTAINED
In my judgment one of the first cornerstones of all righteousness in this world is for a person to get for himself a knowledge, by the revelations of the Holy Ghost to his soul, that this work in which we are engaged is true. How does one get such a knowledge? God is no respecter of persons and he, through the Holy Ghost, will reveal to every person who abides the law upon which the receipt of that revelation is predicated, a knowledge that this work is true. The first step in complying with that law is for a person to desire to know. Men are given according to their desires, and unless they desire in their hearts to know that this work is true, that Jesus is the Christ and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, they will never exert the effort, and they will never comply with the law which will entitle them to know. And I think that the second step is that they must study the principles of the kingdom. The Lord does not pour a testimony into a vacuum. Men have to know what the doctrines of the kingdom are. Men are saved no faster than they gain knowledge of Jesus Christ and the principles of salvation. No man can be saved in ignorance of Jesus Christ and the laws of salvation. Christ said to the Jews:
Search the scriptures: for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
He said in our day as the preface to his Book of Commandments:
Search these commandments, for they are true and faithful, and the prophecies and promises which are in them shall all be fulfilled.
We have to learn of the doctrines of the kingdom if we ever in this world expect to gain a revelation that those doctrines are true.
And the third step is that we must practice the principles which we learn. The Lord said:
... My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
We must practice the principles which we learn and make them a living part of our lives.
And as a fourth step, because a testimony comes by the revelations of the Holy Ghost and not from any other source, we must pray to the Lord in humility and in faith and beseech him to reveal to us whether this work is true or whether it is not. In writing of the things that were on the gold plates, Moroni said this:
And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God the eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
Now there is not a person, a God-fearing and righteous person in this world, who cannot come to this kingdom and by obedience to that law, embracing those four steps, gain for himself a knowledge that this work is true, a knowledge that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith was the head of this dispensation and that the keys of the kingdom are with the Saints today. The Church has not strayed away. This is the Lord's work. This Church is literally the kingdom of God on earth, and the Lord's hand is in it, and there is inspiration at the head. There is no peace, and there is no safety; there is no salvation or solace or comfort or anything like these for the Latter-day Saints outside the kingdom. On the outside there is darkness and anguish of spirit and turmoil of heart and everything that upsets a man and that leads him on the broad course that goes down. But there are peace and joy for us here in this life, and there is a hope of eternal life for us hereafter, if we stand by the Church, and if we hearken to the counsels that come from the Living Oracles today. They are the voice of God to the Latter-day Saints and to the world in the day in which we live.
The first thing that a person ought to do is to know for himself that this work is true, and after he gets that kind of knowledge in his heart, he will have a desire to work the works of righteousness. He will want to do as Alma said at the waters of Mormon. To mourn with those that mourn; and to comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as a witness of God at all times, and in all things, and in all places, and then having that desire in his heart, he will want to covenant in the waters of baptism to do righteously in return for having the Spirit of the Lord poured out upon him in abundance.
And I think that that covenant is the second step in the plan of salvation, and that the third step is to press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope and a love of God and of all men, and then as Nephi wrote:
If ye shall press forward, feasting upon the words of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.
THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS A BLESSED PEOPLE
On one occasion Christ preached a sermon where the doctrine was very strong, the sermon on the bread of life. After he had done it, the multitudes, including the disciples, began to fall away, and he turned, and I suppose it was with a note of sadness, said to the Twelve:
"Will ye also go away?".
And then Simon Peter who was to be his mouthpiece, the Living Oracle for that day, spoke up and said:
Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
That is the condition that the Latter-day Saints are in today. We have the revelations of heaven. God has spoken in this day. Light and knowledge have been poured out upon us, and there is no place in all this world that we can find peace or solace or comfort-unless we keep the commandments of God and desire to do the things that he wants us to do.
I do not know anything in this world that is greater than to have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, and that is the gift of the Holy Ghost, and every Saint has been promised that in connection with his baptism; and I do not think there is anything greater in eternity than to have the companionship of those of the celestial world, to have exaltation and eternal lives, and that is the thing that has been promised to the Saints on condition that they obey the law, that they keep the commandments of God.
Now there is nothing in this world that I would rather do than have the privilege of preaching the gospel and of devoting such time and abilities as the Lord may bless me with to the building up of his kingdom. I am grateful beyond any ability that I have to express for the privilege of being a member of the First Council of the Seventy and mingling with you Latter-day Saints and traveling in the stakes of Zion, and I pray that the Lord will bless me and will bless you and pour out his spirit upon the Saints, that we may keep the commandments of God and be entitled to the great blessings that flow therefrom, and I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Bishop LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 41-45
This is the year that we are paying special tribute and honor to our pioneers. Many of us are descended from them. They made great sacrifices to come to these valleys of the mountains. They left their homes, and President Grant used to say they left willingly because they had to. They could not bring very much with them in the way of this world's goods, but they brought something that was more precious than all else in this world. They brought with them faith in the Living God and in the Prophet of this dispensation and in the Holy Scriptures.
THE LAST DISPENSATION
We are told that by faith the worlds were formed, and of the many mighty things that have been wrought in days past by the prophets of God. We live in a day that the prophets of old have foreseen, when many of the marvelous things that God had in store for his children should come to pass. In the words of Paul:
That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.
And God never decreed such a fulness of gospel dispensation for any other period of time.
Some of you will remember reading the words of Roger Babson in Fundamentals of Prosperity, when he told of an interview he had with the president of the Argentine Republic when the president asked him how he accounted for the fact that notwithstanding that South America had so many more natural resources than North America, North America had made so much greater progress than South America. Roger Babson asked the president what he thought was the reason, and he said he had given it much thought, and he decided that it was because those who went to South America went in search of gold and those who came to North America came in search of God.
And so, brothers and sisters, it brings us back to a realization that "except the Lord build the house" as the prophet of old said, "they labor in vain that build it." God has been building this land of North America, and not only that, but he has also been building the work that has been accomplished here in these valleys of the mountains.
The Saints were never discouraged because the Prophet of this dispensation had said that they should suffer much persecution and should continue to be driven until they should ultimately come to the Rocky Mountains, and many of them should live to see the Saints become a mighty people here in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains. It was this prophetic utterance from the voice of him whom they knew to be a Prophet of God that encouraged them to go on and to meet every obstacle that came in their way.
The Saints had their enemies, and they had great persecutions to meet at their hands before they came into these valleys. The evil one is still alert. He is seeking to lead away the souls of men and women from following after God. And right in our own community, in this land that was established by our pioneer fathers who came here in search of God that they might worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences, there are many things transpiring, seeking to lead away the hearts of our young people, particularly, from believing the things that were so precious and so dear to the hearts of our pioneer fathers.
A COLLEGE MAN'S QUESTION
I was talking with a man recently who in attending one of our state colleges, heard the professor in the room propound this question to his class: "Is there anyone in this class who has any idea whatever that there is any way possibly to foretell the events of the future?"
He was a college man; he was their professor; and there was not one of the students who dared take issue with him. But I have asked myself, and I think every father and mother in Israel ought to ask themselves, what would my boy or girl have said if that question had been propounded to them. They may not have given the answer, but in their own souls they would have had an answer. And when no one dared answer, the professor said, "I am glad to see there is no one in this room who follows the traditions of their parents in this regard." Then he added, "Ninety percent of the things taught you by your parents is false."
Many of our young people would not have been influenced by the statement of that professor, but there are others who might have been. As parents we should be close enough to our children to know that their faith would enable them to withstand even such an attack as that on the teachings of their parents. As far as I am concerned, I do not like to see our tax money go to pay the salaries of such apostles of infidelity, and I believe that not only do the Latter-day Saints feel this way about it but also most of our Christian neighbors and friends. It is not their right to come into our schools and destroy the faith of our children.
Peter of old said:
We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.
And as far as I am concerned there is nothing in this world more sure than the word of prophecy. The Redeemer of the world said that,
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
And our boys and girls ought to realize this and know that the words of the prophets will be fulfilled.
MANY PROPHECIES FULFILLED
You Latter-day Saints who live in these valleys of the mountains and see this magnificent temple here, on this block, know that it is here in fulfilment of the words of the prophets Isaiah and Micah, when they said:
And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
Is there any unbelief in this world that can stop the God of Israel from fulfilling such promises as this? Every time I walk around this temple, I wonder what these prophets of old could have seen that could have been more grand and glorious and beautiful than the temple of God established in the tops of these mountains. These prophets did not only say that it should be established here, but they also said that men and women should come from all nations of the earth, and this gathering here today is a witness of the divinity of their prophetic words.
If there were time, I would like to show you what the prophets saw about the development of these valleys of the mountains, the fulfillment of which is recorded in the history that has since been written by the coming of the pioneers. Isaiah saw rivers of water flowing down from the high places which, as far as I can interpret, is nothing more than the great reservoirs that have been constructed in our mountains, and he saw fountains in the midst of the valleys-thousands of acres of desert lands are now being irrigated from, flowing wells, and "rivers in the desert", and when you travel up and down these states, and particularly in Idaho, and see the great service canals led out of the Snake River, they are literally rivers of water. Jeremiah saw the people "... come and sing in the height of Zion". For nearly eighteen years this splendid Tabernacle Choir has been singing over the radio to all the world out of the heights of Zion, and where else can you look to find fulfillment of these words of prophecy?
The thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah is but "Mormon" history written three thousand years ago when the Lord said through Jeremiah:
For there shall be a day, that the watchman upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the Lord our God.
Then he indicates that the Lord would gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child, a great company should return thither. They should come with weeping and supplications, and he promised that he would cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they should not stumble. And when the pioneers came to these valleys of the mountains, they traveled some six hundred miles along the Platte and North Platte rivers, fulfilling literally the words of Jeremiah in the gathering of the people to Ephraim's mountains, and they did come as a great multitude and with them their sick and their lame and the blind and the woman with child, and they came sorrowing because they were driven from their homes. And how did Jeremiah know all this three thousand years ago if, according to the teacher I have referred to, there is no way men can know things before they actually transpire?
And then read the final climax of that great gathering, how the Lord should turn their sorrow into rejoicing and their young and old should rejoice together in the dance, and they should sorrow no more at all, and he should satiate the souls of his priests with fatness; and I want to tell you that even though the elders of Israel are not paid for their services, there are no ministers of religion in all the world as well paid as the elders of this Church.
God grant that we may have the faith to carry on as our pioneer fathers, and that we may have the power to plant that faith in the hearts of our children, that we may be worthy of our noble heritage, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Harold B. Lee
Harold B. Lee, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 45-51
Recently I had a conversation with a sister who had heard a funeral sermon in which it had seemed to her the doctrine had been taught that is was possible to know what one's place was to be in the eternal worlds, even before the day of judgment spoken of by John the Revelator when he said he saw the dead, small and great, stand before God to be judged, every man according to the deeds done in the flesh. And then she asked the question: "How is it possible for one to know what the place of an individual is to be before the resurrection takes place?"
A QUESTION AS TO LIFE AFTER DEATH
That question suggested some important scriptures. As I thought about what she had asked, I found that apparently Alma had a similar question propounded to him for he made this explanation to his son Corianton:
And it is requisite with the justice of God that men should be judged according to their works; and if their works were good in this life, and the desires of their hearts were good, that they should also, at the last day, be restored unto that which is good.
And if their works are evil they shall be restored unto them for evil.
... for as he has desired to do evil all the day long even so shall he have his reward of evil when the night cometh.
And so it is on the other hand. If he hath repented of his sins, and desired righteousness until the end of his days, even so he shall be rewarded unto righteousness.
... and thus they stand or fall; for behold, they are their own judges.
And finally we have the testimony of Amulek:
Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.
For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked.
As I pondered those scriptures brought to my attention, as we discussed the question of this sister, these conclusions seemed clear to my mind. In the first place, we are our own judges of the place we shall have in the eternal world. Here and now in mortality, each one of us is having the opportunity of choosing the kind of laws we elect to obey. We are now living and obeying celestial laws that will make us candidates for celestial glory, or we are living terrestrial laws that will make us candidates for either terrestrial glory, or telestial law. The place we shall occupy in the eternal worlds will be determined by the obedience we yield to the laws of these various kingdoms during the time we have here in mortality upon the earth.
JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
The Lord characterized himself as, "the light of the world". And in that testimony he declared further that those who would follow him would not walk in darkness but should have the light of life in the celestial world in the presence of the Lord.
The Master in his Sermon on the Mount has given us a high standard to attain:
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
And the scriptures declare to us that the prime purpose of the organization of the Church was for the "perfecting of the Saints". We have been told the way by which the Master attained to the fullness of his power. The Apostle Paul said:
Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.
SACRIFICE AND SERVICE ARE SAVING PRINCIPLES
The very core of that which we call Christianity is to be found in the record of the writer of the gospel of John in which he quoted the Master's testimony of his own divine mission as the Savior of the world. These were his words:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Thus has been stated the highest service that we can render here in mortal life, the willingness to sacrifice of our own self for the welfare of others. The place of sacrifice and service in this sanctifying process of life was explained by the Prophet Joseph Smith:
A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.
It was through sacrifice and this alone that God has ordained that men should enjoy eternal life...
If we could apply to ourselves and to our own lives that principle by which we might lay hold upon that precious gift, we would be indeed wise. It was King Benjamin who taught his people in his closing address:
... when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.
That great principle of sacrifice and service was exemplified in that declaration of the Son of God which I have already quoted:
For God so loved the world, that he gave.
Giving, then, is an expression of one's love, and when one truly gives himself, it is an evidence of an abiding love in that individual who thus is willing to give. The Master so loved mankind that he gave his life. It was he who said:
I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine... and I lay down my life for the sheep.
No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.
The Prophet Joseph Smith so loved the truth that had been revealed to him that he was willing to sacrifice everything he possessed in the world, not withholding his life, all to the end that he might bear that testimony and that it might be heard by the nations of the earth. He characterized his life in the closing years in these words:
I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else... all hell knocking off a corner here and a corner there. Thus I will become a smooth and polished shall in the quiver of the Almighty.
The pioneers, whom we honor in this centennial year, so loved the freedom to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences that they gave up their homes, they gave up their lands and their possessions, left friends in the eastern lands, and came here to a forbidding mountain desert in order that their righteous desires might be realized.
A SERVICE MAN'S EXPERIENCE
I was out visiting a stake some months ago and was asked to interview some young men as prospective missionaries. I had been told by the stake president that one of the young men had, after a long period of hospitalization, recovered from a severe shell shock that he had received while in military service. As I faced this young man for the interview, I asked him, "Why do you want to go on this mission?"
He sat thoughtfully for several moments, and then he replied "When I went into the service, it was the first time I had ever been away from my home. I found conditions strange. I found temptation on every side and the invitation to sin. I needed strength to keep from sin, and I went before my Heavenly Father and prayed to him in faith to give me that strength to resist evil. God heard my prayer and gave me that strength. After the period of training was over and we neared the combat area, we heard the booming of the guns that foretold the message of death that was coming over constantly. I was afraid, and I was quaking all over. I prayed to God for courage, and he gave me courage, and there came over me a peace that I had never enjoyed before. When we got over in the Philippines, I was assigned to duty as an advance scout which meant I was ahead of the combat forces and sometimes was almost surrounded by the enemy. I knew that there was only one power in the earth that could save me, and I prayed to that power to protect me, to save my life, and God heard my prayer and returned me back to my company."
Then he said to me: "Brother Lee, I have all those things to be grateful for. It is little enough that I can do to go out now as an ambassador of Jesus Christ, to teach mankind these blessed things that I have received as a child in my home."
As I heard such an expression of faith from that young man, I contrasted it with those whom I had heard say that they thought by going into the mission field they would gain a training, they would see the world, they would gain valuable experience that would benefit them personally. I wish that our missionaries would exemplify in their service the standards of the great missionaries of the past, one of whom has passed from us since the last general conference. Brother Charles A. Callis lived and died the great missionary; aye, he gave his life and was willing to sacrifice all he possessed that he might teach this truth that was so precious to his soul.
HAPPINESS THROUGH SERVICE
Our young people come to the marriage altar having been taught in the public schools how important it is to make a certain adjustment in marriage, and many of them are very fearful about that adjustment. If these young people would understand that the application of that principle of sacrifice and service would be the answer to the problem of adjustment, their fears would be subdued. If they would resolve from the moment of their marriage, that from that time forth they would resolve and do everything in their power to please each other in things that are right, even to the sacrifice of their own pleasures, their own appetites, their own desires, the problem of adjustment in married life would take care of itself, and their home would indeed be a happy home. Great love is built on great sacrifice, and that home where the principle of sacrifice for the welfare of each other is daily expressed is that home where there abides a great love.
A selfish grasping for personal advantage does not come from the teachings of truth but comes rather from the teachings of him who is an enemy of truth. It is expressed in that scripture which tells us of the proposition that Satan made to our Heavenly Father:
... Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.
There was the selfishness and the exemplar of it before the world.
That man who is ambitious for personal gain and personal advantage is never a happy man, for before him always are the receding horizons of life that will ever mock his attempts at acquisition and conquest. That man who serves unselfishly is the man who is the happy man.
In the military service there were awarded ofttimes for outstanding accomplishment, national decorations and certificates of merit, and always with the citation were these suggestive words: "For meritorious service beyond the call of duty."
Therein lies the way by which we, too, can reach the highest goals and win the merited plaudits of our Heavenly Father. That which we do beyond the call of duty, beyond that for which we are compensated by material wealth is that which gives us the greatest joy in life.
As I look at the experiences of our brethren and hear their testimonies, I become persuaded of one great truth: Whenever the Lord has a great blessing for one of his children, he puts that son or daughter in the way to make a great sacrifice.
THE WAY OPENED THROUGH PRAYER
I sat down in the temple some years ago with a member of my high council as we went to our prayer circle one early Sunday morning. He told me of his financial difficulties that had almost destroyed his wealth, and he said: "I had no place to turn; I was about to lose everything I had in the world; finally, last week I went to my Heavenly Father and said to him, 'Father in heaven, if you will open up the way by which I can refinance myself, I will give more than my tithes and my offerings. I will make greater sacrifices for that if you will only help me to save what I have.'" And he said, "Brother Lee, I got up from my knees, and the way opened up in a most miraculous way. The Lord did his part, and I want you now to help me to do my part. Will you help me to find an avenue by which I can make greater sacrifices for this Church?"
Out of that man's planning there came one of the things that today has been a mark in the welfare activities of that stake. Today we have the welfare program that is giving us an avenue for sacrifice and for greater service. We have listened today to the reports and the appeals of the demands of this program. Surely we must not let these things fall upon deaf ears, for if in this day the Church rises to the call of the First Presidency, and if Church members sacrifice of their means, their time, their talents for the upbuilding of the kingdom of God, not withholding their own lives, if that were necessary, then there will come to this people, and to that individual who thus is willing to consecrate himself, the greatest joy that can come to the human soul.
God bless us that we might teach our youth the way by which this happiness will come, and let us plan our banquets for youth in such a way to give youth the opportunity to banquet their leaders rather than for their leaders to make all the sacrifice for the benefit of youth. Give them the joy of service and expect from them such sacrifices as may be necessary to build the faith necessary to lay hold upon eternal life, I pray humbly in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
Joseph Fielding Smith, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 57-61
My beloved brethren and sisters, it is with some fear and trembling that I address you here this morning, and I seek the guidance of the Spirit of the Lord in what I shall say.
SUFFERINGS AND PERSECUTIONS OF THE EARLY SAINTS
We are living one hundred years from the time the Pioneers commenced their journey and came into this valley. It is only natural that the brethren should call attention to the Pioneers and the great work they performed. I have visited most of the scenes of early Church history. I have gone over a good part of the trail which they followed when they came to these valleys. I have reflected a good deal upon these scenes, the travels, the hardships, the travails, and suffering and persecutions of these early days, and as I have stood in these hallowed spots and have traversed some of the territory which they passed over, my heart has been touched, but I have realized that it is beyond my power to understand and perhaps to feel all that these good faithful souls endured, and all for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Church had its beginning in New York. Persecution came upon the Saints from the beginning, and they were driven out. The Lord gave them a commandment to assemble in Ohio. They established their headquarters at Kirtland in that state. No doubt they had no intention of leaving, when they first went there, but the Lord revealed to them that there was another place, the place which he called "Zion," on the borders of the Lamanites, and so their hearts were turned to that place; however, they never had intended to forsake altogether their headquarters in Kirtland, but persecution came upon them, and they were forced out. With rejoicing they assembled in large measure in Jackson County where it had been made known to them that the great city, the new Jerusalem or Zion would be built, and they rejoiced over it, but they were not privileged to remain there. Their enemies came upon them with hatred and bitterness in their hearts and drove them out. They moved to another part of the state of Missouri and there again intended and tried to establish themselves, but persecution still followed them, and the hatred of the officials in that state resulted in their banishment and an edict coming from the governor of that state that they would have to leave or be exterminated. They went back eastward, crossed the great river, and made their settlement at Nauvoo, in the state of Illinois. For a season they prospered but not without persecution, not without hatred, and finally that hatred reached its peak, and their prophet and his brother, my grandfather, were martyred. Their enemies thought that would be the end of the Church. The papers so declared it. Their enemies rejoiced, but it did not bring the end. Still the Church grew. So also grew the animosity and the hatred of their enemies, and finally the Saints were driven from their homes, robbed of practically all that they possessed and thus set upon their journey to this western land, destitute, in poverty, and the world said they had gone to their destruction, and rejoiced.
I tell you, my brethren and sisters, we don't realize all that they went through; their hardships, their sufferings, the persecutions, the murders, the drivings that came upon them before they started on their westward journey; and they arrived in this valley rejoicing. It was President George A. Smith who was responsible for the statement that they came here of their own free will and choice-because they had to; and that is true. They crossed the plains, many of them pushing handcarts, containing the meager possessions which they had. They traveled the weary miles with sore and bleeding feet, through hardships and suffering which we do not understand, and arrived in this valley of the Salt Lake, and were grateful to the Lord that he had preserved their lives and brought them to a place of peace where they could worship; and all this, if you please, because they loved the truth.
THE FIRST SABBATH IN THE VALLEY
The Pioneers arrived, that is President Young with the company of the Pioneers, arrived in this valley on the 24th day of July in the year 1847. The next day was Sunday. In the gratefulness of their hearts they held meetings as it was their intention and their practice to do. In the morning session Elders George A. Smith, Heber C. Kimball, and Ezra T. Benson were the speakers, and with their eyes filled with tears, they rejoiced and thanked the Lord that he had brought them safely through. In the afternoon, another service was held and others of the brethren spoke. Elder Wilford Woodruff, Elder Orson Pratt, and Elder Willard Richards were the speakers, and they also bore testimony to the truth and expressed their gratefulness that the Lord had brought them to this land, and they prayed in their hearts that the people would remember their covenants and their obligations and be true and faithful to the Lord and serve him with full purpose of heart. President Brigham Young was ill, but he did make some remarks. He spoke briefly, and I want to call attention to one thing that he said as it was reported by Elder Wilford Woodruff. Said he, in the brief remarks made by President Young, "He told the brethren that they must not work on Sunday, that they would lose five times as much as they would gain by it. None were to hunt on that day, and there would not any man dwell among us who would not observe these rules. They might go and dwell elsewhere if they pleased but should not dwell among us"; and they meant it, and why shouldn't they? Why should anyone come to this land as a member of the Church, in that day or since, who doesn't have in his heart a desire of keeping the commandments of the Lord and walking in righteousness?
HOW ARE WE MEASURING UP?
Now I have been thinking, as I have thought many times in the past, of this great legacy which is ours, the great blessings which have come to us, built upon the foundation of persecution, death, hardships, men and women laying down their lives that we might dwell in this land in peace and safety; and how do we feel today about it? Do we keep the Sabbath day holy? Do we pray? Are we grateful in our souls for all that has been done for us by these sturdy people who loved the truth and came here that they might worship God according to the dictates of their consciences? How do we feel? When I see reports of conditions in this state and surrounding states where Latter-day Saints dwell, the amount of liquor that is consumed and tobacco that is consumed, and tea and coffee and other things destructive of health, and contrary to the commandments of the Lord, when I see the people violating the Sabbath day and committing all other kinds of sins contrary to that which they have been taught, I wonder if the Lord is pleased with us.
PUNISHMENT OF ANCIENT ISRAEL
I'd like to call your attention to a statement in the scriptures that when the Lord led Israel into the land of Palestine, then known as Canaan, he gave them commandments, he told them what would happen if they broke those commandments, and among those commandments was that of keeping the Sabbath day. Not only were they to keep the Sabbath day holy but their land was also to have a Sabbath at certain intervals, and the Lord told them, through Moses, that if they did not keep the Sabbath day holy, if the land itself did not have a chance to rest, the day would come when the land would observe its Sabbath because the people would not be there. He would move them out of their place; and that happened. After the ten tribes of Israel had been carried away, and Babylon had come and laid siege to Judah and had carried those of that kingdom captive, Ezekiel the Prophet spoke to them and called their attention to all these promises the Lord had made to them and said that because they had violated these things, these destructions and drivings, had come upon them. Two verses I want to read in his admonition. The Lord speaking:
And I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.
And then again:
I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.
This is also a sign to us. If we don't keep the Sabbath day holy, he may still be our God, but we may not be his people, for all the people of the earth are his, but we are a peculiar people, and by that we mean that we are different and should be different from the rest of the world because we are not of the world. We are in it. We are not of it.
STATEMENT OF PRESIDENT JOSEPH F. SMITH REGARDING THE SABBATH
Now, time will not permit saying much more, but I have here a statement by President Joseph F. Smith, taken from a letter that he wrote to his daughters who were away from home in school, and they wanted to know about the Sabbath day, because the people, where they were, were not living it, and so they wanted to know why we had to obey the Sabbath day, and I think I have just about time to read this.
All things should be done with prudence and in moderation. The Sabbath: "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work ". "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work". This is the command. It is binding upon all. There are sound religious reasons for it and physiological reasons not less sound. Indeed it is a physiological as well as a divine law. Those who keep it will reap the reward of obedience to divine law, will enjoy the benefits of the physical law. It is not less needful to the human being than sleep although not so speedily felt. No one can live without sleep, neither can anyone survive long without rest. The result of sleep is no more potential to prolongation of life than the Sabbath rest, although we may survive longer without the latter than without the former, speaking from a physical point of view. From a spiritual point of view the willful violation of the law of the Sabbath rest is as deadly to the moral growth and faith as is the sleepless eye to the mortal being. But the great point is God has said it, not for his own but for man's well-being. He therefore should obey. If he does not, he will have to abide the consequences both temporal and spiritual to himself. Again, "For verily this is a day appointed unto you to rest from your labors, and to pay thy devotions unto the Most High". We learn to do by doing. Never can we learn to do by not doing. One who closely shuts his eyes is more blind than those who are blind indeed. The things of God are discovered by the spirit of God, not by the spirit of man nor of the world. Those who seek shall find and to those who knock at the door shall it be opened, and those who ask shall receive and not otherwise. He that hath the spirit discerns by the spirit, loves the work of the spirit, for they give delight and joy. Who gives himself to do works, good works, finds beauty and reward in them, and he who sows to the wind will reap the whirlwind. Not now, perhaps, for that which was sown must first take root then spring forth in leaf, then bear fruit. The fruit will be after the kind of its own seed. We learn a principle by coming in close contact with it and studying it and admitting it into our minds and hearts.
...truth is eternal. It was not created or made. It is a precious gem. It lies hidden from us, and we must find it and apply it and make it ours.
The Lord bless you I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Milton R. Hunter
Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 62-68
My dear brethren and sisters, it is in deep humility that I stand here this morning before you. Elder Joseph Fielding Smith has just told of the coming of the Mormon Pioneers to Utah, in a very beautiful way. I would like also to say something on that subject this morning. Throughout 1947 a million people are observing the centennial of the arrival of the Mormon Pioneers in the Salt Lake valley. Our hearts are turned with love and adoration to this noble race of men and women who just one hundred years ago were driven from their homes in the East and suffered untold hardships while crossing the plains. Many of them sacrificed their lives while others came to Utah, and here they built a great commonwealth in the arid region of the Rocky Mountains.
A TRIBUTE TO THE PIONEERS
These people endured extreme hardships and made great sacrifices because they knew that the Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son had come down from heaven in answer to the Prophet Joseph Smith's prayer in the Sacred Grove. They also knew that angels had brought to Joseph Smith the Holy Priesthood. The Holy Ghost had borne testimony to their hearts that God had established upon the earth again the true gospel of Jesus Christ which they had embraced. Thus these Mormon pioneers were a devout, God-fearing people who firmly believed that they had been called of the Lord to build up Zion and to prepare the world for the millennial reign of the Son of Man. In fact, they endured because they firmly believed that such scriptures as the following applied to them:
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
It is not the material things of life which make a people great but the high spiritual qualities of the soul engendered in men and women through faith in God, through a conviction of immortality, and through a recognition that there exists a moral order of laws which must be obeyed, which lifts a race of mortals to a position "a little lower than the angels". In fact, these intangible spiritual qualities exalt man to his full stature as a son of God.
The Mormon pioneers were great men and women, and we honor them today because they possessed these spiritual qualities and extended their vision into the eternities.
THE FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY IN THE SETTLEMENT OF THE SAINTS IN THE WEST
The question has ofttimes been discussed as to why and when the Mormon pioneers decided to select the Great Basin as their home. Bishop LeGrand Richards very beautifully pointed out yesterday that the ancient prophets looked down through the stream of time and saw that in the last days the Saints would establish themselves in the tops of the mountains. I would like to add to that thought today a definite statement that history affirms that this people settled Utah because God selected this spot for them and revealed to the modern prophets that here was the place in which to establish his people and to build Zion. In fact, as early as August 6, 1842, the Lord made known to the Prophet Joseph Smith that the Saints would be driven from their homes in Nauvoo and would migrate to the Rocky Mountains. On that date the Prophet wrote in his journal:
I prophesied that the Saints would continue to suffer much affliction and would be driven to the Rocky Mountains, many would apostatize, others would be put to death by our persecutors or lose their lives in consequence of exposure or disease, and some of you will live to go and assist in making settlements and build cities and see the Saints become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains.
A year and a half later and only four months before the death of Joseph Smith, he was making definite arrangements to explore the West preparatory to the anticipated migration. On February 20, 1844, he wrote in his journal:
I instructed the Twelve Apostles to send out a delegation and investigate the location of California and Oregon, and hunt out a good location, where we can remove to after the temple is completed, and where we can build a city in a day, and have a government of our own, get up into the mountains, where the devil cannot dig us out, and live in a healthful climate, where we can live as old as we have a mind to.
We should keep in mind that California included Utah at that time, and Oregon included Idaho; therefore, when Joseph Smith mentioned Oregon and California, he referred to the region that we are living in today.
In accordance with instructions given by Joseph to send out a company to explore the West and select a site for a city of the Saints, four men immediately volunteered to go, and four others were assigned to accompany them.
Two days later the Prophet told the Twelve Apostles that he wanted an exploration of the entire intermountain country. He said:
Send twenty-five men.... Appoint a leader, and let them beat up for volunteers. I want every man that goes to be a king and a priest. When he gets on the mountains he may want to talk with his God.
The following Sunday Joseph Smith spoke to the Saints and then recorded in his journal his principal thought as follows:
I gave some important instructions, and prophesied that within five years we should be out of the power of our old enemies, whether they were apostates or of the world; and told the brethren to record it, that when it comes to pass they need not say they had forgotten the saying.
The proposed exploring expedition to the Rocky Mountains, however, was never made. Right at this time the persecution of the Saints increased greatly and was climaxed with the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum. However, only five days before their deaths, Joseph and others made temporary arrangements to flee to the Rocky Mountains for safety and have the Saints join them there later. Governor Ford had demanded that Joseph, Hyrum, and other Mormon leaders appear at Carthage for trial. When the governor's letter was read to Joseph Smith, he said to those with him:
The way is open. It is clear to my mind what to do. All they want is Hyrum and myself; then tell everybody to go about their business, and not collect in groups, but to scatter about. There is no doubt they will come here and search for us. Let them search; they will not harm you in person or property, and not even a hair of your head. We will cross the river tonight, and go away to the West.
Later that same day Hyrum confirmed Joseph's decision to flee to the Rocky Mountains. In a statement made to Reynolds Cabson, he said:
A company of men are seeking to kill my brother Joseph, and the Lord has warned him to flee to the Rocky Mountains to save his life.
Joseph and Hyrum crossed the Mississippi River preparatory to going to the Rocky Mountains; but as the result of complaints made by some of the Saints, they returned to Nauvoo, and shortly thereafter they were killed.
OPINIONS OF EARLY EXPLORERS
Following their deaths, the enemies of Mormonism actively worked to destroy the Church. In the fall of 1845, vicious men mobbed the Saints in the outlying settlements. Since it was generally known at the time of Joseph Smith's death that he contemplated a move to the West, the people of Illinois demanded that the Saints leave the state and migrate into the wilderness. Brigham Young, who had now assumed leadership, and his associates accepted their demand and announced that the Saints would migrate the following spring.
The maps and the account of John C. Fremont's exploration of the Far West had recently been published. Throughout the winter of 1845 and 1846, while the Saints were preparing to abandon their homes and move, Brigham Young and the other Mormon leaders carefully studied Fremont's exploration of the Rocky Mountain region.
In the fall of 1846, fifteen thousand exiled Saints had made temporary homes on the banks of the Missouri River where the cities of Omaha and Council Bluffs now stand. While there they gleaned all the information they could regarding the Great West. Father Pierre Jean DeSmet, a Jesuit priest who had spent many years as a missionary among the Indians in this region, visited the Mormon refugees. He reported a conversation he had had with the Saints as follows:
They asked me a thousand questions about the regions I had explored and the valley which I have just described to you, pleased them greatly from the account I gave them of it.
When the pioneers were crossing the plains the following summer, on June 26, 1847, near South Pass, they met Major Moses Harris. He was a man who had spent twenty years in the Rocky Mountains. Orson Pratt recorded in his journal the conversation they had with Major Harris. He wrote:
We obtained much information from him in relation to the great interior basin of the Salt Lake, the country of our destination. His report like that of Captain Fremont's is rather unfavorable to the formation of a colony in this basin, principally on account of the scarcity of timber.
Two days later, the Pioneers met James Bridger who was on his way to Fort Laramie. Pratt stated that Mr. Bridger,
... being a man of extensive acquaintance with this interior country, we made many inquiries of him in relation to the "great basin" and the country south. His information was rather more favorable than that of Major Harris.
And William Clayton added the thought that Bridger
... thinks the region around Utah lake is the best country in the vicinity of the Salt Lake.
We should be aware of the fact that each of these experiences bears indisputable evidence that the "Mormon" leaders knew where they were going long before they arrived in the Salt Lake valley, because they were being led there by divine revelation from the Lord.
BRIGHAM YOUNG'S INSPIRATION
On June 30, the Pioneer band had arrived on the banks of the Green River in Wyoming. There they were met by Samuel Brannan. He had come from San Francisco to persuade the Mormons to settle in California. Although he gave Brigham Young a glowing report of the wonderful country around San Francisco Bay and an equally discouraging report regarding the barren desert wastes of the Rocky Mountain region, President Young refused to take the Saints to California. The Mormon leader was following the inspiration of the Lord, and he could not be induced to exchange it for the wisdom of man. God had pointed out to him, as well as to the Prophet Joseph Smith, that the place to settle the Saints was in the "midst of the Rocky Mountains."
The fact that on July 12, Brigham Young commissioned Orson Pratt to lead a vanguard company ahead of the main body of Pioneers for the purpose of making a road into the Salt Lake valley gives additional evidence that the Mormon leaders knew where they were going. Nine days later Erastus Snow overtook Elder Pratt, saying Brigham Young wanted Elder Pratt to bear slightly northward after leaving the canyon and select a spot for plowing, planting seed, and building a city. On July 21, Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow emerged from the mouth of Emigration Canyon. Then they climbed to the top of a hill and viewed the Great Salt Lake valley lying before them. Regarding this experience, Elder Snow recorded the following in his journal:
From the view we had of the valley from the top of the mountain, we supposed it to be only an arm of prairie extending up from the Utah valley, but on ascending this butte we involuntarily, both at the same instant, uttered a shout of joy at finding it to be the very place of our destination, and beheld the broad bosom of the Salt Lake spreading itself before us.
Pratt's vanguard company camped on a stream subsequently known as City Creek on July 23. There he called his associates together and dedicated the land as the new home of the Saints.
Erastus Snow testified that God directed Brigham Young to the Salt Lake Valley. To quote:
President Young said... that this was the place he had seen long since in vision; it was here he had seen the tent settling down from heaven and resting, and a voice said unto him: "Here is the place where my people Israel shall pitch their tents".
A VISION OF THE FUTURE
On that memorable day of July 24, 1847, right at the time when Brigham Young made the famous statement, "This is the place! Drive on," the Lord confirmed his previous revelations to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young by letting the Pioneer leader view in a vision many things which would take place in the Salt Lake valley. Wilford Woodruff described this experience in his journal as follows:
This is one of the most important days of my life, and in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints... We came in full view of the valley of the Great Salt Lake; the land of promise, held in reserve by God, as a resting place for his Saints.
We gazed in wonder and admiration upon the vast valley before us, with the waters of the Great Salt Lake glistening in the sun, mountains towering to the skies, and streams of pure water running through the beautiful valley. It was the grandest scene that we had ever beheld till this moment. Pleasant thoughts ran through our minds at the prospect that, not many years hence, the house of God would be established in the mountains and exalted above the hills; while the valleys would be converted into orchards, vineyards, and fruitful fields, cities erected to the name of the Lord, and the standard of Zion unfurled for the gathering of nations.
President Young expressed his entire satisfaction at the appearance of the valley as a resting place for the Saints, and felt amply repaid for his journey. While lying upon his bed in my carriage, gazing upon the scene before us, many things of the future concerning the valley were shown to him in a vision.
When Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, Orson Pratt, Erastus Snow, and others of the Pioneer leaders first saw the Salt Lake valley, they were not viewing the barren desert region covered with sunflowers, sage and salt flats-a country infested with millions of black crickets-as were many of their pioneer followers. These men of God were looking through the eyes of holy prophets; therefore, they saw the Great Basin as it would be in the future as a result of the industry and thrift of the people coupled with the blessings of the Lord. On a later occasion Wilford Woodruff described the entrance of the Pioneer band into the Salt Lake valley, and he pointed out exactly what Brigham Young beheld. To quote:
When we came out of the canyon into full view of the valley, I turned the side of my carriage around, open to the west, and President Young arose from his bed and took a survey of the country. While gazing on the scene before us, he was enwrapped in vision for several minutes. He had seen the valley before in vision, and upon this occasion he saw the future glory of Zion and of Israel, as they would be, planted in the valleys of these mountains. When the vision had passed, he said: "It is enough. This is the right place, drive on".
Then Brigham and his associates entered the valley and joined Orson Pratt's group. He assured Elder Pratt that he had selected the right spot on which to locate the people and build the city. In fact, no man has been more convinced that God led the Saints to the Rocky Mountains than was Brigham Young. On July 28, only four days after his arrival, he wrote:
Some of the brethren talk about exploring the country farther for a site for settlement; I replied that I was willing that the country should be explored until all were satisfied, but every time a party went out and returned, I believe firmly, they would agree this is the spot for us to locate.
Sometime later he said:
I do not want the people to understand that I had anything to do with our being moved here; that was the providence of the Almighty; it was the power of God that wrought out salvation to his people. I never could have devised such a plan.
At the time of the gold rush in 1849, some of the Mormons were anxious to leave the barren desert region of Utah and migrate to California. Brigham Young again made a public announcement that God had led the Saints to this place. To quote:
We have been kicked out of the frying-pan into the fire, out of the fire into the middle of the floor, and here we are and here we will stay. God has shown me that this is the spot to locate his people, and here is where they will prosper...
As the Saints gather here and get strong enough to possess the land, God will temper the climate, and we shall build a city and a temple to the Most High God in this place. We will extend our settlements to the east and west, to the north and to the south, and we will build towns and cities by the hundreds, and thousands of the Saints will gather in from the nations of the earth. This will become the great highway of nations...
Take courage, brethren... Plow your land and sow wheat, plant potatoes... It is our duty to preach the gospel, gather Israel, pay our tithing and build temples.
THE VINDICATION OF A HUNDRED YEARS
Time has vindicated the Prophet Joseph Smith and his successor, Brigham Young, in their declarations that the Salt Lake valley and the surrounding intermountain region was the right place in which to establish God's chosen people and to build up Zion. A hundred years have passed, and Mormons have left a history literally filled with noble deeds and Herculean accomplishments made by a devout, God-fearing people. Credit and great honor have been brought to the intermountain west as the result of the contributions made by our pioneer forefathers in the building of this American frontier. Truly "This is the Place!"
In conclusion I want to bear testimony that I know that Jesus is the Christ and that I know that God lives. I am also thoroughly convinced that the Mormon pioneers were brought to this land under the direction of our Lord. May we, the descendants of the pioneers, ever honor that great heritage that is ours and live true to the ideals and high spiritual standards that they left for us. I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Thomas E. McKay
Thomas E. McKay, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 69-72
President Smith, counselors, my brethren and sisters, I was impressed by the opening prayer of this session and especially by the inspirational music furnished by the Brigham Young University chorus, and also by the two very timely and appropriate sermons to which we have listened.
I have missed at this conference my brother and colleague, Elder Alma Sonne, now president of the European Mission, and I hope, brethren and sisters, that you will not forget him, that you will pray for him and those presidents who are working with him. He needs our prayers. He is a great leader and is the right man in the right place.
AN OUTSTANDING STAKE CONFERENCE
Last Saturday and Sunday, March 29 and 30, I had the privilege of attending the Los Angeles Stake quarterly conference. In some respects it was outstanding. They had 47 1/2 percent of the priesthood at their nine o'clock session. Fifty-nine percent of the ward teachers were there. It had been previously announced that a roll would be called of the wards at one of the general sessions; the night session, when the roll was called, showed the largest attendance ever held in the evening-twenty-five percent of the entire membership was there. They have had larger numbers in their 10:30 a.m. sessions. One of the wards had forty-eight percent of its membership at that evening session. I asked one bishop how he did it. He said the ward teachers deserved most of the credit. He has them organized, not more than five families to each pair of teachers. During the month of March in their visits, the junior member who is, as a rule, a priest or an ordained teacher, extended a special invitation from the bishop for all to attend this conference. He took the names of those who needed transportation and furnished these names to the chairman of the adult Aaronic Priesthood transportation committee. This junior member also checked at the conference to see who of their members were there, and those who were not, and at the next visit he will have something to talk about, praising those who were there and telling those who were not what they had missed. This procedure, I understand, is followed also at the ward conferences and the sacrament and the priesthood meetings. The teachers keep track of the members of the families under their supervision who are absent, especially those in the service of their country. They know those who are unemployed and are having other difficulties and report them to the bishop. I recommend this method to all bishops. I am sure that many of your problems would be simplified and you would not be so overworked as many of you are now, if you would use your ward teachers as the Lord intended that they should be used, to watch over the Church always.
CONVERSION OF PARENTS BY MISSIONARIES
Another feature of this conference that appealed to me very much was the large number of nonmembers, friends and investigators of the stake missionaries in attendance. After the two general sessions, some of the missionaries brought quite a number of these non-members to the front, and I had the privilege of shaking hands and talking with them. One young man was especially interested in missionary work. He had traveled quite extensively. Two of the members of the presidency especially are very close friends of mine, and they had been a little extravagant in telling these nonmembers of the number of missions that I have spent in Europe, and this young man said, "You certainly have devoted quite a number of years of your life to the Church, and I am sure it has cost a tidy sum of money." I said, "Yes, but when I think of the wonderful home life in these beautiful valleys of the mountains, and contrast conditions here with conditions in Europe, I am still in debt, yes, very much in debt to the Lord." I told him of the missionary system of our Church, how from the beginning we have sent missionaries into all the world as the Savior did when he was here in person; how two of these missionaries away up in the highlands of Scotland found my father as a young man and his parents; how two others in Wales called at the home of my mother, then a small girl, and her parents; how both families joined the Church about the same time, crossed the ocean, the same year, but in different vessels: how they spent a few months in the East preparing for their thousand mile trek across the plains with oxen and covered wagons; how they crossed these plains the same year but in different companies; how they arrived in the Salt Lake valley and counseled with some of the leaders and decided to go north, perhaps as far as Cache valley, but when they arrived in Ogden at the junction of the Weber and Ogden rivers and saw those large cottonwood trees that looked so beautiful and inviting, both families decided to make their new homes in Ogden; and there it was that my father saw my mother for the first time, sitting on the tongue of her covered wagon, and his face would always beam when he would add, "and I never forgot her."
HIS FATHER'S CALL AS A MISSIONARY
They waited until she was in her seventeenth year before they married. They went up through scenic Ogden canyon, settled in Ogden valley, one of the beauty spots of the world, and built together their new home in Huntsville. It was here that ten children were born to that beautiful black-eyed, stately, now angel mother. When they had five children, that dread disease, diphtheria, spread through the valley and the surrounding towns. In those days these contagious diseases were real plagues. More than twenty young people died in Huntsville alone that winter; among them our two eldest sisters, Margaret, eleven, and Lena, nine. They died within a few days of each other and were buried in the same grave. They had been such a comfort and help to Mother, that Father, who was always so considerate of her well-being, grieved over their loss even more than Mother; he found it difficult to adjust himself. It was just a few weeks after this tragedy that he received his call to go on a mission. He would go, of course. No other thought entered his mind, but to go now and leave my mother in her delicate condition with three small children, seven, five, and three years old, seemed impossible. He decided after worrying about this matter for a few days to ask for a year's postponement. When he told Mother what he intended to do, she appreciated of course that it was out of consideration for her that he didn't want to leave home then. But her black eyes sparkled as she said kindly, but firmly, "David" the Lord wants you now, not a year from now, and he can take care of me just as well when you're in Scotland as he can if you are at my bedside. You go now."
They had excavated in the fall preparatory to building an addition to their home in the spring. That, of course, would have to wait. My father remembered too, that he had not paid his tithing on his wheat. He generally paid his tithing on his grain when he threshed, but for some reason, a shortage of sacks, I think, he had not paid his tithing on his wheat, so he decided to go to the granary and arrange for it. With the first bucketful of wheat that he dipped, he struck the floor of the bin. He was shocked! He thought, "If I pay my tithing, my family will not have sufficient wheat for spring seeding and for flour until the next harvest." The thought started to enter his mind, "I'll wait and have them pay my tithing in the fall for both years." He recognized where that thought came from, so he poured that wheat into the sacks in a hurry and paid a little more than he was owing.
He left on April 19 for his mission. On the twenty-ninth my sister Anne was born. You understand now why it was so difficult for him to leave just at that time. While he was on this mission, we were blessed, and Mother had managed very well. When he returned, she very gently, and I think proudly, placed a beautiful baby in his arms, a baby now over two years old, which he had never seen. The addition to the house as previously planned had also been erected without letting him know anything about it. It was a wonderful homecoming.
THE VALUE OF MISSIONARY EXPERIENCE
Many other incidents which I could relate if I had the time would illustrate that a missionary in the field is a good investment. Moreover, to the missionary the experience is invaluable: travel is itself educational; the missionary has the opportunity to meet all kinds of people, at times the opportunity presents itself to visit other churches, cathedrals, museums, art galleries, and ofttimes to attend operas and theaters. Add to these broadening influences the educational background found in all "Mormon" communities, we soon learn the reason why two leading educators were able, in a recently published book, to classify Utah as highest in all-around educational performance among all the states. They divided the states into five classifications: highest, high, medium, low, and lowest. Among the ten highest Utah ranked first.
Yes, this is a missionary Church, brothers and sisters. We have always had missionaries. We kept out about two thousand until the war and then, of course, our missionaries were called home. Six hundred ninety-nine of them were evacuated from the European missions alone; but our servicemen and women-God bless them-more than compensated for that for that return. Nearly all of them have been missionaries, preaching the gospel by their example of clean living, and then since the war, the First Presidency have called on an average of about three hundred a month. Now, as we were told yesterday by Brother Anderson in the statistical report, we have over three thousand two hundred missionaries in the field, a thousand more than the Church has ever had before. And then, too, we have about that same number of stake missionaries, and also hundreds of local missionaries called in the missions themselves. Yes, we are all missionaries. I wish we would adopt the motto that we had in the mission field, "Every member a missionary." We can't all go into the mission field, but oh, brethren and sisters, we can all preach the gospel by our example.
May the Lord help us and bless us with faith and sufficient will power that we may live so that it will be said of us, not only that we believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, but also that we are honest, we are true, we are chaste, we are benevolent, we are virtuous, and that we do love our neighbor as ourselves, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder John A. Widtsoe
John A. Widtsoe, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 72-77
My brethren and sisters, this vast congregation, crowding and overcrowding the capacity of the Tabernacle, seems to me to be a sufficient answer to the query of the ancient prophet. There is faith in Israel.
NATURAL ENDOWMENTS OF THE PIONEERS
Almost every speaker during this conference has mentioned the pioneers, the heroic men and women who, a hundred years ago and up to the coming of the railroad, trailed across the plains and made possible, not only Utah but also the arid and semi-arid wastes of the United States, for the use of mankind. It is a great story, beautifully told here this morning.
These pioneers were uncommon people. They were not of the common run. It took more than brawn, muscle, to redeem the desert, and to teach the whole world how the great arid wastes of the world might be reclaimed. The work of these men has been heralded far and wide, and all the world has profited by their labors. They were uncommon people.
I knew David McKay. It was a great privilege. He was not a common man. There were notable, fine qualities in him, inborn qualities, such as were characteristic of the great body of pioneers which made possible that which they accomplished. They were not men and women of great education though they had as much education as was ordinarily possessed by the people of that day, both in America and in Europe. There was a good proportion of school-trained men among them, but remember that a school can only polish and develop that which a man possesses. Schools do not create the powers of men. These pioneer people had natural endowments so great as to make it difficult to understand, how so many such capable people could be gathered together in the making of this intermountain empire.
PRESIDENT YOUNG'S DEFINITION OF MORMONISM
I have chosen to try to say something about the qualities and endowments of these men in the words of the foremost of them, their appointed leader, Brigham Young. He was not greater than the others. He was of the same blood, spiritually and physically, and, fortunately, he left behind him nearly four hundred discourses taken down in shorthand and published. I grew up as other young men in Zion, looking upon Brigham Young as a great leader, great colonizer, but only after I undertook to read his discourses did the character of the man really stand out boldly before me. He was a great character. Those who labored with him in their respective fields were equally great.
A stranger came to him one day and said:
President Young, will you define Mormonism for me? I heard you preach in the Tabernacle the other day. I did not quite understand all that you said, and I wish you would be kind enough to analyze what you said and simplify it.
Then this leader of the pioneers, of great endowments, brushed aside all the old opinions, the old methods of defining things, in the realm of religion, all the secondary or derivative doctrines and answered:
Our religion is simply the truth. It is all said in this one expression: It embraces all truth wherever found in all the works of God and man, visible or invisible to mortal eyes.
An ordinary man of lesser mental and spiritual stature would have found refuge in some other kind of definition. This man dug down to the bottom of the thing. Truth is the foundation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He added:
It is more rational for an intelligent being to embrace truth than it is to mix up a little truth with a great deal of error or to embrace all error and undertake to follow a phantom.
THE FAITH OF A GREAT LEADER
But, he understood that truth must have a source, a teacher to human beings. No man in all the world has ever expressed a finer and a greater, more fervent belief in God than did Brigham Young.
Our faith is concentrated in the Son of God and through him in the Father, and the Holy Ghost is a minister to bring truths to our remembrance, to reveal new truths to us and teach, guide, direct the course of every mind. Jesus is our captain and leader, Jesus, Savior of the World, the Christ that we believe in.
Out of that faith came the truth that he held so dear. If we had time, I could read some eloquent statements about his faith in God and Jesus Christ, never surpassed in the writings of mankind.
This man was a symbol of all the pioneers, for when I speak of Brigham Young, I speak of every pioneer. It took and takes strong men, men of capacity, to accept the gospel of the Lord Jesus. In that respect, we of this age who have accepted the gospel are also uncommon.
But Brigham Young warned the people:
Now we have the truth. We know whence it comes, from God himself, and that brings a tremendous responsibility to rest upon every one of us... Our mortal existence is a school of experience. The Lord does not compel any person to embrace the gospel, and I do not think he will compel them to live it after they have embraced it. The volition of the creature is free. This is a law of their existence, and the Lord cannot violate his own law. Were he to do that he would cease to be exalted. He has placed life and death before his children, and it is for them to choose. If they choose life, they receive a blessing of life. If they choose death, they must abide the penalty. This is the law which has always existed from all eternity and will continue to exist throughout all the eternities to come. Every intelligent being must have the power of choice.
Simple words! But what a tremendous burden, if burden it be, they place upon us, the necessity to live in accordance with the eternal law of God.
THE RELIGION OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS A PRACTICAL ONE
Having said all of this, he emphasized the fact that the truth which comes from God, and possessed by us, must be used by us properly. There was no hesitation in that. Truth is not an ornament to be hung on the wall or placed on the shelf to look at. It must be of daily use for he said:
We need a present, everyday religion. My religion must be with me from one Monday morning to the next, the year around or it will not answer me. I am decidedly in favor of a practical religion, of everyday useful life, and if I today attend to what devolves upon me to do, then do that which presents itself tomorrow, and so on, when eternity comes I will be prepared to enter on the things of eternity, but I would not be prepared for that sphere of action unless I could manage the things that are now within my reach. We must all learn to do this. There is no life more precious than the present life which we enjoy. There is no life that is worth any more to us than this life is. It may be said that an eternal life is worth more. We are in eternity, and all that we have to do is to take the road that leads into the eternal lives.
And in his application of truth to useful ends, he said many things. For example, concerning education:
Knowledge is to be sought. It was originally embraced by the Latter-day Saints, if only slightly understood, and they were counseled to search diligently after knowledge. There is no other people in existence more eager to see, to hear, to learn and understand truth... Every accomplishment, every polished grace, every useful attainment in mathematics, music, and all the sciences and arts belong to the Saints, and they should avail themselves as expeditiously as possible of the wealth of knowledge that science has offered to every diligent and persevering scholar.
There is no narrow conception in such a statement, no fence is built around knowledge, no limitation placed upon it. All truth is ours.
BRIGHAM YOUNG'S VIEWS ON CAPITAL AND LABOR
He entered into the field of economics and became known as a great economic leader. He said in what might be written in huge letters for the wise men of the earth to read:
Capital and labor, all the capital there is upon this earth, is the bone and sinew of working men and women. Were it not for that, the gold and the silver and precious stones would remain in the mountains, upon the plains, and in the valleys and never would be gathered or brought into use. The timber would continue to grow, but none of it would be brought into service, and the earth would remain as it is. It is the activity and labor of the inhabitants of the earth that bringeth forth wealth.
This simple definition of wealth, is fit for colleges and all the nations to ponder. Time and the ability to labor are the capital stock of the whole world.
EXPRESSIONS AS TO GOVERNMENT
He spoke of political government:
The Constitution and laws of the United States resemble a theocracy more closely than any government now on earth. We will cling to the Constitution of our country and to the government that reveres that sacred charter of free men's rights and if necessary pour out our best blood for the defense of every good and righteous principle.
He laid down the principle which should be the foundation of every government:
Individual self-government lies at the root of all true and effective government whether in heaven or on earth.
He even spoke of the women and their duties in the world of action-woman suffrage:
Now, sisters, I want you to vote also, because women are the characters that rule the ballot box.
I wish they did rule it today. I am not certain they have lived up to the commendation of the pioneer leader.
HUMILITY A SIGN OF GREATNESS
Great men are humble. No great man takes power and honor unto himself, and so Brigham Young said:
I have never professed to be Brother Joseph, but only Brother Brigham, trying to do good to this people. I am no better nor any more important than any other man who is trying to do good. If I am, I do not know it. If I improve upon what the Lord has given me and continue to improve, I shall become like those who have gone before me.
I shall be exalted in the Celestial Kingdom and be filled to overflowing with all the power I can wield, and all the keys and knowledge I can manage will be committed unto me.
Then he quoted what President Hunter just quoted, the first part being:
I do not wish anyone to understand that I had anything to do with our being moved here. That was the providence of the Almighty.
LOYALTY TO JOSEPH SMITH
Great men are loyal. There is nothing finer in the life of Brigham Young than his loyalty to Joseph Smith. He spoke of him and said:
A Prophet of God! I honor and revere the name of Joseph Smith. I delight to hear it. I love it. I love his doctrine...
What is the nature and beauty of Joseph's mission? When I first heard him preach, he had brought heaven and earth together, and all the priests of the day could not tell me anything correct about heaven, hell, God, angels, the devils and there was blindness darkness. When I saw Joseph Smith, he took heaven, of which he was speaking, and brought it down to earth. Then he took the earth and brought it up and opened up in plainness and simplicity the things of God, and that is the beauty of his mission.
At the last, on his deathbed, the attending physician as he leaned over the bedside heard him whisper:
"Joseph, Joseph!"
Of such timber were our pioneers hewn. Of such timber are we or should be. God bless us and be with us, help us to be like the pioneers we honor, I pray, for the deserts of the world, in other fields, are formidable today as the deserts of the West were yesterday, in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 77-79
My brothers and sisters, I trust that the sweet influence of the Spirit of the Lord which has been with us thus far in this conference and in this session will continue with us while I stand before you.
TRIBUTE TO CHARLES A. CALLIS AND MARVIN O. ASHTON
We miss this morning from our presence two great men, Apostle Callis, whose greatest love was his fellow men and his desire and purpose to spread among them the truths of the revealed gospel of this last dispensation: the other, Bishop Ashton, who loved men as much as did Apostle Callis, whose troubles, the troubles of men and women, appealed to him, and always he did all that he could do, that lay within his power to do, to alleviate those troubles. They were great men. They have gone to a great reward that will take them to a place in the celestial kingdom of God.
THE SAVIOR'S MOURNING OVER JERUSALEM
When the Savior was just leaving Trans-Jordan to come into Jerusalem to be crucified, the Pharisees came to him and told him that Herod was seeking to kill him. And speaking of Herod as "that fox" the Savior said: Tell him that the sick are healed and that the blind see. Tell him that I must travel today, tomorrow, and the next day, "for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem".
And the mention of Jerusalem seemed to have awakened in his mind all that had gone before since the world was, particularly since Jerusalem was built, and he said:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!.
When he came to Jerusalem on that last mission and while preaching in the temple, he uttered that fierce denunciation against the Pharisees and the Scribes, the fiercest that I know of in all history, called attention to the fact that they had persecuted and martyred the righteous, and then again broke forth in the same lament:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!.
That is the motif of all of God's dealings with mankind, always forgiving, always ready to accept us if we will but put ourselves where we may be accepted. His expression was an expression of divine love, and it is not without interest that in making his comparison he spoke of the love of the mother hen, mother love, the nearest thing we know to divine love.
LOVE AND FORGIVENESS MANIFESTED BY JESUS
Ever since the world was, he has offered us opportunities to serve him. He has tried to have us live righteously. He has forgiven, over and over again. He has tried to bring us back to him. Enoch, Noah, Moses-think of how patient he was with Israel, the destruction of the firstborn of Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the providing of the manna, the striking of the rock in the wilderness. When it came to the time of the Savior himself, think how he tried to lead them to repentance, forgiving wherever he found people worthy of forgiveness. All through the history of Israel there has run that one sentiment:
How often would I have gathered thee but thou wouldst not.
In our day the same thing is true. Time and time and time again he has called us to serve him, and has given us mighty promises as to what he would do if we would but do our part. The Church had scarcely organized when he gave the great law of temporal and spiritual salvation, the United Order. And remember, that the Lord very early said that to him all things were spiritual, that he never had given a law which was temporal. He tried to get us to live the commandments that he had given in the matter of the United Order that none might suffer, that all who needed might be provided for, that all might be his people, happy, one with another, because of no jealousies of excess in one and deficiency in another. But the people could not live it. After three years and four months he was forced to take it away, suspend it, and if you want to know why it was suspended I refer you to the fifty-sixth section of the Doctrine and Covenants, beginning with the fourteenth verse. There is crystallized his denunciation of selfishness and greed against us of this dispensation. We tried other measures when we came here to the valleys, but they were no more successful. Here in the last few years we have set up another plan, temporal yet spiritual. He is again trying us. "How often would I have gathered thee together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings"-that is the issue, my brothers and sisters.
TIMELY ADVICE
I do not need to belabor the need we have or that we are likely to see grow greater, particularly in this country with unemployment coming on. We shall all need help, even those, perhaps, with the most. Yesterday's sermons told of the needs of our brothers and sisters who are in foreign lands. Are we going to meet this challenge and provide for those who are in need of help or are we going to let matters go and take up our time complaining?
I want to repeat the suggestion I have made before, the thought was inspired by the reports that came that some of the brethren were counting out what a terrible load they had in dollars and cents. Their computations surely made it big enough. If I remember rightly, the Lord commanded Israel that she should not take a census, should not count her men. I do not know why the command was given, but I suspect it was because if they counted and saw how few they were, they would lose all heart to right the battle which they had to fight. And the record is that when they did not count, God blessed them. If I were you presidents of stakes, chairmen of regions, I do not believe I would spend too much time figuring out how much money I had to raise but go to work and raise it.
I repeat, as I see it, we are again on trial. The Lord is giving us a continuing opportunity to serve him, to work out his plan, the plan which he gave certainly as far back as Sinai.
May the Lord bless us, give us the power to hold fast to the eternal truths he has revealed. May he open our vision that we may see our duty to our fellow citizens, to our fellow members of the Church wherever they are. May he take out of our hearts all feelings of hate and leave there only love for those who belong to us and to our Heavenly Father, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
Joseph L. Wirthlin, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 81-85
I sincerely trust, my brethren and sisters, that I may enjoy the Spirit of the Lord and have an interest in your faith and prayers during the few moments that I shall stand before you.
SOURCES OF THOUGHT
The ancient one declared:
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.
This ancient writer fully understood the relationship between our minds and our hearts and the deeds that would come from our thinking as expressed in the emotions and passions that we find in our hearts. "First the thought and then the deed." "Noble thoughts, noble deeds." Shelley declared: "Strange thoughts beget strange deeds."
For a moment or two I would like to consider with you the sources of our thoughts. I think they fall in four categories: what one sees, and what one hears, what one reads, and then that great source of thought that comes to us through the inspiration of the Lord's Holy Spirit, provided that we are so clean and sweet in our thinking and in our deeds that we might enjoy the association of the Holy Ghost. Time does not permit to discuss these four sources of thoughts, hence I should like to speak about the third one, what one reads.
PRESENT-DAY LITERATURE
Sometime ago I stood in a railroad station waiting for a train. Having some little time on my hands, I was attracted to the magazine rack, and there I counted forty-seven magazines that had to do with crime and sex problems, all of them procurable at a price from ten to twenty-five cents each. I have observed as I have traveled over the country during the period of the war, the material that our boys in the armed forces have been reading. In many instances I found them reading the same kind of material that I noticed on the magazine rack in the depot.
Of recent date there are certain writers in our country who are using biblical characters around which they build stories, and unfortunately, they are not portraying to the reading public of America the fine qualities of these great characters but rather their weaknesses. Recently there came into my hands a story about David of old. Some four or five chapters were devoted to his relationship with the wife of Uriah, and described in such minute detail as to be disgusting and vulgar.
There are sensational newspapers which play up the morbid side of life. There are some newspapers which have comic strips, so-called, and which strips I am sure are inculcating into the minds and hearts of our boys and girls that read them, thoughts that, if they are expressed in deeds, will get them into serious difficulty.
There are books now on birth control, books on common law marriage, and many other books that are not conducive to the morals or the best thinking of those who read them. In a recent poll taken of 7,600 middle class average homes, the startling fact was revealed that forty percent of these homes did not own a Bible.
CAUSES OF YOUTHFUL DELINQUENCY
Dr. Walter Athren conducted a survey which covered the entire country. This survey showed that seventy percent of the youth of America grow from infancy to maturity without any constructive, systematic instruction and training either in morals or religion, and from sixty-five to seventy out of every one hundred children are brought up in utter ignorance of the Bible. In addition to all of these, we must not forget the fact that we are spending, in the United States, more money for intoxicating beverages than is being spent in the interests of education.
What does this all add up to? It adds up to what we call delinquency, but I think the time has come now when we shall have to use the term "general delinquency" because this delinquency embraces not only the youth of the land but adults too. When you stop to consider that over ninety percent of the divorces in the United States are caused by what is termed infidelity, which means nothing more or less than immorality, adding to general delinquency out of which is developed vandalism, immorality, mental and physical indolence, and profanity. I mention profanity because much of this modern-day literature spells out in bold type some of the most vile oaths that any of us have ever heard.
What about a change in all of these conditions? Is there not something that can be brought about to awaken the American people to a destiny of degradation and weakness, spiritually, mentally, and physically unless the sources of reading material are changed, affording only that which is noble, uplifting, and cultural? As in ancient days when the finger of the God of Israel wrote the doom of Babylon, this same penalty hangs over any nation that forgets God to the extent that the Bible is found in few homes and where the youth of the country are not familiar with the teachings of Holy Scripture. Yes, just as Babylon was called to an accounting by the God of Israel, so will the people of this great nation be called to an accounting for permitting youth and old alike to be indoctrinated with the principles of the evil one through the reading of immoral and vulgar literature.
RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS
What about us, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? The Lord has loved us to the extent that he has been kind enough to give us the safeguards against evil thoughts, for he has revealed to us:
And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.
Then, back in the days of Kirtland, there was set up the School of the Prophets for the sole purpose of acquainting our leaders with the best that could be found in wisdom, and among other things was said that this school was not only for the high priests, but it was also for the deacons. And so the Lord intended that all should enjoy revealed wisdom, revealed truth, that we might be enabled to carry forth his great work and consummate his plans here upon the earth.
The great responsibility in guiding the thinking of youth rests in the home. That obligation rests squarely upon the shoulders of parents. I sometimes think that we parents are prone to leave the matter of what our boys and girls think too much in the hands of the schools. As Bishop Richards indicated yesterday, doctrine is being taught to our boys and girls that will undermine their faith, and I say that the Lord is going to hold us accountable as parents if we fail to take an inventory of what is being taught to our boys and girls in the institutions of learning in the land. Not only that, we as parents usually are very careful about the kind of associates our sons and daughters shall have. But I want to say to you there are other associates to which we should also give very careful consideration; namely, the books they read, for, after all, books are more than associates because they are so intimate. Let us remember that the books that these young men and young women read will store away in the storehouse of memory the thoughts that will either motivate them to deeds of nobleness or evil.
BOOKS FOR LATTER-DAY SAINT HOMES
In every Latter-day Saint home we should find the library of the Lord. It is small as far as the number of books is concerned. There are but four, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the D&C;, and the Pearl of Great Price. In addition to these there can be purchased thousands of books written by inspired men, and I am sure that the Lord expects us to have in our homes his library. Brigham Young made it plain that without the library of the Lord we would walk in darkness and that we would not enjoy the Spirit of our Heavenly Father. Brigham Young had this to say:
On reading carefully the Old and the New Testaments we can discover that the majority of the revelations given to mankind anciently were in regard to their daily duties; we follow in the same path. The revelations contained in the Bible and the Book of Mormon are examples to us, and the book of D&C; contains direct revelation to this Church; they are a guide to us, and we do not wish to do them away; we do not want them to become obsolete and to set them aside. We wish to continue in the revelations of the Lord Jesus Christ day by day, and to have his spirit with us continually. If we can do this, we shall no more walk in darkness but we shall walk in the light of life.
I am sure there are no Latter-day Saints here but what are anxious that their children will understand the revelations as found in the Bible, in the Book of Mormon, and in the D&C.; How often do you or I ever sit down with our children and take up one of the sections of the D&C;, point out the great truths revealed therein, and what it will do if we apply these truths in our daily lives?
MEMORIZING THE SCRIPTURES
I think the time has come when it would be a fine thing to take at least one verse a week and have the whole family memorize it. Think of what Brother Matthew Cowley told us yesterday with reference to his father-at the age of nineteen having memorized four hundred eighty-three verses of scripture. I am quite sure when this young man went into the mission field he was able to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ vigorously, intelligently, and to do a great work. If we were to teach our children one verse of the scriptures a week, that would amount to about fifty-two verses a year, and in ten years it would amount to five hundred twenty verses. And think of their going out to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ with five hundred twenty verses of scripture at their command! Think of the time it would save! Think of the impression that it would make upon those that they come in contact with. And far and above this, it would inculcate into their minds and hearts, great truths and light which would motivate them to noble deeds. We should consider the Book of Mormon, for, as President Grant said:
I am convinced in my own mind, my dear brethren and sisters, that this book, the Book of Mormon, is the greatest converter of men and women as to the divinity of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is in every way a true witness of God, and it sustains the Bible and is in harmony with the Bible.
How many of our young people become acquainted in the home with this American Bible? You and I can best answer that question. I think if we are to protect youth against the evils of the land, against evil thinking, against evil books, we can do no better than to teach them the great truths that are found in the Book of Mormon. There we find the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ given to us in its fulness, and its simplicity.
WISDOM OBTAINED THROUGH GOOD BOOKS
Speaking of rules that we should adopt, to discriminate against that which is bad in our reading, may I give you a suggestion as it comes from President J. Reuben Clark, Jr. He said this:
My rule now is, never read anything that is not worth remembering. I know now that all the wisdom of the past is for our use, and that the only place we can learn that wisdom, which comes from all that men have thought, and worked, and suffered, and achieved, is from good books; and wisdom is one of the most precious gifts that the Lord has to give. When Solomon of old was made king, he asked the Lord for wisdom only, and because he did not ask for the lives of his enemies, nor for riches, wealth, and honor, the Lord gave all of these to him and then wisdom also in great abundance, so that from that time until now, Solomon has stood as the wise man of the ages.
Then, too, brethren and sisters, if we are going to have the kind of home that Latter-day Saints should have, we might well follow the counsel found in Proverbs 24:3-9.
Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches. A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength. For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety. Wisdom is too high for a fool: he openeth not his mouth in the gate. He that deviseth to do evil shall be called a mischievous person. The thought of foolishness is sin: and the scorner is an abomination to men.
Never let us forget that the glory of God is intelligence, and that no man will be saved faster than he gains knowledge and intelligence. Therefore, as we think of our minds and our thoughts as related to our hearts, our hearts should become pure, if we understand the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. What did the Lord say about the pure in heart?
Therefore, verily, thus saith the Lord, Let Zion rejoice, for this is Zion-the pure in heart; therefore, let Zion rejoice, while all the wicked shall mourn.
May we have as a motto the words of that lovely old song: "Beautiful Zion for me," and always remember the scripture of that ancient one: "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he", which I pray for in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Stephen L Richards
Stephen L Richards, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 85-91
I think, my brethren and sisters and friends, that no apology for repetition is necessary during this conference. The pioneer theme so dominates the occasion and our thinking that we can scarcely be expected to do other than speak about it. So I propose to address myself to the subject, "What did the pioneers bring?"
PURPOSE OF MORMON PIONEERS IN SETTLING THE WEST
Pioneer movements for reclamation of new territory were not uncommon in America a hundred years ago. Land was the most commonly accepted form of wealth, and the availability of new lands made their quest a dominant pursuit of the people. Colonization had built America, and the extension of her frontiers was a general enterprise.
There were, it is true, many unusual circumstances attending the pioneer settlement which we now commemorate. The distance from established communities covered by the migration and the penetration into unexplored and forbidding country were much greater than those of average advances. The number of people moved and colonized was exceptionally large; the territory sought to be included in the project was vast; the expulsion of the people from their homes and their cruel and intolerant treatment in a free democratic country would serve to give character to this migration. The continued persecution of the people after their settlement here and the adverse attitude of their government were unusual items. All these circumstances might well serve to focus attention upon the pioneer movement of 1847 as being unusual and distinctive among comparable undertakings of frontier peoples of our country; but, in my opinion, these conditions, of themselves, do not adequately account for the historical placement of the Mormon colonization of the West in the number one position among all pioneer movements and conquests in America, certainly from the standpoint of resources available and results achieved.
To understand the pioneers and their accomplishments, we must examine their motives. Herein we shall find the difference between them and other pioneers and frontiersmen of our country. They came for freedom and peace as others have done. They came to make homes for themselves as others have done. They came to worship God and practice their religion to the satisfaction of their consciences, as others have done; but here is one thing they came for which, so far as I know, has no counterpart in any other pioneer movement: They came with the avowed purpose of establishing a society so that they would be able to take back to the civilization from which they had fled, yes, even to their persecutors, the principles of life and conduct which were the source of their own inspiration, cohesion, success, and happiness. I do not mean to say that missionary efforts have not been undertaken by other groups, but for pure Christlike altruism in purpose and deed, I place the founders of this commonwealth on the very summit of all Christian endeavor.
It was ingrained in their very beings that their greatest blessings would come in blessing others. They knew they had a message that was a boon to mankind; they knew they were under obligation to propagate that message among the peoples of the world; and they never for one moment lost sight of that obligation and their endeavor to fulfil it. In the processes of subduing a most stubborn country, with all its discouragements, disappointments, and exactions of time, energy, patience, and courage, they never ceased to give liberally of their hard-earned substance and their limited man power in carrying abroad the sacred principles which dominated their lives. The early companies of immigrants in their long marches across the prairies met countermarches of missionaries toiling back over the same hard road they had so recently trod with the same determination, equal expectancy and hope, and ofttimes comparable sacrifice as when they undertook the long trek to the West. Thus the pioneers came and went back as no other people have ever done, and their descendants have kept up the process for a century of time.
BELIEF IN ANCIENT PROPHECY
What was the compelling force which drove them to such superhuman exertion and such widespread sacrifices? Strange as it may seem, it was their literal acceptance of an ancient prophecy revivified by modern revelation:
... It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
Every pioneer believed that prophecy with his whole heart. He saw the vision of its fulfilment in all his labors, trials, and privations. He wanted a home with comfort for his family, of course. He wanted a good society and prosperity, but all these were subordinate to the fulfilment of this prophecy-the establishment of Zion.
We all rejoice in the general high esteem accorded Brigham Young as a master colonizer, statesman, and empire builder. He is fully entitled to this acclaim from his fellow men, but not many outside his own followers have understood the real secret of his success. It is true that he was practical, far-sighted, and adept at organization, but those who know the inner forces behind his accomplishments will tell you that his power was spiritual, rather than temporal. The unity so essential to the cooperative effort of the people was a spiritual unity, arising out of a universal conviction of the sacred nature of the cause they espoused and a common acceptance of the responsibilities it entailed. In all of Brigham Young's work and ministry there was another in spirit always at his side, always supporting him and inspiring him, whose guidance and direction he ever acknowledged. That was his predecessor, Joseph Smith, the earthly founder of the cause he represented, the inspirer of the people through whom their destiny had been revealed. Brigham never forgot and never ignored Joseph; neither did the people. They fought with all their strength to carry out the mission he had put upon them. That mission was both temporal and spiritual but predominantly spiritual.
INDUSTRY, EDUCATION, LOYALTY BROUGHT BY THE PIONEERS
What then did the pioneers bring? They brought industry in a measure that has seldom been equaled. They taught and practiced the gospel of work as the foundation for success and happiness. That gospel was perhaps more widely accepted in their day than it is today, unfortunately. They demonstrated its efficacy, and their demonstration stands today as an example and incentive to the world.
They brought education and a love for the artistic and beautiful. Not many of them were scholarly. Their opportunities for learning had been very meager, but they had within them an innate yearning for truth, which, after all, is the real basis for education. It was an integral part of their conception of the purpose of life to develop intelligence and acquire knowledge. Intelligence was invested with the highest possible attributes, proclaimed to be the very glory of God. It was but natural, therefore, that education and its cultural, refining influences should receive their ardent support. The education which they fostered was not narrow and restricted as some education is. It was directed toward the acquisition of knowledge in all phases of life and the universe; and it did one thing which, unfortunately, modern education does not always do-it did not subordinate the quality of intelligence essential to comprehend the things of the spirit to the order of intelligence necessary for the acquisition of other facts. With this lofty concept of intelligence came a deep-seated love of the beautiful which is the foundation for creative art, as well as for artistic appreciation. This love of beauty did not always find tangible expression, but it prompted many worth-while and sometimes outstanding endeavors in architecture, music, drama, and other cultural projects. It was undoubtedly this deep love for learning and truth which has been responsible in succeeding generations for the high position our state has attained in the field of literacy and education and in the percentage of its population who have won recognition in scientific and other fields of learning. I believe that Utah has been among the foremost, if not first, of all the states in the Union in these respects.
They brought with them a high order of loyalty and a great capacity for firm devotion to the cause they espoused. We can scarcely estimate what this meant to the success of their enterprises. In the main they were rugged individuals, free men, many of whose immediate ancestors had fought for liberty; yet they were willing and eager to consecrate themselves and all they had to the cause which brought them here-the cause they loved. Theirs was the type of unselfish devotion which makes for the success of great causes in the world. Without that devotion no leadership, however competent, could have succeeded.
WISDOM AN OUTSTANDING QUALITY OF THE PIONEERS
I come now to the greatest thing of all which the pioneers brought with them, and that I characterize as wisdom, wisdom about the important things in life. The really vital and fundamental aspects of our lives and living may be classified under very few headings. I think about four would be sufficient-the body, character, the family, and the social order. If everything were all right with these four items, the world would be in good order, and wisdom about these things is and always has been the greatest need of mankind. The pioneers brought with them this much required wisdom. It was not of their own making. It was given to them before they came here. In fact, it was not of any man's making, for it was the wisdom of the ages bequeathed to them by Divine Providence.
First, consider the body of man. Everyone wants a sound body. Not all are willing to take the steps to secure it. The pioneers brought a new concept of the body which invested it with sacred significance. They taught that the body is the earthly tabernacle wherein the spirit of man, the literal child of God, is housed and that the body cannot be defiled or polluted or otherwise abused by taking into it poisons and deleterious substances without offering affront to God whose spirit dwells therein. In this concept infractions of the laws of health are attended not only with physical penalties, but with spiritual consequences as well. There is a double duty to preserve the wholesomeness of the body; and, for guidance in this duty, they brought with them a code of health rules, which, although given more than one hundred years ago, have had the sanction and the corroboration of scientific researches never even thought of at the time of their origin. Here was wisdom about the body, and the contributions coming to the people from that wisdom are immeasurable.
Second-character or personality, if you will. I see but little difference. I define character as the sum total of all the attributes incorporated into the structure of a man's life, and the complexion of his character is determined by the preponderance of good or bad qualities. Now the wisdom which came about character was not new. It was very old, but it had a new and very special emphasis. It taught not only that man is the child of God, of the most noble lineage but that he is destined also, if he lives for it, to be associated with his Heavenly Father in carrying forth his eternal works in all time to come. Could there be a higher incentive for worthy living and character, with no uncertainty as to the criteria upon which all elections and choices should be made? I know of nothing more stimulating to the attainment of high character in men and women than a clear concept of their divine origin and eternal destiny.
Next-the family. What a world of joy and sorrow and tragedy and bliss that word spells for us! It fills the pages of countless books. It is the subject of articles, orations, debates, and controversies of legislation and judicial decision, and right today I notice a magazine writer who questions the necessity of the institution and mildly predicts its extinction in the not-too-distant future. What was the wisdom the pioneers brought about the family? Why, they invested it with the noblest and most exalted attributes which have ever come to it in all the history of the world. They taught that it is not only a basic unit for happy life and progress here on this earth but that it constitutes also the very foundation of our hope for supreme exaltation in the celestial kingdom of our God. Indeed, the heaven we seek is little more than the projection of our homes into eternity. How at variance with these lofty concepts of home and family are the tragic evils in domestic life today-divorce, broken homes, neglected, wayward children more to be pitied than abused because of the disintegration of family life. In my thinking this very disintegration has been responsible in no small measure for the growth of the disorders and "isms" in government and society which have so plagued the world and which today constitute our greatest menace. Oh, if the wisdom which these humble pioneers brought could only find application in the families of the world what a boon it would be to the comfort and the happiness and the progress of humanity.
Lastly, the social order by which I mean to include the art of men's living together comfortably and in peace. The wise contribution which the pioneers brought on this altogether important aspect of life can be told in a single word-brotherhood. They taught, in the most realistic way, the concept of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples belonging to the family of God. They taught fraternity but not without paternity. The whole doctrine of Christian relationship, altruism, and service may be summed up in the designation, "my brother," "my sister." They believed a hundred years ago that the only substantial hope for universal peace lay in the extension of this doctrine of brotherhood throughout the world. Many others in times gone by and at the present have proclaimed this doctrine. I am grateful that it is so. I hope their proclamation will help, but I confess to some skepticism when I see the reception this doctrine gets. Some months ago I heard an address over the radio from an eminent divine, the Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking from Philadelphia. Brotherhood and peace was his subject. I was pleased to hear him make the declaration that there was little chance for the establishment of brotherhood without recognition of the Fatherhood of God. I read an account of his speech in the public press the next day after it was given, and a few weeks later I read another account of it in a magazine. In neither account was there any mention whatever of this declaration which I regarded as the most important and vital thing in his speech. What the world needs for composition of its difficulties and the establishment of a lasting peace is not merely a so-called spiritual brotherhood which makes a fine sounding phrase, but also a brotherhood of the sons of God in this earth translated in terms of mutual, practical helpfulness.
That was the wisdom about the social order and peace which the pioneers brought and demonstrated when they came to this land.
All of my fellow members of the Church will readily understand that these wise contributions of which I speak and many more were but principles of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ which had been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith but a short time prior to the event which we commemorate this year. It was because of the pioneers' implicit faith in this transcendent message of life and truth that they established the Lord's house in "the top of the mountains". It was a great thing to set up a commonwealth and transform a desert into cities, towns, and villages with the homes, schools, and facilities we now enjoy. It was a vastly greater accomplishment to establish the kingdom of God and send forth from Zion that salutary message of hope and faith and divine, eternal wisdom to all mankind. This was the real heritage our noble pioneers brought with them and left to us and our friends who have come to join us in this lovely land which we call the Zion of our Lord. It is the most precious gift in life. God help us to prize it, to live it and to spread it, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder Mark E. Petersen
Mark E. Petersen, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 98-103
I wish each one of you could have seen the expression of pride and satisfaction that covered the face of President Howard McDonald as his thrilling choir stood up to sing each time. I am sure that each of you has enjoyed the glorious singing of these fine young people, quite as much as has their president. I have greatly enjoyed them.
I would like to read you something which I do not necessarily recommend for its poetry, but I do recommend for the sentiment that is there:
LIVING WHAT WE PRAY FOR
I knelt to pray when day was done, And prayed, "O, Lord, bless everyone; Lift from each saddened heart the pain; And let the sick be well again."
And then I woke another day, And carelessly went on my way; The whole day long I did not try To wipe a tear from any eye.
I did not try to share the load, Of any brother on the road; I did not even go to see The sick man, just next door to me.
Yet once again when day was done I prayed, "O, Lord, bless everyone," But as I prayed, into my ear There came a voice that whispered clear:
"Pause now, my son, before you pray, Whom have you tried to bless today? God's sweetest blessings always go, By hands that serve him here below."
And then I hid my face and cried. "Forgive me, God, I have not tried; Let me but live another day, And I will live the way I pray."
RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS THE SUFFERING
Day before yesterday afternoon, a very good friend of mine, came to our office at the Deseret News and told me about a family that has just come from Holland after having endured the bitter war years in that country. These people had starved; they had gone cold, many of them without sufficient clothing. They had no heat in their homes. They had endured one of the great tragedies that come into human lives. They became so hungry over there that whenever they could get such things as potato peelings, they would regard them as the greatest of delicacies. These people have come to America. The other night as they sat down around the table of my friend, they could hardly believe that such wonderful food in such great abundance could be made available to anyone. Why, there on their table were, not the peelings, but the potatoes themselves, beautiful white, whipped, creamy potatoes! They had thought that the peelings alone were a delicacy.
It breaks your heart when you think what these people have gone through. When I listened to that wonderful report given yesterday by President Clark and heard the remarks made regarding that family referred to by Brother Stover, living upstairs, without heat, with the glass broken out of their windows, the little girl without any shoes, insufficient clothing or bedding, the children lying there in bed shivering, hungry, cold! Well, it touches your heart to think that human beings must pass through things like that. And when I think of the many others who have similarly suffered, when I think of the conditions related here yesterday by Brother West and Brother Max Zimmer and Brother Babbel who have just come from those countries, I wonder if we appreciate what we have and what is our great responsibility to those who have not.
PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN
You remember one day the Savior was talking with a lawyer about the two first great commandments, one of them: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself". This is the way the scripture reads:
... a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shall live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him. And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
LIVING THE WAY WE PRAY
Speaking of living the way we pray, I suppose the priest who passed by that traveler who had been attacked and beaten and left half dead must have been a praying man. That was his business. Probably he was paid for it. But in spite of all his prayers, he was not enough interested in the way he lived, he was not enough interested in translating his prayers into action to be willing to do anything about this poor, half-dead man who was abandoned there after having been beaten by thieves.
I am sure, too, that the Levite was likewise a praying man. I suppose there was probably no more pious man in all Palestine, and I am sure that he could pray as well as any Pharisee who might say that he thanked God that he was better than other men. Even this Levite, forgetting all his prayers and forgetting the real meaning of true religion, was willing to stand there and look at this man, and pass by and leave him there without supplying the necessary succor for him.
I thought of this yesterday as President Clark read that welfare report. It was a good report. Much was accomplished through the welfare program, but much more should have been accomplished. When Brother Cowley spoke here of our fast offerings, I felt it is not enough. There are too many among us who do not live the way we pray.
I suppose there are no more frequent prayers offered than the appeals that go up to the Lord asking him to bless the poor and the needy, and yet our fast offerings are down, and we still have many people in the Church who do not live enough the way they pray so that they are unwilling to get in and work with the welfare program and make that welfare program work for those who are in need. How well do we live according to the manner of our prayers?
When I think of the stakes or wards that have gone now these eleven years without storehouses and without permanent projects, when I think of the number of people who are constantly criticizing the welfare program, not understanding it probably, then I think, too, of what James said at one time. You remember James in his epistle talked about faith and works and said:
What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?.
Likewise when we pray and say to the Almighty, "Bless the poor and the needy," and then, to apply the scripture,
Notwithstanding we give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
HELPING THE POOR
Well, some people say: "I would like to help the poor in my own way."
I think we all should help the poor in our own way, but I think likewise we should help the poor in the Lord's way, and the Lord has said so much in so many words: Said he:
And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine. But it must needs be done in mine own way; and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.
I call your attention to the fact that the Lord says that the helping of the poor "must needs be done in mine own way," and the Lord's own way in 1947, in this centennial year, is that organized assistance be given through the Church welfare program and through the priesthood quorums allied with that program. We ask you one and all who are laborers in this Church to cooperate fully and heartily and willingly with that program, and remember that not your way, but the Lord's way is to be done.
Speaking again of living the way we pray, I suppose everyone within the sound of my voice, at least those of the membership of the Church, every day pray that the Authorities of the Church may have the guidance and inspiration of the Lord. I hope you pray that way. We need the faith and prayers of the Saints. But remember that you have a responsibility to live the way you pray, and when you ask that the leaders of this Church may be guided by inspiration, then you be willing to live by the inspiration that comes from those Authorities. Part of that inspiration, I say part of that revelation, is the Church welfare program, and we invite all to participate in it earnestly.
After the Lord says it must be done in his own way, he says this:
For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves. Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.
I used to think the Lord was pretty harsh in saying that if we are not willing to help the poor and the needy in his way, we would be in danger of the torment of hell, but when I began to read that in the light of Matthew, twenty-fifth chapter, and think of it along with the Church welfare program, I began to understand what the Lord had in mind. You remember the Savior said this:
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty. and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them saying, Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
OUR LIVES PROVE OUR LOVE FOR GOD
We are living in a day of tribulation. Peace has been taken from the earth. Tribulation will continue among us. It may be that you and I may never be face to face with starvation. It may be that you and I will never look upon the forms of our little children, as they have been described from abroad by Brother Benson, and others, in the last stages of starvation. We may not have a trial of that kind, but I tell you that we are being tested here and now, whether we realize it or not. Our everyday lives are demonstrating to the Almighty whether or not we love him, whether or not we love his children, even our neighbors as ourselves. We are demonstrating by our lives whether we are selfish, whether we are grasping, whether we are willing to help the other fellow, whether we are willing to share.
How do we measure up? Are we willing to share by paying fast offerings? Are we willing to share by laboring earnestly in the Church welfare program? Or are we going to drag our feet? Are we selfish? Do we love our neighbors as ourselves? Do we live the way we pray? Are we like the priest and the Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan? Or do we love the Lord our God with all our hearts, realizing that we cannot love God whom we have not seen if we do not love our brother whom we have seen?
Yes, we are in a testing ground, testing whether or not we are worthy to be called Saints, whether we love the Lord our God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. We are being tried to see if we are willing, even in a time of extremity, to share, if it is our last crust of bread, with another who is hungry.
Whom have you tried to bless today? God's sweetest blessings always go By hands that serve him here below.
When you pray for the poor, remember that the poor must be helped by somebody, and there is no one better to be that somebody than you. That we may all live as we pray, that we may serve God by serving our fellows, I humbly pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Albert E. Bowen
Albert E. Bowen, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 104-110
Friends of the Church of the Air:
The account of the transcendent event which signalizes this day and entitles it to rank among the first of all memorial days is brief and simple.
THE RECORD OF THE RESURRECTION
Jesus of Nazareth, who had proclaimed himself the Son of God, had been crucified and his sorely tortured body entombed in a borrowed sepulchre. At the dawning of the third day, "at the end of the Sabbath" certain devoted women returned there to perform some unfinished offices for the dead. They found the tomb empty, and his burial clothes folded together. Their agitation was quieted by a heavenly messenger who, announcing that he knew they had come seeking Jesus, gently reproved them asking:
Why seek ye the living among the dead?
He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee.
Saying, The son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
And they remembered his words.
The record adds little to that epoch-making story except that the risen Lord identified himself to Mary, one of the women; then, on various occasions, to his intimate disciples, and finally to a considerable body of people as he took his earthly leave of them.
According to accepted reckoning, all this happened more than nineteen hundred years ago, but that simple account, widely spread, and accredited by millions, has persisted without interruption down through all the intervening centuries. Today, betokening the depth of its penetration into the pattern of their lives and the far-flung extent of its dominion, people, over that whole broad section of this earth comprising what is called the Christian world, will flock in multitudes to their churches, or have already done so, to pay homage to him who crowned his earthly ministry of mercy and redemption by triumph over death, giving assurance of the indestructibility of life and its perpetuation beyond the grave for all the race of men. That is the meaning and the message of the empty tomb.
ACHIEVEMENTS OF JESUS THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE
But the story comprehends more than a mere recital of the incident of the resurrection. That, standing alone, likely could not have prevailed over the opposition raised against it. It had to be coupled with the life and works and teachings of him whose body came forth out of the stone-covered, guard-protected sepulchre. Neither would the life alone nor the teachings alone have sufficed. They had to be crowned with the sanction of immortality which came from victory over the grave. All these-the life, the teachings, the death, and resurrection-are inseparably bound up together, into one whole and may not be considered as severable parts.
The integrity of the unified account is enormously fortified by subsequent happenings, for it has profoundly changed the course of the world's history and has been the determining influence that has for long made western man dominant among the peoples of this earth.
Clearly this phenomenal consequence was not attributable to the worldly rank or earthly possession of Jesus. He had neither. I do not, however, wish to dwell upon the humble circumstances of his birth nor the lowly station of his life. All this has been immemorially the subject of eloquent discourse.
I do, though, want to emphasize that the life of Jesus was not lived nor his doctrine propounded among a benighted or naively credulous people. He lived and wrought among, and, following his death, his disciples carried his message to peoples boasting a two-thousand-year-old civilization. The banner of Rome spread out over all the lands whose shores are washed by the waters of the Mediterranean. There were converged the learning of the ancients; the record of the laws and theistic beliefs of Israel with its noble literature and the majestic messages of the Hebrew prophets; the art, literature, poetry, and music of Greece; the fruits of the organizational and governmental genius of Rome. There, in the heart of the world's culture, Christianity was born. That is where, among the peoples who had created that culture, the Church found its early adherents and sent down its firm-bedded roots. There it won its place and got itself accepted as the worship of the majority of the people of the erstwhile persecuting empire and spread itself over all the nations of the western world, stamping them with the very name of Christ. From thenceforth it has influenced and shaped the course of nations, supplying them, to this day, their noblest ideals, their best standards for evaluation of behavior according to which conduct is extolled as being right or condemned as being wrong, introducing the concept of human brotherhood and of the individual worth and dignity of man. History furnishes no parallel to the power and influence of Jesus the Christ. In all the achievements of the nineteen centuries since his death, nothing has been produced to challenge this preeminence. In this marvelous day when study of physical forces has seemed to bring knowledge about them almost to its very pinnacle, there is in all our learning, physical or metaphysical, mystical or philosophical, nothing to grip the hearts of men as they have been gripped by the compelling power of the Man of Galilee. "Whence hath this man his power?".
SPIRITUALITY EMPHASIZED IN THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
In all his teachings Jesus emphasized the supremacy of the spirit. The message he committed to his disciples was a spiritual message, whose power was inherent in itself and not derived from any materialistic source or dependent on the caprice of human favor. That is the secret of its conquest. He came teaching not a mere code of ethics, but a religion.
That is what he commissioned his disciples to spread everywhere. His charge to them was,
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
The reality and directive authority of God, he made the central theme of all his teaching, declaring that he had come from the Father to whom he would return and whose will alone he had come to do. He prayed fervently to the Father and taught his disciples to do so. It was to those who believe in the Father that he promised eternal life. The last words he uttered as he died upon the cross were: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit". Implicit in all this is the doctrine that he lived premortally with God and is his Son. He distinguished man, too, as an eternal being, a child of God, thus bringing him into direct relationship with the Father and the Son. Nothing else so dignifies man or stabilizes him in his behavior once his soul is pierced with that conviction.
That concept, basic in the Christian religion, shaped the thought processes of men and expressed itself not only in their forms of worship but also in the secular affairs of their lives and in the very frameworks of civil governments themselves. It is at the foundation of the whole civilization and culture of the Christian nations of the world.
PRESENT DISORDERED CONDITION OF THE WORLD
How stands that civilization, if we pause to assess it, this Easter day?
It is sick, terrifyingly sick, the whole world is, and everybody knows it. Hate, suspicion, envy, covetousness, and lust for power, stalk the earth, keeping the whole globe in turmoil. Gripped by fear, the nations are congealed with terror. Christian civilization has suffered a tragic moral collapse. No thoughtful person disputes that. But it is very doubtful if we have correctly diagnosed the malady. Rather does it seem that we are toying with symptoms while the root causes of the disease are left to flourish and propagate, administering palliatives instead of cures.
Commonly we attribute our ills to the war. That is an explanation so ready at hand. War is ugly anyway, and the source of so much evil that it is easy to lump onto it the sole responsibility for all our afflictions. But it is clear that the war is not the root cause of our disorders. It is only a symptom, evidence of a basic ailment which produced it. If the war had been the cause, then the cause would have been removed when the fighting stopped, and we should have had only to convalesce from the sickness. That is not what happened. We seem further from peace now than when the battle was raging. The pressure of the conflict had some cohesive, unifying power which is now wanting. Many small nations seem merely to have changed masters, and their lot is not improved. They seem to have lost all immediate prospect for controlling their own destinies. War is rightly recognized as an evil scourge, and there is a feverish desire to prevent its recurrence. But war arises out of antecedent causes, and the only way to prevent it is to remove those causes.
DESTRUCTIVE INFLUENCES AT WORK
The truth of the matter is that our problem is a spiritual problem, and unless that is solved, our civilization is lost. The cure does not lie, as so many fondly believe, entirely in technical and economic reconstruction. I have already said that the civilization of Christendom is founded on belief of God. You will destroy that civilization if you let its basis perish. To live, it needs constant nourishment at the source. The Nazi youth were cut completely off the Christian practices which had been the basis of man's living for centuries. They were trained to deny Christ's teachings; so were the Fascist youth. You know the result, and it was not good. Unfortunately the undermining of Christian faith has not been confined to Nazidom, or to Fascist controlled lands or to Bolshevik revolutionaries. True, the same methods have not been used in most parts of Christendom, but destructive influences have nonetheless been long at work all over the Christian world.
Jesus is reduced from Godhood to the status of a mere moralist, and his teachings from a religion to a code of worthy ideals without binding force. The man-centered humanistic creed by which it is sought to supplant the God-centered Christian religion is thus stated by one high in the realm of educational thought.
The cosmos as a whole, out of which human life emerges, gives no evidence of being, or wishing to be, intelligent. The human spirit is alone in an otherwise nonhuman, nonspiritual universe. Whatever it has, or may ever have of sensitiveness, of wisdom, of generosity, of freedom, of justice, it has made, and will make, for itself
Over against this humanistic atheism I set the confession of a doctor of philosophy, teacher in one of our large universities, who was sent to Germany to record the emotions and reactions of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials. As he went through his experiences there, and after having witnessed the desolation of that ravaged land, he is reported to have said:
I was one of those smart boys who at my university used to ridicule the idea of God and who helped my students mock him. But now as I stand in this place of utter ruin and see the judgment of God which has come upon this city, and this people, and which is crushing these defendants, the leaders of Germany, I am going back to America and cry with the loudest voice I can muster: "It is time that we turn back to God, lest a worse fate befall us."
THE WEAKENED CONDITION OF CHRISTENDOM
It cannot be forgotten that the scourging war, which has just devastated the earth, broke out right in the heart of so-called Christendom. Christian nation destroying Christian nation. The degradation left in its wake, the tragic collapse of morals, the earth-searing desolation spread everywhere, and the tottering of the whole social order among peoples who have forgotten God, should teach us lessons in humility and make us know that puny man, of himself, standing in the midst of this universal wreckage, "is no more capable of saving the world than he was of creating it in the first place."
It is high sounding to deny divinity and to say that man must make for himself whatever he has or may ever have. Men may profess to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher and his doctrines as comprising the best code of ethics the world has known. But his ethical and moral teachings derive their influence over the lives of men out of the majesty of divine authority with which Christ's gospel invested them. There they have their roots. They cannot support a civilization if severed from their nourishing roots any more than the bloom of a flower can be kept after cut from its parent stem. We have been trying to maintain faith in a Christian ethic without faith in the religion that produced it. That cannot be done! True, a civilization and its culture may go on after a fashion after it has lost faith in the power from which it rose, carried on its acquired momentum. But unless it is nourished at the roots, it will ultimately exhaust the surplus on which it draws. You can no more go on drawing indefinitely on moral reserves without replenishment, than you can go on drawing from a bank without keeping the account current by new deposits. For too long now, the civilization of Christendom has been living on the remnants of a discarded faith. Its weakened condition is apparent in the lack of moral direction which characterizes these times. It is the teaching of history that moral decay follows upon the withering of belief of God.
A committee comprising the most prominent clergy of England, after prolonged study, reported:
... a sharp decline in truthfulness, personal honesty, an alarming spread of sexual laxity, and of the gambling fever. Magistrates have expressed their anxiety at the rise of juvenile crime. Schoolteachers complain at the difficulty of impressing upon their young charges the abomination of lying and stealing which they copy from their elders at home.
The sorriest part about it all, is that the most debasing vices are practiced without shame or remorse. But these things, too, are but symptoms of a blighting distemper bedded down deep in the souls of men. The committee found:
Depravity is the sure symptom of spiritual disease. The idea of man as a responsible person is in danger of disappearing with the loss of belief in a Living God.
You have only to read our own press to know that conditions in our country closely parallel those deplored by the English clergy. If you do not think so, read the column in the Los Angeles Times giving the list of crimes for a day in that city.
FAITH OF THE EARLY DISCIPLES OF JESUS
It should be remembered that it was the religion Jesus brought-the gospel-that won over won over Rome against such overwhelming odds. The men whom he picked and left behind to represent him, and whom he commissioned to spread his gospel all over the world were lowly men, without political power or armed might. The only resource they had was the message the Master had left them and bidden them proclaim. They had to fight every step of their way forward against the unleashed fury of the mightiest empire on earth. They believed to the depth of their souls in the truth of what they declared. Their strength was their unyielding faith in the Living God and in the redemptive mission of Jesus the Christ.
Our observances of this Easter day, though we may have thronged to our churches, will be futile unless we come from them refreshed in that faith and strengthened in the will to restore it as the power that can save the world.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 114-122
One hundred years ago today there was held at Winter Quarters near Council Bluffs, Iowa, a conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Easter Sunday was part of that conference if it included Sunday, as it is part of this conference today. Of all groups in the world who profess to believe in Christ, none have more assurance in their hearts of the reality of the resurrection of Christ than did this group who met at Winter Quarters. They could say, as all true members of the Church of Christ today can say, in the words of the salutation of the early Christians, "Christ is risen", and the reply, "He is risen indeed."
The historian Lord Macaulay says that "the people who do not revere the deeds of their ancestors will never do anything to be remembered by their descendants."
PIONEER MIGRATION
Eight days after that conference at Winter Quarters, the first band of Pioneers were encamped on the Elk Horn about fifty miles west from where the Saints had spent the latest winter. The group, as you know, consisted of one hundred forty-three men, three women, and two children. Two of that group were non-members of the Church. Three were colored.
That encampment suggests a picture worthy the skill of your sovereign artists-a band of fewer than one hundred fifty men facing nine hundred miles over an unresponsive, defiant desert and plain. Behind them, stretching from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to the British Isles, were forty thousand people with faith in their hearts in the restored gospel, and an unwavering confidence in the leaders of the Church. And what were those leaders facing? What did they see at the end of their trail? A barren valley on the shores of a great inland sea, a part of the Rocky Mountain territory for which United States Senator McDuffin said he would not for agricultural purposes "give a pinch of snuff." With all those thousands of people headed toward an uninhabited desert, try to imagine the magnitude of the responsibility carried by President Young and his associate leaders. Six months after the first advance company had entered the Great Basin there were over two thousand people in and around Great Salt Lake City; and in May 1848, that number was more than doubled, for President Young in that month having returned to Winter Quarters, led a company of six hundred wagons and approximately two thousand more people.
In the spring of 1848, the pioneers planted about five thousand acres, principally in wheat. Suppose that the hordes of crickets that blackened the sky in the month of May that year had destroyed those crops, the principal if not the only means of subsistence for the people in the valley and for the thousands who were coming. It is conceivable that there might have been a tragedy second only to that which overtook the ill-fated Donner Party. Truly President Young was right when he said he didn't lead the people here. It was God. Even as it was, the harvest was insufficient to supply the wants of the populace. Food was rationed. People dug sego roots, cooked weeds, and even thistles, for subsistence.
These are the pioneers of whom the historian Bancroft writes:
All ties of the past had been sundered. They were so poor that their utmost hope was to secure the merest necessities of life. If ever a dream of anything like comfort or luxury came to them, they made a grave in their hearts for that dream and buried it that it might not longer vex them.
LEGAL OPENING OF THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
On May 1 this year will be the legal opening of the Utah centennial celebrating the advent of these intrepid Pioneers into the valley of the Salt Lake. On that occasion the pioneers now living, who came to Utah prior to the completion of the railroad in 1869, will be given fitting deference.
May I call your attention on this occasion to some of the features planned for the centennial year, a statewide celebration. The complete schedule of events is now printed in our daily papers, but I wish to call your attention to a few this morning that you may get the spirit of it.
In behalf of the governor, the state legislature, and the centennial commission, I take this opportunity to thank the press, the radio stations, and the hundreds of committee members who are all so sincerely and untiringly devoting their efforts to make this centennial year a worthy expression of our gratitude for the rich and honorable heritage left by the Utah pioneers.
Already the Utah symphony orchestra has given twenty-two performances in thirteen cities. To have an orchestra of such excellence visit so many towns in a state at so little expense to the people is undoubtedly an outstanding record in the United States, and possibly in the world. We are glad the people appreciate it. Here is a sample of what they are saying: From the students of the West High School, in Salt Lake City:
We wish to thank the centennial commission. Doctor Lorin Wheelwright, and Werner Janssen, for bringing the Utah symphony orchestra to our school. To us it was an unforgettable experience, and should aid substantially in building an adult audience interested in the finest of music. You have truly awakened in us a desire to hear this orchestra again and again.
And their principal says:
Never in my experience with high school students has an audience of young people been so attentive and courteous to and so appreciative of this type of performance as were the West High School students on this occasion. The success of the experiment proves that high school boys and girls really appreciate things of high quality.
Our higher educational institutions, the University of Utah, Brigham Young University, and the Agricultural College, are giving their respective dramas in approximately fifty-eight different localities, making a total, including Blossom Time, of one hundred eighty-seven appearances.
The traveling art exhibits have been booked for fourteen cities. I am informed by the chairman of the arts division that they will have visited every county in the state with one or more of these events before June 1.
Last Sunday night in this auditorium, the Tabernacle Choir rendered a sacred concert of unequalled excellence. Mr. Max Krone, who is at present director of music at the University of Southern California, and an outstanding authority on music, after hearing it, said, and said truly, "This is the greatest choral organization in the United States." That was the first of a series of eight Sunday evening concerts to be given by our choir.
In the music educators' conference, held in the Tabernacle, Wednesday night, April 3, four hundred students from fifty-two high schools united in song with an orchestra from thirty-two high schools from southern California.
EVENTS AHEAD
Following the tribute to the pioneers the first of May The Message of the Ages will be given in the Tabernacle, continuing until June 5.
Following that, the Young Men's and Young Women's M.I.A. conference and centennial celebration will be held, which promises to be the greatest conference ever conducted by these organizations. July 22, commemorating the entrance into this valley of the advance company, the Sons of the Utah Pioneers will complete a trek from Nauvoo to Salt Lake.
July 23, a pageant in the form of a cavalcade, telling the story of Utah from its first explorations through one hundred years, including a glimpse of the future, will be staged here.
On the morning of July 24, dedicatory services of "This is the Place" monument will be held at the mouth of Emigration canyon. On this occasion there will probably be assembled two thousand band performers from the schools of Utah to participate with the Boy Scouts in their parades of youth.
July 24th there will be pageants in Ogden, Logan, Salt Lake City. There will be encamped on Fort Douglas grounds five thousand or more Boy Scouts, perhaps the largest encampment of its kind ever held in the country.
An historical cavalcade will be held at Brigham Young University, July 4 and 5.
One hundred years of American painting will be opened at the Capitol, July 15 to August 30, and it is hoped that acceptance exercises will be held near October at which will be exhibited the marble statue of President Brigham Young, which is to take its place in the Statue Hall at Washington, D.C.
The conference of governors of the United States will be held here July 13 to 16.
As a fitting climax, there will be given in the University stadium, the opera pageant, "The Promised Valley," depicting through song and pageantry the history of the pioneers as told or experienced in the imagination of the author and musician through the people who made the trek.
Members of the state fair board, in cooperation with the centennial commission, are preparing the greatest exposition in the history of the state in which agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, mining industry will all be given due recognition.
In the field of athletics champions from Switzerland, France, Sweden, and Canada have already thrilled thousands in the centennial ski tournament. Fifteen other events are on the program. I shall not take time to narrate them.
Officials in every county with the possible exception of one county, are uniting wholeheartedly in making this statewide celebration such as will do honor to those who participate and be a worthy tribute to the heroic men and women who have left us such a rich heritage. To this end music, drama, art, pageantry, athletics will all combine to interest, instruct, and inspire young and old. In every important town from Cache valley on the north to St. George and Kanab on the south, from Vernal on the east to the Salt Flats on the west, there will be appropriate dignified events commemorative of the accomplishments of these pioneer builders of this western commonwealth.
Neighboring states are contributing to this celebration and even asking the privilege to make monetary contributions. Worship, education, music, drama, recreation, art were all fostered in our early history by the pioneers, and we do well in paying honor to them to emphasize these phases of culture and progress.
Well, I've given you just this glimpse of what the hundreds of men and women on the centennial committees are doing to make the year '47 memorable in tribute to the past achievements and inspirational to us for future accomplishments.
HIGHEST HONOR SHOWN EMULATING IDEALS
But the best way to honor the pioneers is to emulate and make practical in our lives the ideals and virtues that strengthened and animated their lives. These eternal ideals and principles which they fostered and upheld, even under the most adverse conditions, are as applicable today as they were when emphasized by the pioneer leaders.
I should like to take time this morning to refer to only a few. As I name them, will you please mentally point out their applicability to present world conditions?
Foremost was their outstanding faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his restored gospel. The very first instruction given when they began their journey across the plains was that they should pray morning and night and keep holy the Sabbath day. When they arrived here in the valley, to quote the words of President Young, they prayed:
... over the land and dedicated it and the water, air, and everything pertaining to them unto the Lord, and the smiles of heaven rested upon the land and it became productive.
Among the outstanding virtues of the pioneers were industry and thrift. They condemned idleness and wastefulness as not being in accordance with the rules of heaven. Said President Young:
My experience has taught me, and it has become a principle with me, that it is never any benefit to give out and out to men or women, money, food, clothing, or anything else if they are able-bodied, and can work and earn what they need when there is anything on earth for them to do. This is my principle, and I try to act upon it. To pursue a contrary course would ruin any community in the world and make them idlers... To give to the idler is as wicked as anything else.
CAPITAL AND LABOR
I have here notes on their ideas of capital and labor. Elder Widtsoe has already called our attention to this ideal, and I'll pass it without further comment except this added quotation:
Labor builds our meetinghouses, temples, courthouses, fine halls for music, and fine schoolhouses; it is labor that teaches our children, and makes them acquainted with the various branches of education, that makes them proficient in their own language and other languages, and in every branch of knowledge understood by the children of men; and all this enhances the wealth and the glory and the comfort of any people on earth.
Then President Young admonishes his people to join with what he calls the capitalists. He says:
I am acquainted with a good many of them, and as far as I know them, I do not know but every man is an honorable man... Work with them, receive your wages and then use them to build up the kingdom of God.
Of home life: To the pioneers marriage was ordained of God. It was not something which should be entered into lightly, terminated at pleasure, or ended at the first difficulty that might arise. They taught that the marriage bond should be as eternal as love, the most divine attribute of the human soul. Most surely, then, that bond should continue as long as love is an attribute of the spirit. Said the President:
Let every man in the land over eighteen years of age take a wife, and then go to work with your hands and cultivate the earth or labor at some mechanical business, or some honest trade to provide an honest living for yourselves and those who depend upon you for their subsistence, observing temperance and loving truth and virtue. Then would the women be cared for, be nourished and honored and blessed, becoming honorable mothers of a race of men and women farther advanced in physical and mental perfection than their fathers. This would create a revolution in our country, and would produce results that would be of incalculable good.
He further admonished:
Strive to make your little home attractive. Use lime freely, and let your houses nestle beneath the cool shade of trees, and be made fragrant with perfume of flowers.
One way, then, truly to pay tribute to these builders of the west is to clean up, fix up and paint up our own homes.
CHASTITY AND VIRTUE
What was their idea regarding chastity and virtue? As fundamental to domestic happiness and social uplift they cherished these ideals. Said President Young on one occasion:
Any man who humbles a daughter of Eve to rob her of her virtue and cast her off dishonored and defiled, is her destroyer and is responsible to God for the deed. If the refined Christian society of the nineteenth century will tolerate such a crime, God will not, but he will call the perpetrator to account. He will be damned; in hell he will lift Up his eyes, being in torment, until he has paid the uttermost farthing, and made full atonement for his sins. The defiler of the innocent is the one who should be branded with infamy and cast out from respectable society and shunned as a pest or as a contagious disease is shunned. The doors of respectable families should be closed against him, and he should be frowned upon by all high-minded and virtuous persons. Wealth, influence, and position should not screen him from their righteous indignation. His sin is one of the blackest in the calendar of crime, and he should be cast down from the high pinnacle of respectability and consideration to find his place among the worst of felons.
BIRTH CONTROL CONDEMNED
Those pioneers condemned the artificial means of limiting the number of children in the family, a growing evil, not only throughout the United States but also here in our own settlements. Said the great leader:
To check the increase of our race has its advocates among the influential and powerful circles of society in our nation and in other nations. The unnatural style of living, the extensive use of narcotics, the attempts to destroy and dry up the fountains of life are fast destroying the American element of the nation.
Regarding self-control, the pioneers voiced the teachings of the Church on this principle:
Let each person be determined, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to overcome every besetment-to be the master of himself, that the spirit God has put in your tabernacles shall rule; then you can converse, live, labor, go here or there, do this or that, and converse and deal with your brethren as you ought.
You cannot inherit eternal life, unless your appetites are brought in subjection to the spirit that lives within you, the spirit which our Father in heaven gave. I mean the Father of your spirits, of those spirits which he has put into these tabernacles. The tabernacle must be brought into subjection to the spirit perfectly, or your bodies cannot be raised to inherit eternal life; if they do come forth, they must dwell in a lower kingdom. Seek diligently, until you bring all in subjection to the law of Christ.
We often hear people excuse themselves for their uncouth manners and offensive language by remarking, "I am no hypocrite," thus taking to themselves credit for that which is really no credit to them. When evil arises within me let me throw a cloak over it, subdue it instead of acting it out upon the false presumption that I am honest and no hypocrite. Let not thy tongue give utterance to the evil that is in thine heart, but command thy tongue to be silent until good shall prevail over the evil until thy wrath has passed away and the good spirit shall move thy tongue to blessings and words of kindness. When my feelings are aroused to anger by the ill doings of others, I hold them as I would hold a wild horse, and I gain the victory. Some think and say that it makes them feel better when they are mad, as they call it, to give vent to their madness in abusive and unbecoming language. This, however, is a mistake. Instead of its making you feel better, it is making bad worse. When you think and say it makes you better, you give credit to a falsehood. When the wrath and bitterness of the human heart are molded into words and hurled with violence at one another, without any check or hindrance, the fire has no sooner expended itself than it is again rekindled through some trifling course, until the course of nature is set on fire.
SLANDER AND BACKBITING
On slander, already mentioned by the President of the Twelve, George F. Richards, the pioneers held this:
Some are in the habit of talking about their neighbors, of vending stories they know nothing about, only that Aunt Sally said that Cousin Fanny told Aunt Betsy that old Aunt Ruth said something or other, or somebody had a dream; and by the time the story or dream reaches you, it has assumed the semblance of a fact, and you are very foolishly spending your time in talking about things that amount to nothing, or that you have no concern with. A report is started that such a one has done wrong and by the time is has gone its rounds, has become anointed with the salve of the backbiter and talebearer-become endowed with their spirit.... When you know what right is and are capable of correcting a person that is wrong, then it is time enough for you to judge.
PROFANITY
In this connection they condemned profanity.
If any are in the habit of taking the name of God in vain, cease doing so today, tomorrow, and throughout the coming week, and so continue, and you will soon gain strength to overcome the habit entirely; you will gain power over your words.
So taught the father of our country, George Washington, who said to his soldiers on one occasion:
The general is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice heretofore little known in an American army, is growing in fashion. He hopes the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessings of heaven on our arms if we insult it by our impiety and folly. Added to this, profanity is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.
SERVICE
The pioneers helped each other in adversity, shared with the hungry the last loaf of bread, gave their time and means for the upbuilding of the community and on not a few occasions offered their lives for the truth. That is service.
Thus they exemplified in their teachings the two great commandments, love the Lord thy God with all thy might, mind, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. Truly they followed the example of the Prophet Joseph, who, as we have already heard today, was ever an inspiration to the great leader of the Mormon pioneers. "If my life is of no value to my friends, it is of no value to me."
Truly, in this centennial celebration, we can re-echo the words of the great composer, Evan Stephens:
Zion's children sing for joy. Praise the great and guiding hand That led you to the chosen land, Oh, dauntless pioneers!
Sing His praise who made you free In the land of liberty, Thank the Lord, who raised a band Of noble pioneers.
Zion's children, shout for joy, Make the hills and valleys ring. Great the theme the song ye sing, Immortal pioneers.
God give us the power to perpetuate their faith and ideals, and thus help make their lives and deeds an everlasting blessing I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Levi Edgar Young
Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 122-124
My brethren and sisters: This is a day of grace, a day that brings to our minds the life of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and the lives of noble men and women who have made the world better and brought to civilization a knowledge that God lives and Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world.
CHRIST'S RESURRECTION A TESTIMONY FOR ALL LIVING
I wish to read what thousands of people are reading and thinking today. Thousands of men in the service of their country who are in Europe and in far-off Asia, are marching according to orders to the cemeteries, where white crosses bear testimony of the many who have given their lives for God and country. As they pass through the portals to the cemeteries, they read certain sentences written in gold. They are taken from the last chapter of Mark:
And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.
And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.
And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?
And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great.
And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.
And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he is risen; he is not here:...
But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.
Mary and those other women who had gone to the sepulchre left and went down the highway, knowing in their hearts that Jesus had risen, and it was only a short time before he assured his disciples that as he had risen, so shall the children of God also rise from the tomb.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR MISSIONARY WORK
This is a day of grace; it is grace unto us because it is divine knowledge that we have. You brethren who hold the priesthood, you seventies, who are responsible for giving to the world the message of Christ our Lord, must go forth as never before with your souls ringing with testimony. All of us bearing this Holy Priesthood must awaken to this great cause of truth. Live righteously because it is right, and do the things that we have been admonished to do, in this conference of the Lord. We must remember, brother seventies, that as Jesus of Nazareth, after his crucifixion, sent his disciples into the world to preach the gospel, so he is sending his disciples today into the world, and they will be heard.
It is wise and good for us to remember that the Sermon on the Mount undoubtedly was an ordination message. The Twelve and the Seventies were sent in the very early life of the Savior into different parts of Palestine. They were to teach the people, and you will note from this, that the word "seventy" is a very divine word. It is sacred; it literally means "universal" and comes from one of the oldest words of one of the oldest languages of ancient times.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
Think how our attention has been called to the Prophet Joseph Smith, President Brigham Young, and all the pioneers, who were looking to the future when the gospel was restored and the priesthood of God given to them. They were told to look to the future because they had to go forth and bear the power of their priesthood. Think of how they knew-the vision they had! We are seated today in a building which is now the largest symphony hall in America, possibly in all the world. The great symphonies of the world will come here and play to the world. Great music has already been given. It is only recently that one of the noted architects of America found here what he called an example of the old Greek classical art; he saw the beauty of these columns, these long graceful columns, holding this gallery up. How the pioneers built for the future is a glorious story.
Not long ago a new course of study was inaugurated at St. John's College in Maryland, a system of academic work which the educators of America said was one of the most forward looking things in the academic world. Students were to enter that college and read the masters of history, the masters of literature. Before the people started west from Nauvoo, a library was to be built by the seventies, and President Joseph Young inaugurating it through the permission and the blessing of the Prophet Joseph Smith, announced that, "There shall be erected in the city of Nauvoo a library where the learned may come and read the great literature of the world."
In 1850, President Brigham Young again had in mind the building of a great library, and Truman O. Angell became the architect of it. He drew plans for one of the most beautiful buildings to be erected on the western frontier which should house a large collection of books for the use of the seventies.
They were looking to the future, to preach the gospel. My brethren, we must keep in mind always that we must become students of world history. Think of what has already been said from this pulpit concerning the pioneers, and I leave you this angle of thought which has already been expressed. It is now known that the five great institutions of civilization, that came from the very beginning of man's history upon the earth, have been perpetuated up to the present time. They were perpetuated in this state by the pioneers, and they lie at the root of our civilization. They are first, industry based on agriculture; second, the home; third, the state; fourth, the public school system; and fifth, the church.
Paul, the Apostle, was a seventy and a graduate of the University of Tarsus. So were Barnabus, and the evangelist Luke. They fostered these institutions, and we are to perpetuate them. We are to live by them, and hold them sacredly as we work our way through life.
My brother seventies, and all the priesthood, may we dedicate our lives as never before to the perpetuation of this great work, and always know that it is art, knowledge, and religion that bring spirituality, and it is the spiritual forces that will save the world.
God bless us. May we understand and see as never before, I ask, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Marion G. Romney
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 124-129
Brothers and sisters, you would think, if you could test my blood pressure and feel my heartbeat, that what I am going to say is the only thing that counts in this conference. I am under no illusions on that score, however, but I would like to have what I say be in harmony with the spirit of this great occasion, and I would like to have your faith and prayers while I stand here.
THE CHURCH A LIGHT TO THE WORLD
A great deal has been said in this conference already about the welfare program and about the pioneers. I have not been able to get my thoughts off these two great subjects, and so I think I shall talk about them both.
This entire centennial year we are appropriately dedicating to the honor and memory of our pioneer fathers who a century ago arrived in these mountain valleys after a long and tedious journey. Truly, they played well their important role in the great pioneering drama of this last dispensation.
But that drama did not begin or end with the taming of the wilderness and the subjugation of the desert, for the Church is commissioned to hold up a light to the world and a standard for its members in all things pertaining to righteous living and the eternal welfare of men. The Lord made this abundantly clear in March 1831, when he said:
... I have sent mine everlasting covenant into the world, to be a light to the world, and to be a standard for my people, and for the Gentiles to seek to it, and to be a messenger before my face to prepare the way before me.
The everlasting covenant spoken of in this revelation is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the keys of the gospel have been committed to the Church. Continuous pioneering-going before and preparing the way for others to follow-is therefore the inescapable responsibility of the Church. Its over-all pioneering assignment, as the revelation states, is to prepare the way for the second advent of the Redeemer.
PIONEERING CONTINUOUS
Much pioneering was done before the Saints crossed the plains; and a beginning was made even before the Church was organized, for a flood of new light and knowledge burst upon the world in the Prophet's first vision, before which the narrow frontiers of sectarian ignorance fell back in hopeless rout. Surely, the Prophet Joseph Smith was a mighty pioneer in obtaining a knowledge of God and of religious truth. The Church has been a pioneer in many other fields, particularly in health and education.
To some extent the pioneering movements of the Church have followed a common pattern. Usually a present need has been felt, to meet which divine guidance has been sought and received, and always the solution has struck at the fundamental issues of the problem involved, so that in the process not only has the immediate need been met, but the building of the kingdom of God has also been advanced.
Since pioneering is a continuous responsibility of the Church, we Latter-day Saints of today, if we are true to our heritage and professions, must also be pioneers, and I believe that we are. We heard here Friday in the welfare section of the annual report, something of what has been accomplished during the last ten years and of what is now being done in Church welfare. After thinking of these activities in connection with the pioneer movements of the Church, I am persuaded that the Church today is meeting its pioneering responsibility through its welfare program, and I believe that if we carry it forward to its full possibilities, we shall accomplish a pioneer task in our day and time equal to the one accomplished by the pioneers of 1847.
THE MEANING OF THE WELFARE PROGRAM
I believe, as President Clark has said, that through the welfare program the Church is attempting to abide by the second commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"; that the Lord tried to bring his people to this condition through the United Order but was unable to do so and had to take the United Order from us; that the records will show that the reason was the selfishness and greed of the people; that had the people lived the United Order, we could have had a millennium then, a hundred years ago; that if we do not go forward with the welfare program and live it now, it will be because of our selfishness and greed, and the Lord will take the program away from us; and that in such case the members of the Church a hundred years from now will look back upon our day with the realization of the fact that we could have brought in a millennium if we had but lived this law. When we live it, then only will swords be beat into plowshares and that day of peace arrive. President Grant characterized it as
... one of the greatest and most important things the Church has ever undertaken to put over.
The development of the welfare program has followed the usual pattern. In the first place, it emerged under its present name out of a pressing current need. There has been some criticism of it on this point, as if the function of the Church was not to deal with problems of the day. But how can it be a light to the world if it does not deal with the problems which plague the world?
The Church was dealing with a present problem when it undertook the great westward trek a century ago. The Prophet Joseph was dealing with a current question when he received his first vision, for others in the community in which he lived, as well as he, wondered which of the contending sects had the truth. It was not the nature of the problem but what was done about it, which set the Prophet apart from his fellows and marked him as a pioneer.
In the second place, the welfare plan was inspired by the Lord and is divinely led. President Grant, the prophet through whom the Lord established it under its present name, so considered it. President George Albert Smith has referred to it as the "Lord's great welfare program." President Clark, President McKay, and Elder Harold B. Lee of the Council of the Twelve, all men who stood close to President Grant in the early days of this program, have testified that it was inspired of the Lord, as have others of these men whom we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators. Of course, acceptance of it as being of divine origin has not been universal. No truth was ever so accepted when first revealed.
APPRECIATION EXPRESSED FOR WELFARE WORKERS
I call to mind a visit from a venerable brother who came to my office some three years ago to protest what some of the brethren had said about Church welfare. In the course of the conversation he said he had emigrated to Utah during the administration of President Wilford Woodruff because that prophet of the Lord had advised it. He thought President Woodruff spoke by the inspiration of God. He also thought that President Snow and President Joseph F. Smith so spoke. I asked him if he thought President Grant, who was, at the time of our conversation, the President of the Church, spoke by the inspiration of the Lord, and he said, "I think he ought to keep his mouth shut about welfare questions."
It is not so difficult to profess acceptance of the dead prophets. The real test comes on the acceptance of what the living ones say, for that requires absolute sincerity and the courage of one's convictions.
And right here, lest I forget it, let me parenthetically pass along to you, my brethren and sisters, who by the tens of thousands have heard the voice of the Lord in the welfare program and have accepted it and are carrying on as true pioneers, my tribute. I express to you my sincere appreciation.
In this connection, I have record of 3,088 people who deserve special mention. On the strength of their belief that the welfare program is the Lord's plan, 1,729 of them have discontinued and 1,359 of them have refrained from accepting public relief, all against a tremendous public and private pressure to take it. From a bishop's letter to me of January 28, 1947, I quote the following:
A check of the ward records shows me that there have been thirty-five people who have either stopped taking the old age pension or have refused it since the plan's inception. There are also six other families who have accepted the Church program, each of them being eligible for more than a hundred dollars a month of government money. Of the forty-one mentioned, who have refused government aid or dole, we are helping only ten. Only one receives all her sustenance; all are working except one, who is our present problem. All forty-one have received some help. I sincerely believe that the support received by these people which has meant the most, is moral support. These fine people have accepted the Church guarantee of help, and while leaning on that promise, have gone ahead on their own resources very largely, and are living happy, useful lives.
Financially, we have had to ask for approximately three hundred dollars from the stake and the Presiding Bishopric during the past year, but since we have had three funerals from among the group and severe sickness, we still feel good about it. If our people were to pay an honest fast offering, we should have had hundreds to spare.
The import of the figures given in this letter is tremendous. Of forty-one persons who were receiving public relief, thirty-one of them are now self-sustaining. Only one of the remaining ten needs to be wholly supported. From the resources of this one ward in fast offerings and welfare contributions and through the welfare storehouse, plus just three hundred dollars from some other ward's fast offerings, the public welfare funds are being saved $2,175.00 a month, or $26,100 a year. You yourself may compute what it would mean by way of a saving from public welfare funds if every ward and stake in the Church made the welfare program function fully. Here indeed is a practical demonstration of the inspiration of the plan.
I doubt not but that thousands of you who are within the sound of my voice can bear truthful witness from your own experiences that the program is divinely led, and I testify that all the rest of you can have that witness for yourselves if you will follow the admonition given by Moroni with respect to the Book of Mormon.
And although it neither adds to nor detracts from the divine origin of the plan, it is a common experience, while showing visitors through Welfare Square, to hear them express surprise, if not actual amazement, at the program and its accomplishments, and to hear them express their conclusions that nothing short of a religious motive and a great spiritual faith could induce people to carry on such an endeavor.
As it does in other things, the Church through its welfare program strikes at the fundamental issues underlying the problems to be solved, for the Church is never an opportunist. It does not deal in half measures. To solve the liquor and tobacco evils, it teaches Church members to abstain from the use of liquor and tobacco. The solution of the Church to social disease is chastity and virtue. To eliminate war, the Church would substitute for hate in the hearts of men, and for force, love and meekness.
The Church does likewise in its welfare program. It affords an opportunity for its members, while receiving the help they need, to preserve and develop within themselves through self-effort, those pioneer virtues of industry and thrift which are the priceless possessions of every self-respecting person and which are indispensable to man's eternal progression. In this way the Church would conquer idleness and indolence and exalt the poor, saving them from the awful degradation of the temporal political and spiritual bondage into which the panaceas of the world, which neglect the development of these fundamental virtues, inevitably lead.
To finance its welfare plan, the Church accepts the free will offerings and consecrations in cash and services of God-fearing people, who are voluntarily seeking to subscribe to the Master's admonition to love one's neighbor as oneself.
FAITH NECESSARY TO CARRY FORWARD THE WORK OF THE CHURCH
Thus the Church, through its welfare program, is not only meeting the immediate problem of supplying the necessities of life for its members, administering to them according to their need, but also at the same time it is building the kingdom of God by pioneering a way in which all men, rich and poor alike, may be brought together as one in love and unity. Certainly, the Church in this work is going before and preparing a way for others to follow. It is holding up a light to the world, a standard for its members and for the Gentiles to seek to attain.
And there are among the Gentiles those who are seeking such a light, and some have caught a glimpse of it. Recently an industrialist who has come to Utah to establish a manufacturing industry, told me that the thing which first attracted him to Utah was the statement of President Grant in the middle thirties calling upon Church members to avoid the curse of idleness, eschew the dole, give a full day's work for a day's pay, and preserve in their living the pioneer virtues of industry, thrift, and self-respect. He said that those statements sounded to him like a rallying call of a great leader in a disintegrating civilization. Such was his reaction to the battle cry of God's living prophet.
Now, my brothers and sisters, how far shall we go in this modern pioneering work? Shall we succeed? The answer to these questions depends upon how much faith and courage you and I have. You will recall that at the time President Grant characterized it as "one of the greatest and most important things the Church has ever undertaken to put over," he added: "And it will be put over because we have the ability and the power to do it."
For my single self, I am persuaded from all I see and hear in the world of today, and such inspiration as I enjoy bears to me the same witness, that a continuation of our way of life is contingent upon a triumph in the lives of men of the principles of thought and action implemented by the welfare plan. I feel no doubt about the ultimate outcome. To me the unknowns in the equation are the time it will take and how much suffering will be required to bring us to obedience. For the Lord has said his "... people must needs be chastened until they learn obedience" to these principles, "if it must needs be, by the things which they suffer".
He also makes it clear that this obedience must come as a prerequisite to the redemption of Zion. And none of us doubts that Zion will be redeemed. It is therefore abundantly clear that the Church, through its welfare plan, is pursuing its over-all pioneering assignment of being a messenger before the face of the Lord, preparing the way for his glorious coming. God grant that we shall not falter. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Oscar A. Kirkham
Oscar A. Kirkham, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 130-132
I humbly pray that the spirit of the Lord will be with me that I may be blessed as I fill this serious task.
I rejoice this happy morning to know that people have been trailing for hours up the mountainside of Mt. Tamalpais and Mt. Rubideaux and many other places for Easter services. Yes, all across America crosses have been raised and people have done or are going to renew their faith in the Lord that fear may leave their hearts and that joy may enter there.
I am happy that America is a Christian country although we hear much about its sin and misgivings.
THE SPIRIT OF EASTER BRINGS REJOICING
I hope and pray that this happy Easter morning into the heart of General George C. Marshall, our Secretary of State, will come a renewed faith in God. I hope that he will have the courage of a great pioneer in a new world to hold fast to what he said last week: When Germany's problem is solved, it will be of the people and by the people and for the people. These are not his exact words, but what he said were the words of a man representing a free people.
I rejoice in the spirit of Easter. It was faith that rolled back the stone to let the Savior come into the garden. It is faith that will roll back the stone across the path of the human race and let the spirit of the Son of Man come again. Fear will vanish as we cultivate faith in our hearts and lives.
I rejoice in the glorious centennial celebration that is before us. May I say there are other pioneer bands standing now on eastern hills that overlook this valley and a thousand others. It is the youth of America, and they are ready to go forward into the valley of their dreams and do great and good things. May we, the leadership of this Church, have faith in them and give them the opportunity to come forward with their glorious faith and strength. They are waiting for it. They are anxious for the responsibility of it.
AN INCIDENT AT THE TEMPLE AT MESA
Two years ago at the temple at Mesa, Arizona, I was with about a thousand of our young people. From the temple wall we had a glorious Easter morning service. The orchestra played; the chorus sang; it was lovely; and then I walked around the temple wall. As I passed one corner, I saw over behind a tall pine tree a young man embracing a young lady and kissing her. It was one of those embarrassing things that we sometimes see in life, and yet we confess we are somewhat interested. I started hurriedly to go away, and the young man motioned to me to come. I went over to him, and he said, "Brother Kirkham, we are not at all ashamed of what you saw. I just asked this young lady to be my wife, and when you looked, she had said, 'Yes,' and I was sealing the bargain." "Well," I said, "I hope you are coming back here again." "Yes," he said, "that was part of what we had talked about."
Back to the temple of God! Yes, that was the desire of their hearts. Let us have more faith in them, not fear, but faith in them.
THE CENTENNIAL A YEAR OF MISSIONARY OPPORTUNITY
I have looked forward to the happy day that is now here-our centennial celebration. I love a parade. I love to hear a band playing. I love to see banners flying. I love to see great monuments unveiled. These are lovely things to see and hear. When I was in Mexico City recently and stood on the crowded streets watching the parade when President Aleman was made president of that great republic, there were many things going on in the streets; but the great things were happening on the sidewalk. I did not see Mexico as the military units went by displaying their pride, but around and about me on the sidewalk was the real story of Mexico; and so it will be with us. The people that come will be listening to the story on the sidewalk as well as enjoying what they see in parade. This is a great year of missionary service for us-a great year for the pioneer spirit. I saw it in my mind's eye yesterday, so beautifully exemplified when President Smith, at our great priesthood meeting last night, told the Boy Scout that had given his seat to an adult, "Now you may come up and sit with us." Yes, that was the spirit of his father and his grandfather. He was only carrying on. No spoken words were more glorious than that.
When President Clark made the appeal again, as he has done before, to "be one", I saw a united band coming into this valley. They were one.
President McKay last night after the priesthood meeting called together the bishops and the presidents of stakes of some of these near-by stakes. He was recruiting for our great pageant to be held in this tabernacle. It has been difficult to get men, but it wasn't difficult when President McKay stood before them recruiting two hundred that will participate. Every hand went up when the people heard the voice of the president. I thought I saw Brigham Young recruiting the Mormon Battalion.
When our friends come to our homes as President Smith said, "Open your doors in hospitality." They will forget much of the glamour of the street and the highways, but they will see the pioneers in what we do.
May there be children there to play with them. May there be family prayer held unafraid. Let the children pray. When they lift the photo from the mantle and say, "Does this happen to be your son?" may you have the high privilege of saying, "Yes, he's our ambassador. He's out in the world preaching the gospel." Then when they leave your home, the memory of these things will linger with them when all else is forgotten.
God help us to remember that this is a missionary year; and in honoring those that went before, we shall courageously and with faith-destroying fear give to these visitors the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ by our humble living, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph F. Merrill
Joseph F. Merrill, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 132-137
Brethren and sisters, listeners here and elsewhere:
JOSEPH SMITH'S FIRST VISION
Mormonism, as the world generally calls the religious faith taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is noted for many characteristic teachings, one of which is that Joseph Smith was divinely called, beginning with a most wonderful and glorious vision. Relative to this matter a basic and fundamental question that every member of the Church may rightfully ask, as well as every honest investigator, is "Did Joseph Smith really see God?"
As I view it, this is perhaps the most natural and logical question that can be asked concerning the origin of Mormonism. It is one that might well challenge the attention of every person who believes in God and in life beyond the grave, whether he is a Mormon or non-Mormon.
All informed Latter-day Saints know the story of the first vision as related by Joseph Smith. He was a member of a sincerely religious family but belonged to no church. Though he was only fourteen years old at the time, this fact of non-church membership worried him. As a means of helping him to solve his problem, he read the Bible with deep interest, for he wanted to know which of the contending churches was the right one to join. He therefore resolved to heed the injunction of James and so went into the woods and prayed that God would give him wisdom that he might know what to do. In answer to the boy's simple prayer, he related that he was enveloped in a pillar of brilliant light which descended from above. Looking up he beheld two personages standing above him whose brightness and glory defied all description. One of them, calling him by name and pointing to the other said, 'This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!" and then Joseph heard the voice of Jesus Christ, the Son, and received instructions from him.
Thus, according to his story, Joseph Smith, the fourteen-year-old lad, saw the Father and the Son and heard their voices. So far as the records indicate, this was the most glorious vision ever given to mortal man. Never before had both Father and Son appeared simultaneously to any mortal man. I have called your attention to Joseph's story because of its extreme importance to our faith-to Mormonism, which we testify is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. So I ask again, did Joseph Smith really and in fact see God? I believe all of us can profit by asking ourselves this question, occasionally at least. The correct answer can be stimulating and satisfying to us.
THE VISION GAVE EVIDENCE OF A PERSONAL GOD
The implications of the affirmative answer are tremendously significant. Through misunderstanding and wrong interpretations the world had lost the correct conception of the image and personality of God. To restore the truth, a new revelation was imperative. Though from the beginning to its end, the Bible, as we understand it, teaches that God is a personal being in whose image we are made, and that the Father and the Son are two separate and distinct personalities, alike in image and attributes, yet the modern world, through ignorance and lack of understanding, denies these fundamental truths. And so important are these truths to a satisfying faith that, I think, they are absolutely basic. Without any concrete conception of the image of God, how can one develop the necessary faith of the kind that the Apostle James asserts is needed to get an answer to prayer. Yes, God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, are personal beings in whose image man himself is made, so declared Joseph Smith. Hence in this sense we do believe in an anthropomorphic God and take great satisfaction in this belief.
TRUTHFULNESS OF JOSEPH SMITH'S CLAIMS
In addition to seeing the Father and the Son, Joseph also claimed he was visited, in his eighteenth year, by the Angel Moroni who among other things told him that his "... name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people". This was a very daring and reckless statement for Joseph to make, unless in very truth it was spoken to him by a divine messenger; for Joseph was then only seventeen years of age, a very poor and unschooled lad, living in a frontier village. Humanly speaking, there were no discernible prospects that he would ever be known beyond the limits of his own backwoods area.
Now, what evidence can we present of the truthfulness of Joseph Smith's claims, one might ask. Such a question is both natural and reasonable. My time in this meeting will permit of indicating only a few of the highlights relative to the man, his teachings, and his works. In his great Sermon on the Mount, Jesus emphasized the principle that a tree is judged by its fruits. Can there be a more fair, just, and satisfactory basis of judgment than this? All followers of the Prophet will ask for no other.
JOSEPH SMITH'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Then as to the man: He was born of worthy parents who lived in humble circumstances in one of the rural areas of Vermont. When Joseph was ten years old, the family moved to the frontiers of western New York where it continued by dint of frugality and hard work to earn a very modest livelihood. Joseph grew to manhood denied most of the opportunities for even a common school education, his school training therefore being very limited. Judged by modern standards, he was practically uneducated and untrained for leadership in any sphere of intellectual endeavor. Thus handicapped in the eyes of the world, is it any wonder that he was rejected by people generally and his stories regarded as the product of a wild and foolish imagination?
But notwithstanding all the severely handicapping conditions from an economic and educational point of view, what did Joseph Smith become? Let me make a few quotes. First from John Henry Evans' book entitled, Joseph Smith, An American Prophet, we read:
Here is a man who was born in the stark hills of Vermont; who was reared in the backwoods of New York; who never looked inside a college or high school; who lived in six States, no one of which would own him during his lifetime; who spent months in the vile prisons of the period; who, even when he had his freedom, was hounded like a fugitive; who was covered once with a coat of tar and feathers, and left for dead; who, with his following, was driven by irate neighbors from New York to Ohio, from Ohio to Missouri, and from Missouri to Illinois; and who, at the unripe age of thirty-eight, was shot to death by a mob with painted faces.
Yet this man became mayor of the biggest town in Illinois and the state's most prominent citizen, the commander of the largest body of trained soldiers in the nation outside of the Federal army, the founder of cities and of a university, and aspired to become President of the United States.
He wrote a book which has baffled the literary critics for a hundred years and which is today more widely read than any other volume save the Bible. On the threshold of an organizing age he established the most nearly perfect social mechanism in the modern world, and developed a religious philosophy that challenges anything of the kind in history, for completeness and cohesion. And he set up the machinery for an economic system that would take the brood of fears out of the heart of man-the fear of want through sickness, old age, unemployment, and poverty.
In thirty nations are men and women who look upon him as a Greater leader than Moses and a Greater prophet than Isaiah; his disciples now number close to a million; and already two granite shafts pierce the sky, one over the place where he was born, and the other over the place where he received the inspiration for his Book.
JOSIAH QUINCY'S OPINION
Further, you may be interested to hear what a nationally-known writer and publicist and once mayor of Boston, Josiah Quincy, wrote about Joseph Smith. In May 1844, Mr. Quincy and his cultured friend, Charles Francis Adams, son and grandson, respectively, of two United States Presidents, happened to make a two-day visit to Nauvoo. Being well-known, prominent men they were entertained at the Mansion House, Joseph Smith's residence. An account of this visit is given by Mr. Quincy, in the last chapter of his book entitled Figures of the Past, published in 1880. I quote the following from this twenty-four page chapter:
It is by no means improbable that some future textbook for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this: What historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destinies of his countrymen? And it is by no means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may be thus written: Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet. And the reply, absurd as it doubtless seems to most men now living, may be an obvious commonplace to their descendants. History deals in surprises and paradoxes quite as startling as this. The man who established a religion in this age of free debate, who was and is today accepted by hundreds of thousands as a direct emissary from the Most High,-such a rare human being is not to be disposed of by pelting his memory with unsavory epithets. Fanatic, imposter, charlatan, he may have been; but these hard names furnish no solution to the problem he presents to us. Fanatics and impostors are living and dying every day, and their memory is buried with them; but the wonderful influence which this founder of a religion exerted and still exerts throws him into relief before us, not as a rogue to be criminated, but as a phenomenon to be explained. The most vital questions Americans are asking each other today have to do with this man and what he has left us ... Joseph Smith claiming to be an inspired teacher, faced adversity such as few men have been called to meet, enjoyed a brief season of prosperity such as few men have ever attained, and finally, forty-three days after I saw him, went cheerfully to a martyr's death.
Born in the lowest ranks of poverty, without book-learning, and with the homeliest of all human names, he had made himself at the age of thirty-nine a power upon earth. Of the multitudinous family of Smith... none had won human hearts and shaped human lives as this Joseph. His influence, whether for good or evil, is potent today, and the end is not yet.
Mr. Quincy concludes his chapter with these words:
I have endeavored to give the details of my visit to the Mormon prophet absolute accuracy. If the reader does not know just what to make of Joseph Smith, I cannot help him out of the difficulty. I myself stand helpless before puzzle.
QUOTATION PROM NEW YORK TIMES
Now I recite one more quotation from an unfriendly writer in the New York Times of September 4, 1843:
This Joe Smith must be set down as an extraordinary character, a prophet-hero, as Carlyle might call him. He is one of the great men of this age, and in future history will rank with those who, in one way or another, have stamped their impress strongly on society.
It is no small thing, in the blaze of the nineteenth century, to give to men a new revelation. found a new religion, establish new forms of worship, to build a city with new laws, institutions, and orders of architecture, to establish ecclesiastical, civil and military jurisdiction, found colleges, send out missionaries, and make proselytes on two hemispheres. Yet all this has been done by Joe Smith, and that against every sort of opposition, ridicule, and persecution.
In the short space of fifteen years, Joseph Smith, unschooled in the learning and the methods of the world, did all these important things. How was it possible? Does not the only rational explanation lie in the claim that he was God-taught and that the statement is literally true which asserts,
... I raised you up, that I might show forth my wisdom through the weak things of the earth.
Yes, Joseph Smith was able to confound the wise, to astonish the learned, and to outmarvel the great.
TRUTHS TAUGHT BY JOSEPH SMITH
I have briefly indicated who Joseph Smith was and some of the things he accomplished. Now another important question is what characteristic things did he teach-things not taught by other churches. A number of these are mentioned in the thirteen widely used Articles of Faith of the Church, and written by the Prophet himself. Many of his teachings are not accepted by the world, but time will permit me to speak of only a few of them. I have already indicated one such teaching-a very important and basic one-the personality and image of God the Father and of Jesus Christ his Son who redeemed mankind from the bondage of death, brought about by the fall of Adam. He also taught that we are spirit children of the Father and had an individual, conscious existence with him and Jesus Christ, our elder spirit brother, before we were born in mortality. Unquestionably, God created us in the flesh, and biologists teach that the human family came from the same parents. It follows that the universal brotherhood of man, both in the spirit and in the flesh, is a divine truth.
Another closely related teaching to the fatherhood of God is the personality and actuality of Satan, the devil. He is a real person with a spirit body in the image of man. He is here on earth, accompanied by a multitude of other spirit persons who cooperate with him in his evil work. This fact should be kept in mind by all who sincerely desire to live righteously and resist temptations to do wrong. All such temptations stem right back to the devil and his host of evil spirits, spirit brothers of ours who because of rebellion were cast out of heaven. They are permitted by the Father to be here as a means of testing us to find if in the exercise of our free agency we can prove ourselves worthy to return to his presence.
And this suggests a word relative to free agency-the freedom the Father has given to every child born in mortality to do as he pleases so long as he does not infringe upon or deny this freedom to others. Multitudes of people in the world today deny the existence of a loving and merciful Heavenly Father because he permits war with its associated terrors and horrors. Such persons do not understand the divine doctrine of free agency, else they would never hold the Lord responsible for the wickedness, crimes, and horrors in which his children engage. The Lord is merciful, loving, and good to all his children who will refrain from doing evil and follow the way of life he has given them. He said to Moses:
... this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
And the Lord will not fail in his purpose with those of his children who will render obedience to, and cooperate with, him.
This leads to a word relative to the beautiful doctrine of salvation for the dead, taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith. This doctrine, as I understand it, absolutely reveals the Father as a God of love, mercy, forgiveness, justice, and all other attributes we ascribe to a perfect Father. He has given his children their free agency. He has prepared for them a plan of eternal progression. Not one of them will be annihilated-all will have eternal life, be they saints or sinners. Every one coming into mortality will in this life or in the life beyond the grave have the opportunity of hearing and accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those who comply with all the conditions, which they will have the privilege of doing, will eventually be saved in the Father's kingdom.
Brethren and sisters, how beautiful is the way of the Lord! How great his mercy and forgiveness! How all-embracing his love!
But it is very largely to the teachings and labors of the Prophet Joseph Smith that the modern world is indebted for a correct interpretation of the plan of life, salvation, and exaltation that the Lord has provided for his children to follow if they would care to return to his presence.
I close with the thought that Joseph Smith, his claims, his teachings, and his achievements are so very remarkable in character that they challenge every normal human being able to do so, to make an honest and thorough investigation of them. A refusal to do this is likely to bring sometime, somewhere, painful regrets and handicaps as a consequence. Certainly every member of the Church, in justice to himself, should rouse up to the performance of this important duty. May every one of us worthily seek the help of the Lord in responding to the calls of duty I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 143-152
My brothers and sisters: In a very old-fashioned way I ask for an interest in your prayers. I wish also to express gratitude for your uplifted hands and your sustaining vote. I hope that what I shall say will not detract in any way from the beautiful truths that have been given to us already in this conference, particularly with reference to the pioneers. My grandfather was one of the original group to enter this valley. I am proud that his statue will grace the new monument with Wilford Woodruff and his file leader, Brigham Young.
THE FORMER INHABITANTS OF THE AMERICAN CONTINENT
I have been thinking today also, of the pioneers, but of other pioneers who preceded the ones we have been honoring today. About twenty-five centennials ago, a hardy group left the comforts of a great city, crossed a desert, braved an ocean, and came to the shores of this, their promised land. There were two large families, those of Lehi and Ishmael, who in not many centuries, numbered hundreds of millions of people on these two American continents. Their scriptures and records taught them of God. They had many blessings, and many promises. They were given, by the creator of this land, a clear title to the Americas-a certificate of title, free and clear of all encumbrance. There was, however, one condition: They must serve the Lord their God if they were to retain title to the property. Their wickedness brought on wars, which scattered and destroyed them and divided them into two factions, the Nephites and Lamanites, and finally they peopled the continents. The years went apace; the Savior came to them after his resurrection-which glorious event we are celebrating today, this Easter day. The Savior so inspired them that for twice the period of our own Church history they were righteous and were devoted to their Heavenly Father. And then came prosperity and wealth. The sins of the world overtook them, and for about one hundred and seventy years, both factions were wicked, very wicked indeed, until the great battle on Cumorah when the Nephites were literally destroyed. The Prophet Mormon recounted two hundred and thirty thousand people lying in their blood in death, and this because of their wickedness. Their enemies had been permitted to come upon them. Mormon exclaims:
And my soul was rent with anguish because of the slain of my people, and I cried:
O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord! O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you!
Behold, if ye had not done this, ye would not have fallen.
The penalty for their wickedness was that they were to be scattered and driven, cursed and scourged. They were to be "cut off from the presence of the Lord". Scales of darkness were to be their curse, and they were to become "as chaff is driven before the wind" or "a vessel is tossed about upon the waves without sail or anchor or anything wherewith to steer her".
... wherefore, as they were white, and exceeding fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.
... I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people...
And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed;...
... they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety.
APPRECIATION FOR THE DESCENDANTS OF LEHI
I do not know when I began to love the children of Lehi. It may have come to me at birth, because those years preceding and after I was born, were spent by my father on missions among the Indians in Indian territory. He was president of the mission. This love may have come in those first years of my childhood, when my father used to sing the Indian chants to us children and show us souvenirs from and pictures of his Indian friends. It may have come from my patriarchal blessing which was given to me by Patriarch Samuel Claridge, when I was nine years of age. One line of the blessing reads:
You will preach the gospel to many people, but more especially to the Lamanites, for the Lord will bless you with the gift of language and power to portray before that people, the gospel in great plainness. You will see them organized and be prepared to stand as the bulwark "round this people."
I do not know when my appreciation for them came, but I have always had a sympathetic heart for the sons and daughters of Lehi, and so, recently, when President Smith called Brother Cowley, Brother Ivins, and myself to give attention to their problems and to
... the work of disseminating the gospel among the Indians... not only to the Indians close to us but also over the world, in the islands of the sea and elsewhere... a great thrill came to me such as I have had few times in my life.
FULFILMENT OF A PATRIARCHAL BLESSING
I had waited forty-two years for the fulfilment of this patriarchal blessing! When I was called to the mission field in 1914, my assignment was to the Swiss-German Mission, and then the war broke out and prevented my going there, and I was sent to the Central States Mission. I knew there were no Indians in Switzerland and Germany. I knew also there were Indians in the Central States Mission, but in all my two years' mission, I had not seen an Indian. I wondered, "Can I have failed, or did the patriarch err," and now, forty-two years after the promise, President George Albert Smith called me to this mission, and my blessing was fulfilled.
I love those downtrodden and deprived people. Brother Cowley and I spent some time on the Hawaiian Islands last summer, and those good people found their way into my heart. We have about a half-million children of Lehi in the islands of the sea, and about sixty million of them in North and South America, about a third of them perhaps, being pure-blood Indians, and about two-thirds are mixtures, but they have the blood of Jacob in their veins.
Someone said:
If my pen might have the gift of tears I would write a book and call it "The Indian," and I would make the whole world weep.
I hope I may help to make the whole world weep for the children of Lehi. Can one refrain from tears as he contemplates the fall of these people who have been brought down from culture and achievement to illiteracy and degradation; from kings and emperors, to slavery and serfdom; from landowners of vast continents, to indigent wards of governments and peons-from sons of God with a knowledge of God, to rude savages, victims of superstition, and from builders of temples to dwellers in dirt hogans.
MIGRATION OF NEPHITES TO PACIFIC ISLES
The predictions concerning the scattering of the early American was fulfilled to the letter. Not long before the birth of Christ, a great man by the name of Hagoth left continental America with colonies of people. He
... went forth and built him an exceedingly large ship... and launched it forth into the west sea...
And behold, there were many of the Nephites who did... sail forth with much provisions, and also many women and children; and they took their course northward.
And the next year:
... this man built other ships, And the first ship did also return, and many more people did enter into it;... and set out again to the land northward.
And it came to pass that they were never heard of more... And... one other ship also did sail forth.
It has been thought by many people that they went to the Pacific islands. And the scripture would so indicate:
But great are the promises of the Lord unto them who are upon the isles of the sea; wherefore as it says isles, there must needs be more than this, and they are inhabited also by our brethren.
Elder Cowley and I visited some of these peoples on the "isles of the sea" and found them developing and progressing and doing well.
But we are not so fortunate here at home in the United States. There are some bad conditions in our own nation and continent.
THE SAD STORIES OF THE CRUELTIES OF THE SPANISH CONQUERORS
The conquerors came and robbed and despoiled and destroyed. The battle of America, a four-hundred-year struggle began with the discovery of America and ended not until the owners were dispossessed of nearly everything they had owned. Cortez with a handful of soldiers came into Mexico and through deceit and misrepresentation was able to conquer thirty million people. Preying upon their superstitions and beliefs in the return of the Fair God, he gained access to their beautiful city, took their lives, carried off their treasures and desecrated their homes and temples. He gave them a soldier's helmet which they brought back to him full of gold nuggets. They laid at his feet great quantities of gold and silver, jewels, and other priceless treasures. These valuables seemed only to whet his appetite, and he sacked their chests and vaults for more. His soldiers closed the three exits to the courtyard at Cholula, it is written, and with his mystery weapon, the cannon, massacred them by the thousands. And in their loved city of Tenochtitlan his soldiers were permitted to profane the temples with the very blood of the Indians who were slaughtered in great numbers. The Aztec king was tortured and assassinated. It is a sad story how they were despoiled and dispossessed of their rich homeland-how whole valleys together with thousands of the Indians for servants, were granted to individual Spanish conquerors. The Aztecs were enslaved and branded. The history of Mexico claims that in 1800 though "... only ten percent of the population was Spanish, but almost all the property belongs to them." And even after the slaves were presumably freed, their condition of servitude as peons for centuries following, was nearly as distasteful and onerous. The millions of Indians could literally have smothered the invaders with their very bodies, but it was not to be. For the prophecies had to be fulfilled.
THE INDIANS A DOWNTRODDEN RACE
That is a gloomy picture, but the world should weep also at the treatment of the real Americans in our own states. As the colonists came from Europe and settled along the Eastern seaboard, the great "push" continued. Mile by mile we crowded them back. When the Indians resisted our encroachments, we called them "murderous redskins" and continued our relentless aggression. When they killed us "whites," we called it a massacre, but when we took their lives, we termed it a necessary riddance of a menace. We were fighting for their lands and rivers and forests and minerals, but they were fighting for their rights, their homeland, their families, their very lives.
I would not justify any evil that the Indians ever did, but can we not see that they were on the defensive, fighting for their liberty, for independence and to perpetuate their rights to the promised land to which they had title from the Creator?
But the laws had been broken. They had forfeited their rights because they had failed to keep the commands of God. The prophecies must be fulfilled, and the plan of God must now be consummated. It was necessary, for the ultimate good of the Indian himself, that the Gentiles must come from foreign shores to become "nursing fathers" to these benighted people; the Pilgrims and Puritans had to come to settle this land; the Revolutionary War had to be fought and won so that peace and freedom and liberty could be established here, and so that the gospel could be restored, and this that the record of the ancestors of the Indians might come forth, and the gospel of Jesus Christ be made plain to them.
The prophecies were being fulfilled by us Gentiles. We pushed the natives ever westward until the Pacific stopped their further movement in that direction. Then we crowded them into the corners and upon reservations, ofttimes territory of little value. The country became crowded, and we pushed southward, this time making war on Mexico, a Lamanite country. Again we used might, and subdued and took from the original Lehite owners and also from Mexico, the new claimants, the great territory of the southwest, including much of the states of Arizona, New Mexico, California, Utah, Wyoming, and Nevada. We did pay for this vast empire, some fifteen million dollars, which is the approximate present value of the one little Gila valley in Arizona where I lived for so many years. We later paid ten million dollars for another area involving a considerable portion of Arizona, known as the Gadsden Purchase.
We went relentlessly on in our battle of aggression until we finally were undisputed conquerors of this expansive domain, so rich in natural wealth.
TROUBLES MULTIPLIED THROUGH INJUSTICE
Down near Lordsburg, New Mexico, there is an unpretentious monument. On it are the words, "Here Geronimo surrendered, thus ending Indian wars in America forever." The final war of self-defense was waged in the southwest by the Apache chief, the courageous Geronimo. He led his thirty-four warriors with their wives and children against the United States army. And the battle of America lasting four hundred years had ended. We battled but a few short years for our independence from Britain and were rewarded with success. The Indians fought valiantly four centuries for their freedom and lost. This proud people was reduced from wealth to poverty; from two vast continents to crowded reservations. We hail George Washington as the great patriot because he led us successfully against our aggressors. And because they cannot, we erect a tiny monument to mark the spot where the last survivor chief was subdued while resisting our aggression. It is a sad story. Let the world weep.
But there were still some outbreaks. Because of the chaotic condition and the hopelessness of their situation, some groups of natives continued to commit depredations against the new alleged owners of their properties. The Navajos were in the way also. We sent our army against them. We tracked them into the mountains and canyons of northern Arizona and killed them in great numbers: they claim we killed their sheep numbering fifty thousand; we destroyed all their thousands of peach trees, in Canyon de Chelly.
Our war against them was relentless. The ultimatum was surrender by July 20, 1863, or extermination.
Orders were given to kill every male Navajo capable of bearing arms, wherever he may be found. Women and children were to be captured and held as prisoners.
And then to Colonel Riggs came these instructions:
I have been informed that there is a spring called Ojo de Cibolo... where the Navajos drive their stolen cattle and "jerk" the flesh at their leisure. Cannot you make arrangements for a party of resolute men from your command to be stationed there for say, thirty days, and kill every Navajo and Apache they can find? A cautious, wary commander hiding his men and moving about at night might kill off a good many Indians near that point.
A bounty of twenty dollars was placed on a good Indian horse, and a dollar for a sheep.
We did an efficient job of it. The Indians claimed later that they did not know they had an option to surrender; they thought that they were the victims of an extermination order, and not till they were starved out did they finally raise the flag of truce. We took them over into New Mexico on a reservation and after four years of starvation and freezing and hopelessness for them we imposed upon them a treaty. They were to commit no more depredations and were to be given that vast area of territory of little value. They were to receive some small allowances. They were to require their children to go to the schools, and we were to furnish them a school, and a teacher for every thirty children. If you could go with me to the reservation and hear these Navajo parents plead for schools for their children, you would realize how greatly we have failed to live up to our part of that treaty of 1868. There are more than twenty-four thousand children of school age, but with all the government schools, plus those schools operated by churches, only about 5,100 of the little folk can hope to get into a school. The nearly 19,000 children yearn in vain for schooling. In September, ambitious parents send these little ones long, rugged miles, to a school building, only to find it filled to capacity, or to find it locked for want of repair or a teacher. Back of these long rugged miles, even longer now, they trudge home to wait another year, still hoping for better luck next time. There is a big backlog with many thousands of children and adults who have never had a day of school, and unless we change our policy, these defrauded people in the heart of this rich and educated nation, will still be illiterate fifty years hence. The median school year for the Navajo is.9 of a year, as compared to 5.7 years for the average Indian and 8.4 years for our own children. The records reveal that while 3.7 percent of us have had no schooling, and 25.2 percent of the Indians in general have had none, there are sixty-six percent of the Navajos who have never had such opportunity. Illiteracy is reported to be about seventy-five percent among the Navajos while the United States negro is only 16.1 percent and we United States whites are 1.5 percent illiterate. When we speak of educated Indians, we do not mean those with degrees but those who can read and write. Of one hundred ninety-five literate, "educated" Navajos surveyed, only sixteen had more than eighth grade training. To take care of the children on the reservation it would require twelve five-hundred-pupil high schools. There is not a single one available. The tribal leaders say:
A PLEA FOR SCHOOLS FOR CHILDREN
Why? Why can we not have schools? We cooperate always. We reduce our sheep when we are told we have too many. We do everything. But all they do is to close our school.
In Tolani area there are six hundred school children with one little school building which might accommodate sixty, but even it is closed. At Tohatchi, New Mexico, is a large school plant with school buildings, dormitories, residences, hospital, but for five years it has been closed. The officials say there is no appropriation to repair and fit it for school purposes. At Aneth, Utah, are 1,500 Navajos. They beg for a teacher for the one little closed school there. At Sheep Springs the Indians called a mass meeting and wrote us:
...We want a Mormon school here so our children will get good education by you Mormons. The government cannot take care of us all.
One group came to the superintendent and asked; "Can't you help us build a school?" The superintendent said he was sorry, but "there is no money for lumber, doors, windows, nails, roofing." So the Indians collected one hundred dollars for materials and with old lumber and logs built themselves a building, then begged for a teacher to train their children. The appeals of these untaught people cause one to weep in sympathy. They wrote:
Our little children beg us to go to school, but there is none for them. We cannot vote. We do not have influence with congressmen. We pay taxes and send our sons to war. The United States Congress makes big treaties with other countries and makes big loans, but not once in history has it observed the sacred treaty of 1868 to give us schools.
Even under most unfavorable conditions of roads and long distances and cold weather, the attendance of the children is eighty percent to ninety percent. In our little school at Blanding, Indian mothers kneel at the desk of their little ones and urge them on in their learning.
PITIABLE CONDITIONS
The Lord had promised the sons of Lehi:
They shall prosper in the land of promise if....
But little prosperity has come to the Navajo and little can come until we Gentiles, their "nursing fathers", help to train them. Though they have sixteen million acres of land, it is of such barrenness that it takes about one hundred sixty acres to support a horse. Of seven thousand three hundred livestock owners only about one hundred have an economic unit. The average of seven sheep, a half-acre of land and the little they can make from rug weaving and silversmithing and incidentals, will bring about eighty dollars a year, or $1.50 a week, income, for each person.
It is estimated that the Navajo woman makes about three cents to seven cents an hour at her weaving and the silversmith makes little more. During the war the allotments from the three thousand six hundred service boys gave the tribesmen some financial relief, but now they are reduced again to their starvation incomes.
The health conditions are deplorable. They have but one full-time dentist for sixty-three thousand people and no field nurse or doctor, though they should have twenty-five or thirty of each to even approach rural standards. The birth rate is high, but the death rate is also very high, being sixteen per thousand as against 10.5 for the nation and 6.36 for the Church. The large family lives in the dirt hogan being one small circular room with dirt floor, no windows, and with a stove or fire in the center. All members of the family sleep on sheep pelts on the floor. There is no privacy, practically no furniture or equipment. There are no sanitary conveniences inside or out. With a single towel, a common cup, no hot water nor disinfectants, it is easy to see why trachoma, impetigo, and other skin diseases run through the family, and why dysentery, venereal diseases, and tuberculosis run rampant. In a survey of thirty-one families it was found that three in each family had tuberculosis. In their scattered condition, and with such limited hospital facilities, many lie in their hogans, coughing in the air, spitting on the floor, to finally die on the ground floor without medical assistance. Their numerous superstitions bind them down. The use of peyote is increasing, and its demoralizing opiate effect is most destructive. The Indians have learned all the white man's vices, and liquor is "at flood stage" there. And thus they live without the power to raise themselves from the deplorable situation. They cannot lift themselves by their bootstraps. They must have help. They realize it. The late chairman of the tribal council epitomized their thinking when he said:
We are a ward of the people-that means we are slaves. They chase us down... with a gun... to Ft. Sumner.
"WEEP AND PRAY FOR THE INDIAN"
How I wish you could go with me through the Indian reservations and particularly Navajo Land and see the poverty, want, and wretchedness, and realize again that these are sons and daughters of God; that their miserable state is the result, not only of their centuries of wars and sins and godlessness, but is also attributable to us, their conquerors, who placed them on reservations with such limited resources and facilities, to starve and die of malnutrition and unsanitary conditions, while we become fat in the prosperity from the assets we took from them. Think of these things, my people, and then weep for the Indian, and with your tears, pray; then work for him. Only through us, the "nursing fathers and mothers", may they eventually enjoy a fulfilment of the many promises made to them. Assuming that we do our duty to them, the Indians and other sons of Lehi will yet rise in power and strength. The Lord will remember his covenant to them; his Church will be established among them; the Bible and other scriptures will be made available to them; they will enter into the holy temples for their endowments and do vicarious work; they will come to a knowledge of their fathers and to a perfect knowledge of their Redeemer Jesus Christ; they shall prosper in the land and will, with our help, build up a holy city, even the New Jerusalem, unto their God.
Only in our doing all in our power to restore these people to their heritage can we even approach a justification for having taken their promised land. May the Lord assist us all to see our full duty respecting these people and give us the courage and determination to guarantee that they have the education, culture, security, and all other advantages and luxuries that we enjoy-I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Henry D. Moyle
Henry D. Moyle, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 158-159
It goes without saying that we do in this Church what we are told. I have never understood that it was my privilege as a member of this Church, holding the priesthood, to say no. I have never had a desire in my heart to do anything other than that which the brethren direct. While I may feel as if some of the things that they have most recently asked me to do are beyond my power, nevertheless so far as my Heavenly Father will give me the power to act I shall do so, and all that I have and am belongs to my Heavenly Father. I had a grandfather who met with a very great disaster. All that he had was swept away by fire. His thoughts and his actions at the moment he was told of his loss have been on my mind for the past several minutes, and I must say I feel rather as he then felt:
... the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
I know that the Lord can take that away which he giveth, if we give him cause so to do; that we may be the recipients of his blessings today but to continue to be such recipients, we must be obedient to his laws and his commandments.
OBEDIENCE TO PRESENT-DAY LEADERS REQUIRED
Brethren and sisters, my faith in this gospel is such that I do not confine my obedience alone to that which I find in the scriptures, but I believe that our obedience should be pledged, that of every one of us, to every word that comes from the mouths of the prophets and the representatives of our Heavenly Father here upon this earth. To me that which the Presidency of this Church have said and say now, is as much the law and the gospel as anything that has ever been said or written before for our guidance.
It is not the wisdom of the world as Paul says that is important to us; it is the power and the strength of the gospel: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. If there is anything else in life that we can better afford to dedicate that which we have and are than to the work of the Lord, I do not know what that would be. Certainly it is not to be found in the world. I have had an exceptional opportunity, as I have told many of you in your quarterly conferences in our welfare work, to examine the minds and understand the reasoning and the philosophy and the weaknesses of the world in its counsels, and by comparison to see the strength and the certainty and the wisdom and the knowledge that come to the leaders and the councils of our Church from our Heavenly Father on high.
And so, with my heart full of gratitude and humility for this further opportunity to serve the people, I hope and pray that I may be blessed in my ministry with the wisdom that comes from above, and never be tempted to rely upon that which comes from the world.
THE WISDOM OF THE WORLD INSUFFICIENT
I know that after eleven long years in this welfare work that if we had depended upon the wisdom of the world, and had let our people go as the world goes, the time is rapidly approaching when they would have no security. They would have no welfare, because the philosophies of men by which many of our people have been led astray will fail, whereas that which comes from the Lord will remain with us eternally.
I want to bear you my testimony that I know that this Church and this people are capable of taking care of their own; that there is no need for any of us to go beyond the confines of our own combined resources, to garner into the bishops' storehouses of this Church all that we need for ourselves, all that we need for our brethren and sisters in Europe, and I will go one step farther and say, all that we need for our neighbors, if we will but keep in close communion with the spirit of obedience and act under the direction of the leaders of Israel, here upon this earth and here upon this stand today.
A FERVENT TESTIMONY
I know that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that this group of men, before me in this audience, are in reality the representatives of the only group of men in the world made up, as they are, of all professions and coming from all walks of life, that is to say the priesthood of this Church, who can bear this same testimony-that they know that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ. You cannot go anywhere else in the world and find such a group of men able, ready, and willing so to testify. I have never in my life met a doctor or a lawyer or a business man of any other church or of any other denomination that had a testimony to bear concerning this most important knowledge of all, our knowledge as Latter-day Saints of the fulness of our gospel.
There has never been a question of a doubt in my mind that our Heavenly Father and his Son Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove. I have stood on that spot. I have heard the testimonies of the leaders of this Church borne there. I have felt with all the feeling there was within my being, that that was the Sacred Grove, and that that was where the gospel of Jesus Christ was again restored to mankind in this day and age. It shall be my hope and my desire that I shall ever be worthy in the sight of my Heavenly Father to retain the good will and the confidence and the love of these my brethren who have called me into their quorum and that I may be an honor and a credit to my family and my people and be able to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and to bear this testimony throughout the world. I pray for this further blessing with the assistance of my Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1947, pp. 160-167
I am sure the Lord has been good to us in these days of conference. It has been a happy experience. The brethren who have spoken to us have expressed themselves under the influence of the Spirit of our Heavenly Father. We have been entertained with the most delightful music that could have been heard anywhere. The Tabernacle Choir today has rendered anthems and hymns that I am sure have uplifted our souls.
GROWTH OF CHURCH
As I have sat here and looked into the faces of the men and women present, I have seen those from many parts of the country, and I have shaken hands with people from nearly every section of the United States and from other parts of the world. Ours is no longer a Church of small number and limited boundary. Its membership may be found in almost all parts of the civilized world.
I am sure we are grateful to those who have sung for us and prayed for us, and to those who have given to us their testimonies. We who are here today are just a little handful of the membership of this great Church. I think we hardly realize the real power of this organization.
FIRST MEETING IN SALT LAKE VALLEY
We have said much about the coming of the pioneers. They were men and women of courage and fidelity. It is a strange thing: I have been thinking of them for the last few moments. Three of us who have talked to you in this audience today are descendants, grandsons as a matter of fact, of three of the men who talked in the first meeting ever held in this valley by the Latter-day Saints. I refer to Brother Benson, Brother Kimball and myself. Our grandfathers delivered the first addresses that were listened to in this valley following the arrival of the Pioneers. It may be of interest to you to know that President Young in speaking to the group, criticized one of those men because he planted some potatoes on the Sabbath day before he came to church.
There was a purpose in the coming of the pioneers. It was no small responsibility that President Young undertook when he led the people across the plains and into the valleys of these mountains. The Lord had opened the way and prepared the time, and the result was that they came and planted their crops, which matured sufficiently to be used for seed. But for the coming of the Donner-Reed Party the year before, they would probably have been weeks longer arriving in this valley, and it would have been too late for planting. Truly "God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform."
Later when the pioneers were desperate because of the destruction of their crops by the crickets, they went to the Lord as their only hope. Then the sea gulls came and devoured the crickets and saved the crops.
All these stories are not new or strange to you people. Most of you here have heard them before. I recall that a hundred years ago now our people were camped on the banks of the Missouri River in an Indian country, expatriated from their own homes, deprived of that which they had earned and accumulated, and willing to come into this western land and leave everything behind rather than surrender their faith. I wonder if we were put to the test whether or not we would be as courageous as they were.
PROGRAM OF CONSERVATION
Reference has been made to the necessity of increasing our holdings of food, clothing, bedding, etc. We, the group that dwells here in the tops of these mountains, will not need the increase very much, unless something happens that we do not know of now, but it was the advice of those early pioneers under President Young to keep a year's foodstuffs on hand, so that if anybody did lose his crops, he could carry over until the next season.
It was a very severe test of faith, I am sure, to some of our people, when the President of the United States and those associated with him decreed that we should destroy our food, and that we should kill our animals, and then to have the Church leadership say: "We will build granaries; we will grow more food; we will increase our herds and our flocks; we will not destroy what this world will soon need so much."
The result was that when the war was finished, we had plenty. Not only did we have plenty in our granaries, but we had also given the surplus to bless the needy. In our root cellars and on our farms and ranges, we had sufficient that from that time until the present, carload after carload has been sent off to our brothers and sisters in other lands, and we have not missed one bushel of wheat, one pound of meat. Nor have we missed one quart of fruit or vegetables that has been canned and sent over there. I want to say that as we have given to the poor, we have but lent to the Lord. And so we ourselves today are in greater comfort than many people in different parts of the United States and other parts of the world who have not given to help those who are in distress.
I am sure the Lord loves those humble, faithful souls who are willing to reach out and touch those who are in need whether it be with food or clothing or bedding or kindness because that is a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
LATTER-DAY SAINTS KNOWN FOR GOOD
Today people of all the world know of the Latter-day Saints. They know the record we have made, and they know the truth about us now as they never have before. The result is that our neighbors and friends of other faiths who come to see us look from a different viewpoint, see what we are accomplishing, and go away to become missionaries for the cause of the Master. I wish you could see several letters that have come to me in the last few days from people not members of the Church, and telegrams from some of the most prominent men in our nation, men of affairs, wishing me well as President of the Church, wishing the Church well for what we are doing to bless our kind, and encouraging us to go forward.
We have over three thousand missionaries in the world and many of them will be led to homes which before were closed but will now be open to hear their testimonies. It is our responsibility to carry the message of the gospel not only to the civilized world but also to those who are not considered to be so civilized. All this has been made possible because the Lord in his wisdom saw the necessity of giving us a nation in which we could thrive. In no other nation under heaven could the Church have been organized and gone forward as we have in this nation. The rounding of the United States was not an accident. The giving to us of the Constitution of the United States was not an accident. Our Heavenly Father knew what would be needed, and so he paved the way to give us the Constitution. It came under the influence of prayer, and he guided those who framed that wonderful document.
BLESSINGS OF DEMOCRACY
I hope that the membership of this Church will not be deceived into thinking that other plans, other forms of government, other systems of direction whatsoever, are desirable. I want to say to you without any hesitation that no form of government in the world can be compared favorably with the government God gave to us. This is his plan. Then after giving us our civil government, preparing the way for governing ourselves, if you will, he organized the Church and gave it the name of his Beloved Son, and then directed that we share that information with all his children. What a commission, a divine commission!
The Lord says that he is a slothful servant who waits to be commanded in all things. When we see all around us the need for living as well as teaching the gospel, it is our duty to set the example. We ought not to be waiting for other people to take the initiative; it should be our responsibility to go forward. Everything that is praiseworthy, everything in civil life, or in religious life that is necessary to make the people happy will come to us as a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ, our Lord. This is his Church; we are his people if we are faithful. I want to say that this Church will continue to grow and expand, and instead of approximately a million souls as we have now, if we shall do our duty, the membership of this Church will continue to increase, and the good men and women, those who are seeking God, will get the inspiration and accept the truth as some of your forebears did.
STORY OF AUSTIN FAMILY
I would like to tell you the story of the family of a man sitting in this audience today, that of the Austin family. They wanted to come to Zion, but they did not have the means. The father was not sure they could make it. He was working in the coal mines in England. However, the mother received the inspiration and said: "We must get ready to go to Zion." When the husband indicated that he did not think it was possible, she paid no attention. She secured boxes and began to make and repair the children's clothing which she put in the boxes. The husband saw the preparations, and yet he could not see how there was any chance for them to go. They had only food enough and barely enough clothing to keep them comfortable.
One day, about two weeks, as I remember it, before a boat was to sail, a good woman came into the home of this family and said, "Sister Austin, we have been preparing to go with this boat. We have our reservations; we have our money, but sickness has come into our family, and it is necessary for us to stay. Would you like to use this money and take your family to America? Then you can send the money back after you get over there."
Talk about a miracle, with money as scarce as it was in those days! The result was that the Austin family came to this country, and it has been a blessing to the Church that they came. God opened the way.
IMPORTANCE OF TRAINING CHILDREN
There are dozens and dozens of such instances, hundreds of them if we had time to check on them and repeat them. What a wonderful thing it is to know that we can, if we will, hold our Heavenly Father's hand and be guided by him. No other people in the world have the assurance that this group of people has. If we do our duty, even our children may have that faith, as a result of the training in our homes that prepares them for the struggle of life. We may desire the wealth of the world, but the most important treasures that we have are the sons and daughters that God sends to our homes. I want to say to the Latter-day Saints one of the responsibilities of every married couple is to rear a family to the honor and glory of God. Those who follow the customs and habits of the world in preference to that blessing will some day find that all the things they have struggled for are wasted away like ashes, while those who have reared their families to honor God and keep his commandments will find their treasures not altogether here upon earth in mortality, but they will have their treasures when the celestial kingdom shall be organized on this earth, and those treasures will be their sons and daughters and descendants to the latest generation. That is what the Lord says. Fathers and mothers, teach your sons and your daughters the necessity of virtue. Do not leave it to somebody else. Do not take it for granted that they understand, but in their tender years explain to them the purpose of life and guide them that they may feel that it is a blessing from the Lord to be members of the Church and to be sons and daughters of the Living God.
APPALLING DIVORCE RATE
The divorce rate of our country is appalling, and many of those, who, within the last few years, have hastened into marriage are dissolving those ties. They are sowing the seeds of sorrow that will continue with them a long time. They have not been willing to work it out in patience and take their chances that all will be well.
HARD TIMES
I remember what one sister in Idaho said a number of years ago when people were complaining about hard times. I had asked if there was anybody in attendance at the meeting eighty years of age and was told, "Yes, there is one woman here that is over eighty." I said, "Call her to the stand, and let us hear her testimony." She said: "You make me sick, talking about hard times. Why you have more food and everything else than you need here; a few families possess more than we had in this whole valley when I first came. When we came in, we had a span of horses and a wagon and a cow and the only encumbrances I had were my baby and my husband.
Of course that provoked a great deal of merriment in that group. She was not taking much stock in her husband if she meant what she said. Then she continued, "We worked; we did teamwork. We worked outdoors and indoors. We did everything we could to conserve our energies and conserve our means, and see what this valley has produced now. Talk about hard times!"
It was interesting to hear that dear old soul scold that great congregation of people who thought they were having a hard time.
We may have hard times, brothers, and sisters, but we can be prepared for them, if we think of the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine in the days of Pharaoh and plan as they did. Such conditions may come again. We do not know, but we do know that in the early days of the Church the Presidency and leadership of the Church advised the people to store sufficient food to meet an emergency. The result has been that since the people got thoroughly settled here and farms began producing, and herds and flocks increasing, there has been no real necessity for anybody to suffer for food.
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP TO BE PRIZED
This is God's work. This is the Church of the Lamb of God. He has offered us eternal membership in it, and O my brethren and sisters, I plead with everyone of you to prize that membership and retain it by reason of righteousness, and that there will never come a time when you will find yourselves in the dark and groping your way, uncertain as to what it all means. I would like to say to you before closing that this work is a joyous work. It will bring peace and happiness that nothing else can bring if we will do our part. We will be loved by our neighbors and our friends, many of them not associated with us, if they see our virtues, and if we will develop those virtues as the Lord intends we should.
Think today of this great organ and Tabernacle Choir singing to the world all during the war, and giving their time, day by day, week in and week out, to sing for us and for our neighbors and friends everywhere. How the Lord has magnified them and held them up to the admiration of mankind!
This is the Lord's work. You cannot find anything else like it. The city we live in was a desert a hundred years ago. Today it is the one city in all the world whose streets originally were made wide enough to be useful for the automobile. I think that those who came in that early day never dreamed of an automobile, but when they laid the city out, they laid it out wide enough so that if people will be careful, there is plenty of room to drive four cars abreast in our streets, do our parking, and get along without any difficulty.
This desert has been made to blossom as a great forest. I have taken people up on the hills and had them look over the valley, and they have said, "We heard this was a desert country. Why, you cannot see the houses for the trees." It is a beautiful valley. The Lord sends us the early storms and the late storms and stores our mountains with snow so that we are sure, year by year, of the blessing of moisture that we so much need to mature our crops and enjoy this once desert land.
OBEDIENCE BRINGS BLESSINGS
There are so many things that we might talk about if there were time. I want to say to you that every blessing we enjoy is the result of keeping the commandments of God. Every blessing we desire we must obtain on those same terms. So today I witness to you that we have a Heavenly Father-I know that he lives. I know that Jesus was the Christ, his Beloved Son, who gave his mortal life that we might have eternal life. He came to this country twice, once to the Nephites, and later in the days of Joseph Smith. The Father and the Son came in that latter instance to see that the way was opened for the dissemination of his gospel. He has called us to bear the priesthood and carry the gospel message as missionaries to the various parts of the world, and in return for that he has promised us eternal life in his celestial kingdom. Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith gave their lives as a testimony to the world of the truthfulness of this work.
You have voted today for two men in this audience who are the descendants of Hyrum Smith, the martyr. God has blessed that family all down through the years, and if they will be faithful, he will continue to bless them, and nobody but themselves can take their blessings from them. You do not have to belong to that family, but each of you has the same promise if you will seek first, not last, the kingdom of God and his righteousness. He has promised everything else. What more do you want? But all is conditioned on our willingness to honor him and keep his commandments.
TESTIMONY
Joseph was a prophet who gave his life for the cause. Hyrum was a patriarch who gave his life, and many others have given their lives also for the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the Lord's work; his authority is deposited with this Church, and nowhere else in all the world except with the Church. Knowing that, I am happy to be here with you. I am delighted to be able to worship with you in this house that is sacred to us all. I pray that when we go from here, each of us will return to our homes with a renewed determination that we will be worthy of him who gives us all our blessings, that we will be worthy of one another as we live together in our homes, sanctified by the righteousness of our lives.
This is God's work, and I bear you my witness of it, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 3-8
I am very grateful this morning to be able to be here at this session of the conference. It seems incredible that there could be so much quiet and peace and comfort, yes, luxury, in this part of the world today, while in many other parts of the world people are suffering for the necessities of life, and there appears to be no hope of peace in those sections, in fact, in any section, for a long time.
We are met this morning in worship. I see in the audience, today, prominent officials of the state, our educational institutions, missionary representatives, and people from all parts of the Church. I think I should mention this morning that we have here with us the grandson of a great friend of the Church in early days, Colonel Thomas L. Kane, who offered his life that he might preserve the people in this valley, and the Lord preserved him to do his work, and he returned home safely. Today we feel grateful that his grandson is here. We hope that he will enjoy being with the people for whom his grandfather sacrificed so much.
It was eighty-nine years ago that Colonel Kane visited here, but one hundred years ago the first general conference was held in this valley. I think you would like to know just about what happened.
EVENTS OF 100 YEARS AGO
The conference meetings began on Sunday, October 3, and continued until Friday, October 8. During that period the weather in Salt Lake City was warm. Brigham Young was sustained as President of the whole Church. The Twelve Apostles were sustained with the exception of Lyman Wight, who was left until he came in person, which he did not do. An epistle from the Twelve was read by Parley P. Pratt and accepted by the Saints. Charles C. Rich and John Young were elected counselors to President John Smith; Father John Smith, who was my great-grandfather, was sustained as president of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion, and as patriarch to the Church.
It does not seem possible that we are talking about a hundred years ago. At that time Henry G. Sherwood, Thomas Grover, Levi Jackman, John Murdock, Daniel Spencer, Lewis Abbott, Ira Eldredge, Edson Whipple, Shadrach Roundy, John Vance, Willard Snow, and Abram O. Smoot were elected members of the high council. Charles C. Rich was also elected chief military commander. Albert Carrington was elected clerk, historian and deputy postmaster for the city. John Van Cott was elected marshal of the city-all this was one hundred years ago!
Several companies of emigrating Saints arrived in Salt Lake City on Monday, October 4. The presidency of the stake and the high council met in Great Salt Lake City for the first time at 7 p.m., at which meeting they considered the advisability of building mills on City Creek and on Mill Creek.
On Tuesday the presidency of the stake and the high council met at 9 a. m. and appointed a committee to lay out farming land. The city had been surveyed, and they were now getting ready to move out a little farther. Other companies of pioneers arrived in Salt Lake City on this date.
The presidency of the stake and high council met on October 6, and appointed a committee to see that the fort had proper gates made for it. Also Henry G. Sherwood was continuing his survey.
Nancy Rich, mother of Charles C. Rich, was buried beside the grave of Caroline Grant, a short distance southeast of the Fort, which was out in the southwest part of the city.
The last families of emigrating Saints arrived in Salt Lake City on Friday, October 8. There were about two thousand people in the valley at this time.
I thought that this might bring to your minds some things that would be of interest to you. It is wonderful to think that this marvelous land we live in, then desert, now is as the garden of the Lord, and to realize that our Heavenly Father preserved the people and opened the way for them to multiply and increase until today we have here in this valley every comfort, every convenience, almost every blessing that you can think of which is enjoyed in any part of the world.
WALKING STICK OF THOMAS L. KANE
In view of the visit here of the Honorable E. Kent Kane, the grandson of Colonel Thomas L. Kane, I brought with me this walking stick which I hold in my hand. It was given to my great-grandfather, John Smith, by Colonel Kane as a result of their friendship. They were great friends before either came to Salt Lake Valley, having become acquainted during the exodus of our people from Nauvoo. This walking stick was handed down from John Smith, to George A. Smith, my grandfather, then to John Henry Smith, my father, and then it came to me and has been passed down to my son, George Albert Smith, IV.
I thought it might be of interest to go back into that history, particularly in view of the fact that we are honored by the presence of the grandson of the man who gave this cane. It came from the hickory grove at the Old Hermitage near Nashville. It was given by Andrew Jackson, the man who became president of the United States, and who owned the Hermitage and lived there, to Thomas L. Kane, and he passed it to John Smith who became the first president of the stake in this valley.
Today, instead of having only two thousand members of the Church in this valley, we have more than four thousand missionaries of the Church in the world who are sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with the children of men-the largest number that have ever been in the world at any one time.
TEMPLE SQUARE
Hundreds of incidents could be narrated here, if there were time, that would be of interest to this particular audience. Today we are met in the great Tabernacle that is known the world over because from this building each week for more than seventeen years has gone a broadcast by the Tabernacle Choir and the great organ which has been carried to nearly all parts of the civilized world. This Tabernacle, of course, a hundred years ago had not been thought of. Since that time on this block we have the Tabernacle which holds 10,000 people and is one of the most delightful places in the world to meet in; we have the great temple; we have the Bureau of Information; we have the little old log cabin that used to be over on First North Street, and the Assembly Hall, all in this ten acre square. And I call your attention to the fact that the square is adorned, not only by these buildings, but by monuments and markers in honor of those who have passed on, and is beautified by gardens of flowers, and shrubs, and trees. It is one of the most attractive squares in all, the world.
RELIEF FOR EUROPEAN SAINTS
Word comes from our people in Europe. In many cases they are still having difficult times, but they are faithful, in the main, to God and the Church, and the messages that they send us from time to time in expressing gratitude for food, clothing, and bedding we have sent them warm our hearts.
It may be of interest to you to know that since World War II closed, more than seventy-five major carloads of food and clothing and bedding have been shipped across the sea to those needy people over there, without any expense to them whatsoever.
VISIT TO PRESIDENT TRUMAN
When the war was over, I went representing the Church, to see the president of the United States. When I called on him, he received me very graciously-I had met him before-and I before-and I said: "I have just come to ascertain from you, Mr. President, what your attitude will be if the Latter-day Saints are prepared to ship food and clothing and bedding to Europe."
He smiled and looked at me, and said: "Well, what do you want to ship it over there for? Their money isn't any good."
I said: "We don't want their money." He looked at me and asked: "You don't mean you are going to give it to them?"
I said: "Of course, we would give it to them. They are our brothers and sisters and are in distress. God has blessed us with a surplus, and we will be glad to send it if we can have the co-operation of the government."
He said: "You are on the right track," and added, "we will be glad to help you in any way we can."
I have thought of that a good many times. After we had sat there a moment or two, he said again: "How long will it take you to get this ready?"
I said: "It's all ready."
The government you remember had been destroying food and refusing to plant grain during the war, so I said to him:
"Mr. President, while the administration at Washington were advising the destroying of food, we were building elevators and filling them with grain, and increasing our flocks and our herds, and now what we need is the cars and the ships in order to send considerable food, clothing and bedding to the people of Europe who are in distress. We have an organization in the Church that has over two thousand homemade quilts ready."
The group that sang for you this morning, the Singing Mothers of the Relief Society, represent that organization. They had two thousand quilts made by their own hands ready to ship. The result was that many people received warm clothing and bedding and food without any delay. Just as fast as we could get cars and ships, we had what was necessary to send to Europe.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE LAST CENTURY
Now, we couldn't have done that a hundred years ago. We were seeking food ourselves. Our people in this valley then were digging thistle and sego roots for food, and they were utilizing every means possible to get food to keep the soul and body together. In a hundred years the desert has been made to blossom as the rose. In a hundred years the gospel has been preached to almost all nations of the earth where it would be received. In a hundred years the people have been gathered from the various nations and have come here to Zion, and have settled and made homes. In Utah and Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, Montana, California, and Oregon, the state of Washington and western Canada we have congregations as large as this that can be gathered together-members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who have reason to thank God for the gospel of Jesus Christ revealed in this latter-day, for without it there could have been no such a settlement, no such a gathering as has been made by the people in this great western land.
So this morning, brothers and sisters, we have much to be grateful for. Thanksgiving should fill our hearts. Here we are in this house that has been utilized now many, many years. I was in it myself in 1875; I was a little child then and used to play around here on the great stones that were piled on this block when the temple was being built. Now they all have been finished and laid in place. The great organ was constructed and there have been hundreds of thousands of people worship God in this building under the influence of the spirit of our Heavenly Father.
THE HANDCART PIONEERS
Just north of this building a monument is being completed this morning to the emigrants who came into Salt Lake Valley, bringing all their earthly possessions in handcarts which were pushed and pulled by members of the family. They walked approximately one thousand five hundred miles, coming from Iowa City, Iowa, to this place, and they suffered untold hardships along the way. More than two hundred of them died on the way due to hunger, cold, and exhaustion, but their associates continued to arrive here eventually to make their homes.
Now, think what has happened. That same trip can be made from Iowa City into the valley of the Great Salt Lake in comfort, having your meals en route prepared for you as you come flying through the air overlooking the country, and in seven hours the trip is completed. When the handcart people came, it took weary months of time as it did with the ox team. Now we have the railways with their fast trains; we have the automobile; we have the airplane, and in addition to that we have that wonderful device, the radio, over which the Tabernacle choir and organ have been singing to the world from this building each Sabbath day for seventeen years, and by means of which people all over the country are listening in to this service today, hearing it probably just as plain in their own homes and in their churches as if they were present with us. Surely, a marvelous work and a wonder has been brought into the world.
The scripture has been fulfilled, and today we humble members of the Church, men and women who enjoy almost every comfort that can be desired, all the necessities at any rate, assemble in the house of the Lord this morning. Here in quiet we commune together; we listen to the strains of music; we offer prayers of thanksgiving and gratitude to our Heavenly Father; we listen to sermons that are delivered by men who have had experience in the world-everyone of them has been a missionary in some form or another.
THE INSPIRATION IN WORSHIP
That reminds me of an incident that happened a long time ago. A Holland brother by the name of Folkers was living with his wife at my place, and they could not speak or understand the English language. He used to go to the fast meetings, and when the other people talked, he could not understand what they said. When they finished, he would get up and talk, and we could not understand him. One day I asked him, "Why do you go to the English-speaking services? You cannot understand." It took me sometime to make him understand what I wanted to know. Finally he smiled and said: "It is not what you hear that makes you happy; nor what you see that makes you happy; it is what you feel, and I can feel just as well as anybody." And that is the thing I wanted to impress upon you this morning. In this house, dedicated to the worship of our Heavenly Father, we not only can hear and see, but we can also feel the inspiration of the hour and have our faith increased and our spiritual strength renewed, not as a great group of strangers but as real brothers and sisters, children of the Living God. We can be here together and surely have thanksgiving in our hearts to our Heavenly Father for the many, many blessings extended to us and the opportunities and privileges that are ours.
THANKSGIVING FOR BLESSINGS
Now, brothers and sisters, you have come here to wait upon the Lord, forget the problems on the outside as far as you can and
Count your many blessings, name them one by one, And it will surprise you, what the Lord has done.
We who are here as the descendants of those who came a hundred years ago to this valley can see the hand of the Lord has been over the people. He has blessed us as few people in the world have ever been blessed, and surely there will be in our hearts a feeling of gratitude and thanksgiving to him who is the Author of our being for all the blessings he has bestowed upon us.
I am so happy this morning to see Aunt Augusta Grant here. She has been coming to these conferences ever since she was able, and here in her later years she sits in our midst representing a great family and bringing to our minds the fact that her husband not very long ago stood where I am standing, delivering the message that the Lord had for us through him. Then when his work was completed, he was permitted to go to paradise.
May the Lord add his blessings. I pray that his Spirit may be in our hearts and in our homes, that we may have love for our fellow men wherever they may be, that we may sincerely desire to share the only message that will bring peace to the world, the gospel of Jesus Christ, with our Father's other children, with the hope that enough of them will understand it and make it their own that war may be at least withheld for some time and that we may go on happily serving our Heavenly Father.
I bear you my testimony this morning that I know that God lives; I know that Jesus is the Christ; I know that Joseph Smith was his prophet, and I pray that all of us may have that assurance and so adjust our lives that when the time comes for us to go hence we shall find our reward is that of an inheritance in the celestial kingdom in the companionship of those we love, to be with them forever, and I pray that it may be so, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
President Levi Edgar Young
Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 12-15
This large group of people assembled to worship our Lord and to give thanks for our blessings is a beautiful lesson of the meaning of life. You come up to this house of God obedient to the call. It is obedience that leads us to the knowledge and love of God, and we conceive God's decrees as eternal truths. It gives us renewed faith and, says Sholem Asch:
It is faith and not wisdom which carrieth the key to the kingdom of heaven.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO PEACE
Among the many questions that we have been asked to answer at the State Capitol through the Utah State Historical Society is one that I know will impress you, and one, too, we have tried to answer properly, though briefly. It is a question of great importance. It is:
What contribution has the Latter-day Saint Church made to this darkened world, with the other Christian churches to bring peace to the world?
As we listen to the Singing Mothers of the Relief Society we recall something that has come down to us from ancient days. In an old rabbinic code recently discovered is a description of the duties of women as taught in the synagogue. They were to:
Feed the hungry and give the thirsty to drink. Clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless. Visit the sick, bury the dead and comfort the mourner. Support the widow and instruct the fatherless. Ransom the captive. Make garments for the orphan and provide for the betrothed maiden.
When we stop to think that this code is many hundreds of years old and was taught in the ancient synagogues of Jerusalem, it indicates what a high calling the women of God have always had.
UNCERTAINTY IN CHRISTIAN WORLD
The modern Christian world is confronted with two conditions which seem to be little realized. The first is the inner uncertainty of Christianity itself which does not seem to know its own basic beliefs. The Christian world is confused as to just what Jesus of Nazareth taught.
Then there is the upsurge of communism, a power that has come into our own midst greater than we realize.
No movement in history has achieved so sudden an actualization as a world movement. Systems only grow as they appeal to people. Communism will continue to grow until the people are confronted with and taught the fundamentals of Christianity which are creatively worked out in human society.
We know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is comprehensive and all-embracing, including all the values of religion as they reveal themselves in human experience. It is purifying and refining, correcting the excesses and rejecting the abuses, which have corrupted the nature and obstructed the pathway of religion throughout its history. The gospel of Jesus Christ is distinctively and definitely revelatory, fulfilling the largest meaning and possibility of revelation. It makes due place for all the human interests that constitute the spiritual life of man. It is quite true that the Christian world has lost the path. And the reason for this is that it has not the inner vigor to command a place of commanding power. The religion of Jesus Christ requires revelation-revelation to chosen prophets, who teach the principles of the redemption of mankind. Within the Christian doctrine is the principle and potency of redemption.
HIGHEST CONCEPTS OF FREEDOM
The faith we have in our government of the United States is of the highest concept, for to us, it is a sacred institution because of the directive power of God that brought it into existence. The government of the United States is an outgrowth of the highest concepts of freedom for mankind that the world has learned in history. Reverting to the simple beginnings of the founders of America, we know them to have been of the finest blood of England, and other countries of Europe. They brought hither in their little ships, not money, not merchandise, no array of armed force, but they came freighted with religion, learning, and law. They stepped forth upon these shores and a howling wilderness received them. Strong in their faith in God and their own heroic patience, they began their combat with danger and hardship. Sickness at times smote them, but they fainted not; famine overtook them, but they feasted on roots with a patient spirit. They began to build a house for God, and then for themselves. They established education and the observance of a stern and august morality, then legislated for the smaller purposes of wealth and convenience. They gave their sons to God, and through virtue to the state. So they laid their foundations. Villages grew, churches and colleges were built, and farther into the depths of the wilderness industry multiplied her hands. Civic life and order completed themselves and swelled into the majesty of states. Herein is a resume of our own state's history. Utah was founded in sublime hopes and the ideals of a pure morality. And the higher life was combined with agriculture and all industry-making the soil bring forth food for man. Combined with all this was a taste for learning. This state was grounded in religion, for religion was incorporate in the principles and feelings of the people. This is what gave us our morals and true public enthusiasms, and our inspired ways of living.
OBEDIENCE TO LAW IS LIBERTY
There is a principle that is often misunderstood, and that is what we call obedience. It is a principle that makes life happy and creates within us faith in truth and the results of doing what is right. On the old library of Worcester, Massachusetts, are these words: Obedience to Law is Liberty.
Obeying laws which we impose upon ourselves, that is, just and righteous laws, laws that are the expressions of right principles, such as discipline of the intellect, the shame of committing a wrong, respect for those in authority, consideration for the poor and needy; veneration for the good; sympathy for the weak: this is true self-discipline. Then one knows what liberty means. Obedience to the laws that express right principles is what makes it a religious duty. It leads to faith in the commandments of God.
For forty years, Moses had not been alone. The care and burden of all the people, the weight of their woe and guilt and death had been upon him continually. He felt at times that the Lord had forsaken him and he had prayed that he might be slain, that God might not see his wretchedness. And then when the march to the Promised Land was over, he heard the voice of the Lord:
Get thee up into this mountain...
In his old age the long journey was about to end, and he should see the land that had been his dream. Moses died. But he had come to know the perfect law of liberty through obedience.
MISSIONARY CALLING OF SEVENTIES
Every generation writes its own history. It is not that the past alters, but that we change, and our changed present opens new perspectives, and raises new questions. The gospel as revealed to the servants of God will always remain the same and constant. You seventies who are the missionaries of the Church, are called to go forth to teach the world as your forebears were called years ago. The gospel has a worldwide mission. Like Paul, the Church cannot do other than exclaim:
... woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!.
I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.
You are to give freely that which you have freely received. You have fine ideals; you have trained yourselves to think and act as your Redeemer would have you think and act. Remember you are members of a quorum of the priesthood of God, and your organization is a pure democracy. For this reason alone, you understand the meaning of good government.
IDEALS OF SERMON ON THE MOUNT
When Jesus called the Twelve and the Seventy to go forth to preach the gospel, he had the disciples assemble on the shores of the Lake of Galilee, and listen to his "Sermon on the Mount," which was the Master's ordination sermon. Think of what was expected of the disciples of Jesus, for the same ideals are expected of us. Standing as missionaries today, can we not in our imagination hear the Master?
Missionaries go forth with the deep knowledge of the precepts of God, and it is by following the precepts that belief in God is shown. If we believe in him, we shall keep his commandments; and the great commandment is that we shall love one another. How simple are all the doctrines, simple because all great truths are simple. It was the Prophet Isaiah who wrote:
Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
The precepts of the Sermon on the Mount with the words of Isaiah that we should cease to do evil and learn to do well, not to our brethren and fellow-citizens only, but to all mankind will ever be a guide to our lives.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 15-22
I humbly ask for an interest in your faith and prayers this morning as I stand before you on this rare and delightful occasion. It is truly an inspiration to see the priesthood sitting before us with other members of the Church in this great and historic building.
INDIAN GROUPS VISITED
Since the last conference it has been my privilege to visit many of the tribes of Indians and spend some time down in Mexico among others of the Lamanites. In Mexico I found many pureblood Indians who are living the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are in organized branches. There was the Aztec group down south of Popocatepetl Volcano. I found them dancing the Gold and Green Ball, though generally they go barefooted. I found them in Mutual activities of all kinds, singing temple anthems, dancing, dramatizing, and doing many of the things which we do here at home. And it became my hope that such might be the privilege of all of the Indians or Lamanites, everywhere in the world, and that the Church blessings might be brought to them.
RESPONSIBILITY TO PREACH GOSPEL TO LAMANITES
I realize that the responsibility is ours to bring the gospel with all its progress and culture to the Indian. No other people in the world have the program to give to them, and so it is up to us to do this. As we realize this, our great responsibility, we remember the scripture which says,
... I will soften the hearts of the Gentiles, that they shall be like unto a father to them.
One of the very first revelations to the Church in this last dispensation came through the Prophet Joseph Smith to Oliver Cowdery, and he said:
... behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them; and inasmuch as they receive thy teachings thou shalt cause my church to be established among them.
We have now, a stake in Hawaii, the membership of which is largely Lehites. We have branches of the Church in Spanish-America and in the islands of the sea in great numbers. We now have an Indian branch in South Carolina. We have Indian wards in the Malad Stake and in the Maricopa Stake. But our responsibility has not yet been met, for we have some sixty million people in these Americas who have some of the blood of Israel in their veins and who must hear the gospel.
DESTINY OF THE CHURCH
The Prophet Joseph Smith is quoted by President Wilford Woodruff in referring to this important matter. May I quote his words. The Prophet was talking to a group of the priesthood, and he said:
Brethren... you know no more concerning the destinies of this church and kingdom than a babe upon its mother's lap. You don't comprehend it...
It is only a handful of priesthood you see here tonight, but this church will fill North and South America-it will fill the world.
It will fill the Rocky Mountains. There will be tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints who will be gathered in the Rocky Mountains, and there they will open the door for the establishing of the gospel among the Lamanites, who will receive the gospel and their endowments and the blessings of God.
Then in Second Nephi we have this:
And the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be declared among them; wherefore, they shall be restored unto the knowledge of their fathers, and also to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, which was had among their fathers.
I am sure that the consummation of the work of the kingdom of God in this dispensation cannot be realized without this important feature of the restitution of all things.
In Third Nephi the Lord has inspired his prophet to say this:
And then shall the work of the Father commence at that day, even when this gospel shall be preached among the remnant of this people. Verily I say unto you, at that day shall the work of the Father commence among all the dispersed of my people, yea, even the tribes which have been lost.
HISTORY OF INDIAN CONVERSIONS
It has been said that the gospel would be preached and that nations would be "born in a day". There was a period back in 1875-1876 when there were great numbers of Indians who came into the Church. There was Chief Poko-Tel-Lo from the Snake River, who, with his entire band, was baptized into the Church, and they left Salt Lake City going back to their homes determined to refrain from all evil practices. The old chief said that the other Indians were interested, and there would be many who would be baptized. There were fifty from the north who came down. Chief Alma with twenty-two of his people from the Salmon River country came down and were baptized into the Church. The chief made the prediction that there would be hundreds and thousands of the Indians come into the Church. Orson Pratt baptized fifty-two and blessed nine papooses down at Mount Pleasant in June of that year. In July there were eighty-five of Kanosh's band who were baptized into the Church, and the following year there were forty-one men and thirty-nine women, Indians, baptized down at Kanab. It seems that there were a great many baptisms also up in the Malad country. I quote from The Deseret News of July 22. 1875:
... Yesterday we met with Brother G. W. Hill, who has charge of a colony of several hundred Indians, mostly of the Shoshone, Bannock, and Pah Ute tribes. They are Indians who have come forward and demanded to be baptized. The location is in Malad Valley, Idaho Territory.... They declare their intention to wander about no more, but to lead industrious lives, at peace with all their fellow creatures, refraining from stealing and from all manner of bad practices, and abide by the conditions of their baptism, which are that they shall cease every species of wrongdoing. Elder Hill has baptized about three hundred since last spring.
And then it was stated that these Indians had already shown their good faith. They were all blessing their food; they were having their family prayers; and they were attending their regular Sabbath meetings.
MISSIONS SERVING THE LAMANITES
In 1943 the Church organized the Navajo-Zuni Mission to look after the Indians in that area. This year the mission has been enlarged to include all of the Indians in Arizona and New Mexico and in the little strip in the southern part of Utah and Colorado. It is a full-time mission now. We are buying a mission home in Gallup, New Mexico, which will be the headquarters. And now young missionaries, elders and lady missionaries, are being called to this mission as the other missions in the Church.
This year the Uruguayan Mission has been opened, and today with that mission and Brazil and Argentina, we have in South America 169 missionaries working among the Lamanites. This, of course, is in fulfilment of the dreams of the brethren and particularly the promise and prayer of Elder Melvin J. Ballard when on the 25th of December in 1925 he stood on the banks of El Rio de La Plata at Buenos Aires, and under the weeping willow trees there, blessed South America. He said this, among other things:
... I turn the key, unlock, and open the door for the preaching of the gospel in all these South American nations, and rebuke, and command to be stayed, every power that would oppose the preaching of the gospel in these lands. And we do bless and dedicate these nations, and this land for the preaching of the gospel
And in the last three months two new fields have been opened. Mexican missionaries from the Mexican Mission have been sent into Guatemala and Costa Rica, and the work is going forward with the approval and hearty response, it seems, of the leading authorities of those nations.
We have the Mexican Mission, the Spanish-American Mission and the Navajo-Zuni Mission here in the United States and Mexico, in addition to all the program in the isles of the sea. The work in the stakes is going forward. There are Indians in many of the stakes here in the West, and the stake presidents are looking after the proselyting of these Indians within their boundaries, especially in the Blackfoot, Roosevelt, Sevier, Parowan, and other stakes.
We are glad of the work that has been renewed in the missions of the Church, especially here in North America. In Canada some very splendid work is being done in the Six-Nations Reservation over near Brantford, Ontario, and in central Canada there are two large reservations, the "Carry the Kettle" Reservation and the Piapot, where President Ivins recently visited, and between 175 and 200 Indians came and attended his meetings. Those were the largest meetings, I understand, in his entire mission visit in western Canada.
We have the Ponca and the Sioux Indians who are showing interest in Nebraska, and the Shoshones and the Arapahoes in Wyoming. We are doing work in the Rogue River, the Tule Rivers, and the Rancho Rio reservations in northern California, and the Menominee Reservation in the Northern States Mission. We have the Iroquois and the Catteraugas in New York, and it will be remembered that in 1830 when Oliver Cowdery began his missionary service among the Lamanites, that those were the first Indians to be visited in this dispensation. Today young elders are on motor bikes going out into the scattered areas and visiting the Indians, and are receiving a very warm welcome. The Cherokees in the East Central States Mission are interested. Their chief, Armichain, has indicated a great deal of helpfulness.
I would like to quote just a paragraph from a letter from one who has indicated intense interest and been most helpful.
... I drove... with one of my Indian friends, Charles Crow, to Asheville, and met the lady missionaries and the elders there... he was much impressed by them... We administered to one of the elders who was ill, Charles Crow witnessing the ordinance... He later told me that was taught in the Bible, and we were the first people he ever knew of that used it. When I had my prayers that evening I knelt beside him... Before I had finished he put his arm on my shoulder and said, Elder Stokes, pray that I some day may also have such a testimony and a prayer in my heart.
It was my privilege at Malad Stake recently to see a large number of our Indian members of the Church. One of the sisters bore a wonderful testimony in the conference, and one of the old men dismissed the conference. He was one of those original three hundred baptized way back in 1875 by Brother Hill. He was deaf, but he offered a very fine prayer.
INTEREST IN LAMANITES INCREASING
I believe that the interest generally is spreading and increasing and that we are on the dawn of a great day for the Lamanite people. Visiting the Mexican Mission in May I found of the seventy-one missionaries, fifteen of them were Lamanites, and I also found the young American missionaries were vying with each other to see who could be the companions of these Mexican and Indian missionaries because they were so efficient.
There have been baptisms by the hundreds. Some of the most recent ones were twenty baptisms in the Roosevelt Stake within the past few weeks. There were four at Sand Hills, Arizona. There were forty-one baptized in Mexico City in one day while I was there, and I witnessed their baptism. And then there were hundreds, many hundreds who have come back into fellowship in the Church in Mexico through the good graces of President George Albert Smith, President Arwell L. Pierce, and others who made contributions toward that great accomplishment.
We have had schools in Mexico, in Hawaii, Tonga, and New Zealand. And so we are looking forward to a new day in schooling where our Lamanites may receive many of the advantages that our own children have.
A year ago we established down in Blanding, Utah, a small school, somewhat as an experiment. It has been very successful. With an outlay of only $1,500 total, we have built and equipped a two-room schoolhouse there under the direction of Brother Albert R. Lyman, who has done a glorious work. There have been many donations of all kinds, in materials, in food, in clothing. For the first year they fed these little Indian children, twenty-seven of them, a warm midday meal, clothed them, and taught them not only the three R's but the gospel. It has been very successful, and we are delighted with the prospects that are ahead of us for the second year now which is beginning. I visited this school last year when it was in session. I noticed that three of the Indian women came, one of whom had five children, four in the school and one in the cradle upon her back. She sat at the sewing machine all day long in one corner of the larger schoolroom, and frequently we would see her going over to one of the little desks, kneeling down beside it to help her children to learn, and to impress upon them the importance of taking advantage of this unusual opportunity which many thousands of little boys and girls should, but do not have.
The 1946 report of the missions discloses the fact, that among the Lamanites there are six times as many converts for each missionary, as in all the other missions of the world, and there are twenty times as many converts for each missionary in the Lamanite missions as in some of the missions in Canada and the United States.
STORY OF POLACCA FAMILY
I had a letter the other day from a Tewa Indian in the Sand Hills of Arizona. His name is Vinton Polacca. He is the son of one Tom Polacca, who was baptized many years ago by Jacob Hamblin or his contemporaries. And then it seemed that there were many decades when there were no missionaries in the area to give them help and courage. But Tom Polacca went on with his work, and he taught his children the Book of Mormon stories, and promised them that though it would be slow, the Church would come back again to them. Vinton and his wife, Fanny, were baptized a few years ago at Snowflake, Arizona. They spoke in the meetinghouse. They were entertained in the homes of the whites, and they were feted and banqueted as brothers and sisters. The story of the conversion of this man is most interesting.
He was walking through the little community one day near the store out near the Second Mesa in that sparsely inhabited area in northern Arizona. He heard a missionary talking to some Indians near his car. He listened a moment. It sounded like the things his father had told him those many, many years before, and when the missionary entered his car to go off some little distance to eat his lunch, this man who had started out to get his horse, and had his bridle on his arm, climbed on the side of the car, and they went some little distance and found a place to sit down. Neither the horse was caught nor the lunch eaten because this man became so involved in his learning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so he and his wife were baptized some little time later.
Let me quote from his letter a few paragraphs of which I believe will interest you. Brother Vinton is a young man in his forties with a splendid Indian family, part of whom we baptized recently. We held a testimony meeting with them in their own little home, away out in the sand hills, and I think it was the first testimony meeting they had attended and the first sacrament they had ever received. He was a priest, and I helped him to administer to the sacrament. His letter reads in part as follows:
... We are here at Kearns Canyon School now. I am back to work in the bakery again. I sure like to be with so many little children... and I always wonder if all these young souls could only know the true gospel, it will be a great help to our tribe. Yes. We always talk about your nice visit to us at Sand Hills. There isn't very much to see up there, but I think that my father has been led by a great spirit, to find a spring and a good home, and have more freedom to pray to his true God. I could see him when I shut my eyes, kneeling down on top of those sand hills and praying to our Great Father in heaven... I surely would like to talk and tell the people all about my father's conversion, how he fine the true gospel...
My father was telling me a story at the sheep camp by a fireplace in the winter as we were setting by a fireplace, while he was sewing my sheepskin over shoes, he said, "My beloved Son, you are the youngest son of mine. I'll tell you a story about my life and other people. You must remember this and try to live up to it. But remember, Son, this is not for yourself. As I have said before, there are other people who cannot see and hear. If you live right and pray you might lead them and tell them about it. Give them a drink when they ask for it. Yes, Son, I have travel a lots of time out in the country. Far off to the other tribe to trade our goods. Many times I have gone alone out in the wilderness, where there is no roads or where to fine the spring and food when I need it. Oh my Son you must listen good. Our great spirit Father in heaven is guiding me. I pray when I am thirsty, I pray when I am lost and when I need food I pray. All are answer when you believe in him. You don't know yet Son, what I am talking about. But you must remember and pray for it, you'll fine it. The right one will come to you and you'll know it, my Son.
"There will be lots of white people. They will all look alike when you see them, all white. But, my Son, there heart is not alike, so you must be very careful in finding the right one. I have fine the true gospel so you must try and fine the same one my Son, the Mormons. They got the true record of our people. But they are coming slow. But they will be here. You'll see them and hear them when they come. You'll know them by name so my Son, wait for the Mormons. They got the true gospel of our great spirit Father in heaven. Pray for it so you'll fine the right one."
At his death bed I was setting beside his bed and he hold out his hands and said, "My Son, I am leaving you. Remember what I have told you. Wait for the Mormon. Look, Son, there is the man coming down to take me home. Look. There is the cross above me. Be a good boy, Son, be brave and be true to our true living God. Goodbye," And he is gone.
Oh yes, he told me that he first meet the missionaries around Tuba City and later on he said they went up to Salt Lake City to buy a horse with his brother, and thats the time he said he was been baptized. He did not said where he was been baptized. Only name that I remember was Jacob.
And then Vinton tells his own little story, briefly:
When I was about eight years old I start to heard sheep, and from that time on I have learned lots about God's work. I was a lonely boy. My brothers and sisters were big. When my father died in 1911 I was left alone with my mother, and she also encourage me to remember my father's last words-told me to live right and pray morning and evening so I keep it up. But sometimes I think of myself if I was worth to God, then with a humble heart I look toward east where Sun rises. I would then think of the day that would come for me to meet the right true gospel. In 1913 I was able to read and write. I went to Baptizes Church. I got hold of the Holy Bible and I sure did study it. But still it was not enough of the story that my father had told me. In my mind so in 1915 I went to Santa Fe to school and there I found out about the Catlices I sure want to go to there church so I did and I have found that it was not the kind that my father had told me about it, so that Sunday night I ask our God what to do. I though that I was lost. The next week Sunday they told me to go to church, but I stand alone there in the hole crowd. I don't know which way to go, so I did not go to church for about a month. The school boy use to call me divil because I didn't want to go to church...
I have waited about 20 years before I have found the true gospel.... Well, brother, I'll try and tell you... all about my father's life... and also my own hard traveling and looking for the true gospel which at last I have fine, and now I am feeling very happy..
I wish I would be up there with you during the general conference. Well, we all send our love to our brothers and sisters. We remain as true to gospel.
From Polacca family Vinton L. Polacca.
LAMANITES TO BE "WHITE AND DELIGHTSOME"
Brothers and sisters, in conclusion may I say that we owe a great debt to these people, which we can only pay by giving to them the gospel and the many advantages and opportunities which we enjoy. They are a warmhearted and devoted people. They believe without skepticism. They have a simple, childlike faith which admits of no cheap rationalization.
The Lamanites must rise in majesty and power. We must look forward to the day when they will be "white and delightsome", sharing the freedoms and blessings which we enjoy; when they shall have economic security, culture, refinement, and education; when they shall be operating farms and businesses and industries and shall be occupied in the professions and in teaching; when they shall be organized into wards and stakes of Zion, furnishing much of their own leadership; when they shall build and occupy and fill the temples, and serve in them as the natives are now serving in the Hawaiian Temple where I found last year the entire service conducted by them and done perfectly. And in the day when their prophet shall come, one shall rise
... mighty among them... being an instrument in the hands of God, with exceeding faith, to work mighty wonders.
Brothers and sisters, the florescence of the Lamanites is in our hands. May we not fail them, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Ezra Taft Benson
Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 23-27
I pray for the inspiration of our Heavenly Father during the few moments that I shall occupy this morning.
As I have looked into the faces of this great congregation and contemplated the other thousands to whom the message of this conference has been directed, I have had this question in my mind: From what kind of homes have we come this morning? How many of us knelt in family prayer before leaving to come to conference or to go to our various fields of endeavor? Do we come from homes where there is a spirit of love and unity-where there is the spirit of the gospel? Do we come from true Latter-day Saint homes?
THE HOME A DIVINE INSTITUTION
The Lord has implanted in every breast a desire for mating and home-building. The intimate associations of husband and wife, parents and children are among the sweetest and most soul-satisfying experienced in this life. The desire for home and family is a strong and natural impulse. What sweet memories surge up in our hearts at the mere mention of mother, father, brothers and sisters, home and family! The Lord has designed it so. The family is a divine institution established by our Heavenly Father. It is basic to civilization and particularly to Christian civilization. The establishment of a home is not only a privilege, but marriage and the bearing, rearing, and proper training of children is a duty of the highest order.
To Latter-day Saints the first and great commandment is a stern reality, second to none in importance. No one capable of performing this sacred duty is exempt, no matter what his station in life. Marriage, home, and family are established by God as part of his divine plan for the blessing of his children. The richest blessings and deepest joys of this life and the life to come are tied up with the performance of these sacred duties. In fact, our very exaltation in the celestial kingdom is directly related to the family and the eternity of the marriage covenant.
THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN
There are many people today in the Christian world, and possibly even among Latter-day Saints, who feel that they have done their duty when they have provided food, shelter, clothing, secular education, and accumulated wealth which their children will inherit later. However, this is not enough. According to the revelations which the Lord has given, it is not sufficient to provide all of these and even to send our children to Sunday School, to Primary, and to the Mutual Improvement Associations. There is still much to be done.
OBLIGATION OF PARENTS
The Church had only been organized a very short time when the Lord spoke regarding the important obligation of parents in the training of their children. May I read a few words from the D&C;, ofttimes quoted:
And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.
The obligation to teach the principles of the gospel to the youth of Zion rests squarely upon the parents of the Church. Not only is there an obligation to teach these principles, but the Lord says further in this same revelation:
And their children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of the hands.
It is an obligation of parents to see that these sacred ordinances are performed after the children have been properly taught. It is not the prerogative of parents to permit their children to grow up and choose for themselves. It is their duty and obligation to train them when they are yet young, and to see that these important ordinances are performed in their behalf.
In this same revelation the Lord indicates that it is the responsibility of parents to teach their children to pray. This does not mean secret prayers only. I am sure it means to teach by example through family prayers. We need the sanctifying influence which comes from devotion in the home-prayer as a family. The Lord indicates further that they should keep the Sabbath day holy, that they should remember their labors, that there should be no idleness, and he speaks very clearly regarding the matter of children growing up in idleness, for he says:
Now, I, the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them; and their children are also growing up in wickedness; they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness. These things ought not to be, and must be done away from among them.
This revelation given in Ohio something over a year after the Church was organized was also carried by Oliver Cowdery to the Saints in Zion by command of the Lord.
NO PARENT EXEMPT FROM RESPONSIBILITIES
We find also in the revelations that the Lord makes it very clear that no one is exempt from this obligation of properly training his children. I wish, my brethren and sisters, that as parents, we could merit the commendation which the Lord directed to Father Abraham in these words:
For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord.
If we could only merit that word of approval as husbands and fathers and as wives and mothers in Zion, what a glorious thing it would be!
The Lord also makes it clear, in one of the other revelations, that he expects men in positions of leadership to discharge this sacred obligation, and that when men are called to be bishops, presidents of stakes, or members of the General Authorities, this obligation does not cease. No matter how heavy the burden we are called upon to bear, no matter how great the activity, this obligation continues. In the D&C;, he tells of the contrast between the two powers that are at work in the universe, the power of evil and the power of truth and light.
The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. Light and truth forsake that evil one.
And then he points out, that the... wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men... But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth.
Then he refers to some of the leaders of the Church. He calls them his friends, and he chastises them in the spirit of friendliness and love. He refers first to Frederick G. Williams who had recently been called into the highest council in the Church:
But verily I say unto you, my servant Frederick G. Williams, you have continued under this condemnation; You have not taught your children light and truth, according to the commandments;... And now a commandment I give unto you-if you will be delivered you shall set in order your own house, for there are many things that are not right in your house.
And of Sidney Rigdon in similar vein:
... that in some things he hath not kept the commandments concerning his children; therefore, first set in order thy house.
And then even to the Prophet Joseph:
And now, verily I say unto Joseph Smith, Jun.-You have not kept the commandments, and must needs stand rebuked before the Lord; Your family must needs repent and forsake some things, and give more earnest heed unto your sayings, or be removed out of their place.
Then the Lord also comments regarding Newel K. Whitney, a bishop in the Church, and adds this as though to include us all:
What I say unto one I say unto all.
HOME EVENING INAUGURATED
This is a serious obligation, my brethren and sisters. Down through the years the First Presidency of the Church and other leaders have counseled and have admonished us regarding the sacred obligation of parenthood and the teaching of children in the home. It was during the ministry of President Joseph F. Smith that a new project was organized and announced in the Church, and a letter directed to presidents of stakes, bishops of wards, and parents in Zion from which I quote the following:
... we advise and urge the inauguration of a "Home Evening" throughout the Church, at which time fathers and mothers may gather their boys and girls about them in the home and teach them the word of the Lord.
And then the First Presidency made, in that same letter, one of the greatest promises that has ever been made to parents in Israel, as follows:
If the Saints obey this counsel, we promise that great blessings will result. Love at home and obedience to parents will increase. Faith will be developed in the hearts of the youth of Israel, and they will gain power to combat the evil influences and temptations which beset them.
Shortly thereafter the Mutual Improvement Associations, with the approval of the First Presidency, used as their slogan, "We stand for a weekly home evening."
Subsequently, President Heber J. Grant reaffirmed the instructions previously given and officially endorsed the holding of a family hour in the home as an effective means through which the gospel might be taught to our children and the bonds of love and affection strengthened between parents and children. And then on January 4, 1936, the First Presidency said further:
As an aid to parents in discharging this most sacred obligation and duty there has been established... a "Home Evening" at which time parents and children gather around the family hearth in social and religious communion. In this day when socials, parties, dinners, business interests, etc., all tend to lead away from home associations the adoption of a Home Evening is highly advisable. It furnishes an opportunity for the parents to become better acquainted with their children and for children to know and appreciate their parents...
We commend the wards and the stakes that are making special efforts to make home life what it should be-a haven of peace, in which faith in God, respect and deference for one another and loyalty for truth and righteousness are pervading virtues.
REVIVAL OF HOME EVENING
During the past few months, the Council of the Twelve, under the direction of the First Presidency, has given further consideration to the powerful influences which tend to destroy the home and weaken the relationship between parents and children. As a result, a letter has been directed by President George F. Richards to presidents of stakes and bishops of wards recommending a revival and further motivation of this project inaugurated under the leadership of President Joseph F. Smith many years ago. The Council has called to its aid the Presiding Bishopric, heads of the Church auxiliaries and of course the local priesthood in the stakes and the wards. A major responsibility has been delegated to the Relief Society, and through this great organization of women-mothers in Israel-those who play such an important part in the training of our children-has been given the responsibility for the preparation of certain materials, as helps to parents. This material will be carried into the homes by the Relief Society teachers and the ward teachers. There will be talks and demonstrations as a means of stimulating interest in this worthwhile project.
And so, my brethren and sisters, this morning may I appeal to you to give attention to this project as it is inaugurated and sponsored by these agencies mentioned.
There can be no genuine happiness separate and apart from the home. The sweetest influences and associations of life are there. We cannot be successful no matter what goals we attain in the material world, no matter what honors of men come to us; we will not be successful in our lives if we fail as fathers and as mothers. May we have no regrets. May we heed the counsel that has been given us. May we realize that even in this great land of America, endowed so richly as President Smith mentioned this morning, there can be no enduring prosperity and happiness in non-religious homes. The integrity of the home must be maintained. The spiritual foundation of our homes must be strengthened. Our homes must receive more attention; otherwise the outcome will be disappointing to all of us. More recreation and more devotion in the home will result in greater family solidarity.
This is a great obligation. Our happiness here and hereafter is tied up with our successful discharge of this great responsibility. It merits, my brethren and sisters, our prayerful planning and attention, and I am confident in my own heart that great dividends will result, that great joy and satisfaction will come if we heed this as all other counsels given to us by the Presidency of the Church. And I promise you, as your humble servant this morning, that if you will obey this counsel as parents in Zion, love at home and obedience to parents will increase; faith will be developed in the hearts of the youth of Israel, and they will gain power and strength to combat the evil influences and temptations which beset them, which I pray for on behalf of the homes of Israel, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph F. Merrill
Joseph F. Merrill, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 32-37
During the few minutes allotted to me in this conference, I desire to give brief consideration to a problem that is arousing more and more attention among those thinking people of America who are deeply concerned with their moral and spiritual welfare. I refer to the liquor problem-one of the most challenging and difficult of all unsolved internal problems that face the country today, a problem of major importance. Of course the point of view from which I shall look at this problem is that given me by the moral teachings and standards of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yet I hasten to say that in respect to the liquor problem the teachings and standards of multitudes of people in other churches and organizations are similar to our own. Some of them recognize as clearly and keenly as we do that drinking is an evil that all good, right-thinking people should unite to eliminate.
USE OF ALCOHOL DESTRUCTIVE
I use the word "drinking," as meaning the imbibing of a liquid containing alcohol, which is a definite chemical compound, once described by the Journal of the American Medical Association as
... a poison inherently, absolutely, essentially; in a drop or in a gallon, in all quantities and in every quantity. Plainly its quantity cannot affect its chemical constitution.
And when drunk, what does alcohol do? In the language of the late Robert G. Ingersoll:
... alcohol burns up men, consumes women, destroys life, curses God, and despises heaven. It suborns witnesses, defiles the jury box, and stains the judicial ermine. It bribes voters, corrupts elections, endangers the government, degrades the citizen, debases the legislature, dishonors the statesman. It brings shame, not honor; terror, not safety; despair, not hope; misery, not happiness. It destroys peace and ruins morals; it murders the soul; it is the father of all crime, the mother of all abominations, the devil's best friend.
In the language of the First Presidency of the Church:
Drink brings cruelty into the home; it walks arm in arm with poverty; its companions are disease and plague; it puts chastity to flight; it knows neither honor nor fair dealing; it is a total stranger to truth; it drowns conscience; it is the bodyguard of evil; it curses all who touch it. Drink has brought more woe and misery, broken more hearts, wrecked more homes, committed more crimes, filled more coffins than all the wars the world has suffered.
It is involved in more traffic accidents and fatalities, and sends more patients to mental hospitals than any other single factor.
BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WASTED
Yet notwithstanding these facts, which warrant a bitter arraignment of alcohol, there are an estimated one hundred million Americans over fifteen years of age, fifty million of whom drink more or less regularly. According to the United States Department of Commerce these people spent for alcoholic beverages during 1946 nearly nine billion dollars. This is more than was spent during the same period for all types of public and private schools including school and university libraries, and for state and federal government services in the fields of health, welfare, old age assistance, etc.
Of the fifty million drinkers, it is estimated that three million drink excessively, that is, are alcoholics-people who have measurably lost control of their drinking. They have acquired the disease of alcoholism, as it is termed by the experts. One who suffered from this disease-Mrs. Marty Mann, now executive director of the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism-said in her Columbia Broadcasting System broadcast last December:
These were the most painful years of my life. I suffered constantly, not just one kind of pain, but all kinds of pain. I suffered physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, and socially-in every department of my life. I tell you, honestly, and on behalf of those three million human beings, that alcoholism is the most painful disease known to man.
LECTURES ON "YOU AND ALCOHOL"
Some of you may remember that several months ago the Columbia Broadcasting System carried over its network thirteen lectures entitled "You and Alcohol," described as
A series of broadcasts examining the problem of alcoholic consumption in the United States and its effect upon our people and our institutions, delivered on Tuesday nights, beginning November 12, 1946.
The preface to these lectures said:
Since alcohol touches the lives of large numbers of people, it seemed logical to Columbia to consider it a problem in which radio's special and unique functions could be usefully employed to translate the problem into plain, arresting terms and to bring it directly to the attention of millions of listeners.
Each of the thirteen speakers was considered an expert on the phase of the subject of which he spoke. I have just quoted one of the speakers. Nine of the others were doctors in various fields of research-medicine, neurology, psychology, sociology, psychiatry. Seemingly they all agreed with Mrs. Mann-as do medical experts generally-that alcoholism is a disease, as certainly as pneumonia, tuberculosis, and cancer are diseases, and should be treated as such. One of these speakers, Dr. Lyman C. Duryea, wrote:
As a physician, I am concerned about those people who drink to excess and cannot control their drinking. These people need medical care. They are sick people.
ALCOHOLISM A DISEASE
The alcoholic finds it absolutely impossible to drink in moderation. This means all alcoholic beverages, as well as medicines, or anything else containing alcohol. Complete abstinence is his only salvation. The person with an alcohol problem must remember that he is a sick person and that never again can he take a drink "of anything that contains alcohol." So, let us admit that alcoholism is a disease. However, there is one peculiarity about the disease-it is never acquired by anyone who does not take his first drink. This is a fact. Let everyone remember it.
As just stated, according to accepted figures, fifty million Americans drink. Of this number, three million, one in sixteen-six percent acquire the disease of alcoholism, become sick and in need of treatment. This is more than twice the number afflicted with tuberculosis, we are told. These figures indicate the magnitude of the problem. I stated that no one ever becomes an alcoholic who does not take his first glass.
But something more can be said. According to the experts on alcohol, no one who begins to drink be he rich or poor, master or servant, learned or ignorant, can ever know until it is too late, if he continues to drink, whether or not he will get the alcoholic disease. No medical examination can determine this. The change from controlled to uncontrolled drinking occurs suddenly and without warning, so the experts tell us. Thus there are two things to be remembered about this disease of alcoholism: It costs nothing to avoid getting it, and nothing to avoid its recurrence, if once rid of it. Total abstinence is the certain remedy both before and after.
BILL TO PROTECT ADVERTISING OF LIQUOR
And now let us go to another phase of the alcohol problem-that of advertising. On May 12 and 13 of this year the committee on interstate and foreign commerce of the United States Senate gave a public hearing in Washington, D.C., on Senate Bill 265, by Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas, which would prohibit all types of advertising of any kind of alcoholic beverage. The proponents of the bill were able and well prepared and backed by many resolutions of church and other organizations, as well as by thousands of petitions, numerously signed. In supporting the bill Senator Capper said:
The growth and extent of the liquor habit in the United States in the last few years alarms me. We were told preceding repeal, by the advocates of repeal, that the manufacturers and dealers of alcoholic beverages would discourage excessive drinking. Yet in 1946 the national drink bill was nearly nine billion dollars, eighty-nine dollars for every person in the United States over eighteen years old-about one-fourth of the federal budget for the coming year. Now, Mr. Chairman, I believe that the tremendous amount of advertising seeking to whet the appetite for drinking, seeking to create new customers, especially among women and children, has much to do with the greatly increased amount of alcoholic consumption during recent years.
Bishop Wilbur E. Hammaker, of the Methodist Temperance Board, in his testimony said:
Our judges all the way up through the Supreme Court have decided again and again that the liquor business is hurtful to life, is an enemy of the well-being of society and lives only by sufferance. It has no inherent or inalienable rights. Tragedy stalks the liquor business; it is constantly violating the very laws that permit its presence in our midst. Its history is sordid, shameful, slimy, scrofulous, rather than glad, noble, and fine as its ads try to tell us.
In his statement before the committee, Mr. O. G. Christgau, superintendent of the Iowa Ant-Saloon League, among other things, related that Mr. P. S. Dupont, president of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, wrote two years prior to repeal the following:
Advertising is one of the most fruitful means of increasing business and of promoting sales. As it is the policy of this country to reduce sales of liquor, no advertising of any kind should be permitted manufacturers or sellers.
President Roosevelt in proclaiming the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment declared:
The objective we seek through the national policy is the education of every citizen toward a greater temperance throughout the nation.
Compare these statements with the fact that during 1946 more than one hundred million dollars was spent in advertising alcoholic beverages.
Dr. Glen Cunningham, internationally famous some years ago as an athlete and now a university professor, was a witness before the committee. Among his statements were these:
In my work with thousands of young people during the past fifteen years, I have noticed an alarming increase in the number who use alcoholic beverages. Every person, conscious of the startling increase in delinquency among youths, in deaths and injuries from accidents, in murder and rape, in impoverished and broken homes, and in the number of mental diseases, realizes the urgent need for the passage by Congress of Senator Capper's bill. The cost in human misery, maimed bodies and minds, the lost lives, makes it inestimably more important that the advertising of alcoholic beverages which contribute so heavily to these great tragedies, be brought under control.
SUPPORT OF CAPPER BILL URGED
In view of the results that follow the consumption of beverage alcohol, why do the American people tolerate it? I leave the answer to them. In any case, the vast sums spent for widespread, alluring, deceptive advertising have had much to do with it and with greatly increased consumption, especially among women and teenagers. But may I ask you, the Mormon people, why do you tolerate it? You accept and teach the Word of Wisdom as a divine revelation in which alcoholic drinks are proscribed. Thus it logically follows that Latter-day Saints, if true to their faith, cannot conscientiously indulge in drinking; the informal world knows this. Church members cannot indulge without displeasing God and without losing more or less the respect of their non-Mormon friends, many of whom look upon Mormon drinkers as weaklings or hypocrites.
But may we not with perfect propriety and expectation of favorable response ask all Church and non-Church members who love their fellow men and will work for their best good to do whatever in their power is feasible to reduce the consumption of alcoholic beverages to the smallest attainable limits? As one means to this end let us actively support the Capper Bill and pray that it will become law, thus going far to eliminate every type of beverage alcohol advertising. But this bill will not become law except over the strenuous opposition of the financially powerful liquor industry-an industry that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars and continues to spend vast sums in advertising.
Representative Joseph R. Bryson said at the Senate committee hearing the following:
Advertising shapes our lives and molds the rising generation. We eat, drink, dress, and think according to advertising. Immature youths are particularly impressionable. This advertising comes to us, mainly by press and radio. If the artificially stimulated demand for intoxicants is to be checked, the advertising of liquor must stop. Liquor advertising negates the educational efforts of the home, the school and the church on the dangers of alcohol. How foolish it is to teach youth the dangers of liquor while allowing the stuff to be advertised in the most alluring of terms.
CHURCH FOR TOTAL ABSTINENCE
Again I ask: Why do the Mormon people tolerate the drinking of alcoholic beverages by their members? They all know the Church stands irrevocably for total abstinence. Many answers are given, but, perhaps one of the most frequent and basic is that no one may be denied his "free agency"-his right to drink. But I ask, may one be permitted to indulge his free agency when to do so endangers the safety, peace, good, and happiness of others? The answer of our civil laws is no.
Satan the devil, a personal being, is abroad in the land with a multitude of helpers. Back to him stems the source of all sins, crimes, wickedness, and troubles of the human family. Satan's ambition is to handicap the Lord's work. This he tries to do by leading away and using the Father's children in any and every way that brings misery, distress, and destruction to them. Let us resolve to resist him wherever his influence is manifested, as it certainly is in all phases of the liquor problem.
LIQUOR ADVERTISING UNMORAL
In the light of all that can be truthfully said of the effects of consumed alcohol are we not amply justified in declaring that liquor advertising is unmoral and wrong? To encourage and induce human beings, particularly the youth and immature, to destroy themselves is wicked in the sight of God and criminal in the sight of man. As I see it nothing more mild can in truth be said of the vast alcoholic beverage promotion business. Back of it all may be found some of the keenest and ablest minds working, planning, and scheming how to get more and more people to drinking.
Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you: In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation.
Surely Satan is working through these men to the injury and destruction of our fellow men.
Of course many of these people move in respectable and so-called high grade society. But this does not change the fact that their business is damnable and should not be advertised. Traffic in morphine, marijuana, stealing, gambling, prostitution, and many other evils, is not permitted to be advertised. Yet in its evil results does not the liquor traffic outrank any one of these wicked businesses? In justice to youth, the unwary, and people generally, is not the elimination of every variety of liquor advertising the very least we can do in this matter. Let us sincerely and wholeheartedly support the Capper Bill $265.
Brethren and sisters of this Church, by promise and covenant we are obligated to serve God and work for the good of our fellow men. May we be faithful to our obligations, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Marion G. Romney
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 38-42
My beloved brethren and sisters, I come before you with deep appreciation and gratitude for my association with you and for my fellowship in the Church. I stand before you in humility, praying that the spirit of the Holy Ghost will guide me while I speak, for I am a great convert to the statement of Nephi that when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost, the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men. In all my ministry in the Church, I want to speak and act under the influence of that spirit. Without it I think we are less than nothing in this service.
PEACE IN THE MIDST OF TURMOIL
I am very grateful for the peace and quiet that prevail here in this meeting. It seems to me that we are sitting right in the center of a hurricane, as it were. You will remember the report that when the hurricane passed over New Orleans, it spread great havoc for a time, and then of a sudden a calm fell over the scene; the wind and the rain ceased; and the warm sunshine broke through the clearing clouds. For a few moments the city was in the "eye" of the hurricane.
In the world today there is strife and uncertainty all about. But here we enjoy peace. I thought this morning when President Smith was speaking, what a glorious thing it is to enjoy peace in the midst of the turmoil that the world now suffers. One of the reasons why we enjoy this great peace is a result of the attitude in which we come to conference. We did not come here to negotiate and maneuver for position, nor out of our own wisdom to evolve action policies of expediency. We came here to hear eternal principles of truth expounded by men whom God has endowed to expound them.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF TRUTH
I am grateful that I know that in the gospel of Jesus Christ there are principles of eternal truth. They are the guide of my living, as I know they are the guide to your living. I am very grateful that the Lord saw fit to give us these principles. I recall, too, that the Lord gave to this great nation some principles which if followed would spare us from much of the confusion in our national councils and our international councils. Those great principles are set forth in two short documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
In the Constitution the Lord set out wise principles for the governing of this great nation. He stated in a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith that he brought forth the Constitution of the United States through men whom he raised up for that very purpose. Under it, a great representative form of government was set up, a republican form of government. If the principles set out in the Constitution of the United States were followed by all men who exercise authority in governments, we would have peace in the earth. This is true because by the inspiration of heaven that Constitution made provision for the best form of political government ever devised for the use of man.
GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH
Now the Lord has set up a form of government in the Church, too. I would like to tell you a little of what I understand that form of government to be. The Lord says that it is a "kingdom." I think he says in one of the revelations that we should pray that the kingdom of God might go forth upon the earth, that the inhabitants thereof may receive it and be prepared to meet the kingdom of heaven when it shall come with the Master at its head. The government of the Church in its operation is quite different from the government of the United States.
In the Church is a democratic principle known as the law of common consent. It was revealed before the Church was organized. I have here an excerpt from the first volume of the Documentary History of the Church, which was written by the Prophet Joseph Smith. He says that in 1829 in the home of Father Whitmer, which was in Seneca County, as you will remember,
... the word of the Lord came unto us in the chamber, commanding us that I should ordain Oliver Cowdery to be an elder in the Church of Jesus Christ; and that he also should ordain me to the same office; and then to ordain others, as it should be made known unto us from time to time. We were, however, commanded to defer this our ordination until such times as it should be practicable to have our brethren, who had been and who should be baptized, assembled together, when we must have their sanction to our thus proceeding to ordain each other, and have them decide by vote whether they were willing to accept us as spiritual teachers or not.
PRINCIPLE OF COMMON CONSENT
The Church was not very old before the Lord gave the direction in a revelation that
No person is to be ordained to any office in this church, where there is a regularly organized branch of the same, without the vote of that church.
In the body of the Church there lies great power. No man can preside over any organized division of the Church without the consent of those over whom he is to preside. That is a power which God has vested in the membership of this Church. Sometimes I think when we raise our hands to sustain the General Authorities, we are not actively alive to that great principle. No one of us, I feel, has a right to raise our hand to sustain any man or woman in a position in the Church if we know that that man or woman is unworthy of the position for which he or she is named.
But the Church membership, however, does not have the power to nominate men and women for office in the Church. That is a distinguishing feature between the civil government, its functioning, and the government of the Church. The authority and the power to propose men and women for office in the Church resides in the presiding authority. The power of approval resides in the membership of the Church.
God, our Eternal Father, appointed the Prophet Joseph Smith to be his prophet, and he was accountable to God, our Eternal Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and not to men. But even so, the membership of the Church could have rejected the Prophet Joseph Smith as the President of the Church. Had they done so, he could not have presided over them. They would, of course, have been apostate had they rejected him, because he never lost the approval of the Lord.
When a member of the Council of the Twelve is to be appointed, as I understand it, the power of nomination resides in the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The people have the right to sustain. That is the way it is, all down through the Church. When a stake is to be organized, the Presidency of this Church sends members of the General Authorities to select and propose to the people the man that is to be sustained, and the people can receive him or reject him by their own vote. That takes politics out of our Church. You never hear of a prospective stake president promising the people that if they will sustain him, he will make a certain man the bishop of a certain ward and another man the bishop of another ward, and this woman the president of Relief Society, and that one the president of the Mutual, and so forth.
LEADERSHIP INSPIRED
The Lord has set up a perfectly safe procedure in placing the power of nomination in the presiding officers, because back of the government of the Church in the earth is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. I believe that when the Presidency of this Church nominates a person for an office, it is not a personal nomination. I have that confidence in the Presidency and that testimony of the divinity of this Church. I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ reveals to them through the spirit of the Holy Ghost the men they should name to office, and I believe that same spirit will inspire and direct the presidents of stakes and the bishops of wards and the heads of other organizations in this Church, if they will live for such inspiration, so that when they name people for office they will name them under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
In addition to the inspiration of the Lord which every person is entitled to, according to his calling, we have revealed and written down in the D&C; and the other Church works, eternal principles of truth to guide us through the world. I think we ought to remember that we have these principles, for this is a day when the doctrine of opportunism is abroad in the world, and when men and women generally act on the principle of expediency. So acting, they move further and further into confusion. In the Church, on the other hand, so long as we follow the principles of the gospel and the proper Church organization procedure, we move into peace, prosperity, and happiness.
I feel that we ought to study these eternal principles. I know that the Lord said we should study all things. We should become learned in the things of this world, study about nations, histories, sciences, and all other things; but the eternal principles of truth by which we are to guide our lives, we are not to learn by the study of things taught by men without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Remember what the Lord said to the missionaries when he sent them out. He said he did not send them out to be taught; he sent them out to teach the children of men the things which he had put into their hands by the power of his spirit. They were to learn of those things from on high.
MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS ACTS
Now, I think sometimes we get away from these eternal principles of truth. The other day I was in a conference where a man presented in a priesthood meeting the doctrine that the evils of adultery were to be measured by their effect upon the whole group, and that the individual adulterer should not bear the burden of his own act. Some time before that, I heard the doctrine presented that one who lives the Word of Wisdom should not look for an individual blessing according to the promise the Lord gave that "all saints who remember to keep and to do these sayings... shall receive health in their navel" and so forth, but that the probability that the individual would receive such blessings would be increased because of his membership in a group whose standards were higher. Now, I believe that every man will be judged on his own record, and that the adulterer will have to bear personally the judgment for his act, and he will be rewarded according to his act, and I believe as the Lord promised in the first verse of the 93rd section of the D&C;, "that every soul who forsaketh his sins and cometh unto me, and calleth on my name, and obeyeth my voice, and keepeth my commandments, shall see my face and know that I am".
I would like to find, when I read the lessons that are to be presented in the classes of the organizations of this Church, an assurance that what is in them was written against the background of the knowledge and understanding of the eternal principles of the gospel, unaffected by the learning and philosophies of men. I think we cannot explain the teachings of Jesus, as they are recorded in the New Testament, in the absence of the light of what the Redeemer himself has said about those teachings in the modern revelations, and I think we need to hold close to these eternal principles. We must learn what they are. If we would spend just a portion of the time we spend reading uninspired writings of men in studying the gospel of Jesus Christ as it is written in the revelations, we would not be deceived as we sometimes are.
God bless us that we may understand who we are and that we have in the gospel eternal principles of truth. May he give us courage and strength to live by them, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Henry D. Moyle
Henry D. Moyle, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 42-47
My brethren and sisters, it is with humility that I stand before you to occupy a few moments of your valuable time. At this season of the year and in the year such as we now enjoy, we might very well look back upon our immediate past and ask ourselves the question whether or not the counsel and advice that was given from this stand eleven and a half years ago has yet become a cardinal principle of our lives and of our activities. Have we, all of us, in our homes today a year's supply of the necessities of life? Have we all up-to-date accounted to the Lord for our tithing? Have we fasted during the year and accounted to the bishop for the savings thus effected? Have we contributed as liberally as we might to the fulfilment of the 1947 welfare budget? These are important questions in our lives today, as important, and maybe more so than ever before, and if we have not done this, then we certainly lack the faith and the courage to do what our great leaders have suggested.
TESTIMONY OF WELFARE PROGRAM
I've often had occasion to say as I traveled through the Church in the welfare work that President Grant, when he called me to the general welfare committee, did not ask me if I was converted to this great principle of the Church taking care of its own; he simply told me that I had been called to this work and was expected to go forth and do those things which were necessary to build up this plan among our people. I felt very much impressed this morning with what President Smith said to us about what we see and hear. That is not the important thing. The important thing to you and to me is the thing that we feel, and I am here to tell you today, brethren and sisters, in all humility that there has never been a moment in my life since President Grant called me to this welfare work that I haven't felt well in it and felt that I was doing something that the Lord desired should be done. And so governed by the standards that our prophet has set us here today, it gives me pleasure to bear my testimony to you that there is still great need in the world today and in this Church for this great welfare program.
OPPOSITION OF ADVERSARY
In reading The Life of Brigham Young the other day I came across this passage:
It was revealed to me in the commencement of this Church that the Church would spread, prosper, grow and expand, and that in proportion to the spread of the gospel among the nations of the earth so would the power of Satan rise.
And I have a conviction within me that we have had the power of the adversary made manifest against us in endeavoring to promulgate this welfare program among our people, and I believe that the adversary has used some of his strongest workers to keep you and me from following the advice and the counsel of our leaders as we should have done, and we have not been as diligent in performing these duties that devolve upon us in this welfare plan as we should have been.
If we had maintained the standards of the Church in connection with our welfare work in the last eleven and a half years, we could have blessed the people of Europe many times more than we already have because we would have had many times more than the eighty-three cars that have gone over there to alleviate their suffering. As far as I have been able to determine in our lives, brethren and sisters, if we consider this matter seriously, we have not been imposed upon; we have not suffered. This welfare program has been no burden to us. I want to tell you that those people in this Church who have taken the advice and the counsel of our brethren literally have been blessed.
OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH DAY
There is another thing that is close to my heart today, and I seem impelled to speak upon it, and that is that the bounties of this earth have been promised to the Latter-day Saints and to all the children of our Heavenly Father if we keep the Sabbath day holy. We certainly have plenty of reason to give this matter consideration in connection with our welfare work. One of the earliest commandments that were given to man was that we should remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy:
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.
Brigham Young said on this subject:
Now remember, my brethren, those who go skating, buggy riding or on excursions on the Sabbath day-and there is a great deal of this practiced-are weak in the faith. Generally, little by little, the spirit of their religion leaks out of their hearts and their affections, and by and by they begin to see fault in their brethren, faults in the doctrines of the Church, faults in the organization, and at last they leave the Kingdom of God and go to destruction. The Lord has directed his people to rest one-seventh part of the time, and we take the first day of the week, and call it our Sabbath. This is according to the order of the Christians. We should observe this for our own temporal good and spiritual welfare. When we see a farmer in a hurry, that he has to attend to his harvest, and to haying, fence-making, or to gathering his cattle on the Sabbath day, as far as I am concerned, I count him weak in the faith. He has lost the spirit of his religion, more or less. Six days are enough for us to work, and if we wish to play, play within the six days; if we wish to go on excursions, take one of those six days, but on the seventh day, come to the place of worship, attend to the Sacrament, confess your faults one to another and to our God, and pay attention to the ordinances of the house of God.
OBEDIENCE BRINGS BLESSINGS
And there is one other matter on this subject that I would like to read while I am on the subject generally, and that is in the D&C; we are promised that by keeping the Sabbath day holy the fulness of the earth shall be ours, and so I repeat again, that there is a pretty simple formula if we have faith in the work of the Lord. If the fulness of the earth is ours, we'll never have any trouble meeting our welfare budget; we'll never have any trouble taking care of those people who need assistance at our hands. The trouble with us is that we lack the courage to rely implicitly upon the work of God and to do as he has advised us to do.
We are much richer in this Church today than we give ourselves credit for being. There isn't a people upon the earth today who are as rich as we are. Just think of the blessings that are ours, and in what rich abundance we enjoy them. We have faith; we have truth; we have virtue; we have charity; we have humility; we have thrift, industry, ambition, enthusiasm; and, as a result of all of these virtues, my brethren and sisters, we have the necessities of life in the midst of the people in this Church in rich abundance. Now, if we are rich, and I am sure we are, then we should take to heart the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith, revealed to him by our Heavenly Father because he was not speaking as man to man, but he spoke when he uttered these words as the mouthpiece of our Heavenly Father. He said:
Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!
Wo unto you poor men, whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite, and whose bellies are not satisfied, and whose hands are not stayed from laying upon other men's goods, whose eyes are full of greediness, and who will not labor with your own hands!
But blessed are the pure in heart, whose hearts are broken, and whose spirits are contrite, for they shall see the kingdom of God coming in power and great glory unto their deliverance; for the fatness of the earth shall be theirs.
Here is another promise of all that we need to accomplish all of God's purposes here upon the earth, temporally as well as spiritually:
For behold, the Lord shall come, and his recompense shall be with him, and he shall reward every man, and the poor shall rejoice.
THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE
We have the spirit of contribution, and I am sure that spirit of contribution goes hand in hand, my brethren and sisters, with the spirit of missionary work which we are doing in this Church. Think of it, four thousand missionaries in the field preaching the gospel! I say that this spirit of contribution is with us because what are we doing in our missionary work? We are contributing the knowledge to those to whom we send our missionaries, that we have the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a spirit of sacrifice; it's a spirit of service; and along with the teachings of the spiritual doctrines that we have been given in this day and age through our prophets go the temporal needs and salvation of our people. And that is what our great welfare program does.
HONOR TO PARENTS
You know there is one other thing that our program does that is certainly praiseworthy. The Apostle Paul when he was speaking to the Ephesians said:
Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
Honour thy father and mother;
That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord... Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
This great welfare program of ours is calculated to bring father and son, and son and father into that close relationship and communion that Paul would have had exist in the Church his day. And it is just as essential to us today that we should do it. I want to say that tied in with that great principle is the great eternal principle of free agency that all of us prize so highly. We had to have our free agency in the councils in heaven, and through the use of that free agency we chose to come here to work out our temporal salvation and through our obedience to the laws and commandments of God to become literally his sons and his daughters.
VALUE OF FREE AGENCY
Are we going to lose that free agency today while we are here in this mortal existence earning that eternal salvation for which we were placed here upon this earth? Are we going to sacrifice our chances to retain our own free agency for anything that the world has to offer? All we have to do is just to examine any movement that may be brought into our midst whether it be social or political or what not, and if it has the earmarks of an attempt to deprive us in the slightest respect of our free agency, we should avoid it as we would avoid immorality or anything else that is vicious. I am sure that free agency is as necessary for our eternal salvation as is our virtue. And just as we guard our virtue with our lives, so should we guard our free agency.
It has been my experience, my brethren and sisters, to the extent that I have had experience in this mortal sphere, that wherever I permit anyone to perform any of the functions which the Lord expected I should perform for myself, that to the extent I do this, I become that other man's slave. And I tell you if we were ever to get in this Church in the position where we were relying upon some outside source for our finances, for our sustenance, just so sure would that outside force undertake to dictate to us what we should do. Those of us who can read only need to read what has passed in history. Whenever there has been any influence or any powers which have undertaken to control the welfare of mankind to the extent that they have contributed to their support, they dominated them in their lives. There isn't a social order on earth today but what if we were to follow it long enough and far enough would rob us of our free agency, and I tell you I am grateful to my Heavenly Father today for the knowledge and the conviction that I have within me that there is only one source in this Church from which you and I as faithful Latter-day Saints should receive any assistance in time of need, and that's the way the Lord has revealed.
Let us look carefully into every movement on the face of the earth today that undertakes to bind the hands of men; that undertakes to deprive them of their own free agency in life and prevents them from deciding every moment of their life whether they'll go to the right or to the left.
SUPPORT OF WELFARE PROGRAM
This great welfare program of ours is something that we should love and we should cherish, because bound up with that is a principle which will establish ourselves upon the face of this earth so that we will be free men and free women as long as we follow the dictates of our conscience and the counsel and advice that come from our Heavenly Father through his servants. And I hope and pray, my brethren and sisters, that we will not let eleven and a half years go by again without taking more seriously the counsel and advice that come constantly from our leaders to put our houses in order and let our sons and daughters take care of their mothers and fathers. Let us bring into the families of which Brother Benson so beautifully spoke this morning, that love and affection and that devotion which will not permit outside interests to come in and perform any of the family functions, whether they be temporal or spiritual. And there isn't a son or daughter in Israel who will not be blessed with the abundance of which we have spoken here this afternoon if he will but contribute of that which the Lord has given him to the maintenance of less fortunate members of his family. And I promise you that there wouldn't be a family in this Church, if we would live up to this principle, but what in and of itself without assistance from any outside source, would be self-sustaining.
May the Lord help us to become such, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Albert E. Bowen
Albert E. Bowen, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 49-53
This morning President Smith sketched for us a little of the history of our people over a hundred years. He could but sketch it, of course, but in the outline he drew, he was able to stimulate thinking within us that induced each one of us to fill in the outline from his own store of knowledge. The thought stimulated in me as I listened was in the form of a question. What started it all? What were the beginnings of it?
THE BEGINNINGS
He called our attention to a monument that is building in these grounds in honor of the handcart companies who started out from Iowa City on their journey to Salt Lake. I remember that my father, then a youth of nineteen, put all his earthly possessions on one of those little carts and pulled it or pushed it all the way to this city.
But Iowa City was not the beginning. From Wales he had come there. And the beginning was not in Wales. The beginning was not in Nauvoo where the people began their march across this continent. Behind that was an event in the state of New York where a boy knelt down to pray and where, in answer to that prayer, the God of heaven came bringing with him one whom he introduced as his Son, and whom he bade the praying boy to hear.
Neither was that the beginning. We should have to go back centuries to find that, eighteen of them at least, to the day when the star which guided the wise men stood over the manger, and the heavenly chorus sang, "Glory to God in the highest". That had antecedents, too, but I shall have no time to go back into them. I choose, rather, to begin with that event. That was the earthly beginning, if I may use that phrase, of the migration of our forebears to this land. That was when the Word was made flesh and came to dwell among men, and out of that circumstance derives the power and authority, the teaching, the inspiration that have moved all else to this hour.
MISSION OF THE SAVIOR
The Babe of Bethlehem entered upon his great mission alone. He went alone to be baptized of John. Alone he went from there into the wilderness where he fought his great spiritual battle and emerged triumphant over all blandishing allurements to pride, ambition, self-glorification, and worldly renown, and devoted himself to the mission to which the Father had consecrated him. Alone he retraced his steps, and going singly to one, and yet another, he bade each to follow him, until he had chosen twelve-humble men, all! And these he took under his tuition and taught them and trained them so that they might be able to carry on when he himself should be gone. He recognized that his message was a universal message, that it was a permanent message, not designed for the time of his earthly existence only, but something to be carried on after he himself should be gone. And these men he trained to be his ambassadors. With them alone he set out to transform the world, and, miracle of miracles, he did it-the most astounding miracle that ever was performed.
He made no revolutionary conquest. That was not the way of his procedure. He recognized that great principle of which Elder Moyle has so eloquently spoken, the right of each person to make free choice and decide for himself, the only principle upon which man can ever unfold his powers and grow into the image of God. He was not popular: he was maligned, misrepresented, his motives misstated, and finally, betrayed and put to death. But the ideal he had loosed upon the world did not die. And here these disciples whom he had chosen, trained, and taught, men of human frailty, had to pick up and carry on. These disciples of his, humble and weak though they were and full of mortal imperfections, carried on triumphantly.
They were not any more popular than he had been. The doctrines coming from them were no more palatable than they had been coming from the Master himself, but he had given them one of the most sobering assignments ever given to man. He had already triumphed over death. And his last visit with them, just before his taking his final earthly leave of his disciples, he declared:
All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
COMMISSION TO DISCIPLES
That is a pronouncement which for boldness and assurance has never been equaled, I believe in all the world's history. It was a fitting preface to the great calling then delivered over to them. He commissioned them,
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
And he authorized them to make an equally great promise.
He that believeth... shall be saved.
It is true that certain other things were required to be done, but they were incidents of belief. Everybody who believed, really and truly believed, with conviction in his soul, would do those other things. As the root of the whole matter was the injunction to believe.
MIRACULOUS GROWTH OF EARLY CHURCH
It was not a sudden happening. It required about three hundred years, a period three times as long as that which has elapsed since the coming of our pioneers to this city, but by the end of that time, the great Roman Empire which had been the persecutor of the disciples, which had thrown them to the beasts in the Roman circus, with a determination to stamp them out, and to destroy them and all their followers-by the end of that period of three hundred years-the majority of the people of that same empire were professed worshipers of the Son of God.
Talk about miracles! No greater miracle has ever been performed, and no greater triumph of fidelity is recorded in history.
Suppose those disciples had been recreant to their trust. Suppose they had failed. Then the message could not have been perpetuated, and this world might have been denied the inestimable blessings that flow from the teachings of the Savior of men. If you want to know how much we should have missed if that teaching had not been preserved through the fidelity of these men, just try to picture to yourselves what we should have to blot out from our lives if we took away all the teachings of the Master.
INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN NATIONS
And those disciples had to start out from the bottom. They had to get the people to accept Jesus. There was no use trying to ask people to accept his doctrines or to admonish them to live them unless first they could convert the people to believe in him. Their first job was to persuade men to accept Jesus as the Christ. And, as I said a moment ago, with the lapse of three hundred years, the majority of the people of the Roman Empire itself had accepted the word, and that nation, or that empire, together with all the nations that sprang out of its breaking up, and the nations of the occidental world that have grown up since then, have delighted to call themselves Christian nations in honor of the name of the crucified Son of God. The gauge of progress among those nations has been that degree in which they have fostered and preserved the principles of freedom, the rights of the individual man: Those nations, the Christian nations of the world, have, since their forming, stood out as the commanding nations among all the peoples of this earth. There have been no other nations with comparable progress and power and influence to that wielded by the Christian nations. There has never been in all history any domination of nations and their history comparable to that domination of the Christian nations which Jesus of Nazareth, though crucified, exercised over them. In all the annals of this world there is no parallel to that power and influence over the lives of nations and of men.
BREAKDOWN OF CHRISTIAN STANDARDS
That being the case, we might naturally have supposed or assumed-with the great unmeasured blessings that have come to those nations-that they would have been true to their heritage, that they would have continued in reverent regard of the name of him from whom the activating teachings came. Unhappily, that seems to be a presumption that we are not permitted to indulge. There has come over this earth now a disheartening breakdown of all the Christian standards. Skepticism, self-sufficiency, atheism, a denial of the divinity of Jesus the Christ, have supplanted belief, and lapses from the moral standards are but the natural result of the breaking down of that faith.
There is one thing of which we may be sure and that is that the teachings of the gospel, the gospel of the twentieth century, if you please, are the same as the teaching which was given in the first century. The gospel does not change, though its manner of presentation and technique may. Fundamentally, its basic principles do not alter. If the world had been true, if the Christian nations had remained firm in their faith, we could not have had the two last great wars which broke out right in the heart of Christendom. It comes from a teaching that there is no divinity whom one must revere; that all creeds are alike, as is now taught, and that to be cosmopolitan we have to accept them all and put all of them on the same plane of merit.
SUGGESTION OF LEARNED DOCTOR
I have here in my hand a clipping which I took recently from the daily press in which a learned doctor, addressing a professedly Christian body of worshipers, and speaking obviously in a manner congenial to their spirits, accused Christianity of spiritual arrogance and suggested that it abandon its claim to a monopoly of the way to salvation. Here are some of his exact words as quoted:
Christianity has been guilty of spiritual arrogance on a worldwide scale, labeling all other religions false and asserting that only when all mankind accepts the one true religion will there be any hope for worldwide co-operation and peace. That amounts to spiritual imperialism and is as out-of-date in our world today as any form of imperialism.
He said:
Only by recognizing the basic human equality of all religions is it possible to reach a world fellowship of faith inspiring man in his efforts to create a decent kind of world society.
The worthy doctor agrees with neither Jesus nor history.
RELIGION IS GOD-REVEALED
What becomes of God and Christ in a religion like that? That kind of declaration brings us face to face with this question. What is religion anyhow? Is it something that man makes for his own convenience, subject to change with all the alterations in the moods of the times, or is it something God-revealed, something that stands eternally true, a basis for conduct and a guide to our lives?
When you put God out, then atheism, skepticism, cynicism, all flock in; and when they flock in, their natural incidentals, the breaking down of standards by which men have lived enter in, and we have the turmoil and confusion and degradation that characterize this world today.
The ideal of the perfect life is no chimerical mirage because Jesus came and exemplified the perfect life. Through observance of the principles by which his life was ordered, man, too, may grow to perfection. There is no higher call to duty today than that the Church should teach faith in him and preserve it in the hearts of men. Without arrogance or boasting but in toleration and humility it must be true to its trust by teaching what Jesus taught: that there is one faith, one Lord and one baptism and that Jesus is the Christ.
May God give us the power for the need, I pray in his name. Amen.
President George F. Richards
George F. Richards, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 55-59
My dear brethren, sisters, and friends. I feel this a tremendous responsibility, undertaking to lead in intelligent, profitable thought, a congregation of thousands of intelligent people, present and on the air, members and non-members of the Church, and I sincerely hope that what I shall say will be of some interest and profit.
I suppose that most persons born into this world and living to reach maturity, at some time in their lives, entertain some such thoughts as these: where did I come from, why am I here, where am I going when I leave this sphere of action, and what effect will my life's actions here, have upon my future life?
GOSPEL ANSWERS IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
The gospel of Jesus Christ, as we have received it by divine revelation, makes satisfactory answer to these and many other important questions which arise in the mind from time to time. A like statement cannot be made in truth of any other religious organization. It teaches us that we lived as intelligent beings in the spirit before coming to this earth, that we are the spirit-born sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ, he being the firstborn in the spirit, and the only begotten of the Father in the flesh. Coming to this earth is an important part of the plan instituted in the councils of heaven for man's eternal progression toward the goal of our existence, which is an exaltation in the kingdom and presence of the Father and the Son forever.
It is here we are to make every preparation necessary for the life to come. There are certain prescribed conditions that must be complied with. There are principles to be accepted, ordinances to be received, commandments to be kept, laws to be obeyed, sacrifices to be made, service to be rendered, family relationships to be formed, and we are to live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God. We are to love the Lord, our God, with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. We are even to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us and pray for them which despitefully use us, and persecute us, following the example of Jesus who, when being persecuted to the death, prayed to the Father to forgive his persecutors. This represents the true spirit of Christ which should motivate all our life's actions. We should strive to be in the image of God in principle and in conduct as well as in form. We should be orthodox in our thinking, our understanding, our teachings, and in our living.
We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul-We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.
OBEDIENCE BRINGS ORDER AND BEAUTY
The laws of the gospel are the laws of God and are as perfect in their sphere as are the laws governing the universe and all nature. They originated from the same source, and when obeyed by man, they produce order and beauty. Man only of all of God's creations is disobedient to his laws.
The gospel law is that by which our Savior lived, and which made him what he was in life, and what he now is, enthroned in glory at the right hand of God, the Father, in his celestial kingdom.
The same gospel laws are intended to make us like the Savior and to save us with him in our Father's kingdom. He has given us our agency and power to overcome and live the law.
James Allen, author of the book As A Man Thinketh expresses therein this religious thought:
As a being of power, intelligence, and love, and the Lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within himself that transforming, regenerating agency, by which he may make himself what he wills.
THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION
My religious education has been and is such, that if I do the things that I know I should do, and leave undone the things I know I should not do, my salvation, the goal of my existence, will be secure. My religion encourages me in my efforts so to do. It has both a stimulating and a restraining influence upon my life, encouraging and stimulating me to good deeds, and restraining me from wrongdoing.
I am a better and happier man because of my religion and its influence upon my life. I would have been a better and happier man than I am, had I lived more in accord with the precepts of my religion, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Someone has said that experience is a dear school but that fools will learn in no other.
This suggests that a wise person will learn and profit by the experience of others.
PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED
We have many object lessons given us in the scriptures from which to profit. In the council in heaven, before the world was, two courses were placed before us; that proposed by the Firstborn, and the other by Lucifer; the one leading unto everlasting life, the other to everlasting disappointment. We had definitely decided before coming to earth which course to follow.
The Negro race have been forbidden the priesthood, and the higher temple blessings, presumably because of their not having been valiant while in the spirit. It does not pay to be anything but valiant.
Through John the Revelator, the Lord said to the Laodiceans:
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
It is not profitable that we be even lukewarm.
We know the curse which befell Laman and Lemuel and their descendants, the Lamanites, as a result of their disobedience, rebelliousness, and wickedness.
We know the curse that befell the Jews because they rejected their Lord, the Savior. They have been a hiss and a byword among all nations, and that tells but a small part of their unfortunate condition.
The history of the antediluvians furnishes us with an impressive example of the serious consequences of sin and rejecting the gospel.
Noah preached to that people 120 years. They rejected the prophet and his message and became a very wicked people and morally corrupt.
The penalty inflicted upon them was, in part, that of drowning by a flood that covered the whole earth. The death penalty tells but a small part of the story of what befell them on account of their wickedness. They were confined in a spirit prison for, according to the Bible chronology, more than 2,300 years. The nature of this imprisonment is explained by the Prophet Alma as follows:
Now this is the state of the souls of the wicked, yea, in darkness, and a state of awful, fearful looking for the fiery indignation of the wrath of God upon them; thus they remain in this state, as well as the righteous in paradise, until the time of their resurrection.
GOSPEL PREACHED TO SPIRITS IN PRISON
This period of 2,300 years is between the time of the flood and the death of the Savior, when he went and visited them.
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
How much longer they were imprisoned after Christ's visitation and resurrection we do not know. But it is revealed to us that should they accept the gospel or the testimony of Jesus, when preached to them, in the spirit, they could attain only to the terrestrial kingdom,
And again, we saw the terrestrial world, and behold and lo, these are they who are of the terrestrial, whose glory differs from that of the church of the Firstborn who have received the fulness of the Father, even as that of the moon differs from the sun in the firmament, Behold, these are they who died without law; also they who are the spirits of men kept in prison, whom the Son visited, and preached the gospel unto them, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh; Who received not the testimony of Jesus in the flesh, but afterwards received it.
The cities of the plains, Sodom and Gomorrah, with their inhabitants, were destroyed by fire from heaven, because of their wickedness. They also would be shut up in a spirit prison and be denied the blessings of the celestial kingdom, even though they should accept the testimony of Jesus in the spirit.
It is reasonable to believe that other equally disobedient, wicked people, though they may escape the death penalty, would be confined in a spirit prison after their death and be rejected from the celestial kingdom, those of this day, as well as those of former days.
The kingdom of God has been established again on the earth, and the gospel in its fulness has been restored, in fulfilment of ancient prophecies, but people of today are not prepared, in large numbers, to receive it, although the gospel and the kingdom of this dispensation have all the earmarks of the original.
SECOND COMING OF THE SAVIOR
The coming event of great importance, toward which the attention of the world is directed by the preaching of the gospel, is the second and glorious coming of our Lord and Savior, for whose coming all good Christians are anxiously awaiting, for at that day the righteous dead shall come forth, and the righteous living shall be changed or quickened, and together they will be caught up to meet the Savior and his holy angels in the clouds of heaven. Satan will be bound for one thousand years, and peace shall prevail in the earth.
Signs of the Lord's coming are seen in the wars and rumors of wars, famine, pestilence, the seas heaving themselves beyond their bounds, infidelity, apostasy, and wickedness of every conceivable character.
They have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, and broken the everlasting covenant, and sin and wickedness prevail throughout the earth.
There are two great unseen powers operating upon the minds and hearts of the children of men, today, the power of God and the power of Lucifer, or Satan, each striving for the souls of men; the one to save, and the other to destroy. In the language of the scripture: Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. Lest we be taken off guard, and be found unwittingly serving the wrong master, let us be reminded that
... all things which are good cometh of God; and that which is evil cometh of the devil.
TESTIMONY
I bear unto you, my brethren, sisters, and friends, a faithful and sincere testimony that I do know that this, the work in which we as Latter-day Saints are engaged, is the work of God, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, which had its inception in the councils of heaven before the world was. In it is the power of God unto salvation and eternal life.
We invite all men to come unto God and be saved with him in his kingdom, by obedience unto the laws and ordinances of the gospel, made effective for man's salvation through the atonement wrought out by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May his blessings attend you all, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie
This Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is literally the kingdom of God on earth. I believe that every man who has presided over it as a prophet-president has been the Lord's anointed and has held the keys of the kingdom, and that these keys are the keys of salvation for all people. And I believe that the Lord has decreed for this dispensation that the gospel is here to remain until Christ comes, and of course from then forever after. This is a day when the kingdom will never be given to another people, but when it will remain with the Saints; and everyone who will come to Christ and live his laws will receive peace and joy and comfort in this life and a certain hope of eternal life in the world to come.
VISION GIVEN TO JOSEPH SMITH
When Joseph Smith went into the Sacred Grove to pray in the spring of 1820, having been exercised by religious anxiety and turmoil, it was to ask which of all the churches was right and which one he should join. There then appeared to him two glorified, exalted, resurrected beings-God the Eternal Father and Jesus Christ his Son-who, in answer to answer to Joseph's Question, told him that he should join none of them, for they were all wrong; that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that:
... they draw near unto me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.
KINGDOM ORGANIZED
Thereafter, pursuant to commandment and revelation the Prophet and others organized this kingdom, and after it was organized, the Lord by revelation, referred to it as the only true and living Church upon the face of the whole earth, with which he said he was well pleased, speaking unto the Church collectively and not individually.
I think that the ancient prophets and the latter-day prophets have had revealed to them, by the revelations of the Holy Ghost, that this kingdom is to remain. Enoch saw this day and said that a people would be prepared for the coming of the Lord, and that a latter-day Zion would be built up to be joined with the Zion that he had established. Daniel saw this day. He revealed and interpreted the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had received, told him that he had seen a stone cut out of the mountain without hands, and that in the days of certain kings would the God of heaven set up a kingdom which would never be destroyed and which would never be given to another people, but which should stand forever.
In this day the Lord harked back to that figure which Daniel had used and said to Joseph Smith:
The keys of the kingdom of God are committed unto man on the earth, and from thence shall the gospel roll forth unto the ends of the earth, as the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth, until it has filled the whole earth.
VALIANCE TO THE TRUTH
Every person in this Church is entitled to know and is expected to know by the revelations of the Holy Ghost to his soul that these things are true; and if he knows them, then, in my judgment, he should have no desire in his heart to do anything in this world except hearken to the counsel of the living oracles and put his house in order and prepare himself for the glory and honor and salvation of which President George F. Richards has just spoken.
I should like to read you a statement made by President John Taylor, the third man to preside over this kingdom. He said:
It has been asked by Brother Brigham whether this kingdom will fail. I tell you in the name of Israel's God it will not fail. I tell you in the name of Israel's God it will roll forth, and that the things spoken of by the holy prophets in relation to it will receive their fulfillment. But in connection with this I will tell you another thing: A great many of the Latter-day Saints will fail, a great many of them are not now and never have been living up to their privileges, and magnifying their callings and their priesthood, and God will have a reckoning with such people, unless they speedily repent.
One other sentence from President Taylor:
There is one thing very certain, very certain indeed, and that is, whatever men may think, and however they may plot and contrive, that this kingdom will never be given into the hands of another people. It will grow and spread and increase, and no man living can stop its progress.
It seems to me that if this is the kingdom of God on earth, and if it is destined to stay here and not be given to another people, then we are entitled to conclude that as a people, as a Church, we will never be led astray; and, that as individuals, we will never go out of the course of righteousness that the Lord expects us to be in as long as we hearken to the counsel of the Presidency and the Twelve who head the kingdom.
KEYS OF THE KINGDOM
Wilford Woodruff said this:
When the Lord gave the keys of the kingdom of God, the keys of the Melchizedek Priesthood, of the apostleship, and sealed them upon the head of Joseph Smith, he sealed them upon his head to stay here upon the earth until the coming of the Son of Man. Well might Brigham Young say, "The keys of the kingdom of God are here." They were with him to the day of his death. They then rested upon the head of another man-President John Taylor. He held those keys to the hour of his death. They then fell by turn, or in the providence of God, upon Wilford Woodruff.
I say to the Latter-day Saints, the keys of the kingdom of God are here, and they are going to stay here, too, until the coming of the Son of Man. Let all Israel understand that. They may not rest upon my head but a short time, but they will then rest on the head of another apostle, and another after him, and so continue until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds of heaven to "reward every man according to the deeds done in the body"; D&C; 101:65).
I say to all Israel at this day, I say to the whole world, that the God of Israel, who organized this Church and kingdom, never ordained any President or Presidency to lead it astray. Hear it, ye Israel, no man who has ever breathed the breath of life can hold these keys of the kingdom of God and lead the people astray.
CHURCH LED BY REVELATION
To my way of thinking there has never been a day from the time that Joseph Smith organized this Church up to the present moment when it has not been led by revelation, led by inspiration, when the living oracles have not given the people the counsel and the instruction and the commandments that the Lord wanted the people to have. He told his early elders that whatever they spoke when moved upon by the Holy Ghost was scripture, that it was the mind of the Lord the will of the Lord, the word of the Lord, the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation. There will never be a time when the canon of scripture will be full. Just as long as there are elders in this kingdom to bear inspired witness of Christ, there will be more scripture. There has been more scripture given from this pulpit during the course of this conference, and it is as much the mind and will of the Lord as any recorded in the standard works. When the Church establishes, as it did a little over eleven years ago, a welfare plan, a plan announced by the First Presidency of the Church, then, knowing what we know, we are entitled to accept it as a revelation, to receive it as the mind and will of the Lord to the Latter-day Saints.
HARMONY WITH THE SCRIPTURES
There is nothing about the Church, there is no doctrine, no procedure or no ordinance, no law or principle, that is not in complete harmony with the scriptures and with reason. We can establish that everything we have is reasonable and scriptural and that we are in whole accord with the identical Church of Christ that was set up two thousand years ago. But after we have done that, and after we have put our houses in order and have harmonized our lives with the doctrines that have been revealed, then we are entitled to know that this is the Lord's kingdom and to know it as a matter of faith and testimony, as a matter of feeling and revelation. Once we get that in our hearts we enter into the rest of the Lord and are not driven about by every wind of doctrine or by the cunning craftiness of men. Because our testimonies are secure, we rest from all anxiety and turmoil of spirit, and if we continue in diligence and valiance in the kingdom we will eventually rest with our Father in heaven in the eternal worlds, "which rest is the fulness of his glory".
I think there is no occasion for any person in this Church to fear for the destiny of the kingdom. We do not need to steady the ark, but we do need to have in our hearts a fear that we may not make ourselves worthy, that we may not hew to the line of righteousness and keep the commandments of God with that degree of valiance which will give us our exaltation in the eternal worlds.
I would like to bear you my witness, as one elder in this kingdom, that I know this is the work of the Lord; that God has spoken in this day; that Joseph Smith was the prophet and instrument in his hands of giving us the laws and ordinances of salvation; and that just as surely as we will live in harmony with them, we will have glory and honor added upon our heads forever, and our calling and elections will be sure. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Harold B. Lee
Harold B. Lee, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 63-67
Some weeks ago I had an interview with a young man who is just making a remarkable recovery from very serious wounds that he received on the European battlefield. In an explosion of a land mine this young man had suffered a severe spinal injury that had almost completely paralyzed him, and when the rescue squad came and was carrying him off the field, the enemy turned loose a burst of machine gun fire from which he suffered six bullet wounds in his chest. He was taken to the hospital in what was thought to be a dying condition. As he lay there on his cot after having been treated by the surgeons, a chaplain came to him wearing an insignia of a sectarian church. He asked this young man what his religion was. On being told that he was a Latter-day Saint, the chaplain said: "Well, then, perhaps you would rather I would not pray for you."
PRAYER OF CHAPLAIN
"Oh, yes," said the young man, "I would like to have you pray for me if you feel inclined to."
Then the chaplain with great deference said: "Well, I will remove the insignia of my church and kneel down here at your cot. The two of us will then just pray together as two men of God."
The young man said the chaplain prayed for about twenty minutes. The burden of his prayer and the chief thing that he could remember of what the chaplain said was this, that sustained him and put into him the feeling that he wanted to live:
O God, help us that in our living we are not afraid to die and that in our dying we are not afraid to live.
I have thought about that prayer many times since, and I have asked myself the question: How many thousands are there among us today who are living such lives that would make them, unless they repent, afraid to die, and that in their dying they might be afraid to live hereafter?
The purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to teach men to live so that when they die, in the words of the immortal "Thanatopsis":
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust...
GOSPEL "PERFECT LAW OF LIBERTY"
The Apostle Paul defined the gospel as the "power of God unto salvation", and to the Apostle James the gospel was the "perfect law of liberty".
The Master enlarged upon that latter definition in his statement to those who listened to his words when he said:
If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
The nature of this liberty and this freedom of which the Master spoke he further explained in a revelation given to us in our day, speaking of Adam and all his posterity which are represented in all of humankind. Said the Lord:
Wherefore, I, the Lord God, caused that he should be cast out of the Garden of Eden, from my presence, because of his transgression, wherein he became spiritually dead, which is the first death, even that same death which is the last death, which is spiritual, which shall be pronounced upon the wicked at the last day when I shall say: Depart, ye cursed. But, behold, I say unto you that I, the Lord God, gave unto Adam and unto his seed, that they should not die as to the temporal death, until I, the Lord God, should send forth angels to declare unto them repentance and redemption, through faith on the name of mine Only Begotten Son. And thus did I, the Lord God, appoint unto man the days of his probation-that by his natural death he might be raised in immortality unto eternal life, even as many as would believe; And they that believe not unto eternal damnation; for they cannot be redeemed from their spiritual fall, because they repent not.
"YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN"
That revelation given to us in our day makes more understandable the answer the Master made to Nicodemus who came to him asking what he must do to be saved. In answer the Master replied, "Ye must be born again" -born of the water and of the spirit, or he could not see nor enter the kingdom of heaven.
Baptism by immersion symbolizes the death and burial of the man of sin; and the coming forth out of the water, the resurrection to a newness of spiritual life. After baptism, hands are laid upon the head of the baptized believer, and he is blessed to receive the Holy Ghost. Thus does the one baptized receive the promise or gift of the Holy Ghost or the privilege of being brought back into the presence of one of the Godhead, by obedience to whom and through his faithfulness one so blessed might receive the guidance and direction of the Holy Ghost in his daily walks and talks, even as Adam walked and talked in the Garden of Eden with God, his Heavenly Father. To receive such guidance and such direction from the Holy Ghost is to be spiritually reborn.
PARABLE OF THE SOWER
Unfortunately, there are many of those who are blessed to receive the Holy Ghost and that companionship of one of the Godhead in their mortal lives who fail of their blessings. This was taught plainly by the Master in the parable of the sower who was represented as the teachers of the gospel. He classified those to whom the gospel was taught into four different groups! Of one group he said, in effect: "These are those who received the seed by the wayside, and the birds came quickly and caught it up and stole it away", suggesting those who heard the word but lacked understanding and the devil was quick to take the word away from their hearts lest they would receive it and would believe to their salvation.
Another class he compared to those who received the seed on stony ground, and it began to take root, but when the sun came out, it was scorched and withered away because it had not much root, suggesting those who received the seed and for a time had joy in that understanding, but then when persecution and affliction come because of the word, they become offended and dwindle in their belief.
Another group of those who hear the gospel are the ones who receive it as among thorns, and the thorns after a time choked out the seed. These, he said, were like those who let the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the pleasures and the lusts of the world, destroy their activity in the Church that might have brought them safely into eternal life.
Fortunately, there were some who received the gospel in good ground, and these brought forth some a hundred-fold, some sixty-fold and some thirty-fold. And that is just about the way the active membership of the Church seems to be grouped among us today, some giving full hundred percent service and some, unfortunately, only thirty-fold.
FAILURE TO REALIZE BLESSINGS
Again, in this day the Lord gave us a revelation that suggested clearly the reasons why some men fail of their blessings. He said:
Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson-That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man. Behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks, to persecute the saints, and to fight against God.
That it seems to me, as we have experienced it, is about the progressive way that men begin to fall away. They first begin to "kick against the pricks." I have wondered what that means. These no doubt are the pricks of the gospel. I wonder, perhaps, if they are not those things referred to in President Clark's remarkable article some years ago in The Improvement Era, that he called "restraints," the restraints of the Word of Wisdom, the restraints imposed in keeping the Sabbath day holy, injunctions against card playing, the restraints imposed by following out the welfare program. And so we might go on. These are the restraints against which some people seem to rebel and are kicking constantly against-the "pricks" of the gospel.
I remember in this connection what somebody said in classifying humankind. He said there were only three kinds of people in the world-"Saints, Ain'ts, and Complaints," and perhaps the "Complaints" would represent those who seem to be kicking against the pricks. These are the ones who next begin to "persecute the Saints" and, finally, "to fight against God."
APOSTATES IN DARKNESS
Speaking of those who would persecute the Saints, I am reminded of what the Prophet Joseph said while he was upon the earth. He said:
From apostates the faithful have received the severest persecutions. Judas was rebuked and immediately betrayed his Lord into the hands of his enemies because Satan entered into him. There is a superior intelligence bestowed upon such as obey the gospel with full purpose of heart, which, if sinned against, the apostate is left naked and destitute of the Spirit of God, and he is, in truth, nigh unto cursing, and his end is to be burned. When once that light which was in them is taken from them, they become as much darkened as they were previously enlightened, and then, no marvel, if all their powers should be enlisted against the truth and they, Judas like, seek the destruction of those who were their greatest benefactors.
Yes, persecution seems to be the part of those who would teach the truth. You remember what the Master said:
Blessed are ye, when man shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely,... for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
I remember a few years ago, upon assignment from the Presidency and the Council of the Twelve, I interviewed a man who, because of his sinning, had fallen away and had been excommunicated from the Church. He said to me: "I want to bear you this testimony that the last few years have been a pretty rugged road. When I received the pronouncement of the court that excommunicated me from the Church, it was just as though someone had turned off the light to my soul. I was left in complete darkness from that time forward."
PURE IN HEART SEE GOD
In the Master's Sermon on the Mount, he made another very expressive declaration when he said:
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
You will remember that in his lifetime there were some who saw him only as the son of the carpenter. There were some who said that because of his words he was drunken with strong wine-that he was a winebibber. There were some who even thought him to be possessed of devils. Only those who were the pure in heart saw him as the Son of God.
So it is today. There are some who look upon the leaders of this Church and God's anointed as men who are possessed of selfish motives. By them the words of our leaders are always twisted to try to bring a snare to the work of the Lord. Mark well those who speak evil of the Lord's anointed for they speak from impure hearts. Only the "pure in heart" see the "God" or the divine in man and accept our leaders and accept them as prophets of the Living God. The testimonies of our leaders, in this connection, have been very significant to me. I remember hearing President Grant on several occasions say:
Whenever certain individuals who are not living good lives, begin to compliment me and to speak well of me, I say to myself, "Heber J. Grant, what's the matter with you; you must not be doing your duty, or this kind of person wouldn't feel so kindly toward you."
I remember the prophetic pronouncement that was made from this stand by President George Albert Smith eighteen months ago when he said:
Many have belittled Joseph Smith, and those who have will be forgotten in the remains of mother earth and the odor of their infamy will be ever with them, but honor, majesty, and fidelity to God attached to Joseph Smith's name and exemplified by him will never die.
I wish that statement could be heard to all the ends of the earth.
CRITICS SPIRITUALLY SICK
I want to bear you my testimony that the experience I have had has taught me that those who criticize the leaders of this Church are showing signs of a spiritual sickness which, unless curbed, will bring about eventually spiritual death. I want to bear my testimony as well that those who in public seek by their criticism, to belittle our leaders or bring them into disrepute, will bring upon themselves more hurt than upon those whom they seek thus to malign. I have watched over the years, and I have read of the history of many of those who fell away from this Church, and I want to bear testimony that no apostate who ever left this Church ever prospered as an influence in his community thereafter.
It is well that we remember today that statement of the prophet of old which was sung so beautifully as the words of the Master by the choir today. It was the Prophet Isaiah who said:
... Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.
Brothers and sisters, my prayer is for all of us, that we may so live, that when our time comes, we may not be afraid to die, and that when we die, we may look confidently forward to a life, an eternal life, in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the celestial kingdom, and I pray it humbly, in his name. Amen.
Bishop LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 70-76
I feel grateful, brothers and sisters, for this occasion, and for the privilege of worshipping with you, as I do when I travel, week after week, through the stakes of Zion. You are the most wonderful people in the world, and I thank the Lord to be considered worthy to be numbered among you.
AARONIC PRIESTHOOD PAGEANT
During the past week or ten days, we presented in this tabernacle the Aaronic Priesthood pageant, Prepare Ye the Way. I would like to express, for the Presiding Bishopric of the Church, our appreciation to all those who made the pageant possible: to Sister Evelyn Wood for writing it, Brother Mitchell for preparing the music, Brother Palmer and Brother Lees for directing it, and all who took part therein.
Since witnessing the presentation of it three times, I have thought a great deal of the message that it conveyed. Several of the speakers in this conference have referred to our pre-existent state. I am sure that if the veil were rolled back and we understood today as we did then, the purpose of earth life, and the privileges that were to be ours, we would be a little more attentive to responsibilities which are ours.
In the pageant, when the spirits were about to come to this earth, Father Adam was asked if there would be anyone here at the crossroads to show them the way, and they were told there would be their parents and the priesthood of God. If these two should not fail there would not be much danger or much to worry about our young people, but if the parents fail and the priesthood fails in its duty, then we can hardly expect that these choice spirits of promise will return to the Father and receive the plaudit: "Well done thou good and faithful servant."
Those of you who saw the pageant will remember that when some of the boys dropped out of the priesthood activity and gave their reasons for so doing, one little fellow said: "My father doesn't go to priesthood meeting, and I want to be like my father." Following our presentation of the pageant six years ago, a Relief Society in one of the wards in a testimony meeting was discussing the pageant, and one good sister said: "I took my husband to see the pageant and when that little fellow said: 'My father doesn't go to priesthood meeting, and I want to be like my father,' I felt my husband cringe just like he had been hit with an electric shock. The next Sunday morning when my boy was getting ready for priesthood meeting his father said, 'Wait a minute my boy, I am going with you.' The boy said: 'You don't mean it do you, Dad?' And I got his eye and told him not to say anything about the pageant, and his father went along with him to priesthood meeting."
We have been told as we travel throughout the Church that the greatest deterrent to the success of the Aaronic Priesthood and Latter-day Saint girls program of the Church is the indifference of the parents. It seems almost incredible to believe that such a thing is true.
PARENTS INFLUENCE CHILDREN
Brother Benson, in his beautiful address on the home, told us of the charge the Lord has laid upon the parents in Israel to teach their children faith in the Living God, repentance and baptism, and the laying on of hands, and teach them to pray and to walk uprightly before the Lord in all things, with the statement that if they failed in so doing the sin would be upon the heads of the parents. I wish every father and mother in Israel realized what that meant and what it will mean when they give a reckoning for the stewardship that has been theirs to be privileged to be the parents of these chosen spirits who are permitted to come upon the earth in this day and time.
A short time ago one of the leaders in the Aaronic Priesthood in one of our stakes handed me a copy of an article that appeared in a magazine that was published by the Kiwanis Club. I want to read a few excerpts from it:
There is a general opinion that children are bright. In my opinion there is no greater fallacy. They are so dumb that it is a wonder we ever make really useful citizens out of them.
To illustrate, the article says,
I know a fellow, a Kiwanian by the way, who has two small boys. He is a well-educated, cultured gentleman, with a lovely wife and a nice home. Those two boys have been reared with every advantage. This man takes his golf clubs and hikes out to the golf course every Sunday morning of his life, and can you imagine it, those two boys are so dumb that they can't understand why they should be made to go to Sunday School? They think they should be permitted to go fishing or swimming Sunday morning instead of going to church! Nothing their father says to them seems to convince the dumb little creatures that they should spend two hours in church on Sunday morning.
To save time, I will relate one or two more of these comments. The next one is about the father and mother who always preface their meal with a cocktail. They have a son and a daughter in high school who went to a dinner-dance, and the father found out that the children each had a cocktail before dinner. Those two kids were so dumb that when they were called on the carpet by their dad, they couldn't understand why they shouldn't drink cocktails! "I tell you, kids are dumb."
A man who occupied a prominent position in his community, when he was out in the yard and would hit his finger with a hammer or run against a wire clothesline, would make the sky blue with his profanity, and yet when his six-year-old boy called the cat a "damned cat" because it ran across the table, the father promptly spanked him and washed his mouth out with soap, but he was never able to make that dumb kid understand that it was wrong to swear. And there was a mother who did not like to entertain company when she wasn't in the mood, and if someone would call and want to come over to visit her, she would immediately say she had house guests and couldn't receive them, or if they wanted to speak to her on the phone and she wasn't in the mood, she would turn to her little girl and say, "Tell them I am not home." Do you know that dumb little girl lies like Ananias. The mother has done all she can to break her of it, but the child is just a natural born liar!
Let me read another comment on parents:
'Twas a sheep not a lamb That strayed away in the parable Jesus told, A grown-up sheep that strayed away From the ninety and nine in the fold. And why for the sheep should we seek And earnestly hope and pray? Because there is danger when sheep go wrong: They lead the lambs astray. Lambs will follow the sheep, you know, Wherever the sheep may stray. When sheep go wrong, It won't take long till the lambs are as wrong as they. And so with the sheep we earnestly plead For the sake of the lambs today, For when the sheep are lost What a terrible cost The lambs will have to pay. -The Echo, C. C. Miller
TEACH CHILDREN TO HONOR THE SABBATH
If the fathers and mothers in Israel understood the importance of this they would take their boys and girls with them to Church. No father would ever let a boy of his grow up dishonoring the Sabbath day, working on the Sabbath day when it is work that does not absolutely have to be done. Brigham Young's statement to the Saints when they first entered this valley was that if they worked on the Sabbath day they would lose more during the week than they gained by so doing. And we can't get away from the command of the Lord when he said that we should honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy, and if you fathers think you can work on the Sabbath when you don't have to, you must not be surprised if your boys are just dumb enough to do the same thing when they grow to manhood.
On the other hand what a marvelous thing if we set out with the thought in our minds that no matter what the cost, we will say with the prophet of old:
... as for me and my house, we serve the Lord.
WORK FOR YOUR CHILDREN'S WELFARE
Contrasted to what I have just read, I want to tell you about a convert to the Church who came into my office just a few weeks ago. She and her husband came here for the gospel's sake. They had misfortune after they arrived; through sickness and hospital bills they were brought down to where they had to move into a section which was not desirable, and I know, as you do, like the story we used to hear as boys, of the one bad apple that spoils the whole bushel, sometimes something breaks loose that is very undesirable. So this sister came in and said. "Bishop, there are some wicked young people in the locality where I am, and unless something is done about it, they are going to destroy the virtue of my daughters. And I have come here to see if something can't be done." We have heard the Saints bear testimony that they would give their lives for the testimony that is theirs, and that is marvelous, but I wonder if they would be just as willing to live for the testimony that is theirs as to die for it, so when we find conditions that threaten the virtue and the honor and the integrity of our children we do something about it. This little mother did something about it. We got the bishop and the stake president on the job and she said: "Bishop Richards, if I have to do it, I will protect the virtue of my daughters if I have to purchase a tent and go up here on the foothills and live away from the rest of you." That is the kind of faith that will win and bring the parents out triumphant in watching over their children that have been entrusted to them.
I remember reading in The Improvement Era a statement about one of our good Latter-day Saint mothers over in Germany who, when the invading army came in, knowing how they ravished the women, took her two daughters up in the attic of a house almost destroyed by the bombs, and there exposed to the weather, she and the daughters remained for several days, and then when she thought it was safe she came down but left the daughters there for days to protect their virtue. God bless that mother and every mother like her in all the world, who is willing to do all in her power to protect her children against the wickedness of this world.
We have all heard the story about Sister Mary Fielding Smith, the mother of President Joseph F. Smith, who came in from Mill Creek with a load of produce and delivered it to the old tithing office on the block east of here. The good brother in charge, knowing she was a widow and how hard it was for her to get along, hardly had the courage to let her unload that wagon at the tithing office. He said, "Take it home. You need it as much as anyone in the Church." Sister Smith said, "I can't do it. My children must know that we pay our tithing." She knew that lesson must be taught to her children. Has she been rewarded? Her son grew up to become the prophet of the Lord to preside over this great Church.
FAITH OF WIDOW
When I was the bishop of a ward and we were building a meetinghouse, a little German widow came to me one day and said: "Bishop, I haven't received my allotment for the meeting-house." I said, "No, Sister, and you aren't going to get one. If you will just care for those little children your husband left you with, we will build the meetinghouse." "Ah," she said, "Bishop, but I must be able to point to that meetinghouse and tell my children we have done our part." So I said, "God bless you, Sister, but you will have to say what your part is then," and she gave us a substantial contribution toward that meetinghouse. I have met her children as I have traveled about from place to place in this Church and have found them active, and I want to tell you she didn't case her bread upon the water in vain, for as the prophet of old said, "For thou shalt find it after many days".
You remember what Alma did when his son, Alma, didn't walk in the ways of the Lord and went about trying to destroy the Church. He just did not give the Lord any rest about it; he took it to the Lord in mighty prayer until an angel of heaven appeared to his son, Alma, and the sons of Mosiah, and when the angel spake unto Alma and his brethren, he caused the earth to shake. They all engaged in the ministry and labored as missionaries unto the Lamanites, and one by one the sons of Mosiah refused to serve as king over the people, desiring rather that they might continue their ministry among the Lamanites.
And this is Alma's statement after his conversion:
O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people! Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth.
The greatest sorrow upon the face of this earth is when men and women depart from the ways of the Lord, for truly the prophet hath said:
... the way of transgressors is hard.
PRAY FOR YOUR CHILDREN
Now I want to admonish you to pray for your children, to work for your children, to do all within your power to help save them. God may not always send an angel from heaven, as he did in answer to Alma's prayer, but I want to tell you there are men and women in this Church by the thousands and tens of thousands who are as angels of heaven in the hands of God in helping to show the youth of Zion the way to eternal life.
I want to tell you just how the Lord uses some of these. One of our good brethren, who was president of a high priests quorum, and has since passed away, told me this story himself. He was working for the city. He was driving up Main Street one night and saw a boy in uniform being accosted by a wicked woman. He said: "Something said to me, 'Stop and rescue that boy.' I pulled my car off to the side of the street and went over and took that boy by the arm and said: 'You come and go with me.' The woman said, 'Oh, no you don't, he belongs to me.'" This brother said: "I will turn you over to the police," and she looked down and saw a policeman on the corner and walked away. He took that boy, sobered him up and put him in a hotel. The boy said he had never lost his virtue and said, "I don't know why I found myself in this condition." He gave the boy his name, and the boy wrote to his mother back in Virginia, and after a few days this good brother received a letter from that boy's mother, reading something like this: "I don't know why you stopped your auto and rescued my boy, save that I prayed to God that night, for him, as I had never done before, and the Lord used you as an instrument to rescue my boy."
Now if there were time I could tell you how the Lord uses these bishops and these advisers in the Aaronic Priesthood and in the Latter-day Saint girls program and the teachers in the auxiliaries of this Church in order to help the parents. So, in the words of the pageant, there are the parents at the crossroads, and the great organization of the priesthood of this Church to show youth the way.
God help both to use all their power for the salvation of our boys and our girls, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Matthew Cowley
Matthew Cowley, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 80-84
My brothers and sisters, with all my heart I believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ as the power of God unto salvation, both spiritually and temporally. The testimonies I have heard in this conference have carried conviction into my heart that this gospel is true.
CHURCH BRINGS SALVATION
I know that had we lived in the days of the Master and had we observed him at work, we would have seen him placing in his organization apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, high priests, seventies, elders, priests, teachers and deacons. I know that had we heard his disciples bear their message we would have heard them all say that this organization set up by the Son of God is the organization through which the children of God would receive salvation. Had we lived a little longer, had our lives been extended for two or three centuries, we would have observed that this organization set up by the Master had practically disappeared as it had been set up, and yet we would have known, had we studied the words, that there would come a day and a dispensation when there would be a restoration of all things spoken by the mouths of the prophets,when the fulness of the gospel would be brought by one coming through the midst of heaven to the children of God upon the earth.
Now that we live in a dispensation known as the dispensation of the fulness of times, we are blessed and privileged to see an organization with apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, quorums of the priesthood, the same agency, the same organization in all of its departments as was set up by Christ our Lord, as his organization, and we are blessed in knowing that it bears his name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
GRATITUDE FOR FAITH OF TEACHERS
I have been thrilled by the testimonies which have been borne here. I thank God, my brothers and sisters, for the testimonies of men like Brother Oscar Kirkham and Brother Levi Edgar Young. These men were my teachers when I was struggling for an education in high school and in the university. I thank God that they touched my life with their testimony of the gospel more than they did with the instructions they had to give me as teachers of an educational institution. And as I look into the faces of the great educators who sit before me, who have in their charge thousands of our young people at this time, I am glad to know that they are men who know that in any field of science there has not been discovered, and they know that there will never be discovered, anything that will replace religion as the savior of the human family.
It is regrettable that we have in our institutions of learning, my brothers and sisters, some who would try to destroy the simple faith of our children which they have acquired at the knees of their parents and in the auxiliary organizations of the Church. You know and I know that there is no power under heaven in this day which will bring peace to the human heart and peace to the nations of the earth outside and beyond this simple faith in God our Father and in the efficacy of the gospel of Jesus Christ to regenerate the children of God here upon the earth.
You men who are at the head of these great institutions, some of which do not permit the teaching of religion although they do permit the teaching of everything and anything that will destroy faith in God, you have a great responsibility. It is your responsibility to touch the lives of your many students outside of the classroom as my life has been touched by men such as these I have mentioned.
BLESSINGS OF TEMPLE WORK
As President Smith has said, I have recently returned from a visit to the islands of the sea. It does me good to get down there among those great people, simple people with a simple faith in God. And I am reminded as I stand here that beyond this building there stands a temple of God and that down in those islands of the sea, many of them thousands of miles away from these great temples, there are hundreds and thousands of people who are trying to come over to these temples and receive their blessings. You know the promise that the Master made as he hanged upon the cross, one of the most beautiful and considerate of all his promises, a promise made to a sinner when he said to him: "Today thou shalt be with me in paradise".
We know where that promise is today. Brothers and sisters, our people in the islands of the sea, our people in the missions of Europe, know where that promise is. "Today thou shalt be with me in paradise". And how they long to come to participate in the blessings of that promise, how they long to come to the Hawaiian Temple and go in there, as it were, into paradise, to reach back into their ancestry and say, "Today thou shalt be with me; today I will bring you into a knowledge and an appreciation of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ."
I have vividly in my recollection the last party of Maoris to come from New Zealand to the Hawaiian Temple, back in 1938. I see them now as they gathered together. President Smith was there, I think, at that time. As they gathered together in Auckland ready to embark, they had their tickets, return tickets. They had no money in their pockets. They carried with them their boxes of food, and they carried their blankets so that they could be fed and warm when they arrived at the temple. Everything they owned was consecrated to the reception of that great blessing, and they went with joy in their hearts. They traveled steerage on the ship, but they were happy, and they returned with a testimony in their hearts that Christ meant what he said when he said to the thief: "Today thou shalt be with me in paradise".
SALVATION FOR THE DEAD
Where is that promise, brothers and sisters, outside of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? As I go about the islands of the sea, I learn that Christianity has only been among those natives a little more than a hundred years. Where is the salvation for the ancestors of those people, the children of Israel, Nephites, who lived prior to one hundred years ago in that vast expanse of ocean on those islands? Where, outside of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is there salvation for the Polynesians of the Pacific who lived prior to the year 1840 in those islands?
Someone has said a bridge has no use unless it reaches both banks. We have the bridge, brothers and sisters, extending from one bank over to the other. You who work in the temples of God cross over that bridge from day to day, and you know that there is no other organization on this earth which has a bridge extending from one bank over to the other so that they can walk across and reach back beyond the year 1840 or 1740, or whatever the year may be, and bring across that bridge those great and noble souls who are our ancestors, the children of God.
God grant that we may have in our hearts the spirit of reaching back into the years and bringing out our people from that place where they are now confined. God grant that we may go into Potter's Field and bring out those broken pieces of clay and join them together into beautiful lives, that they may join with us in the great plan of salvation and exaltation in the kingdom of God. We cannot be saved without our dead, and our dead cannot be saved without us.
Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
GATHERING OF GENEALOGIES
That is God's will that all his children who have lived in every day and age and dispensation of time shall come to the Father by his Son; therefore, let us cross the bridge and take the gospel of the Son to our ancestors. Let us study our genealogy. Let us get the names together. Let us not neglect this great and important work, and I know it is important because when I see our people in the islands of the sea writing their names down, gathering their genealogy and trying to get those names over to the temple, trying to get there themselves, I know that within their hearts they know that they are the children of God; they know that their ancestors were the children of God; and no Polynesian islander would want to be saved without his great and noble ancestors.
God grant that we may turn some attention, brothers and sisters, to the work for those who live on, on the other side of the bridge. Let us cross the bridge over to them.
TESTIMONY CONCERNING BRETHREN
I know as I stand here that God lives, that he has not forgotten his children upon the earth. I only wish that you people could have your lives touched as intimately as I have had my life touched during these brief two years I have been associated in the councils of these great and good men. Do not anyone ever say that any man who belongs to the councils of this Church has ever come into the councils because he needs or he wants monetary remuneration or because he wants wealth. If there is any man who is opposed to the welfare plan and program of this Church, I would like to have an argument with him if he thinks the brethren who sit here on this stand are not living on the welfare program, are not giving up much of this world's goods, its luxuries and its wealth by accepting the call.
Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
God bless us all with the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ. God bless you men who are educators, you men who sit before me who stand at the heads of political organizations and occupy high government offices, that you may ever realize that there is no salvation outside of the plan of true religion, that there is nothing in political science or in physical science, or in any other science, that will replace the simple gospel of Jesus Christ as the power of God for the salvation of his children.
God bless us all, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Thorpe B. Isaacson
Thorpe B. Isaacson, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 84-87
My dear brothers and sisters, and I do regard you as my brothers and sisters, I feel very humble and very frightened in looking into the faces of this great congregation in this, the tabernacle of the Lord. I have sincerely prayed that the Lord would bless me while I occupy this position that I may say some words of meaning, of encouragement, that I may be directed by the Holy Spirit in whatever I say. I sincerely trust that the Lord will bless you that you may meditate during the conference, that you may worship and that you may feel his holy influence.
We come here to worship and to bear testimony and to partake of the Spirit of the Lord, so that we can discharge our duties more faithfully and so that we can live according to his plan. The choir today has touched our souls with beautiful music, and I am sure we are grateful to this organization.
TABERNACLE CHOIR
A year ago I had occasion to go to Mexico City with a businessman of the East. We discussed religion pro and con, and then I asked him what faith he belonged to, and he answered me humbly that he belonged to the religion of the Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir. That was his religion. Well, I am sure they touch the hearts of men each week, and I am sure they mellow their souls. As you probably know, they leave this coming week for San Bernardino to participate in a centennial pageant there. They will broadcast next Sunday to the world from San Bernardino.
One cannot teach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ without the Spirit of the Lord. I am convinced of that. One cannot be taught the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ without the Spirit of the Lord. I am convinced of that. One cannot teach, nor one cannot be taught, without that sweet Spirit.
I am grateful for my membership in the Lord's Church. I have learned to love men as I did not think I ever knew how to love men. These men that I have become associated with, and particularly the Presiding Bishopric and the other brethren, are the finest men in all the world. I humbly pray to God that he will bless me that I may measure up to the responsibility and the confidence of these men and of you, my brethren and sisters.
A TRIBUTE TO CHURCH OFFICIALS
As I go from stake conference to stake conference and meet new stake presidents every week, I meet equally fine men, men who are devoted to the Church, men who would give their all in the service of the Lord, if they were asked to. We come to you as strangers, and you take care of us, see that we are properly housed, and your wives are so good to feed us and look after us. You extend to us your kindness and your courtesies, and as we kneel down with you in your family prayers, our hearts are touched, and we are inspired by the great devotion of you men holding those responsible positions.
A VISIT TO THE SACRED GROVE
Brother Bowen and others have referred to the Prophet Joseph as one of the most important influences in the lives of all of us. A week ago I had an opportunity to walk into the Sacred Grove, the place where that young man, Joseph, walked and prayed to the Lord to help him. One cannot walk into that grove without feeling that spirit of reverence, that spirit of sacredness, the only spot, if my memory serves me right, where God and his son Jesus Christ both appeared at the same time, at the same place, and they spoke to that boy. Oh, that is a fact! You cannot go into the grove but what you feel that influence. It is different from any other wooded grove in all the world, because it is a sacred place and a hallowed spot. That grove is right behind the house where his father and mother lived and where Joseph lived as a boy; and right down the road a little way-you who have not been there-is that other sacred spot, the Hill Cumorah, where the angel of the Lord appeared to that boy, not once, but in four consecutive years, before he delivered to him the golden plates, and from them came the Book of Mormon. That boy did not write that book. Then he sealed that testimony by giving his life. How much more evidence do we need? Surely the world must accept that as truth. And it would be well if we would stimulate that belief in the hearts and souls of our young people. If they can only feel that influence, that one feels when he is there, they would need never to doubt nor would they need ever to worry.
Before I left the grove, I asked those that were with me if I could remain a little while. Then I knelt down before my Father in heaven by that big tree, and I tried to pour out my heart to him as I had never tried before. I bear you my testimony that the influence of the Lord is there, that all of that is true. I did not intend to say that, but the Sacred Grove and the recent memory of it were fresh in my mind.
THE YOUTH OF THE CHURCH
I would like to say just a word more with reference to the young people of the Church. We your fathers and mothers and your elders, love you deeply. I do not know whether the young people of the Church can understand that we love them so much, or whether they will be able to understand it or not until they have children of their own, but at least we want them to know that our entire love goes out to them. We are concerned about them because we know some of the pitfalls of life, and we know some of the experiences of the social trends. We know some of the teachings that are contrary to the teachings of the Church. We know some of the articles that they read, and we know the speeded highway and the high-powered automobiles, and that is why we are worried about them, because we love our children so much. And I would say to the young people of the Church, stay close to your parents. You boys of the Church, if I could only touch your hearts to urge you to tell your dads everything that goes on in your lives. I feel sorry for a young man who cannot tell his dad everything. And I feel sorry for a young girl who cannot tell her mother everything. We know you will make mistakes, sometimes, but we will love you just the same, and we hope that we can instill confidence in you, that you will come and confide in us. If we expect to share your joys, we must expect to share your sorrows and your mistakes and your problems.
Recently there appeared an article in a popular magazine on the subject of Mormonism, and one of the references in that magazine was to the effect that the young people of the Church are sliding back or slipping away. That I do not believe. And in behalf of the young people of the Church, I feel that I can deny that statement. When I hear young people in the conferences bear their testimonies, they are brilliant; they are serious; and they want to live close to the Lord.
I heard a great man say a few years ago when he placed his hands upon the head of a bishop to bless him, that some of the choicest spirits that had ever been born into the world were the young people of the Church today. I am sure the writer of that article would not understand that we have four thousand choice young men and women out in the world today, paying their own expenses, gladly, to proclaim the gospel and share their testimony and their faith with those who are less fortunate. And if it need be and the Church would call upon volunteers from young men and women, it could possibly raise hundreds of thousands of missionaries to go into the world on twenty-four hours notice.
Oh, we realize that the young people may make mistakes. Most of us have made mistakes in our lives. But may we also realize that those same young people, if they will only stay close to the Lord, the Lord will forgive his people for mistakes. I think if a father and a mother are so far away from their young people that their young people will not come to them and tell them about their problems, then there is something wrong between father and son and mother and daughter.
May the young people of this Church stay close to their Father in heaven and may time prove that the writer of that article, stating that the young people are sliding back, will be disproved without question.
STAY CLOSE TO THE LORD
I can bear testimony to the young people of the Church that the Lord will help you in all of your problems, in all of your mistakes, in all of your joys and satisfactions if you will only let him. May we humbly pray to the Lord and be so diligent that we may stay in close communion with the Spirit of the Lord and so live that the Lord can easily manifest himself unto us, so that he can feel our humility and so that we can feel his Spirit, then we can humbly say, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth".
May that be our happy lot. May we truly love one another, realizing that there are thousands of men who are less fortunate than we, that we may give of ourselves and our means and our energy for those who are less fortunate. May God bless us that we may stay close to him under all conditions, I humbly pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Milton R. Hunter
Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 95-100
It is an awe-inspiring sight to stand here and look into the faces of this vast audience. It is in humility that I occupy this position today. I pray to our Father in heaven that his Spirit will attend me.
I desire to direct my remarks this afternoon to the youth of the Church. I, like the brethren who have spoken previously, have a strong faith and admiration and love for the youth of the Church. I know that they have a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that they will carry on faithfully.
BLESSINGS PROVIDED FOR YOUTH
Youth of the Church, young men and young women, you are the richest people in the world. Some of you may say in your minds that you have no money. I care not whether you have ten cents or a million dollars. Money perishes; but the wealth that you have surpasses anything that you can gain here in this world which is of the world. You are members of the true Church of Jesus Christ and are recipients of the restored gospel of our Lord and Savior. You have the Holy Priesthood after the order of the Son of God. You have at your command all the blessings which come to those who love God and keep his commandments, even the promise of the blessing of eternal life which he says is the greatest gift that he has for man if you will but serve the Lord your God with all your heart, might, mind, and strength.
More than a hundred years ago God the Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith and opened up the last dispensation of the gospel. Following this great vision a number of heavenly beings appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith and bestowed upon him all the gifts, blessings, powers, ordinances, and priesthood necessary for the salvation of the human family. It is this priesthood and these gifts and blessings which the youth of the Church today possess.
GOSPEL BRINGS JOY
The gospel of Jesus Christ was given to us in order that we might have joy. In fact,
Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.
It is God's purpose and will that we might be happy today, tomorrow, next week, a hundred years from now-yes, a million years from now. You may say in your mind, "But we won't live that long." We will live that long. Life is eternal, and the thing that is important to remember is that the way we live today, and the way we live throughout mortality, will determine our happiness throughout eternity, will determine our status forever.
In order to illustrate what I have in mind, I would like to tell an old story. There was once an old dog that went to the meat market and secured a piece of meat. On the road home he had to cross over a bridge that spanned a stream of water. As he reached the middle of that bridge, he looked down into the sparkling water and saw another dog with a piece of meat in his mouth. He became covetous and decided that he would have the meat the other dog possessed. Thereupon he opened his mouth and grabbed after that meat, and as he did so, his meat dropped into the water and floated away. To his sorrow, the old dog found that he was grabbing after a shadow.
SHADOWS OF TRUE HAPPINESS
Youth of the Church, there are many shadows of true happiness that you will be tempted to grab after, and I promise you that if you grab after them, you will be like that old dog. You will find that you have lost the good things that you now possess-happiness, the gospel, and probably eternal life-and you will receive in return only a shadow of true happiness. The things that I have in mind we call sins, all of the sins that we may commit. Remember that Alma, the ancient Nephite prophet, warned us that "wickedness never was happiness".
TOBACCO HABIT
There are three or four shadows of true happiness that I would like to point out briefly today. The first one of them is the use of tobacco. Every young man in the Church, and I am sorry to say that today every young woman in the Church also, is tempted and will continue to be tempted to take up the habit of tobacco. In fact your friends may already have taken up this habit. They may say to you: "Come on, take a smoke. It's smart to smoke, It's being a good sport to smoke. All important people smoke. Have a good time while you are young, and you can repent when you get old." In fact they not only make these remarks but also put forth all sorts of other arguments to induce you to use tobacco.
Young people, youth of the Church, it is the devil that is talking through your friends to try to induce you to adopt that evil habit. He wants you to be unhappy. He desires to tear down your spiritual, physical, and mental life and to destroy your chances for a fulness of joy. For these reasons he is putting forth his strongest efforts to try to induce you to take up the tobacco habit.
NICOTINE A DEADLY POISON
Tobacco, as we all know, is very poisonous. It kills the body. In order to illustrate how deadly the poison is in tobacco, I would like to tell a story that took place in my own family when I was just leaving my teens. I had a sister who was at that time thirty-seven years old. She was the mother of seven children. On this occasion her children had the whooping cough. She went one day with her husband down to the farm, about six or seven miles below town. Upon arriving there her husband found that he had to drive a cow home; and so he brought my sister up to a little store about four miles below town, left her there, and went back on his horse to the farm. When my sister went into the store, the lady back of the counter asked her how her children were getting along with the whooping cough. She replied, "Not very well." Then the lady picked up from the counter a bottle which was about half full of a black substance. The label on the bottle read, "Whooping Cough Medicine." The clerk said to my sister, "This is the best whooping cough medicine that I have ever seen. I don't have any in the store right now, but I can order some for you if you wish me to." Then she laid the bottle down and went to the telephone to call my sister's son for the purpose of having him come down to her store to drive the car and take his mother home.
My sister picked up the bottle, pulled out the cork, smelled the contents of the bottle and then took a taste. She said, "My, this is nasty." Then she instantly fell over dead. The doctor was rushed to the scene. Upon examining the contents of the bottle, he declared it to be straight nicotine. He said that nicotine was one of the most deadly poisons that people could take and that the one swallow that my sister had taken had gone directly to her brain and had suddenly killed her.
Young people, that is the deadly poison that we take into our bodies when we smoke or chew tobacco.
Tobacco not only kills the body, but it kills the spirit-it kills spirituality. It is incompatible for a man holding the Holy Priesthood of God to use tobacco and to study the Bible or to use tobacco and to keep up his Church activities. Usually when he picks up the habit of tobacco he lays down the Holy Scriptures, he decreases his Church activities, and he becomes to a certain extent spiritually dead, which is the worst death that we can die.
God has given us the commandment that we should not kill. Youth of the Church, when we take poisons into our bodies knowingly we are to a certain extent breaking this great law.
THE DRINKING HABIT
Another shadow of true happiness which I would like to mention today is more damaging in its effects than is the habit of tobacco. It is the habit of drinking liquor. Elder Joseph F. Merrill has already graphically described the bad effects of alcohol and so I will be very brief on this subject.
It is my honest opinion that the devil has never discovered or invented a tool outside of liquor which is more destructive to the human soul. He has no other tool which can bring human beings down into misery, poverty, and degradation, which can cause corruption, and which can cause people to commit all other kinds of sins more than by having them use liquor. People when they get drunk are not in their right minds. In other words, they are crazy. While under the influence of liquor, the moral controls of men and women are relaxed, and they commit many sins that they would not otherwise do, such as adultery and murder. I know, youth of the Church, that the devil puts it into the hearts of wicked men to give our lovely girls liquor and get them drunk in order that they might rob them of their virtue.
In referring to alcohol, Robert G. Ingersoll said:
It murders the soul; it is the sum of all villainy, the father of all crime, the mother of all abominations, the devil's best friend, and God's worst enemy.
Today I call upon all the youth of the Church to make a resolution that you will never take a smoke. If you already have taken one, that you will never take another one. That you will never take a drop of liquor in any form. If you have already done so, that you will repent and resolve today that as long as you live you will never take another drop of liquor. I promise you that if you will make this resolution and never break it that you will be happy throughout this life and throughout eternity, because you have kept your bodies clean.
SEX IMMORALITY
A third shadow of true happiness I would like to point out is even worse than the other two. It is sex immorality. I firmly believe that there is no sin that human beings commit that causes a loss of happiness, that causes the people to be degraded more completely, that breaks up homes more thoroughly, that ruins love more permanently, that drives out the Spirit of God and causes apostasy from the true Church more definitely than does the sin of sex immorality.
All the way through history the prophets of God have taught the value of virtue. In fact, you and I can still hear the voice of God crying down from Mr. Sinai to Moses,
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Alma, the great Nephite prophet, told his son, Corianton, who had had an illicit association with the harlot Isabel, the following:
Know ye not, my son, that these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost?.
The prophets in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Presidents of the Church from the beginning down to the present time, have declared that our virtue is as valuable to us as is our life, and we should guard our virtue with our life.
More than a hundred years ago the Lord revealed the following to the Prophet Joseph Smith:
And verily I say unto you, as I have said before, he that looketh on a woman to lust after her, or if any shall commit adultery in their hearts, they shall not have the Spirit, but shall deny the faith and shall fear.
Wherefore, I, the Lord, have said that the fearful, and the unbelieving, and all liars, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, and the whore-monger, and the sorcerer, shall have their part in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
Verily I say, that they shall not have part in the first resurrection....
But unto him that keepeth my commandments I will give the mysteries of my kingdom, and the same shall be in him a well of living water, springing up unto everlasting life.
BODIES ARE TEMPLES OF GOD
Youth of the Church, again I call upon you to make a resolution that you will keep your bodies clean and pure in every respect. Obey all the words that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God, living all the principles of the gospel to the best of your ability in order that you might be happy. Do these things in order that you might have that joy which God wishes you to have. Remember at all times that your bodies are temples of God, as Paul, the ancient apostle, has said:
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
If we will do all these things as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, most of the youth of the Church in due time will have the privilege of going into the house of the Lord with the one of his or her choice and there be married not only for life but also for all eternity, and the children which are born under that covenant shall be theirs forever. These blessings, however, are predicated on a continuance of righteous living.
BLESSINGS PROMISED TO RIGHTEOUS
When the great judgment day comes, and when all men and women who have been true and faithful in all things stand before the judgment seat of God the Eternal Father and Jesus the Christ to give an account of their actions, words, and thoughts, while in mortality, it shall be said unto them.
Well done my beloved servants, enter ye into your exaltation. Receive your life eternal.
And at that day this great scripture which was given to the Prophet Joseph Smith shall be fulfilled:
... and they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.
Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye abide my law ye cannot attain to this glory.
For strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and few there be that find it, because ye receive me not in the world neither do ye know me.
This is life eternal, my brothers and sisters. This is the exaltation which the gospel of Jesus Christ promises those who love God and keep his commandments.
I humbly pray to our Father in heaven that he will bless the youth of the Church that they might live clean and pure in every way, walking righteously and undefiled before God, that they might receive this great exaltation of life eternal, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Mark E. Petersen
Mark E. Petersen, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 107-111
In the midst of the continuing international crisis, there is an ever growing feeling that America must do all within her power to preserve herself. Our leading statesmen have publicly declared that we can hope to survive as a free people only if we keep ourselves strong. Generally the references to maintaining the strength of our country pertain only to her military might. But the strength of America cannot be measured by her armaments alone, nor by her industrial power which produces those armaments. The strength of our land must be measured principally in the integrity of our people.
An America with powerful armaments and an unstable citizenry could not be sure of protection. The might of the Maginot Line was no defense for a France which had descended into moral weakness. America, under similar circumstances, would fare no better. Not even the atom bomb will save this land if moral decay is allowed to do its work.
FREEDOM OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
We often speak of our freedoms. There is no freedom like the freedom of righteousness. The penalty of sin is slavery and death. He who is the victim of his own evil conduct is in reality much more a slave than the cowering subjects of the most dictatorial despot.
If America would remain mighty, she must have the strength of sobriety, of chastity and virtue, of honesty and integrity, and the power of true spirituality. If she would be strong, America must enjoy-in addition to her political freedoms, indeed one might say, as a condition to the perpetuation of her political freedoms-those other freedoms which are as essential to her welfare as any of the liberties listed in the Bill of Rights. Her people must strive for:
Freedom from unclean practices and unwholesome influences Freedom from immorality Freedom from intoxication Freedom from the evils of divorce Freedom from dishonesty in all their relations with each other, including business and labor Freedom from delinquency, juvenile or adult, with its accompanying list of crime Freedom from selfishness Freedom from internal dissensions, subversive activities, rabble rousing, and class hatred Freedom from idleness, and doctrines which persuade people that the government owes them a living, or that they can get more and more by doing less and less And freedom from the ignorance that so often leads to regrettable practices
FACTORS WEAKENING AMERICA
How far have we gone in the preservation of these freedoms? To what extent have we jeopardized these factors which are so essential to a strong nation?
For one thing, as a people we are afflicted with an element of violence and dishonesty which is sapping our strength. Every five minutes, during 1946, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a serious crime was committed among us. There was one for every seventy-eight persons in the general population.
During that same year Americans spent twice as much money for alcoholic beverages as they did for education, and this year they will spend a comparable amount. Does this tend to national strength?
Also in 1946 there were twenty-seven divorces for every one hundred marriages in the United States. The disruption of so many homes in every state of the Union can have none other than a weakening effect upon our nation. If we may trust the statements of courts dealing with domestic relations, infidelity was a contributing factor in a disquieting number of these instances. Any tendency on the part of Americans to regard lightly their marriage vows is destructive of the moral stability of the nation. Indiscretions arising out of marital disloyalty lead to broken homes and broken hearts and in some cases to lives of shame and disgrace. Furthermore, they promote delinquency among children who thus become the victims of the sins of their own parents, being influenced by examples set before them by their elders who underestimate the great value and strength of virtue.
Among Latter-day Saint people, whom I have the honor to represent today, we teach a precept given through the Prophet Joseph Smith which reads:
Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else.
What a boon it would be to all humanity if every man were moved by the spirit of this injunction.
INFLUENCE OF HOME LIFE
The strength of the nation is measured in a large degree by the home life of the individual citizens. What makes a home strong? It is character, and good character mean integrity, honesty, morality, the spirit of fair play, self-reliance, and an abiding faith in God. As we speak of the great men in history, we frequently refer to their home life, with a fireside about which the family met, a saintly mother, a period of devotion, the reading of the Sacred Word, a family prayer. Out of such an atmosphere our great men acquired an attitude of self-reliance, an enterprising spirit, a willingness to work, with honesty and integrity as guiding stars, and a due regard for the teachings of the Almighty. Is each American family today contributing in this manner to our national greatness? Are we strengthening the sinews of our country with homes like this, or are we content to settle back into conditions which lead to disruption of these foundation stones of a strong democracy?
THE GOLDEN RULE
Selfishness on the part of certain groups has led to internal dissensions, rabble rousing, and class hatreds, breeding a kind of disunity which is dangerous in the extreme. This type of thing has more than political or economic implications. It presents a serious moral issue-a problem of right and wrong. It has to do with the fundamental character of each person involved, with his honesty, his desire to be fair in his dealings. Are we in America willing to do unto others as we would be done by? Does the Golden Rule mean anything to us when we apply it to our employment, or to our association with others in groups or organizations? The Golden Rule engenders strength; its violation breeds strife and weakness.
That we should work for what we get is a divine principle. When the Lord placed Adam, the first man in the earth, he commanded him to work for his living, to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. On Mount Sinai the Lord commanded men to labor. Philosophies which tend to cheapen the doctrine that men should work for their sustenance detract from the stability of the nation. They also have a moral effect upon the individual, robbing him of his self-respect, and undermining his character.
RELIGION THE SOURCE OF VIRTUES
Political freedom means little; in fact it cannot permanently endure, without the strength of morality and integrity. It was George Washington who said that morality is a necessary spring of popular government. Yet, as Washington also reminds us, national morality cannot prevail in the exclusion of the principles of religion.
To be strong, America must possess those fundamental virtues, but to acquire and hold them, she must turn to their source-religion.
In this hour of danger, can we afford to overlook our greatest Benefactor, who is truly the Author of freedom as well as of religious faith? Can we forget that freedom is one of the fruits of religion, and that if we give up our faith we must expect also to lose the fruits of faith? Let us remember too, that faith in God is inseparably connected with sincere repentance from sin, and that as a people, to enjoy the fruits of faith-including continued freedom-we must live in keeping with the principles of revealed religion.
With our political strength so dependent upon our moral power, and that in turn resting upon our religious devotion, will we exercise sufficient faith to abandon those practices which are destructive of good character, and which tend to weaken us as a nation?
To receive blessings from God, we must be sincere in our devotion, and consistent in our faithfulness. We must choose whom we will follow, keeping in mind that we cannot serve two masters at the same time and be loyal to both. There is no place for hypocrisy before the Lord.
AMERICA'S NEED FOR GOD
In this hour of peril, with devotion and sincere purpose, we as a people must turn to God, learn of his ways, and walk in his paths. Then shall we know that obedience to revealed religion can make us strong.
A truly religious person will not dissipate his strength in sin.
But moved by the Holy Spirit in a life of righteousness, he will know the strength of being clean.
He will know the strength of being honest.
He will know the strength of sober thought and action.
He will discover the great strength to be derived through honest, sincere prayer. He will grow in power through observance of the Sabbath day. He will find strength in reverence for the name of the Lord.
He will become acquainted with the moving power of faith-even that faith which can move mountains, or soften the hearts of men, and bring about peace and common understanding.
He will know the strength of being kind as he learns to love his neighbor as himself.
He will know the strength to be derived through work and will learn the divine truth that the idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer.
He will gain strength of character by giving value for value in every transaction, an honest day's work for an honest day's pay in his daily occupation; full weight and undisguised quality at the trading counter, and will do unto others as he would have others do unto him.
He will be strengthened by the assurance that God is a reality-that he lives, and that he protects and prospers those who worship him sincerely.
America needs both strength and a continuation of liberty, and she may have them if she will but serve the Lord. If, as a nation, we so live, every American may feel secure in spite of world chaos, and may say with confidence in the words of David,
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 115-121
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
APPRECIATION OF UTAH CENTENNIAL COMMISSION
Before commenting on the thought expressed in this scripture, may I take one moment, in behalf of the Utah Centennial Commission, and so far as I may, the governor and other state officials who have sustained the commission, to express to the people of Utah heartfelt commendation for their cooperation and united effort during this centennial year.
I wish to name especially the county committees, the public school teachers, President Olpin and the University of Utah, President McDonald and the Brigham Young University, President Harris and the Utah State Agricultural College, President Dixon and the Weber College, and the Utah State Teachers' Association-these must be added to the director and to the scores of committees heretofore publicly recognized, to whose united and devoted effort is due all credit for whatever success has been achieved during the 1947 celebration.
GRATITUDE FOR BLESSINGS
Meeting with you this morning in this great conference, I am deeply grateful for my knowledge of the existence of God, our loving Father, and of his Beloved Son, our Savior in very deed. I am grateful for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the depths of my soul I know it is true.
I am happy in my love for my immediate associates, President George Albert Smith and President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and for these noble men of the Council of the Twelve, the Assistants to the Council of the Twelve, the Council of the Seventy, the Presiding Bishopric, the Patriarch. I find it a joy to work with you loyal men who preside in stakes and wards and branches. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to labor with you, to recognize your unselfish devotion to the Church.
Life, though freighted with great responsibilities and a consciousness of my inability, and regrets for failures, is still wholesome and sweet.
The world is full of honorable men and women who, as those men who accosted Peter on the day of Pentecost, desire to know what to do-what to believe.
A man who has reached the four score mark in years hailed me yesterday morning with the comment: "The world is in a terrible condition, isn't it?"
I replied: "It certainly is and greatly in need of wise, steady guidance."
EPOCH-MAKING PERIOD
Brethren and sisters, we are living in what may be the most epoch-making period of all time. Scientific discoveries and inventions, the breaking down of heretofore approved social and moral standards, the uprooting of old religious moorings all give evidence that we are witnessing one of those tidal waves of human thought which periodically sweep over the world and change the destiny of the human race. I call attention to world conditions because the mission of the Church of Christ is worldwide. Its responsibility and commission is to:
... teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS
Last September 23, Colonel James M. Gillespie, commander of the robot C54 Skymaster, made a flight of twenty-four hundred miles from. Newfoundland to Brise, Norton Airfield, England, demonstrating that a pilotless plane can be sent three thousand miles from the United States and back again from one radio station.
Fourteen men crossed the ocean without touching a button or a wheel!
Imagine what could happen if, instead of fourteen passengers, that robot plane carried two thousand five hundred pounds of atom bombs. Then imagine not only one such plane, but fifty, all bent on destruction, and guided accurately by mechanical brains!
A more recent dispatch from Washington says that "robot warfare between continents is definitely possible." It states further that "the methods and equipment needed to make missiles capable of carrying a five thousand-pound war head at six hundred miles an hour for four thousand miles are already well known in this country."
On August 11, 1947, William P. Odom, twenty-seven-year-old airplane pilot, completed a world record by flying around the globe in seventy-three hours, five minutes and eleven seconds, at a speed of 310 miles an hour.
On August 26, 1947, a navy plane, piloted by Major Marion E. Carl, thirty-one years of age, broke the air speed record by flying at the rate of 650 miles an hour.
What modern science is doing in other fields is even more astounding.
In a current magazine for this month, the thought is advanced as a possible accomplishment that man may succeed in turning night into day, not by candles, lanterns, or electric lights, but by "doing away with the earth's darkness entirely." One of the experiments now being carried on has to do with forms of electrons that "rush through ninety million miles of space between the sun and the earth and crash into the atmosphere."
When the electrons hit a molecule or atom of one of the atmospheric gases, the molecule or atom is ionized, and the gas glows just as it does in a fluorescent light bulb. There you have the germ of the idea that may prove to be one of the great scientific developments of our time.
RESPONSIBILITY TO CONTROL DISCOVERIES
I refer to these marvels, which are merely illustrative of many others, to emphasize the fact-if anything so obvious needs emphasis-that we are living in an age of scientific discovery and invention unequaled by any previous period in the world's history-discoveries latent with such potent powers either for the blessing or the destruction of human beings as to make man's responsibility in controlling them the most gigantic ever placed in human hands.
This responsibility and its possible results prompted one man to write:
Today, as seldom if ever before, human society is threatened with disintegration, if not complete chaos. All the ancient evils of human relationships, injustice, selfishness, abuse of strength, become sinister and terrible when reinforced by the vast increase of material power. The soul of man cowers, starved and fearful, in the midst of a civilization grown too complex for any mind to visualize or to control.
NEED FOR DIVINE GUIDANCE
Throughout the world generally today there is a spirit of unrest, a grasping for untried ideologies,, and, what is worst of all, a tendency toward moral abandonment. It is all too apparent that "our spiritual culture lags far behind our material culture in its development."
Now is a time when peoples in all the world should pause and in all earnestness repeat the Pentecostal question propounded to Peter and other apostles:
Men and brethren, what shall we do?
Representatives of fifty nations are now assembled trying to find an answer. Communist nations, however, are clashing with Christian groups, and it looks as though the proverbial dove of peace if not killed might again be seriously crippled.
At the final plenary session of the United Nations Conference when the charter was about to be signed, five great leaders invoked the Lord's aid to the end that the cause of peace would not fail.
Said Mr. Edward Stettinius:
To the governments and peoples of the fifty nations here represented, this charter is now committed, and may Almighty God from this day on and in the months and years to come sustain us in the unalterable purpose that its promise may be fulfilled.
The Earl of Halifax, chairman of the delegation of the United Kingdom, said:
Let us also, mindful alike of the world's need and of our own weakness, pray that, under God's guidance, what we have done here in these last weeks will be found worthy of the faith which gave it birth, and of the human suffering which has been its price.
His Royal Highness, Amir Faisal Ibin Abdiel Aziz, chairman of the delegation of Saudi Arabia, stated:
As long as we are united together in a spirit of cooperation, the hands of Almighty God will lead us. We shall always have his aid so long as we help one another.
And Field Marshall Jan Christiaan Smuts of South Africa, said:
May heaven's blessings rest on it.
And the President of our own United States prayed that under God's guidance the cause would succeed.
Unless such appeals were mere empty phrases, these leaders indicate the only safe and sure way wars may be averted, and peace among nations established. Not through communistic theories, not by the manifestations of mistrust, suspicion, and hatred will the turbulency of national ills be quieted. Unless the spirit of Christianity permeate the deliberations of the United Nations, dire tragedies await humanity.
OPPORTUNITY FOR SCIENTIFIC ADVANCEMENT
On the other hand never since the beginning of history has there been such an opportunity for the nations to utilize inventions and scientific discoveries to the blessing and peace of human beings.
Dr. Charles A. Elwood truly says:
Our material culture has advanced by leaps and bounds until we find almost unlimited physical power in our hands; but our spiritual culture has lagged, and we find many of the traditions of barbarism still strong among us, especially the traditions of war and self-indulgence at the expense of others. These traditions, along with the ignorance and paganism of the masses of mankind, make our world, we must acknowledge, a veritable powder house at the present time. Almost any powerful group foolish enough to do so could explode it. If western civilization emerges from this situation safely, it will only be through a deeper appreciation of the social ethics of Jesus than it has yet shown.
O, shall we never learn The truth all time has taught- That without God as architect Our building comes to naught?
The following remarks made by United States congressmen in the House of Representatives sound a true note of warning to the world:
The nations and peoples of the earth must go back to God the Father no matter how hard, how long, or how bloody the road. The conflict in which we are now and will be engaged during the coming years will determine the destiny and type of government for mankind for the next thousand years. By our courageous faith, by our patient sacrifice, and by our loyal obedience to God, we shall build a permanent, new-world social order, founded upon the enduring and eternal principles of Christian truth and justice. This will be the grand climax of mankind's age-long endeavor and imminent struggle to conquer the chaos of evil forces and achieve and establish the divine order of the ages-peace, plenty, and prosperity for all nations and all mankind.
REPENTANCE NEEDED
Infidelity and sexual immorality are two principal evils that threaten to weaken and to wreck present-day civilization. Unfortunately, the trends of modern life are tending to disintegrate the very foundation of the Christian home. Sexual laxity among young people, birth control, and intemperance are its insidious and vicious enemies. When family life disintegrates, the foundation and bulwark of human society is undermined.
Men and brethren, what shall we do?
The answer today is the same as it was two thousand years ago, the same as it will ever be throughout time.
All men must repent and believe on the name of Jesus Christ, and worship the Father in his name and endure in faith on his name to the end or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God.
Said the Savior:
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
As the honest people of the world wonder in vain, and cry out in uncertainty, what shall we do? Members of the Church of Christ who feel secure in the knowledge of the restored gospel should say, "Men and brethren, what can we do?"
PLAN OF ACTION SUGGESTED
Some specific things which the priesthood and their families can and should do are these:
First-We can set an example of uprightness; be honest in all our dealings; avoid vulgarity and profanity; demonstrate to our neighbors and to all whom we meet that we live clean, honorable lives.
Let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Second-Let us strive for peace and harmony in the home. If we cannot keep quarreling, bickering, and selfishness out of our home, how can we even hope to banish these evils from society?
A true Mormon home is one in which if Christ should chance to enter, he would be pleased to linger and to rest.
Third-Having at least striven for a good character, having a home environment that is creditable, we may then consistently discharge our duty as authorized representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ to declare to the world that the conditions that will bring peace and comfort to the individual, to the family, and to the nation, are found in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. These can be named and understood and as easily practiced with resultant contentment and peace as are the evils and vices that bring tribulation.
Summarized these fundamentals are: An acceptance of Christ as Savior and Redeemer; a moving, soul-consciousness of the existence of God, and that he is our Father in Heaven; a daily life consistent with such a knowledge; a love for one's fellow men.
In other words, as the Savior summarized the law and the prophets:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind... and thy neighbor as thyself.
WORLD NEEDS SPIRITUALITY
I realize, as I have said elsewhere, that skeptics, and pessimists say that these principles are too idealistic, that mankind is too near the beasts of creation, struggling to eke out an existence, even to attempt to apply them in daily life. In reply, I say men and women have practiced them and have been happy, and have made the world better in so doing. Christ's disciples did it in Jesus' day,, and they have influenced millions of lives since. There have been thousands since their day, some heralded on the pages of history, and others of whom the world has never heard who, through love of God, truth, and of fellow men, have "never yielded to the pressure of circumstances," and who, though they faced persecution and even death, could say in their hearts as the Prophet Joseph Smith declared as he turned into the path that led to his martyrdom: "If my life is of no value to my friends, it is of no value to me."
The world needs millions more whose influence will counteract the evil spread by the multi-millions who grope in selfishness, sordidness, suspicion, hatred, and crimes of varying degree.
After all, the spiritual life is the true life of man. It is what distinguishes him from the beasts of the forests. It lifts him above the physical, yet he is still susceptible to all the natural contributions that life can give him that are needful for his happiness or contributive to his advancement. Though "in the world, he is not of the world".
Jesus taught that men and women fail to live truly, unless they have spirituality. In the Life and Teachings of Jesus, we read that the spiritual force underlies everything, and without it nothing worthwhile can be accomplished. "Spiritual needs can be met only by spiritual means. All government, laws, methods, and organizations are of no value unless men and women are filled with truth, righteousness, and mercy. Material things have no power to raise the sunken spirit. Gravitation, electricity, and steam are great forces, but they are all powerless to change the motives of men and women." Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
GOSPEL OFFERS SOLUTION
Men of the priesthood, we must continue to declare that the gospel, the Glad Tidings of Great Joy, is the true guide to mankind; and that men and women are happiest and most content who live nearest to its teachings.
The voice of the Lord is unto all men, and there is none to escape; and there is no eye that shall not see, neither ear that shall not hear, neither heart that shall not be penetrated....
And the voice of warning shall be unto all people, by the mouths of my disciples, whom I have chosen in these last days.
What the sun in the heavenly blue is to the earth struggling to get free from winter's grip, so the gospel is to sorrowing souls yearning for something higher and better than mankind has yet found.
If men and nations will hold their belief in God, and accept the teachings of Jesus Christ, pilotless planes and other argosies of the air encircling the globe in a nightless world will carry not bombs of merciless destruction, but gifts and blessings to what is now a groping, benighted world.
All the world is in the Valley of Decision And out of it there is but one sure road; Eyes unsealed can still foresee the mighty vision Of a world in travail turning unto God.
May heaven help all members of the Church of Christ to live and labor for the spreading throughout the world of the gospel of light and truth and peace, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
Joseph L. Wirthlin, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 121-127
Facing this magnificent congregation of Latter-day Saints I deeply realize the great responsibility that rests upon me and hence I crave an interest in your faith and prayers.
The ancient writer of Proverbs declared:
Where no counsel is the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.
He also declared:
Give instruction to a wise man and he will yet be wiser; teach a just man and he will increase in learning.
Centuries ago there lived upon this earth a generation of people so wicked and vile that the God of Israel turned his face away in shame and chagrin, but as a manifestation of his great love for these people, he sent them a great counselor and prophet. His name was Noah. Noah stood at the crossroads and admonished, pleaded with, and counseled the people to take the path of righteousness and virtue, but exercising their free agency, they chose the path of wickedness and debauchery. A great flood swept over the earth, and they were swept from the face of it, and the God of Israel looked down upon a cleansed earth.
A GUIDE AT THE CROSSROADS
Throughout all dispensations the God of Israel has placed at the crossroads a great counselor, a prophet, to teach the people the mind and the will of their Eternal Father, to the end that they might return to him and dwell with him throughout the eternities to come.
God so loved the world that he sent his Only Begotten Son, and he, too, stood at the crossroads. He admonished, he pleaded with the people, and endeavored to teach them the gospel of salvation, giving his life for the redemption of mankind. After his death and resurrection, the organization of the Church remained with apostles and prophets, counselors to the people, endeavoring to teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ. But again the people chose another path, and after a few centuries they chose to follow the doctrines and the teachings of men, and a great pall of apostasy was over the earth, and darkness remained upon the earth for many centuries.
A PROPHET RAISED UP
Once again, as the Lord had promised through his prophets, there would be a restitution of all things. A prophet was raised up, a young man who wished to know which of all the teachings of men might be the teachings of God. And in answer to that prayer the Father and the Son appeared to him. They told him that all of these doctrines were of men, that they drew nigh unto God with their lips but their hearts were far away from him.
So God gave another great counselor to the people, the Prophet Joseph Smith through whom the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ was restored in its fulness, in its simplicity, and in addition thereto the priesthood was restored to earth, that power given to men where they may act as God's agents. The Church was set upon the earth with prophets, apostles, and all of the officers that existed in former days.
ACHIEVEMENTS FROM FOLLOWING COUNSEL
Evil men took the Latter-day prophet and murdered him in cold blood. Again the people who had accepted him as a prophet of God stood at the crossroads, but another great counselor was raised up-Brigham Young-upon whom rested the great responsibility of responsibility of finding another home for the Latter-day Saints and also of finding a place where the roots of the kingdom should be sunk so deeply that they would never be torn up again. Following their divinely appointed leader, the people made the long trek over the plains and through the mighty defiles of these great mountains, and here in the valleys they built churches, homes, schools, buildings of various kinds, and a temple to their God.
I have wondered many times what it was that made them successful, that made it possible for them to achieve so highly. In contemplating some of the factors that contributed to their success and achievements, I have come to the conclusion that they were anxious and willing to follow counsel. They accepted Brigham Young without any reservations as the servant of God, God's mouthpiece through whom the Lord made his mind and will known to his children. And they followed that counsel so closely that they gave no consideration to themselves in a physical sense. All that mattered was whether or not the counsel of God as revealed to them through his chosen servant was being carried out fully.
Brigham Young made the following statement to them, and I am sure this statement came from God as did the statement made by the writer of Proverbs, which expresses the same thought:
The Latter-day Saints who hearken to the words of the Lord, given to them touching their political, social, and financial concerns, I say, and say it boldly, that they will have wisdom which is altogether superior to that of the wisdom of the children of darkness, or the children of the world. I know this by the revelations of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the results of my own actions. They who have hearkened to counsels given to them in temporal matters, have invariably bettered their conditions temporally and spiritually.
And so counsel, in one sense, divides itself into two categories: That which has to do with materialistic things and that which has to do with spiritual things. God's prophet was given revelation from on high to the extent that he was enabled to counsel his people in temporal as well as spiritual things, and that had to be because this people came here impoverished. They had no money. All that they had was faith in God and their hands and minds with which to work, but yet God revealed to them the counsel that was necessary for their temporal success. That success is now represented in farms, industries, and in various forms of business which exist today.
FAITH OF A PIONEER
The pioneers did not think much of personal consequence, which is exemplified in a diary that I read some time ago of one of the Gardner brothers who accepted the gospel in Canada and after accepting it, he was most anxious to go to Nauvoo and shake the hand of the Prophet and visit with the Saints, but he arrived in Nauvoo too late. The Prophet had been murdered, but Brother Gardner visited with the General Authorities and with the Saints, and in his diary he wrote: "I know that these men are the Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I know the people that are following them are indeed Saints."
Returning to Canada he sold his property and made the long trek back to Nauvoo with his family, just in time to be driven out in the middle of winter. He spent the winter on the plains of Iowa. He finally made his way into Salt Lake Valley, where after ten years of struggle and almost starvation he wrote in his diary; "How grateful I am to the Lord, for now my family are sheltered under one roof. We have clothing, and we have food."
In the midst of this prosperity a messenger sent by the President of the Church requested him to come to his office at once. As he entered the office of President Young, he met one of the President's counselors coming out, and the counselor said to him: "Now, brother, don't blame me for what's going to happen."
In a moment this good brother stood before President Young and the President said to him: "Brother Gardner, we are calling you on a mission to go and help settle Dixie."
This good man said: "I scratched my head. I spit upon the floor, and mentally I concluded I had had enough, but another thought flashed through my mind. The servant of God was calling me to perform a duty." And he answered the President: "I'll be glad to go."
He sold his mill; he sold his farm; he sold most of his livestock and taking a few belongings and his family in a wagon made the long trek in the middle of winter to what is now St. George. And from that time on, according to his diary, he did not know very much about prosperity. He was on a mission to help build up another part of the kingdom and an interesting comment is that some of the wood that rests in the great Tabernacle organ came from trees cut by this brother in Pine Valley.
He suffered privation and many physical hardships, yet in his diary I did not find one word of complaint, rather I found the spirit of gratitude and thankfulness to God because he had found the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He had a testimony that the great counselor who stood at the head of this Church was a servant of Almighty God.
WASTED FOOD NOW NEEDED
By following counsel closely the pioneers achieved, and I wonder now as we leave this great conference whether or not you and I are going to follow the counsel of God's servants who have admonished us in the spirit of the Lord as to what we should do in both spiritual and temporal matters. I think of the days in 1932-3-4-5 and 6, when the philosophy was advocated that we should destroy food, that we should cut down on our crop production, and in the midst of such advice a prophet of God stood at the crossroads, and admonished the people to continue to produce more and more and to save every pound. Oh, how I wish that the modern Pharaohs of today had listened to a modern Joseph, for had this country gone forth with its great potential strength in productivity of food, there would be enough food on hand to feed a starving world. You might ask the question: How is it possible to conserve food over a period of ten or twelve years? Well, through modern means of refrigeration and canning, and other devices, it is possible to conserve food for years. Out of our own experience in storing the Relief Society wheat we know that wheat can be kept sound for many years, based upon certain principles.
And so, had the counsel of God's servants in these days been followed there would have been no difficulty in providing enough food and other necessities of life to help a starving Europe and a suffering China. Accepting and following the counsel of God's selected and anointed should be to us the word of God in this day just exactly as was the word of God in the days of the pioneers.
OBEDIENCE TO COUNSEL REWARDED
I had related to me a rather interesting story of a humble man who lives in the state of Arizona; it is as follows: Dr. John A. Widtsoe of the Council of the Twelve had been visiting in the Snowflake Stake and among other counsel he gave to the brethren was this: "Why don't you drill wells that you might bring more of this arid land under cultivation?"
President Flake of the presidency pondered over the counsel given, and he came to the conclusion that a servant of God had spoken and that it would be wise to follow such counsel. Going to a neighboring town he endeavored to secure the services of a well driller. And the driller said, "Yes, I will drill you a well. I assume you want the usual size pipe, six or eight inches."
President Flake said: "No, I want a twelve-inch pipe." The well driller replied: "Man, you are foolish. There isn't enough water in this country to fill a twelve-inch pipe, and furthermore, I wouldn't take your money to drill a well of that size because it would be a waste of money." And so he refused to drill the well.
But, undaunted, President Flake went to another well driller in a neighboring community. He told the man what he wanted. The man said: "Well, it seems foolish, but nevertheless if you want to spend the money, I will drill the hole and put a twelve-inch pipe in it."
A site was selected for the well on a piece of arid land adjacent to Snowflake, Arizona, and drilling operations were commenced. After the men had drilled for a few days, a government man came along, and he said: "Mr. Flake, I think you are foolish in drilling for water here. I am quite sure that you won't find any. It is my judgment had you gone over here a short distance the possibilities are that you might have found a little water."
But again, undaunted and believing implicitly in the counsel of one of God's servants, the drilling continued and after reaching a depth of two hundred feet, a flow of water was struck in sufficient amount to fill the twelve-inch pipe up within sixty feet of the surface. The ground was broken, cultivated, and crops were planted. A pump was placed on the well, and it delivered nine hundred gallons a minute. This year the crops grown on what was arid land two years ago will pay for the drilling of the well and the pumping equipment installed.
President Flake further indicated that the volume of water has been sufficient, not only to take care of this year's crop, but also will be sufficient to irrigate a total of 175 acres.
President Flake followed the counsel of one of Christ's apostles and received the blessing for obedience rendered, which brings us to the conclusion that we should hearken always to the voices of the prophets to the end that the windows of heaven will be open to us-spiritually and temporally.
OBLIGATION OF PRIESTHOOD
So much for temporal counsel, but what about spiritual counsel? We have had an abundance of it during this great conference. Think if you will of the admonitions that have come to us with reference to the home, the matter of family prayers, the matter of attending that most important meeting of the whole week, namely, the sacrament meeting. Will you think of your priesthood responsibilities as servants of God? I say that every man who holds the priesthood has a responsibility that is very great, and priesthood is of no value to an individual unless he uses it in the service of God. It does not come to you as an honorary office. It comes to you that you might serve God and assist him to consummate his plans. And, furthermore, the priesthood of God, that mantle of authority which rests upon your shoulders and mine, is not one which can be taken off on Sunday evening and left off during the week and then put on again the following Sunday morning. Your priesthood is with you wherever you may go, in the office or the field, and remember that priesthood demands of you lives that are wholly compatible with it in purity, in service, in hearkening to counsel and in keeping God's commandments.
A LIGHT TO THE WORLD
We have received admonitions with reference to virtue, the Word of Wisdom, temple work, and missionary work. I want to say if we will hearken unto all of this counsel we will become a blessed people, for Brigham Young declared again:
If we hearken to counsel, we shall be the best people in the world; we shall be as a bright light set upon a hill, that cannot be hid, or like a candle upon a candlestick..
Brethren and sisters, never let us forget the admonition that:
... to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
Yes,
Give instructions to a wise man, and he will yet be wiser; teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.
I humbly pray that we can take the counsels of this great conference to heart and exemplify them in our lives, to the end that we will be a light to the world, for the Lord said to the Prophet Joseph:
... shine forth, that thy light may be a standard for the nations.
That is our destiny, and we can achieve it if we will follow the admonitions and the counsels of these servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. I bear testimony to you that they have all of the same rights and authority to lead the people of the world in righteousness as did Noah, Isaiah, or any of the apostles of old. I bear testimony to you that the same God who dealt with the people in the days of Noah is your God and my God, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Redeemer of the world, and the humble man who was murdered in cold blood for his testimony in Carthage Jail, Joseph Smith, was God's servant, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Thomas E. McKay
Thomas E. McKay, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 127-131
The inspiring music of our great choir and organ, both in the broadcast this morning and in this service, and also the timely, masterful address of President McKay, and the interesting talk of Bishop Wirthlin, have all tended, I am sure, to uplift us, to bring us nearer our Father in heaven, and others on the other side.
It is my earnest desire and prayer, my brethren and sisters, to say something useful, something that will be helpful to us, that will bring more happiness and joy into our daily lives. One of my favorite themes, already mentioned by one or two of the speakers, is,
Men are that they might have joy.
ACTIVITY BRINGS JOY
Work is a great blessing; activity brings joy. Last Sunday, I was in California, attending the Inglewood Stake conference. Some of you have already read in last week's issue of the Church Section of the News of some of the activities of this stake, especially of their building program. There was one achievement not referred to in the article, that I should like to mention. Last summer, in California they had some of their "unusual" weather, quite an extended hot spell, and the entire apricot crop ripened so rapidly that it became necessary to harvest it or it would be wasted. This was called to the attention of the southern California regional welfare officers. Through them, attention was called to the stakes in that region. I do not know what other stakes accomplished, but one day was set aside by the Inglewood Stake members for picking, and as a result they have now 25,777 cans of apricots in their stake storehouse and in their homes.
Just a month ago today I was in the Burley Stake conference in Idaho. At the conclusion of that conference the president arose and casually announced that the beet harvesting for this year had been set by the officials of the sugar factory to begin on a certain date. "We would like to harvest our welfare crops before we begin on our own." A time was decided on for that purpose. He said: "We would like to harvest the entire crop on these two days."
I had visited these projects, and had seen the extent of them, and so I arose and said: "If you accomplish this, will you kindly send me a telegram collect? If you don't you needn't say anything about it."
Last Sunday, while at the Inglewood Stake conference, just at the beginning of the ten-thirty session, this telegram was handed me.
Burley, Idaho
Thomas E. McKay Care President Alfred E. Rohner
Brother McKay:
Members of Burley Stake harvested 40 acres of potatoes Friday, 26th; ten acres potatoes, 27 acres of beets, and cut five acres of corn Saturday the 27th. People present both days, approximately 900. Trucks, 50. Tractors, 25. Potato diggers, 18. Five beet diggers. Relief Society served lunch. Thanks for challenge you made at conference.
Sincerely, Burley Stake Conference
Congratulations, members of Burley Stake!
There are now, 168 stakes in the Church, as we were told yesterday by President Richard L. Evans in his well-worded, I was going to say, musically-worded address on the growth of the Church. Seventy-eight of these are outside of Utah, all active and doing splendid work. As one investigator friend stated: "You all seem to know one another here-just like one large happy family."
It is a privilege to visit these stakes, and especially thrilling to find so many of our members active now and in prominent positions who were not so active in their home wards and stakes. As one of them told me: "At home I belonged to that group, that rather large group that you referred to as who treat their religion as a spare tire; they never use it except in times of emergency. Also," he continued, "we had time on our hands which we used in finding fault with the brethren and the Church, looking for the thorn on the rose, and the dirt on the lily, instead of for the flowers themselves."
STORY OF JAPANESE PHILOSOPHER
He was referring, as you know, to that story that I like to tell of the Japanese philosopher who was accustomed to going out into the hills and woods to study the laws of nature. After spending a day in such study, he would return to his village at night, where he would gather his people around him and instruct them in the lessons which he had learned. One day one of his friends came to him saying, "Will you please bring me a hawthorn twig when you come back, that I can study the lesson you gave last week from that tree?" "Yes," said the philosopher, "I will bring you the twig tonight," and a second one of his friends that morning said, "Will you bring me a rose, that I may study concerning the lecture you gave last evening?" "Yes, I'll bring you the rose." And just before the philosopher went through the gate of the town that morning, a third friend said, "Will you bring me a lily that I might study the lesson of purity you gave last evening?" The philosopher promised to bring the lily.
In the evening about sundown when the old philosopher returned to the village, the three friends were waiting at the gate to welcome him. To the first he gave the hawthorn twig; to the second he gave the rose; and to the third he gave the lily. Suddenly the man with the hawthorn twig cried, "Here is a dead leaf on the stem of my hawthorn twig!" The second said, "Here is a thorn on the stem of my rose!" and the third one cried, "Here is dirt on the roots of my lily!"
"Let me see," said the philosopher. From the first he took the hawthorn twig; from the second, he took the rose, and from the third he took the lily. He plucked the dead leaf from the hawthorn twig and gave it to the first friend. He plucked the thorn from the stem of the rose and gave it to the second. He took the dirt from the roots of the lily and put it into the hands of the third. Holding the hawthorn twig, the rose, and the lily, he said: "Now, each of you has what attracted you first. You looked for the dead leaf, and you found it. You looked for the thorn; it was there. You found the dirt of the lily because I left it on the roots. You may keep what attracted you first. I will keep the hawthorn twig, the lily, and the rose, for the beauty I see in them."
We find in this world just about what we are looking for. If we look for dirt and the sordid things, we can find them; or if we look for mistakes in others we can find them also. If we look for the good and the beautiful, the good and the beautiful will return to us. There is no place for hate in the heart of a Latter-day Saint, or of any other true Christian.
... Love your enemies, bless those that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.
That is the doctrine of the Savior.
Hate incapacitates anyone from doing one's best, no matter whether it is hate for a person or for a people.
Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad.
Hate, envy, jealousy, ingratitude, intolerance are all weapons used by Satan to thwart the purposes of God.
THE LOVE OF MONEY
One of the main weapons, I think, not mentioned very often, one that creeps upon us very quietly, is the love of money. The love of money, we are told, is at the root of all evil. You may not agree with me, some of you, in what I am going to say now, but I believe that one of the main reasons why it is so difficult for some of our members to pay tithing is because Satan does not want us to pay tithing. He puts all kinds of excuses in our way, because he knows that a person or a people who will pay tithing will never worship gold instead of God. We are so bent, I was going to say hell-bent, on getting rich, making money, that we miss some of the sweetest things in life, brethren and sisters. We never have time to look up at the beautiful blue sky or enjoy our wonderful sunsets or see the beautiful flowers and the bluebird hopping from post to post or hear the song of the meadowlark as we speed along the highways. We have no time to go into these colorful canyons with our families and occasionally take a fishing trip, something unpardonable. No, we are too busy for these things. Yes, the love of money, the use of tobacco, liquor-Brother Merrill referred to in his splendid address -yesterday are weapons of Satan that he is using to thwart the purposes of God.
President Smith has advised us, and I like the way he puts it, to keep away from the devil's territory. This is rather a large order, at least according to Mark Twain who said:
I want to see the devil, just to set my eyes on that person who for untold centuries has been the spiritual head of four-fifths of the human race and the political head of all of it.
That statement may be a little exaggerated, but this part I do agree with, "he must surely have executive ability of the highest order." I think we would do well to follow President Smith's advice to keep away from his territory; and "enter ye in at the strait gate". Overcome evil with good, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Our Father in heaven, brothers and sisters, is our Father. He loves us and because he loves us he has given us the gospel, every principle and commandment of which is for our happiness in this life. Honoring parents, keeping the Sabbath day holy, refraining from taking the name of the Lord in vain, attendance at our sacrament and priesthood meetings, remaining honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, keeping the Word of Wisdom, paying tithing and our fast offerings-all these are given to us that we might have joy in this life.
FAST OFFERING PLAN RECOMMENDED
When I mention fast offerings, my heart goes out to our brothers and sisters in Europe and to the starving millions in the war-torn countries. I wish we could do more to establish fast offerings in the world. I hope I am not speaking out of line, but I would like to see this great gathering endorse a resolution to the United Nations recommending as a means of helping the starving millions in the war-torn countries the adoption of the fast offering plan of the Church.
May we have a greater desire, greater faith, greater will power to live in accordance with the great gospel plan of life and salvation, as revealed in our day by the Prophet Joseph Smith, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Stephen L Richards
Stephen L Richards, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 131-137
We gather periodically in the conferences of the Church, or listen over the radio to the proceedings as a part of our worship, in order that we may be refreshed in our faith and edified in our concepts and duties. I am sure that the sessions of the present conference have served us well in these respects. It is my earnest desire that I may contribute a little to the stimulation and encouragement we are receiving.
BEARERS OF THE GOSPEL MESSAGE
I know of few things more stirring to our faith and devotion in this noble cause with which we have the honor to be identified than a clear realization of its lofty purposes among the children of men. Perhaps it is not given to many of us to see the over-all picture in its perfection. We can only try with the equipment at our command to make the world understand the importance and vitality of the message we bear. After we have done our best in thought, word, and action, we can but pray that the Lord will add his blessing.
We want the world to understand the position of this Church. We are propagandists for its doctrines and principles. Unfortunately, that word has come to have a rather unsavory connotation, for, in its correct meaning, it describes us. We are converted bearers of a message which we are charged to give to the world. We cannot shrink from that obligation and be loyal to the cause. We bear this message to our fellow men, not only because we are commanded so to do but also because we have in our hearts a deep regard for the welfare of men and a Christian desire to help them. We are fully convinced that the message we have for them is the greatest boon which can come into their lives.
Now, what is this message which this Church carries to mankind? Naturally, within the limitations of these brief remarks, I cannot attempt to present more than aspects of it and that merely in outline. If I can do that in the common language we speak today with any measure of clarity, I shall be very grateful.
MESSAGE DEFINES RELIGION
This message defines religion. It interprets all phases of a man's existence in terms of religion. There is no part of living not influenced by it. Our thoughts, our environment, our education, our companionships and associations, our health, our concepts of wealth, government, and society in the scope of this message are all religious considerations. Religion therefore becomes not a philosophy apart from life to be held up for scrutiny, criticism, and debate. Rather, it is an integrated way of life, a system and program of individual and community living under eternal law which man did not make and cannot change.
Elder Albert E. Bowen the other day told us so impressively how it cannot be compromised. When a man comes to know and feel such an interpretation of religion, it completely dominates his appraisals, his choices, and his judgment. Many would characterize such a man as a fanatic, and he would be a fanatic if his religion were not true and the divine source of wisdom.
RELIGION A MOTIVATING FORCE
Have the critics of such an exact religion ever set out the merits of religion in moderation? I thank Brother Richard L. Evans for defining that word for me in his remarks of the broadcast this morning. Sunday religion, it is sometimes called, the kind men carry in their wives' names. How do they justify a partial acceptance of divine law and principle? Surely consistency would demand that if the source of religion is accredited, the application must be universal and unvaried. I can understand how many men have not accepted interpretations of divine law and religion, how many have rebelled against the practices of religionists, but if religion is accepted at all, I cannot see how logical, clear-thinking minds can take it for any less than what it really is-the motivating, all-controlling force in the life of man and the organization of the universe.
I wonder if we are able to appreciate what such an interpretation of religion if widely accepted would do for the world today? Here are a few of the things I feel it would accomplish. It would remove uncertainty and doubt as to the principles and standards which should be observed in reaching decisions on all matters, personal, social, national, and international. What a tremendous gain it would be if the answer to the age-old question, "What is right?" could be found by most men to be in the acceptance of the divine source of right. Here again appears the inconsistency and futility of the position of the so-called partial religionists. Pretty generally throughout the world recognition is given to the divine laws against killing, adultery, stealing, and lying, and little question is raised regarding the source and perpetuity of these regulations of human conduct. Where is the justification for discrimination against the other laws exacting worship and obedience to the God of the universe and proscribing idolatry, blasphemy, and desecration of the Lord's holy day? The laws commanding worship and reverence for our divine and earthly parents constitute one-half of the Decalogue, and remember they come first. In the interpretation of religion we give to the world they are first, in practice as well as in theology.
RELIGION NEEDED IN WORLD AFFAIRS
Do you think that if such an interpretation of religion were widespread, even among the Christian nations of the earth we could have any such spectacle of discord and intrigue as the nations of the world have recently presented to disgusted and discouraged people all over the earth? Have you ever heard of a voice being raised in any of the sessions of the United Nations since its inception more than two years ago protesting the infractions of God's laws or importuning his help in achieving the purposes of that organization? I think you have not, unless perhaps in some innocuous way, because I suspect that it is tacitly agreed that God and religion shall be shut out of the proceedings. Well, my friends, it is a part of the message that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints bears to the world that God and religion cannot be shut out from the consideration of world affairs without mortal hazard to the cause of goodness and peace.
INALIENABLE RIGHTS
I have read and heard a good many statements by eminent writers and speakers to the effect that our liberty of which we are justly proud is an achievement and not a gift. In the sense that it had to be worked for, fought for, and preserved with vigilance these statements are true. But let it never be forgotten that our concept of liberty is a gift. No human is the author of that concept. Many great men have so recognized it as did Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence and declared that "men are endowed with certain inalienable rights." Why are these rights inalienable? Because men did not create the right to liberty! In the exercise of his free agency he may surrender his privileges, and his property, and he may become the slave of others or of the state, but his free agency is as native to him as the air he breathes. It is part and parcel of his eternal constitution, and Jefferson was "righter than I think he himself knew when he declared it an endowment which cannot be alienated.
The message which we bear affirms that God is the Author of our inalienable liberty; that men, all men are of noble lineage, sons and daughters of the Eternal Father; and that liberty is their birthright. I think that prior to the advent of the restored gospel a little over a century ago there was no such understanding of the precious gift of liberty as there is today. In his latter-day revelations the Lord has set forth much concerning it, but I thank God that before these revelations came, noble men were blessed with this lofty concept of man's inherent right to liberty and that they were prompted to incorporate these divine principles in the organic law and history of our favored land.
NEED FOR DIVINE AID
Now I know that there are many in Christian nations and many in prominent places who accede to this taboo on religion in the consideration of national and world affairs. They seem to think that they can fight aggressive, atheistic communism without uttering a word in defense and exposition of divinely-given concepts, and without even seeking divine aid in the preservation of divine principles for the race. I do not pretend to qualify or speak as an expert on international affairs, but I am sure that I voice the sentiment and feeling of millions of God-loving people over the world when I assert that the sooner the issues now confronting the nations are recognized as a moral conflict between right and wrong, between truth and error, between Christ and anti-Christ, the sooner will come the solution and peace. I know that this is and has always been the position of this Church. There are prophecies, ancient and modern, statements and declarations, and experience to support this position.
PROGRAM TO MEET WORLD CRISIS
I am aware of what some may say, even though they may not be unsympathetic with the views I have expressed. They ask: Even though the time has come for a "showdown" between the forces of good and the forces of evil, what justifies your Church with its relatively small numbers, short history, and inconspicuous place in the world of religions in assuming to prescribe a program of religious concepts and action to meet the world crisis today? Why not let the great religions of the earth take the burden of the battle and you trail along? Well, I hesitate a little to give my answer to that question. Not because I am not sure of the answer, but because I am fearful about hurting feelings. I give my answer in three parts:
FAILURE OF WORLD RELIGIONS
First, in the centuries during which the numerically great religious denominations of the world have dominated the religious concepts and actions of their peoples there has been failure, signal failure to uphold divine standards of righteousness, brotherly love, and peace. These great religions, however good the intentions, have proved impotent to forestall wars and to prevent barbarism, brutality, and atrocities such as the world has seldom known even in its darkest ages and this, too among peoples where substantially the whole populace professed one creed. Of course, it is idle to conjecture what the world might have been without these creeds. No one with historical knowledge will fail to acknowledge their contribution to the enlightenment and culture of the race, but as a source of motivation in the control of men's greeds and passions the known results are certainly not encouraging.
ANSWERS TO LIFE'S QUESTIONS
Second, the ever-growing quest for knowledge among the enlightened people of the earth demands answers, reliable information on questions vital to life and its meaning. In many cases science has accentuated the importance of these questions and has done much to clarify thinking about them, but science has seldom given the answers, especially in the fields of human behavior and relationships. It seems indelicate, I know, to many not of my faith for me to assert that we have the answers. I mean, of course, about the source, the meaning, and purpose of life and the government of man. We do not know and cannot say just why the Lord did not commit these answers which are the essence of the holy gospel to the keeping of many men in many nations, but we do know that he committed them to the custody of this Church through those whom he chose to initiate his work in the latter-days. For this conviction we have substantial proof, evidence, admissible and competent evidence, not gathered from the debatable sources of antiquity but from witnesses and experiences within recent generations of men, attested and recorded to meet all reasonable demands. Here is God's truth and his latest word for the direction of the human family. In application it has been successful and not a failure.
DIVINE COMMISSION TO ACT
Third, I think that nearly everyone will agree that to sustain effectively a cause one must have the authority to represent it. He must be a part of it, on the inside and not on the outside. He must be authorized to speak for it. I know that I broach a controversial question in speaking of the authority to represent God and Christ in the earth. Must we not discuss the great issues of the world because they are controversial, out of fear of treading on someone's sentimental toes? I believe that thinking, honest, inquisitive people the world over want the truth about authority, the divine commission to set up the Lord's work in the earth to administer the ordinances of the holy gospel and to interpret his word and will for the guidance of mankind. Now, there is much incontrovertible evidence that I might review here today in support of the claims to divine authority which this Church makes. I am not going to present this evidence; time will not permit; and many of you who listen know of it. I will confine my comment to one phase of this subject of authority of which I think our friends of the world have a very inadequate conception.
Is it not logical to assume that God, who is the Father of all men and who has endowed all men with liberty and equality of opportunity, does not "play favorites"? If it be regarded as a blessing and an honor to represent him, is there any good reason why that blessing and dignity should not be conferred on all of his sons who are worthy? Do you know of any warrant, scriptural or otherwise, for the creation and maintenance of special groups of spiritual experts to hold the authority of the Lord to the exclusion of other good men? What justification is there for differentiation among loyal and true sons of God by the clothes they wear? Does the apparel bring authority or is it essential to the recognition of a good life devoted to the Lord? And does it not seem reasonable that if the worthy sons of God are to enjoy his companionship in the world to come as a reward for their faithful labors here in this life that they should all bear a portion of his power and be endowed with a part of his spiritual intelligence which constitute the essence of divine authority and priesthood? What a boon it would be to the world if all men understood the nature and permanence of the Holy Priesthood and its indispensable part in the exaltation of a man and his family. Well, unfortunately, but few understand it, and the world goes along century after century following in the pattern of form and tradition, and influenced more by the display of pomp and pageantry than by a sound theology manifest in practical, living religion. That constitutes my answer to those who ask why we cannot trail along in the wake of the so-called great religions in defense of the Christ and his way of life in the crucial contest of the present day.
CHURCH TO TAKE THE LEAD
It then follows, as I see it, that we are to take the lead. There is no one to follow except him who is and always has been at our head. With his approval leaders have been selected for us. They hold no more or any different kind of priesthood from the humblest good man in the kingdom, but they have a special commission to guide and direct our efforts in establishing the kingdom and prosecuting its work in the world. And to one is given the keys of the kingdom. We will follow their leadership, and they will not lead us astray, for they are unselfishly devoted to our interests and their wisdom is inspired.
There is a hungry world about us, my dear brethren and sisters, a challenging, hungry world. People need food for the body, food for the soul. We haven't the millions necessary to build and clothe their bodies. If we had, I think we would do it so that no one would suffer. We do what we can. We do have in our possession, however, what stricken humanity needs to satisfy its hungry soul and revive hope and confidence for peace and security. The message we bear is one of enlightenment to the statesman as well as the pauper. It teaches that enduring happiness is to be found only in goodness and that the highest tribute to the Christ is the tribute of a good life. It teaches that strength, the strength of the nation as so well portrayed by Brother Mark E. Petersen in his Church of the Air address this morning, is the product of that goodness. This message defines God, not as an intangible principle in the universe, but a personality with such inexpressibly beautiful, admirable, and potent attributes as to claim the everlasting love, confidence, reverence, and adulation of every living soul who comes to know the truth about him. It sets forth a brotherhood which in spirit and application transcends any definition of that relationship the world has known, at least in modern times. It brings comfort to the sorrowing. It rebukes avarice and places the world of business on the high plane of stewardship and trusteeship in the acquisition and distribution of the wealth of the world. It brings contentment and peace of mind. It gives unfailing purpose to life. It accentuates personality in every, man, woman, and child. Indeed, it makes all things-government and even the Church it-self-subservient to the eternal welfare of man.
If I could have my wish today, it would be that every one of God's children could hear this glorious message and earnestly give consideration to it. I am sure that thereby there would come into countless hearts through the whisperings of the spirit that joy and happiness which attend our own testimonies of the truth. Through our missionary system we have made a tremendous contribution to this end, but it is not enough. We must find new ways to inform and persuade the world, and if we are faithful and truly devoted, God will open the way. That is my conviction.
I know as I know that I live that this is his kingdom. He will never desert it. God help all of us never to desert him, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
Joseph Fielding Smith, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 145-149
I have been edified by the remarks of my brethren during the several sessions of this conference. We have received instruction, admonition, warning; our attention has been called to our shortcomings; and I hope all will be remembered.
It is my desire, in the few minutes that I have, to add my little part by testimony, instruction, and counsel as the Lord may lead me to speak. I have had a number of topics in mind since the beginning of this conference, and somebody gets up and delivers these talks. So I thought perhaps I could think of something that someone else would not think of, and I want to talk to you this afternoon for a little while on the sin of ingratitude, which I consider to be the most prevalent of all sins, for we are all guilty of it; I am, you are, the people everywhere upon the face of the earth are guilty of this sin in some degree.
THE TWO GREAT COMMANDMENTS
On one occasion, we read in the scriptures, a young lawyer came to the Savior with a question tempting him and saying:
Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment? And the second is like unto it. Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
If we will observe this first law, the second naturally will follow, and in fact, as the Savior has pointed it out, we will not be guilty of a breach of the law and the prophets in anything else.
ETERNAL LIFE
Jesus Christ came into this world with a definite mission as the Savior of men and the Redeemer of the world. When Nicodemus came to the Savior, making inquiry, and he came by night because he was afraid of the Jews, but believing in Jesus Christ, he asked him some questions and the Savior gave him some definite instruction in regard to baptism by water and by the spirit, and in the course of the remarks, that which followed, the Savior said this:
And Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, test his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Then the Savior adds:
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST
Now, may I spend a few minutes presenting before us what we all know to be the truth, that Jesus Christ came into this world to die. That was his mission, and by that death upon the cross and through the shedding of his blood, to bring redemption, twofold, first, to redeem men from Adam's transgression, to restore them again to life, to destroy death, gain the victory, which apparently Satan had won through the transgression of Adam. In some manner which I cannot fully explain and which you cannot fully explain, there was a necessity for an infinite atonement, a God dying for a fallen world, and that had to be by the shedding of blood, and his blood only could be shed to restore again that life which had been taken away, and bring back again to man the power to live forever. And through his death there comes to us universally, to every living creature, a resurrection of the dead. The Lord does not ask us whether we want to be redeemed from death or not. We were not responsible for it, and, therefore, it is not held against us; it is not to our charge. As Paul has said:
THE FREE GIFT OF GOD
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
That is the free gift of God the Eternal Father, through Jesus Christ, his Son, to every living soul, men, women, children, from the fall of Adam to the end of time.
Now that is a wonderful gift. It comes without our asking. It comes to the wicked as well as to the righteous. In the fifth chapter of John the Lord speaks to the people of the time coming, and he says it was already here, when the dead should hear the voice of the Son of God and they who heard should live. Yes, not only those who heard it, that is, received his truth, for he added this, when they marveled at what he had to say:
Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
Here is the word of the Lord himself that he was going to carry the message to the dead; they would all hear; they who were willing to receive that message of truth and abide in it should have everlasting life, but they who would not receive it or who were not worthy to receive it should come forth just the same in the resurrection to receive condemnation, but the resurrection was to come to all universally.
Then again, the Savior died for all men upon the face of the earth, all creatures, that is, human creatures, who were willing to repent of their sins and keep his commandments. He has not redeemed any of us from our sins except it be through repentance and faithful adherence to the principles of the gospel and our endurance to the end.
When he stood before his disciples upon this continent, he said to them:
... no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom; therefore nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my blood, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end.
That is definite.
So, he redeemed mankind from death universally, and he has redeemed men from their own sins on conditions of their repentance, and they will not be redeemed from their sins unless they do repent and accept him and wash their garments white in his blood and endure in faith to the end. It is upon those terms that salvation comes.
GRATITUDE FOR BLESSINGS
Now, when we stop to think that the Son of God created this world; all things, the scriptures say, were made by him, and when we think that he came to this world with that mission which he accepted before he was born in Bethlehem, and by the shedding of his blood gave us life that we might rise in the resurrection to live forever; and when he, by the shedding of his blood has offered unto us the remission of our sins and eternal life, through obedience to the gospel-do you not think that we owe him something in return? We owe him everything.
Paul says: "We were bought with a price". That price was the blood of Jesus Christ, and we are not our own. Oh, if we could only understand that by the shedding of his blood, he bought us. We belong to him. He has a right to tell us what to do and what not to do, and to command us to keep his commandments; however, we have our agency, and we act for ourselves.
We cannot comprehend the great suffering that the Lord had to take upon himself to bring to pass this redemption from death and from sin. He spent a few years upon the earth, and during that short sojourn he suffered the abuse of men. They stoned him; they spat upon him; they cursed him; they ridiculed him; they accused him of almost every crime they could think of, and finally they took him and crucified him upon a cross.
SUFFERING OF THE SAVIOR
We get into the habit of thinking, I suppose, that his great suffering was when he was nailed to the cross by his hands and his feet and was left there to suffer until he died. As excruciating as that pain was, that was not the greatest suffering that he had to undergo, for in some way which I cannot understand, but which I accept on faith, and which you must accept on faith, he carried on his back the burden of the sins of the whole world. It is hard enough for me to carry my own sins. How is it with you? And yet he had to carry the sins of the whole world, as our Savior and the Redeemer of a fallen world, and so great was his suffering before he ever went to the cross, we are informed, that blood oozed from the pores of his body, and he prayed to his Father that the cup might pass if it were possible, but not being possible he was willing to drink.
And here is what he has said to the Church:
For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit-and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and- shrink Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.
Now, when he said that if we do not repent we will have to suffer even as he did, he had no, reference to being nailed to a cross, but it was the torment of mind, of spirit, that he had reference to before he ever got to the cross, and if men will not repent, they will have to suffer even as he suffered.
Now brethren, briefly, he did all this for us, the Son of God, and he did it, as I have read to you, because his Father commanded him and because his Father so loved the world that he wanted to save the world from its sins.
TRANSGRESSOR SHOWS INGRATITUDE
Now, he has asked us to keep his commandments. He says they are not grievous, and there are so many of us who are not willing to do it. I am speaking now generally of the people of the earth. We are not willing to do it. That certainly is ingratitude. We are ungrateful. Every member of this Church that violates the Sabbath day, that is not honest in the paying of his tithing, that will not keep the Word of Wisdom, that willfully violates any of the other commandments the Lord has given us, is ungrateful to the Son of God and when ungrateful to the Son of God is ungrateful to the Father who sent him. If our Savior would do so much for us, how in the world is it that we are not willing to abide by his commandments which are not grievous, which do not cause us any suffering if we will only keep them? And yet, people break the Word of Wisdom; they refuse to attend to their duties as officers and members in the Church; many of them stay away from meetings the Lord has called upon them to support. They follow their own desires if they are in conflict with the commandments of the Lord.
If we understood our position and we loved the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, or, as he has put it in the revelation given to us in these days:
Wherefore, I give unto them a commandment, saying thus: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy might, mind, and strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ thou shalt serve him. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,
then we would keep his commandments; when we will not do this, I tell you, my brethren and sisters, we show ingratitude to Jesus Christ.
In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder John A. Widtsoe
John A. Widtsoe, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 149-154
My dear brethren and sisters, this has been a glorious conference. I am tempted to say it is the best we have ever had, unless it be that the last is always the best.
I have enjoyed the remarks made by the brethren. I think every gospel principle of consequence, and they are all of consequence, has been discussed before us the last three days. I feel built up in my faith as a result of this conference, and feel indeed that the Spirit of God has been with us to help us and inspire us during these meetings.
My own contribution this afternoon must of necessity be a humble one since, like Brother Joseph Fielding Smith, I have had the experience of hearing my eloquent colleagues taking, one after the other, some of my sermons and delivering them splendidly to the congregation.
APPRECIATION FOR CENTENNIAL PROGRAM
Before saying, however, what is on my mind, I would like to call attention to a remark made by President David O. McKay in this morning's service. He took occasion to thank the people of the Church and the people of the state for the assistance they have given him and the governor and members of his commission in carrying out the centennial celebration. We are all grateful for that courteous remark, but I felt that we should reverse the matter; that we, as members of the Church, as citizens of Utah, should extend to these men with President McKay at their head, our thanks for the splendid program that was arranged and supervised by them. Throughout this state, and in the wards and stakes of Zion far beyond the boundaries of Utah, this program has been carried out to the great joy and refreshment of the people who belong to the Church, and of many others, not of our faith.
I would like to say the same thing about President George Albert Smith and his commission. They also had a difficult task, to get in readiness after long planning, the great pioneer monument which now adorns the hill to the east, and to have it ready on time. On the 24th of July last, they were ready, and the dedicatory exercises were held and the responsibility accomplished.
To these two men and their commissions-I think I can speak freely and correctly in your behalf-when I extend to them your thanks and appreciation for work well done.
The monument on the hill is in honor of the Mormon Pioneers-that is its principal objective-but through the sculptor's skill it embodies a practically complete, pre-pioneer history of this region. If one will walk about the monument, study the figures, learn to understand their meanings, he will have a good conception of all that happened in these valleys from 1776, when Father Escalante entered what is now Utah, up to the coming of the Pioneers in 1847.
THE GLORY OF THE PIONEERS
On July 24, 1947, just before the great parade began, I stood near the group of surviving pioneers seated in front of the Church Administration Building. I looked at them, talked with them, looked into their faces and at their hands, and read a good part of their life's history as I moved among them. Their faces told a wonderful story, not only of toil, but of great aspirations, of great faith; their hands likewise. I don't know whether you all look at the hands of people, but hands are eloquent testators of life's journey, from the chubby little fist of the baby to the veined hands of age.
These men and women had endured much, they who were seated by the Administration Building on that occasion. They came here as children, mere children, but they shared in the pioneer building. Many of us here, like myself, have known personally scores and scores of those who as mature men and women came here in early pioneer days and made this state and this region what it is today. I was touched in my heart as I became acquainted with these old, may I say, men and women, and saw in them the glory of the story that we have been celebrating this last year.
When the next general conference of the Church comes, this year of memories which I know has been refreshing to all of us-it has to me-will be itself a memory, but a great and a glorious memory! And as I stood by these pioneers, the last survivors of those who came before the railroad, I observed that the great majority, on my side at least, were made up of women, women rich in years, not old-because of course no woman ever gets old-and I could read in their faces the story of their lives, how they had toiled, how they had labored, how they had built Zion, with their husbands and children.
WOMAN'S CONTRIBUTION
Woman's share in the building of the West is understood by all of us, but sometimes we forget to give her the praise which is her due. As the man went out to clear the sagebrush, she stayed home and finished the little pioneer building, inside at least. She cooked the simple food for her husband and her family; and usually somewhere in a corner outside she planted flower seeds to add a touch of beauty to life.
We cannot live without beauty. That has been said over and over here today, and yesterday, and the day before. Life is more than three meals a day. One must move into the spiritual realm which lies all about us to win full enjoyment in life.
I hope that we all, on this occasion, and in days to come, as I am sure has been done in days past, give proper tribute to pioneer women, our mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, who did quite as much in their way as did the men. It was their opportunity to help build this great western empire, and they accepted the challenge, without fear.
FAITH OF PIONEER WOMEN
This pioneer woman did something which glorifies her memory. There were times when the man became discouraged. They had both come perhaps from easier climates. Perhaps she came with soft hands, rosy English cheeks. She had to meet the hardships of the West. Sometimes the man, unused to the toil, the clearing of sagebrush, the plowing of the land, and all these new things, became discouraged. Sometimes despair overtook him. Then it was that the woman came to the rescue. When he looked down, she looked up. When he half-doubted, she increased in faith.
The finest picture of that quality in woman's nature, within my knowledge, is on the south plaque of the Sea Gull Monument. If you have not seen it, take a look at it. The crickets had come; destruction to the crops seemed inevitable; the man has given up, but the woman stands with head raised looking towards heaven. She may not have known Browning's lines but she knew that:
God's in his heaven- All's right with the world.
I think this Mahonri Young's finest piece of work, among the many fine ones executed in his long series of years-he is now getting to be an old man like the rest of us.
APPRECIATION FOR WORK OF WOMEN
In speaking of the pioneer woman, I come necessarily to women of every time. Not only the pioneer woman, but the woman of today and tomorrow, of the east and of the west, and of the north and of the south, wherever we go. We men have good reason to thank God for the women of our households. They are strong in faith, full of courage, able to do the work that the day brings.
I have brought with me quotations from two of the great Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here is one from Heber J. Grant, whom we all knew and loved. He said:
Without the wonderful work of the women I realize that the Church would have been a failure.
A strong statement. I am not saying that, I am quoting from President Grant.
The mother in the family, far more than the father, is the one who instills in the hearts of the children a testimony and love for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our fathers and mothers came here in the early days for the one and only thing-to serve the Lord, and to labor for the salvation of humanity, and wherever you find a woman who is devoted to this work, almost without exception you will find that her children are devoted to it.
Another President of the Church whom we loved greatly who really belongs to our day-most of us here knew him, a prince, a king among men-Joseph F. Smith, said on one occasion:
There are people who are fond of saying that women are the weaker sex. I don't believe it. Physically they may be, but spiritually, morally, religiously, and in faith what man can match a woman who is really convinced! They are always more willing to make sacrifices, and are the peer of men in stability, godliness, morality, and faith.
In the 1870's the distinguished grandfather of the distinguished grandson who is here today, Colonel Thomas L. Kane-we call him affectionately, Colonel Kane, for by that title we knew him best-came to Utah on his last trip. He and President Young traveled from Salt Lake to St. George together. Colonel Kane had his wife and two children with him, one of them possibly Mr. Kent Kane's father. I am not sure about that. We have here in the congregation, one of the two surviving daughters of Brigham Young, Mrs. Mabel Y. Sanborn who was on that trip, and played with those children, sang songs with them. Mrs. Kane took occasion to write to her family a series of letters, which the family published privately in a little book. I read it the other day in Washington, D.C., in the Library of Congress. I did not know then that we had a copy in the historian's library. I found the great and fervent testimony that that woman bore to the pioneer mothers of Utah, of the Mormon Church.
But, if all this be true, a great responsibility rests upon womankind, one that we cannot discuss here because time does not permit, a tremendous responsibility. If she has strength and has faith and has opportunity in this Church, what can she not do to build this kingdom as the Lord would have it be!
Sometimes we hear it said that this is a man's Church, not a woman's Church. That is a great mistake. It is not a man's Church; it is not a woman's Church; it is a Church of families, made up of fathers, mothers, and children. The blessings that descend upon the family are shared by all the members of the family, each one according to his or her calling, organized calling within the family.
THE EVIL OF DIVORCE
One more question remains in my mind, if President Smith will allow me to take two or three minutes more. In those early days we had practically no divorces, no marital upsets, no family troubles such as we have today. Today the divorce evil in America is becoming a national scandal, nothing short of it. The question is often asked, How did it happen that we had family integrity, peace, and harmony in those early days? The Church has never said that divorce should be forbidden, not be given nor taken. There may be conditions, under our frail mortal conditions, that justify divorce; but the Church has always looked askance upon it and always with sorrow.
The day journal of Brigham Young records that one day a sister came to him and said: "My husband is not good to me. I want a divorce." The journal goes on further to say that President Young talked with her about an hour, from ten to eleven in the morning. The journal gives the exact time. Then, when they had finished, he turned to the woman, and he said: "Sister, I have heard your story. I am not going to give you a divorce." As you know, Brigham Young was a friend to the cause of women. He felt that they had the first right of choice. "I will not give you a divorce," he said. "Go home and be good to you husband, and don't expect heaven on earth".
There is a tremendous lesson in that last phrase: "Don't expect heaven on earth."
A man marries a girl and expects her to be a perfect woman; she expects him to be a perfect man; both are imperfect. Their business in life is to help each other to move more nearly towards a state of perfection.
NEED FOR COMMON INTEREST IN KINGDOM OF GOD
But I think the real reason why we had so little marital unhappiness in those earlier days was something that we have forgotten in our day. Man and woman husband and wife, had a common interest, a high, worthy interest which they shared in common. There is danger in the household when a husband has one interest and the wife another. They are laying the foundation for all manner of discord, ultimate dissatisfaction with their problems, family problems. To be happy in life in a married condition, husband and wife must have a high, worthy, common interest, a common objective. That objective they had in those early days-we should have it now; I hope we do have it. They did not come out here in these valleys alone for food and clothing and shelter, to get a living. That was not the purpose of the trek across the plains, but they came to find a place of safety and to help build the kingdom of God as God would have it done. All that they did their plowing, their washing of dishes, their mending of clothes, their raising of homes, fences, and barns, was done primarily that they might better be able to further the interest of the kingdom of God upon earth.
If every family in Zion will set out with that objective in all their doings, in all their undertakings, if everything is considered with reference to the building and growth of the kingdom of God, there will not be much for the divorce attorney to do. We will then live in happiness together as families, and raise our children to be noble and useful citizens of the state and of the Church.
That lesson comes down to us from those early days, and connected with the place of woman in the society which we call the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I know and have known of the strength of women. I grew up a widow's son, from my earliest childhood. My father is but a dim shadow in my memory. She taught me, and she trained me, quite as well, I think, as a father could have done. The Lord helped her. The Lord does not limit his blessings according to sex, but according to our faith and devotion to him.
This has been a great conference. God bless us and be with us and make us mighty examples for good to the world, I humbly pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 154-160
My brethren and sisters; I should like in the beginning to add my testimony to the many that we have heard during this conference-my testimony that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, the Redeemer of the world the firstfruits of the resurrection; that Joseph Smith was a prophet; that through him the gospel was restored and likewise the priesthood, the authority delegated to man on earth to represent Deity here among us; and that the Prophet has been followed down to and including our present President, George Albert Smith, by men who possessed the keys of the last dispensation as conferred upon Joseph Smith.
The matter that I shall give you today is very dear to my soul. Since I should like to say what I have to say in the best way I can say it, I have written it down and shall read it. I hope that what I shall say will be in harmony with the spirit of this great conference, I think the greatest I have attended in its high spiritual tone.
TRIBUTE TO PIONEERS
At the near close of this one hundredth year of the entering into these valleys of your fathers and your mothers, some of yours and mine, I wish to speak a few further words of humble tribute and thanksgiving to them, and especially to the meekest and lowliest of them, those great souls, majestic in the simplicity of their faith and in their living testimony of the truth of the restored gospel, to those souls in name unknown, unremembered, unhonored in the pages of history, but lovingly revered round the hearthstones of their children and their children's children who pass down from generation to generation the story of their faith and their mighty works, and the righteousness of their lives and living, those souls who worked and worked, and prayed and followed, and wrought so gloriously.
I would not take away one word of praise or gratitude, honor or reverence from the great men who led these humble ones of ours. They were mighty men in brain and brawn, in courage and valor, in honesty and in love of truth, living near the Lord-Brothers Brigham and Heber and Wilford and Willard and Charles, the two Orsons and Parley, and John and George and Erastus and Lorenzo and Daniel and Joseph and Jedediah, and a host of other giants, each and all richly blessed with the Lord's divine love and with that gift of the Holy Ghost that made them leaders truly like unto Moses of old. I yield, we yield, to no one in our gratitude for them and for their work of directing the conquest of the wilderness and of saving men's souls. Their names shine lustrously on those pages of history which record only the doings of the makers of epochs-those choice spirits, chosen before the foundation of the world, to be the leaders and builders of dispensations of God's dealings with men; and these leaders of ours to be the builders of that dispensation which of old was named the Dispensation of the Fulness of Time. Unnumbered eternities will remember and honor them.
But I should like now and here to say a few words about those who trod after where those giants led, some in the same companies that the Brethren piloted, some in later companies following that year and the years after, some in the fateful handcarts with their un-excelled devotion, heroism, and faith, all trickling forward in a never-failing, tiny stream, till they filled the valley they entered and then flowed out at the sides and ends, peopling this whole wilderness-waste which they fructified, making it to fulfil the ancient prophecy that the desert should blossom as the rose.
THEY OF THE LAST WAGON
I would like to say something about the last wagon in each of the long wagon trains that toiled slowly over the plains, up mountain defiles, down steep, narrow canyons, and out into the valley floor that was to be home-this last wagon: last, because the ox team that pulled it was the smallest and leanest and weakest, and had the tenderest feet of any in the train; it was slow starting, and slow moving; last, because worn and creaking, it took more time to fix and to grease, for young Jimmy generally had trouble in getting the wagon jack under the "ex"; last, because its wind-rent cover was old and patched and took hours to mend and tie up to keep out the storm; last, because the wife, heavy with child, must rest till the very moment of starting; last, because sickly little Bill, the last born, poorly nourished, must be washed and coaxed to eat the rough food, all they had; last, because with all his tasks-helping little Bill, cooking and cleaning up the breakfast,-Mother was not able to help much-Father took a little longer little longer to yoke his cattle and to gird himself for the day's labor; last, because his morning prayers took a few more minutes than the others spent-he had so many blessings to thank the Lord for and some special blessings to ask the Lord to grant blessings of health and strength, especially for his wife, and for little Bill, and for the rest, and then the blessings for himself that his own courage would not fail, but most of all for the blessing of faith, faith in God and in the Brethren who sometimes seemed so far away. For they were out in front where the air was clear and clean and where they had unbroken vision of the blue vault of heaven. The Brethren had really visioned the glory of the Lord, who walked near them, put his thoughts into their minds; his spirit guided and directed them, petitioned thereto by the thousands of Saints who were back in Winter Quarters, back in Iowa, back in the States, and beyond, even across the waters, for the faithful poured out their souls in fervent prayer to Almighty God that the Brethren should be inspired. The Saints buoyed up the Brethren out in front with encouragement, with praise, and sometimes even with adulation. Knowing the Brethren were prophets of God, the Saints gave them full confidence, daily, almost hourly, expressed. The Brethren lived in a world of commendation from friends and the tried and true Saints. Rarely was their word or their act questioned by the faithful Saints. This was as it should be and had to be to carry out the Lord's purposes.
But back in the last wagon, not always could they see the Brethren way out in front, and the blue heaven was often shut out from their sight by heavy, dense clouds of the dust of the earth. Yet day after day, they of the last wagon pressed forward, worn and tired, footsore, sometimes almost disheartened, borne up by their faith that God loved them, that the restored gospel was true and that the Lord led and directed the Brethren out in front. Sometimes, they in the last wagon glimpsed, for an instant, when faith surged strongest, the glories of a celestial world, but it seemed so far away, and the vision so quickly vanished, because want and weariness and heartache and sometimes discouragement were always pressing so near. When the vision faded, their hearts sank. But they prayed again and pushed on, with little praise, with not too much encouragement, and never with adulation. For there was nearly always something wrong with the last wagon or with its team-the off ox was a little lame in the right front shoulder; the hub of the left front wheel was often hot; the tire of the hind wheel on the same side was loose. So corrective counsel, sometimes strong reproof, was the rule, because the wagon must not delay the whole train. But yet in that last wagon there was devotion and loyalty and integrity, and above and beyond everything else, faith in the Brethren and in God's power and goodness. For had not the Lord said that "not even a sparrow falleth unnoticed by the Father, and were they not of more value than sparrows?". And then they had their testimony burning always like an eternal fire on a holy altar, that the restored gospel was true, and that Joseph was a prophet of God, and that Brigham was Joseph's chosen successor.
When the train moved forward in the early morning sun and the oxen with a swinging pull that almost broke the tongue got that last wagon on the move, the dust in the still morning air hung heavy over the road. Each wagon from the first stirred up its own cloud, till when the last wagon swung into line, that dust was dense and suffocating. It covered the last wagon and all that was in it; it clung to clothes; it blackened faces; it filled eyes already sore, and ears. The wife, soon to be a mother, could hardly catch her breath in the heavy, choking dust, for even in the pure air she breathed hard from her burden. Each jolt of the wagon, for those ahead had made wagon ruts almost "ex" deep, wrung from her clenched lips a half-groan she did her best to keep from the ears of the anxious, solicitous husband plodding slowly along, guiding and goading the poor dumb cattle, themselves weary from the long trek. So through the long day of jolting and discomfort and sometimes pain, sometimes panting for breath, the mother, anxious only that the unborn babe should not be injured, rode, for she could not walk; and the children walked, for the load was too heavy and big for them to ride; and the father walked sturdily alongside and prayed.
When in the evening the last wagon creaked slowly into its place in the circle corral, and the Brethren came to inquire how the day had gone with the mother, then joy leaped in their hearts, for had not the Brethren remembered them? New hope was born, weariness fled, fresh will to do was enkindled; gratitude to God was poured out for their knowledge of the truth, for their testimony that God lived, that Jesus was the Christ, that Joseph was a prophet, that Brigham was his ordained successor, and that for the righteous a crown of glory awaited that should be theirs during the eternities of the life to come. Then they would join in the songs and dancing in the camp, making the camp's gaiety their own, as much as Mother's condition would permit.
Then the morning came when from out that last wagon floated the la-la of the newborn babe, and mother love made a shrine, and Father bowed in reverence before it. But the train must move on. So out into the dust and dirt the last wagon moved again, swaying and jolting, while Mother eased as best she could each pain-giving jolt so no harm might be done her, that she might be strong to feed the little one, bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh. Who will dare to say that angels did not cluster round and guard her and ease her rude bed, for she had given another choice spirit its mortal body that it might work out its God-given destiny?
My mother was one of those babes so born in 1848, ninety-nine years ago.
Another morning came, when courageous little Bill, who, with a hero's heart, had trudged through long days of hot sun and through miles of soggy mud in the rain, his little body drenched, little Bill, weak and wan, must be crowded in to ride with Mother, for he was sick from a heavy cold. Months before, on that cold winter's night when they had fled Nauvoo for their lives to escape the fiendish wrath of a wild mob, Bill became dangerously ill with pneumonia, which left him with weak lungs. This old illness now returned. He grew worse and worse. The elders came and prayed he might get well. But the Lord wanted little Bill with him. So a few mornings later a weeping mother and a grief-stricken father and that last wagon swung into place in the line, leaving beside the road, under some scrub brush a little mound, unmarked save for heaped-up rocks to keep out the wolves, a mound that covered another martyr to the cause of truth.
So through dust and dirt, dirt and dust, during the long hours, the longer days-that grew into weeks and then into months, they crept along till, passing down through its portals, the valley welcomed them to rest and home. The cattle dropped to their sides, wearied almost to death; nor moved they without goading, for they too sensed they had come to the journey's end.
That evening was the last of the great trek, the mightiest trek that history records since Israel's flight from Egypt, and as the sun sank below the mountain peaks of the west and the eastern crags were bathed in an amethyst glow that was a living light, while the western mountainsides were clothed in shadows of the rich blue of the deep sea, they of the last wagon, and of the wagon before them, and of the one before that, and so to the very front wagon of the train, these all sank to their knees in the joy of their souls, thanking God that at last they were in Zion. "Zion, Zion, lovely Zion, beautiful Zion, Zion, City of our God." They knew there was a God, for only he could have brought them triumphant, militant, through all the scorn, the ridicule, the slander, the tarrings and featherings, the whippings, the burnings, the plunderings, the murderings, the ravishings of wives and daughters, that had been their lot, the lot of their people since Joseph visioned the Father and the Son.
But hundreds of these stalwart souls of undoubting faith and great prowess, were not yet at their journey's end.
Brother Brigham again called them to the colors of the kingdom of God, and sent them to settle the valleys, near and remote, in these vast mountains of refuge. So again they yoked their oxen and hitched up their teams, and putting their all in the covered wagon, this time willingly, unwhipped by the threat of mob cruelty and outrage, they wended their slow way to new valleys, again trusting with implicit faith in the wisdom and divine guidance of their Moses. The very elements obeyed their faith, faith close kin to that which made the world.
These tens of thousands who so moved and so built were the warp and the woof of Brother Brigham's great commonwealth. Without them Brother Brigham had failed his mission. These were the instruments-the shovelers, the plowers, and sowers and reapers, the machinists, the architects, the masons, the woodworkers, the organ builders, the artisans, the mathematicians, the men of letters, all gathered from the four corners of the earth, furnished by the Lord to Brother Brigham and the prophet leaders who came after, that he and they might direct the working out of His purposes. These wrought as God inspired Brother Brigham and the other prophets to plan, all to the glory of God and the up-building of his kingdom.
Upright men they were, and fearless, unmindful of what men thought or said of them, if they were in their line of duty. Calumny, slander, derision, scorn left them unmoved, if they were treading the straight and narrow way. Uncaring they were of men's blame and censure, if the Lord approved them. Unswayed they were by the praise of men, to wander from the path of truth. Endowed by the spirit of discernment, they knew when kind words were mere courtesy, and when they betokened honest interest. They moved neither to the right nor to the left from the path of truth to court the good favor of men.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF HUMBLE SOULS
So for a full hundred years, urged by the spirit of gathering and led by a burning testimony of the truth of the restored gospel, thousands upon tens of thousands of these humble souls, one from a city, two from a family, have bidden farewell to friends and homes and loved ones, and with sundered heartstrings, companioned with privation and with sacrifice even to life itself, these multitudes have made their way to Zion, to join those who were privileged to come earlier, that all might build up the kingdom of God on earth-all welded together by common hardship and suffering, never-ending work and deep privation, tragic woes and heart-eating griefs, abiding faith and exalting joy, firm testimony and living spiritual knowledge-a mighty people, missioned with the salvation, not only of the living, but of the dead also, saviors not worshipers of their ancestors, their hearts aglow with the divine fire of the spirit of Elijah, who turns the hearts of the fathers to the children and of the children to the fathers.
And thousands upon thousands of these tens of thousands, from the first till now, all the elect of God, measured to their humble calling and to their destiny as fully as Brother Brigham and the others measured to theirs, and God will so reward them. They were pioneers in word and thought and act and faith, even as were they of more exalted station. The building of this intermountain empire was not done in a corner by a select few but by this vast multitude flowing in from many nations, who came and labored and wrought, faithfully following their divinely called leaders.
WE MUST RISE BY OUR OWN LABOR
In living our lives let us never forget that the deeds of our fathers and mothers are theirs, not ours; that their works cannot be counted to our glory; that we can claim no excellence and no place, because of what they did, that we must rise by our own labor, and that labor failing we shall fail. We may claim no honor, no reward, no respect, nor special position or recognition, no credit because of what our fathers were or what they wrought. We stand upon our own feet in our own shoes. There is no aristocracy of birth in this Church; it belongs equally to the highest and the lowliest; for as Peter said to Cornelius, the Roman centurion, seeking him:
... Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
So to these humble but great souls, our fathers and mothers, the tools of the Lord, who have, for this great people, hewed the stones and laid the foundations of God's kingdom, solid as the granite mountains from which they carved the rocks for their temple, to these humble souls, great in faith, great in work, great in righteous living, great in fashioning our priceless heritage, I humbly render my love, my respect, my reverent homage. God keep their memories ever fresh among us, their children, to help us meet our duties even as they met theirs, that God's work may grow and prosper till the restored gospel of Jesus Christ rules all nations and all peoples, till peace, Christ's peace, shall fill the whole earth, till "righteousness shall cover the earth even as the waters cover the mighty deep". Let us here and now dedicate all that we have and all that we are to this divine work. May God help us so to do, I humbly pray in Jesus' name, his Son. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, October 1947, pp. 164-167
We have been celebrating for nearly a year. It has been a time of pleasure and recreation, and I am satisfied that had our pioneer forebears been here they too would have gladly joined with us. The year is passing now, and the centuries are before us. The best tribute that we who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can pay to those who are on the other side will be to honor God and keep his commandments and by so doing honor those whose names we bear. In this way we will increase our own happiness and provide opportunity for joy for those who follow after US.
OUR GREAT RESPONSIBILITY
We will receive the blessings of the Lord if we will only remember that since we are the children of God, our responsibility is greater than any other people. No other church has the responsibility that is upon this Church because the Lord has given to us a commandment to go into all the world and preach the gospel unto every creature so that
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
So it is not merely a question of living our short lives in comfort; if we expect to enjoy eternal happiness in the celestial kingdom, we must earn it by doing our best to bring as many of our Father's children to live with him as we possibly can.
God has been good to us. No people in the world have more reason to be grateful than we. Here under the shelter of this roof we can well pour out our souls to him who is the Author of our being and remember with love those, who under his watchcare, made it possible for us to enjoy the things that we now have.
MANIFESTO ISSUED
On October 6, 1890, in this Tabernacle the people were assembled in conference. The Church had been harassed and abused, and property had been escheated by the government. Many had been imprisoned for what they believed. Upon that occasion the President of the Church, Wilford Woodruff, among other things, delivered this message to us here:
Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.
That is a part of the Manifesto,
After that had been read, Lorenzo Snow, the man who later succeeded Wilford Woodruff as President of the Church, said:
I move that, recognizing Wilford Woodruff as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the present time who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider him fully authorized by virtue of his position to issue the Manifesto which has been read in our hearing and which is dated September 24th, 1890, and that as a Church in General Conference assembled, we accept his declaration concerning plural marriages as authoritative and binding.
The vote to sustain the foregoing motion was unanimous.
PRACTICE OF PLURAL MARRIAGE DISCONTINUED
That was the action of the Church at that time. The practice of plural marriage ceased because the government of the United States forbade it. Our Heavenly Father has always directed that we sustain the constitutional law of the land, and the Supreme Court being the highest authority had declared the law forbidding plural marriage was constitutional.
From then until now, there has been little said by us, and now, after all these years, I would like to say that from that time on, approximately fifty years, there have been no plural marriages solemnized in violation of the laws of this land by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
MANIFESTO STILL BINDING
I mention this because, unfortunately, there are some people in the world who are still insisting that we no longer pay attention to the Manifesto, that it does not bind us now, and by that attitude some men and women are falling into adultery and committing a sin not only against the government of the United States, but also against the Church itself. And yet they say that because we are not talking about it, that we condone it.
As President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I say we do not condone it. We desire our people to obey the law of the land in reference to marriage. If you hear anybody say that the leadership of the Church is not in harmony with the Manifesto of Wilford Woodruff as sustained by the Church, then you may know that he is mistaken.
I regret that it is necessary to refer to this matter, but there are those who are going among the people encouraging the violation of the moral law. That is what they are doing, and if the Church of Jesus Christ stands for anything, it stands for morality, and so today, in the conclusion of this conference, I call your attention to this matter.
A BLESSED PEOPLE
No people in the world are more greatly blessed than we. It is marvelous what our Heavenly Father has done for us. The Church grows, increases, and becomes stronger as the days come and go.
We are permitted twice a year to assemble in this great building in a general conference and meet as we have been during the last three days to be instructed by our brethren. Here under the influence of the Spirit of the Lord we are taught to observe the laws of the land and to keep the commandments of our Heavenly Father.
Now today I think we have reason to be grateful. There is trouble ahead. The world is sick and in a pitiable condition, and until the people repent of their sins and return to the true and living God, there will be no peace that will be worthy of the name. It is our duty to set the example; it is our duty to hold aloft the banner of truth. It is our duty to encourage our Father's other children to listen to his advice and counsel and so adjust things that wherever we are we will find the spirit of God burning in our souls and our influence will be for good.
I pray that we may continue faithful. I congratulate those of you who are able to attend the conference at this time. I feel to bless the choir which has rendered such splendid music and the Relief Society Singing Mothers and others who have sung for us. I am grateful to them and I pray the Lord to bless them and bless us all that we may be worthy not only to be members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but also that we may be worthy to be called sons and daughters of the Living God, and seek to do his will and keep his commandments.
TESTIMONY
God lives. Jesus is the Christ. The land that we live upon, in all parts of this earth, belongs to him. We are only tenants here. He places us here with the opportunity to prepare ourselves for eternal happiness and promises us that in due time this world shall become a celestial kingdom. How wonderful it is for us to know that we have a chance to earn our place in that kingdom by following the advice and counsel that he gives us. If we continue to do that, happiness, satisfaction, and joy will be our reward.
I know that God lives. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Living God, and that the gospel of our Lord is upon the earth. The power and authority of the priesthood are here, and if we will observe the advice that has been given to us, if we will honor him, who is the Author of our being, not only we but our children and children's children will also be among those whom God will bless throughout eternity. That is my testimony, and I bear that witness to you this day in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Elder Henry D. Moyle
Henry D. Moyle, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 3-7
Easter is past. We have been reminded again of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ the Lord, the Redeemer of mankind. We are again reminded of his charge to the apostles of old when he appeared to them the third time after his resurrection, and speaking directly to Peter:
He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
It is generally understood that the Lord here enjoined those engaged in his work to teach the gospel, to impart spiritual strength to those who may be spiritually weak. As those who profess to follow the Savior, none of us can escape that serious responsibility.
And yet, is there not another requirement in that injunction, which, though temporal in nature, may not be disregarded? Can we satisfy the concern of the resurrected Lord-"Feed my sheep"-when we leave his children as we find them, "an hungred," "thirsty," "a stranger," "naked," "sick," and "in prison", without satisfying their need?
CHRISTIAN ATTRIBUTE OF CHARITY
So important is the literal fulfilment of this sacred requirement made of all disciples of Christ that he taught this fundamental principle:
... Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Can our prayers ascend to the throne of mercy and be heard and answered, as we humbly desire, unless we practice charity in our lives? Must we not give of ourselves and of our means in helping others? Good intentions alone are not enough. Charity is not a virtue to expect in others only. It is the all-important Christian attribute to be found in ourselves.
The Apostle Paul placed it in its proper position when he wrote:
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
In one way or another all sincere Christian people have recognized and have endeavored to put into effect this fundamental principle of the gospel. Miserable as the world is, it would be very much poorer without the efforts of those who have tried sincerely to follow this injunction of the Master.
And yet, have we not been remiss? Have we not been prone to think that we have done our full duty when we have given a few dollars to organized relief and felt satisfied that the hungry would be fed and the naked clothed? Have we not lost sight of the timeless axiom that "the gift without the giver is bare"?
Have we not been guilty of preaching work and industry on the one hand, while destroying independence and promoting idleness on the other?
Have not many of us broken the law given ancient Israel-"Honor thy father and thy mother" -in passing to others the care of those who in our younger years cared for us?
CARE OF THE POOR
These matters are of the very essence of the gospel. We of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints so believe. We have accepted as divine pronouncements:
... ye must visit the poor and the needy and administer to their relief
And again:
... thou wilt remember the poor, and consecrate of thy properties for their support that which thou hast to impart unto them, with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken.
Under what we call our Church welfare program we have endeavored out of the consecrations of the people to meet our obligation as we have seen it. Because this is a problem common to all men of good will, I think you may be interested in a brief, general explanation of the principles on which we have sought to build.
ESTABLISHMENT OF WELFARE PROGRAM
When this program was established President Heber J. then said its
... primary purpose was to set up insofar as it might be possible, a system under which the curse of idleness might be done away with, the evils of the dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift, and self-respect established among our people. The aim of the Church is to help people to help themselves. Work... the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership.
We believe that it is the mandate of Almighty God, binding now as when given anciently, that
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
RESPONSIBILITY OF ABLE-BODIED
We also accept as the word of the Lord:
Thou shalt not be idle for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer.
This great principle does not deny to the needy nor to the poor the assistance they should have. The wholly incapacitated, the aged, the sickly are cared for with all tenderness, but every able-bodied person is enjoined to do his utmost for himself to avoid dependence, if his own efforts can make such a course possible; to look upon adversity as temporary; to combine his faith in his own ability with honest toil; to rehabilitate himself and his family to a position of independence; in every case to minimize the need for help and to supplement any help given with his own best efforts.
We believe it is seldom when men of rigorous faith, genuine courage, and unfaltering determination, with the love of independence burning in their hearts, and pride in their own accomplishments, cannot surmount the obstacles that lie in their paths.
We know that through humble, prayerful, industrious, God-fearing lives, a faith can be developed within us by the strength of which we can call down the blessings of a kind and merciful Heavenly Father and literally see our handicaps vanish and our independence and freedom established and maintained.
Of course, those in unfortunate circumstances need help. They need food and clothing and warmth ministered by a friendly hand. And they also need opportunity and encouragement and direction.
NEEDS MET THROUGH CONSECRATED EFFORTS
Through the consecrated efforts of the membership of the Church both needs may effectively be met. The care of the needy is the concern of every member. Carefully planned programs of production and conservation are designed to meet the first need. It is a common sight among us to see men of various vocations and economic stations working together early of a morning or late of an evening in the field, or in the cannery without thought of material recompense.
The products of their labors are gathered into local bishops' storehouses, and there, under wise, inspired leadership, the best possible use is made of these supplies without the usual costs of distribution.
We seek constantly to be on hand, day in and day out, to meet promptly and efficiently any emergency among our people. We hope never to have on hand too little or be too late in its distribution.
The cardinal commandment is "Love thy neighbour as thyself". Our welfare work has been characterized by one of our leaders, as a "neighbor to neighbor plan." I quote his words:
All welfare work is carried out with fairness and justice, and without discrimination, fear, or favor. There are no politics, church or otherwise, in the administration of the Church plan. No one has anything to gain or lose in a material way by any relief which he may extend under the plan. Those carrying it out have neither friends to reward nor enemies to punish.
This puts into the relief a personal sympathy that is wholesome for all, and tends to prevent imposition and overreaching There is an infinity of difference between the sack of flour that comes over the back fence from your next door neighbor and a sack that is sent to you from Washington. The one hallows the giver, and raises and inspires, with the human love and sympathy behind it, him who thankfully eats it; the other debauches the hand which doles out that which is not his, and embitters and enslaves him who with maledictions devours it.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES IN WELFARE WORK
In all phases of the work we seek to give to those who receive assistance the opportunity to help, to manage, and to distribute among the needy that which is theirs. The crowning principle is that each man shall give to the Church that of which he is capable and in return be assured of the assistance that he needs.
The second need, that for encouragement and opportunity, and direction, poses another problem. But usually there is in each Church group, training, experience, and education sufficient to encourage and direct toward a more permanent solution than that afforded by supplying only food, clothing, and housing on an emergency basis.
We can never get away from the fundamental differences that exist in the dispositions and needs of people. And because all cases are handled by local ecclesiastical officers on a sympathetic basis, a permanent solution to the ills which caused the need can often be effected.
There is ordinarily a very fine margin between success and failure. Frequently a friendly hand, a kind suggestion, a charitable deed avoids the worst and produces the best. No one thus helped loses his self-respect or his desire to progress. He retains his ambition and is soon on the way to assist others, even as he was helped.
There is another important problem in this connection, a problem of deep religious significance. It can be truthfully said of both men and women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that they do not do their full duty, so long as all means are not shared with mother or father, brother or sister, son or daughter in need.
CARE OF AGING PARENTS
Much could and should be said upon this subject in a day when it appears to be popular throughout the nation to do what can be done by sons and daughters to qualify aging parents for public relief. Some go to the extent of encouraging parents to deed to their children the property which they acquired in their productive years for protection and security in their old age-all to better prepare the parents to meet the requirements of law for maximum old age pensions and assistance.
Children are not always conscious that in this they have been guilty of a double error: first, in unjustly enriching themselves out of the lifetime savings of their parents; and secondly, in shirking a sacred obligation to care for their parents. The magnitude of the offense increases when the fact is appreciated that we have received from the Lord a divine command to take care of our own. Paul said:
But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME
We believe that charity must begin at home. Can we hope to be charitable to the stranger if love does not abound in the family? A sure step in the direction of improvement and progress in our own lives comes when we share with mother or father in their dependence as they shared with us in their productive years.
Jesus, in his life, did not overlook this true principle. Practically his last act in mortal existence was to provide for his mother:
Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!
Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.
We cannot as children ignore our obligations to our parents by passing responsibility for their care to others. Inherent in the welfare program of the Church is this fundamental teaching. And through its facilities provision is made so that no child need ignore his or her sacred obligation, and no aged parent need be shunted or put on public assistance.
We seek to avoid the need for public charity for those whom we love, and to whom we are deeply obligated. We endeavor to refrain from indebtedness and obligations we cannot meet. We aim to meet fully every commitment made. Through consecration of our labors, through individual initiative and effort, through mutual consideration and helpfulness, motivated by the spirit of the Christ, we have sought to assist one another. The fruits have been faith, independence, self-reliance, pride in self-accomplishment, family solidarity, love, and appreciation one for another.
Surely there is need for this in the world today. Surely its necessity is enjoined in the Master's direction, "Feed my sheep". In no other way can we hope to bring to pass God's purposes here upon earth and to usher in a reign of peace and good will among men.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 11-18
I am sure that all present, this morning, have every reason to be grateful to the Lord for our blessings. Seated, as we are, in this comfortable Tabernacle, although the weather is inclement, we, here, and in the adjoining building, are comfortable and because of the intelligence of men, devices have been provided so that we can both see and hear even in separate buildings and some distance apart.
ORGANIZATION AND GROWTH OF CHURCH
A hundred eighteen years ago next Tuesday the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized under the direction of our Heavenly Father and his beloved Son, Jesus Christ. The Savior later directed, in a very positive way by revelation, that the Church should be called after his name-the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There were but a few people in the room when the Church was organized, and they were not very popular. The enemy of all righteousness had already begun to disturb those who believed that Joseph Smith had received the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated. He was hounded from place to place from that time on, not for any wrong that he did but for the same reason that the prophets of old had to suffer for teaching the truth.
Organized as it was in the state of New York the first branches were there, and then, under pressure, members of the Church moved to Kirtland, Ohio, and there were made uncomfortable, not because of anything they had done to disturb their neighbors, but because they testified that God had spoken in this latter day and that, to many people, seemed sacrilegious.
The Church moved from place to place, continuing to grow, and I may say that every day, when the sun set, found the Church larger than it had been when the sun arose that morning. Eventually the people assembled in Jackson and other counties in Missouri, and then from there went to Commerce, Illinois, which later became the city of Nauvoo. Commerce was only a small place, with three or four houses; we would call them ranch houses these days, I think, but the Prophet of the Lord conceived the idea of building Zion in that particular part of the world.
The result was that the people who were driven from Missouri and other places and who were coming in from Europe began the building of the City Beautiful-Nauvoo-on one of one of the most picturesque sites for a city along the Mississippi River, and they drained the soil so that it would not be swampy and unhealthful for them.
They established homes, built a beautiful temple, raised their crops, and in less than seven years Nauvoo was the largest city in the state of Illinois. Chicago then had a population of approximately five thousand; Springfield, Illinois, a population of approximately twelve thousand. Nauvoo, in something over six years, became a city of approximately twenty thousand souls.
It has been marvelous how the Lord has brought into the hearts and minds of individuals a desire to pray and worship as he would have them to do.
WESTERN MOVEMENT
In the year 1846, the beautiful city of Nauvoo was destroyed by mobs of wicked men who were determined that the Latter-day Saints should not live there, and they drove the helpless people across the Mississippi River, from where began their pilgrimage to the Rocky Mountains. Of course we have an idea that the property that we possessed as a people was an inducement, but one of the principal reasons was they hated the people who believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. They started west, being scattered from that part of the country, and the majority of them began the journey west with wagons drawn by such animals as they could obtain, and they eventually arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake.
The Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum had been martyred, although the Prophet had indicated in a sermon preached not very long before the people were driven out, in which he said to them that the persecution would continue and that eventually would go to the tops of the Rocky Mountains, and become a people in the midst thereof.
If he had never predicted anything else, that of itself indicated he was a prophet of God.
In 1847, the vanguard of those people arrived in this valley, and others followed, until most of the people who had lived in Nauvoo were located here. Later, approximately four thousand of the Saints who had come from the eastern part of the United States and from across the sea were assembled at Iowa City on the Mississippi River, and having no conveyances or animals to draw them they built handcarts and started their pilgrimage across the plains to the valley we are now in. Many of them lost their lives by starvation and cold. Some of the bravest and most courageous people in all the world were with those groups that were willing to turn their backs on the so-called civilization to go into the wilderness and make their homes among the wild beasts and the still more savage red man.
ARRIVAL IN THE SALT LAKE VALLEY
One hundred years ago last July the first of those people arrived here; one hundred forty-three men, three women, and two children were in the first company. What did they find here? It may be illustrated by what was said by a stranger who some years later referred to this as a desert country. He was talking to my grandfather for whom I was named, and he said:
"Mr. Smith, why did your people leave that wonderful rich, fertile land in the east and come here into this God-forsaken country?" And Grandfather's reply to him was typical of the man: "Why," he said, "we came here willingly because we had to." A hundred years have elapsed since that time, and today we are meeting in a house that was erected by those people. Among the first things they did after they came here was to take possession of the country in the name of the United States-it was then Mexican territory-and then they began building their little homes and houses of worship. The first place of worship was not very far from where I stand on this block, called the old Bowery.
OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH
The first Sunday after they arrived, they held religious services. The fact that they were uncomfortable; that they had no homes to shelter them, made no difference. They were in the service of the Lord. They were his children, and so they were called together as has been the custom ever since the beginning, on the Sabbath day, to worship our Father in heaven.
It may be of interest when we think of the desecration of the Sabbath day in our own land -I speak of the land of America-a day that has been set apart by many people for their vacations and for their pleasures, notwithstanding there thundered down from Sinai one of the Ten Commandments that we should honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy. One of the first sermons that were preached in this valley was by President Brigham Young, and he warned the people to honor the Sabbath day and to keep it holy, and no matter how difficult their circumstances they were not to go out and do manual labor on the Sabbath day. From that time on, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has encouraged its people to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy because it is pleasing to our Heavenly Father that we do so.
PROGRESS DURING LAST CENTURY
From that little group of people that came into this valley, they began to scatter. Today in Idaho there are over one hundred thousand members of the Church-in Wyoming large numbers; in Nevada large numbers; in Arizona, and California-it may be of interest to some of you to know that in the territory surrounding Los Angeles there are more members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints residing now than in any other section of the country outside of the Salt Lake Valley. The Church membership has continued to grow and spread. I haven't mentioned Colorado. I haven't mentioned some of the states in the north. I haven't mentioned western Canada.
In every part of the United States there are branches of the Church and wards and stakes, in many parts, the population of which is largely a membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And here we are in this house today. Count your many blessings. Think of our opportunities. Think of our privileges. I wonder if we can be grateful enough for what the Lord has done for us.
In a hundred years, the name of a church that was held in derision by many of our Father's children, has become honored by the great and the good and the wise men and women of the world. Almost every day there comes to the Church offices at Salt Lake City correspondence from different parts of the world that praises the membership of this Church. Many of these letters are written by members of other churches or by people who belong to no church. Only last year you were visited here by the governors of all but five of the states and territories of the United States. They came here to hold a convention. They attended an evening meeting in this house, representatives from all these various states and territories. They had their wives and secretaries and associates. There were over four hundred of them as I remember now. They met in this Tabernacle, and some of those individuals who were here remarked after the meeting concluded, there was something different here from what they had found elsewhere.
COMMENT OF FORMER GOVERNOR MILLER
Last year the board of directors of the United States Steel Corporation, some of whom had not been here before, met in this city. They had a noon-day luncheon in the Hotel Utah and invited their friends in while they were here, and after the meal was over, the president announced that there was no program, but if anybody had anything to say he was at liberty to speak.
Former Governor Miller of New York, who was the counsel general of the United States Steel Corporation, said: "I would like to say a few words," and after that, referring to the fact that he had been in our canyons and seen the valleys and had visited Brigham Young University and the fine campus there and other things that he had observed that interested him very much he said:
These people here have something that we don't have, I don't know what it is, but they have it, and we do not, It may be spirituality or something else, You may call it what you will, but I am saying to you that they have something that we do not have where we live.
My brothers and sisters, that is what you feel this morning, the inspiration of the Lord. He has promised us that when two or three of us shall meet together in his name he will be there and that to bless, them, and when congregations such as we have this morning assemble, I am sure that under those circumstances they are entitled to his blessings. I have no doubt we have in this audience this morning many people not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but they are his children, his sons and daughters, and in this house they will feel that influence and that spirit that inspires men and women to righteous living. We want them all to know that, crowded as we are, they are all welcome, and we hope they can be made comfortable.
MESSAGE OF THE MISSIONARIES
The Church continues to grow and develop. Why? Because it is the Lord's will. He has promised us if we would do our part that he will open our way, and he has done it in a marvelous manner, even since the great world war in those countries that were torn with strife. We have today more than four thousand missionaries traveling over the face of the earth, mostly men, some women, giving their time, offering what they can in the way of encouragement to a sick world, for we are a sick world, calling men and women to repentance, assuring them that unless they turn unto the Lord there will be no peace. These missionaries pay their own expenses or have their expenses paid by their loved ones, receive no compensation from the Church whatsoever, and the desire is that all men and women, wherever they may be in the world may have brought to them the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord, to the end that they will acknowledge God and his Son Jesus Christ, be willing to take the advice of the Father of us all and live in such a way that in the end we may have eternal life in the celestial kingdom. "Eternal life," think of it, in the celestial kingdom, and the Lord has promised that.
Now today we are here, representatives from many parts of the world. We come, I hope, with worship in our hearts, with love in our hearts for our fellow men.
The second great commandment which was equal to the first, the Master said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" is the key word to the Latter-day Saints, if I may use that term, to bring us near to the Lord, loving his other children as we love ourselves and so doing desirous of bringing to them the knowledge of the truth. Today in this house that was dedicated to him, builded during the poverty of the people, we are met in worship. The great temple to the east of us, one of the beautiful buildings of the world, was erected by the people when they lived under very poor conditions.
I call your attention to the fact that during the last one hundred years the Latter-day Saints have been contributing their means for homes and schools and houses of worship, and at the same time they have sent into the world seventy thousand missionaries who have spent their own money and contributed their time.
CONTRIBUTION TO PEOPLE IN DISTRESS
Since World War II these people, living in these valleys where the Church is organized and where we have our branches and wards and stakes, have sent one hundred carloads of bedding and food and clothing across the sea to help those poor people that are in such distress.
All these years you have been paying your tithing if you have been real Latter-day Saints. What has been done with it? It has been developing the country that we live in and disseminating the truth of God in the nations of the earth. Your tithing has not been squandered, and if you have paid an honest tithing, I may say to you without hesitation the other nine-tenths, has been a greater blessing to those who have paid than the one hundred percent has been to those who have not. It is the Lord's work.
FAVORABLE POSITION OF CHURCH MEMBERS
What is our situation? When the people came here, we were called ignorant. That was the word that went out. I had a man who was supposed to be a minister tell me one time: "Why," he said, "I understand you are the most ignorant people in all the world." That was the attitude. What is the record? After a hundred years, this state, the home of the largest community of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, outranks every state in the American Union for education. More high school students, more university students, more men and women of affairs, and more scientists have been born in this state in proportion to population, of course, than in any other state of the Union. You may go where you will and take communities such as we have, the people are not better housed, not better fed, not better educated, any other place in the world, than here in the tops of these everlasting hills that were so forbidding when our people came here.
Now, brethren and sisters, haven't we something to be grateful for? Isn't it wonderful, not only to be here with this great organization but to know that we are here by the will of the Lord? That we are here because he has made it possible for us to live here? And so today I welcome all of you from wherever you may have come into this great congregation and the adjoining congregations and say, to use the words of the man who discovered the telegraph, "See what God hath wrought." Men couldn't have done this. With all your generosity and all your giving, all your missionary work, with your care of the poor, with your development of the country, with all that you have been giving as ordinary people, I testify that what you have left brings to you more happiness, more peace, more comfort and more assurance of eternal life than any other people in the world enjoy today. I don't say that boastfully, but gratefully.
SEVENTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY
I am celebrating my birthday. Seventy-eight years ago today, right across the street, I was born. My life has been spent very largely in this community and traveling for the Church. I don't know of any man in all the world that has more reason to be grateful than I. People have been kind and helpful to me, members of the Church and non-members alike. Wherever I have gone, I have found noble men and women. Therefore on this my birthday, after having traveled approximately a million miles in the world in the interests of the gospel of Jesus Christ, one of the frailest of my mother's eleven children, I testify that the Lord has preserved my life, and I have had joy beyond expression, and I have enjoyed the results of loving my neighbor as myself, and all this brings happiness.
TESTIMONY
After all these years of travel in many parts of the world, associating with many of the great and good men and women of the world, I witness to you, I know today better than I ever knew before that God lives; that Jesus is the Christ; that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the Living God; and that the Church that he organized under the direction of our Heavenly Father, the Church that received divine authority, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Church that was driven into the wilderness and with headquarters now in Salt Lake City, Utah, is still operating under the guidance of the same priesthood that was conferred by Peter, James, and John upon Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. I know that, as I know that I live, and I leave that testimony with you, and I pray that our Heavenly Father will continue to guide us and help us and inspire us and bless us, which he will if we are righteous. I am so thankful to be here with you this morning, and to look into your faces, hundreds of whom I have met in different parts of the country, and I take this occasion to thank you for your kindness to me as I have traveled among you.
May the Lord add his blessings. Thankful for the comforts that we have today, I pray that his peace and his love will abide with us forever, and that we may be the means under his guidance of bringing millions of his children to an understanding of his truths that they, too, may be blessed and are blessed this day. This is my testimony to you, that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of God unto salvation to all those who believe and obey it, and I bear that witness in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
President George F. Richards
George F. Richards, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 18-22
President Smith has given us a brief history of the Church and the Latter-day Saints up to the present time. We are on the road toward perfection but we haven't reached that point yet. This house is filled to overflowing, many people standing for want of places to sit. The Assembly Hall, no doubt, is filled likewise as are other places where the Saints are gathered, and many thousands of the Latter-day Saints are listening in their own homes this morning, I am sure.
I feel greatly honored to be asked to speak at this meeting following the President. I feel that I have a message to deliver to me Latter-day Saints, those who shall hear my voice and others who may read later my discourse. If only the Latter-day Saints hearing what I have to suggest, the counsel and advice I may have to give, would respond to the same I would be one of the happiest men alive. It is more than I can expect, but some hearts, I hope, will be touched. What I have to say, the subject I intend to speak upon to me is a vital subject for Latter-day Saints.
A GOSPEL OF SACRIFICE
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
In this we see the sacrifice made for us by the Father and the Son, the greatest ever made-a manifestation of love with which there can be no comparison.
The gospel we have received is a gospel of sacrifice and self denial from beginning to end.
The Lord has said:
Let no man be afraid to lay down his life for my sake; for whoso layeth down his life for my sake shall find it again.
And whoso is not willing to lay down his life for my sake is not my disciple.
THE LAW OF THE TITHE
One of the greatest sacrifices that God has required of us members of his Church is that contained in the law of the tithe.
On July 8, 1838, the Lord gave to the Church a revelation on the subject of tithing, in which he requires of the members of his Church that they pay one-tenth of all their interests annually. This is the revenue law of the Church. It is used in promoting its financial interests; in the Church educational system; in the building and maintaining of temples; in building houses of worship in wards, stakes, and missions; in caring for the poor; and in the missionary work of the Church.
Many thousands of Latter-day Saints comply faithfully and fully with this religious obligation and by so doing are assisting in the accomplishments for which the tithes of the Church are used; and they will in no wise lose their reward.
There are some members of the Church who might profit by the experience of Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, of the Primitive Church, and not withhold any of the Lord's portion.
When we are through with this life and go hence, we will have no means with which to balance our tithing account. Realizing then our dilemma, we may, like Dives of old, desire that someone be sent from the dead to warn those we love, that they may not make the same mistake; in which event we may be told:
... They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
And behold, all things are written by the Father; therefore out of the books which shall be written shall the world be judged.
The records kept by the Father will be a correct and true record. They will show what we should have paid in tithing each year, and what we did pay. Any difference or balance will show our true standing on the observance of the law of tithing.
AN ACCOUNTING OF STEWARDSHIP
All that we possess of this world's goods has been given to us of the Lord, and we are to be regarded as but stewards over what we have received. We will have to give an accounting for our stewardship. In view of what the Lord has done for us, and given unto us, it is a small thing that he has asked of us in return, that we give to him one-tenth of what he has given to us. We have accepted the gospel as a gospel of sacrifice and self-abnegation. The Lord has said:
And whoso is not willing to lay down his life for my sake is not my disciple.
If we are not willing to lay down our lives for Christ's sake and his gospel's sake, we may not hope to receive the salvation which is God's greatest gift to man, and for which we have enlisted in his cause to obtain. The Lord knows the intents of the hearts of the children of men. He knows whether or not we are willing to lay down our lives for the cause of the Master. Is it possible that we are willing to lay down our lives for the gospel's sake, and that we are unwilling to give to the Lord and his cause, on direct command of the Lord, one-tenth of our interests annually as a tithe? Are we a consistent people with respect to the tithe?
Tithing is a just and equitable means of distribution of the financial responsibilities of the members of the Church, to poor and rich alike. In any organization instituted for the mutual benefit of its members, each member is expected to do his full share in maintaining the organization and assisting in its accomplishments. If he does not faithfully meet his obligations in that organization, he is justly regarded as not being a good member. We would not like to be regarded as being any thing other than a good member of the Church.
OUR INDEBTEDNESS TO GOD
There are many good reasons why members of the Church should pay their tithing, but all reasons that may be assigned do not have the same appeal to all members; however, the fact that God the Eternal Father, to whom we are indebted for all things, and on whom we depend for all things we hope to receive in this life and in the life to come, has asked it of us, and even commanded it of us, should have a strong appeal to all members.
If thou lovest me thou shalt serve me and keep all my commandments.
He that receiveth my law and doeth it, the same is my disciple; and he that saith he receiveth it, and doeth it not, the same is not my disciple, and shall be cast out from among you.
And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell;
And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.
But he that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned.
... be faithful, keep my commandments, and ye shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and needy, he shall, with the wicked lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF CHURCH
The Church is accomplishing wonders today with the tithes and offerings of its members. A more wonderful work could be accomplished, and the poor of the Church be better cared for, if the members were all to pay an honest tithe, hence our appeal at this time.
Religionists of other denominations are taking cognizance of the way the law of the tithe is being observed in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its beneficial effects to both the Church and the members who observe to keep the law.
The Deseret News, reporting the proceedings of the annual Baptist state convention, September 23, 1915, said:
A feature of today was an address by the Rev. Dr. L. S. Bowerman, pastor of the Immanuel Baptist Church of this city; on "Tithing, the Minimum Basis of Giving." He strongly advocated the ten percent tithing system, as it obtains in the Mormon Church, remarking, incidentally, "We ought to be as fully religious as the Mormons."
"Since the days of Abraham, a thousand years before Moses was born," said Dr. Bowerman, "the tithing, system was inaugurated, and so took the precedence of the Mosaic Law." The speaker traced the history of the tithing system through the Old Testament and showed its endorsement in the New Testament, closing his address by showing the promises of God to the individual and the nation who paid tithing to his service, and for his cause, that they should prosper in the land not only in the floods of this world, but as recipients of spiritual blessings. Dr. Bowerman's address was very well received and was considered one of the most scholarly addresses of the convention.
While the Methodist Church has not adopted the tithing system to raise funds for its support, the plan was sanctioned at the national convention of Methodists in Indianapolis, according to the Rev. A. M. Fisher of Pasadena, California. Mr. Fisher said that this system was right and successful inasmuch as the Church now employing it is in most satisfactory financial circumstances. It was, he states, the most representative gathering ever held in the interest of the Methodist Church.
Mormonism is having a reforming influence upon the religions of the world. The law of tithing is as old, as just, and as true, as any other law of the gospel.
OBEDIENCE BRINGS BLESSINGS
The nature of the covenant entered into in the waters of baptism is that we will keep all the commandments of God, one of which is tithing.
There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-
And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.
If tithing may be regarded as a temporal law, then the observance of the law of tithing should bring temporal blessings. We have promise of such blessings made to ancient Israel.
For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said. Wherein shall we return?
Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heavens, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
The promises of the Lord made to ancient Israel will apply alike to all nations and people who will obey his laws and commandments.
A WORTHY CAUSE
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is destined to bless and reform the whole world. It is intended eventually to correct all the great evils of society, and lift mankind to a higher plane of living physically, morally, and spiritually. It is a worthy cause in which to be engaged, and for which to spend our talents, our time, and our means. It is the greatest reform movement of the age. It is bound to succeed, for it is founded upon true and correct principles, revealed anew from heaven.
Those who give aid to its establishment, its growth, and its accomplishment, will surely share in the honor and glory of such a noble cause.
We are all candidates for the blessings of eternal life and exaltation in the kingdom of God. The direct line to that goal is through the observance of the law of tithing and making every sacrifice the gospel entails upon us. May God help us to this end, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Thorpe B. Isaacson
Thorpe B. Isaacson, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 22-24
My brothers and sisters, I can assure you that standing before you makes one very humble. This is a beautiful Sabbath morning, even though the weather is a little stormy outside. It would be impossible for me, I am sure, to say anything that would be worth while unless the Lord will bless me.
I happen to have a son who belongs to one of those four thousand missionaries who are in the mission field. I received a telephone call from New Brunswick yesterday where he is laboring, and he said: "Dad, I just wanted to say hello to you. I know it's general conference in Salt Lake this week, and I know you're worried. I can assure you that I am praying for you.
I will appreciate it if I can have an interest in your faith and prayers, also.
"TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU"
May I refer to Matthew 11:29-30?
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
We will have rest unto our souls to the degree that we can serve our Father in heaven. Great changes have come into the souls of men as they draw near to their Father in heaven, but just as true, when men draw away from their Father in heaven, they have a restlessness that disturbs their peace of mind. That beautiful saying, "If you will seek after me, you shall surely find me," should give us comfort as members of the Church. The living of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the way, the true way to happiness.
Says the Lord:
Pray always, and I will pour out my Spirit upon you, and great shall be your blessings....
Latter-day Saints are staunch believers in the healing virtue of prayer and faith.
And the elders of the church, two or more shall be called, and shall pray for and lay hands upon them in my name.
Referring to James:
Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed....
Pray to the Lord in prosperity; pray to him in adversity.
STRENGTH IN UNSEEN POWER
There is an unseen power in every man's life and that power comes from on high. It is the power that will help man rise above his own natural ability. We have been told at times that man cannot rise above his own natural ability, and I am sure that if we do that, we've done pretty well, but with the power and help of the Lord, men often rise far beyond their own natural ability.
I quote from an article of President Clark's recently, wherein he stated: "God has placed in every man's heart a divine spark that never wholly goes out." That spark can be kindled, that spark can be developed and become beautiful with service.
There was recently an article that appeared in a very prominent Washington paper entitled, "There Must be a Way Out." "This was the theme for thought and prayer. There must be a way of convincing the Russians that we do not want war. Yes, but no one has found that way yet. None of the plans of men have worked." But there is a plan, and that plan is embodied in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ if only men could understand it and accept it.
It is always fatal for any person or any nation to make a break with the Living God.
THE WAY TO HAPPINESS
I want to bear you my testimony that great joy comes into the souls of those who try to live the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to repent of my wrongdoings before you this day and before my Maker. I want to tell you that I am grateful for the blessings of the Lord. I know that it will do our hearts good to try to live a little better today than we have in the past. That is our plan of improvement. The Lord has asked us to come unto him humbly and repent of our wrongdoings. Therein we can be made strong.
If I have wronged any man or woman, if they will let me know, I will do my best to right that wrong. I hold no malice in my heart toward any man, and I hope no man will hold any malice toward me. I appreciate the blessings that come in serving the Lord. I pray that he will help me to do my best to serve him and to keep his commandments.
It is a pleasure to know the brethren with whom I am associated. I can bear you my testimony that they are men of God, trying as hard as they can to live the true principles, working hard day and night in the service of their Father in heaven.
For a number of years, some of my friends have said that I was working too hard, and they cautioned me to take it a little easy, but now as I look back over the last fifteen years, the work I was doing was just play and fooling around compared with the work that I have to do in keeping up with my brethren of the General Authorities. I hope that you will pray for us as we pray for you.
GRATITUDE FOR MISSION PRESIDENTS
The other day in the temple, we listened to all the mission presidents bear their testimony and give a report of their work, and my heart was touched to see the great love that these mission presidents have for the young men and women laboring under their care as missionaries. Oh, as fathers and mothers, we should be ever grateful, indeed, that our sons and daughters can go into the mission field and labor with these fine mission presidents who love these missionaries as they would love their own sons and daughters.
May God bless us that we may serve him and keep his commandments, that we may follow the admonitions that the President of the Church gave us this morning. May we truly love each other and make life as pleasant as we can for those who are unfortunate.
May God bless us during the sessions of this conference, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Milton R. Hunter
Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 24-32
It is an awe-inspiring sight to stand here this morning on this beautiful Sabbath day and face this vast audience. I humbly pray that the Spirit of God will attend me and direct what I shall say. During the few moments that I occupy, it is my desire to give an interpretation of a prophet of God, with special emphasis upon the Prophet Joseph Smith. I am always thrilled to hear that beautiful song, "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet," that was sung a few moments ago, because I know that we have today prophets standing at the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
DEFINITION OF A PROPHET
If I were to ask you the question, "What is a prophet of God?" it is probable that your immediate reply would be: "A prophet of God is an individual who through divine inspiration or revelation predicts future events." You may even quote the Apostle Peter, wherein he said:
For the prophecy came not in old times by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
How does Joseph Smith compare with the great prophets of all ages as a predictor of future events? When we consider the fact that the D&C; is filled with revelations from the Lord to the Prophet and that many of them deal with future events which certainly could be regarded as prophecies; also, when we consider the fact that other scriptures were brought forth in this dispensation through Joseph and that they contain many prophecies; and in addition to this, that he uttered numerous other predictions, we are forced to conclude that few, if any, prophets who ever lived have made more prophecies than did Joseph Smith. I, therefore, would rate him among the greatest of all the prophets as a predictor of future events.
We should also keep in mind the fact that the prophecies of true prophets of God, uttered as a result of divine inspiration, or revelation, must and will all be fulfilled. In fact, in the holy scriptures we are told that the way to distinguish between true and false prophets is whether or not their predictions come to pass. To quote the words of Deuteronomy:
And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken?
When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him.
JOSEPH SMITH A TRUE PROPHET
According to the word of the Lord, Joseph Smith was a true prophet because the prophecies and promises revealed to him "shall all be fulfilled." In this respect he compares very favorably with any or all of the holy prophets of old. God declared in his preface to the D&C; the following:
Search these commandments for they are true and faithful, and the prophecies and promises which are in them shall all be fulfilled.
Let us consider a few examples of prophecies made by Joseph Smith and their fulfilment. When but a boy slightly past fourteen years of age, Joseph returned to the house from.the Sacred Grove on that memorable spring morning in 1820. He told the members of his family that he had seen the Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son in a vision. During the course of that vision, he had been informed by the Savior that the true Church was not upon the earth and that if he lived a worthy life he was given:
... a promise that the fullness of the gospel should at some future time be made known unto me.
Imagine a boy, untrained and unschooled as far as earthly schooling is concerned and at such a tender age, making such a prophecy. As all of you know, this prophecy was soon fulfilled. The gospel of Jesus Christ was revealed to him, and he did establish a Church-the Church which God declared to be:
... the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually.
NAME KNOWN FOR GOOD AND EVIL
Three and one-half years later, at the time of the visitations of the angel Moroni to Joseph Smith, he made another prophecy which I believe was just as astounding in its nature as was the prediction that he should establish the "true and living Church." Joseph said that the heavenly messenger had told him that he would receive an ancient record, and that he would translate it and publish a book. Also, to quote Joseph's own words:
... that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken among all people.
Imagine an obscure frontier youth who had probably no more than a casual acquaintance with perhaps a few hundred people at the most, not only prophesying that he would translate and publish a book but that his name would be had for good and evil among all nations. Again, time has proved Joseph Smith to be a true prophet of God. He did publish that book under the title of the Book of Mormon; and, as all of you know, it has for more than a century baffled thousands of its avowed enemies.
Almost immediately after receiving his earliest visitation from heavenly beings, the Prophet Joseph Smith began to be persecuted for the claims that he had made. Throughout the entire course of his life many people hated him to the point of trying to bring about his death. This fact they finally accomplished by bringing him to a martyr's grave. As early as 1834 the first of almost an innumerable procession of books, written by evil people inspired by the devil for the purpose of destroying the Prophet, his influence and the work of the Lord, came from the press. Each of these books has been short-lived; but the work of God and the honor and glory of his great Prophet will go on unhampered forever.
On the other hand, throughout Joseph's lifetime many other people loved him so dearly that they would have laid down their lives willingly for him if necessary. They maintained that the Holy Ghost had borne positive assurance to their souls of Joseph's divine appointment and of the restoration of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus thousands of intelligent converts have allied themselves with the Prophet Joseph and have adhered to the cause of Mormonism in the face of persecution, poverty, loss of homes and property, and even threats of martyrdom. In fact, many of the Saints have sacrificed their lives for the cause of righteousness.
Joseph Smith's testimony has divided the world into two camps. Whenever he is being considered, there is no neutral ground upon which to stand. His claims are so vital that people either accept them in their entirety without reservations or flatly reject them. There are individuals, however, who are completely indifferent to his claims, and ofttimes to religion in general. Those individuals must be classed with the group that reject Joseph's claims.
Thus throughout the entire course of more than one hundred years, this prediction uttered by the Prophet Joseph Smith, that is, that his name should be known "for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues", has been continuously fulfilled.
REVELATION GIVEN IN MISSOURI JAIL
In the spring of 1839, after the Prophet had spent several months lying in a dungeon in a Missouri jail, the voice of God came unto him saying:
My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
And they who do charge thee with transgression, their hope shall be blasted, and their prospects shall melt away as the hoar frost melteth before the burning rays of the rising sun;
Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed, saith the Lord....
The ends of the earth shall inquire after thy name, and fools shall have thee in derision, and hell shall rage against thee;
While the pure in heart, and the wise, and the noble, and the virtuous, shall seek counsel, and blessings constantly from under thy hand.
And thy people shall never be turned against thee by the testimony of traitors.
... Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what men can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.
PREDICTIONS FULFILLED
Such predictions as the Civil War prophecy, the Stephen A. Douglas prophecy, the Rocky Mountain prophecy referred to by the President of the Church this morning, and numerous other predictions and their fulfilment could be cited to show that Joseph Smith was truly a great prophet of God. Evidence impels us to rank this man of God as one of the greatest prophets that have ever lived. In fact, in the D&C; we read:
Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.
THE CALLING OF PROPHETS
Another distinctive characteristic of a prophet of God is that he is chosen, appointed, and called by the Lord. He draws his knowledge from the divine fountain of truth; therefore, he speaks in the name of the Lord and as one having authority. Let us give a few examples. The Prophet Amos, in his masterful discourse at Bethel, prefaced each of his predictions by "Thus saith the Lord" . Isaiah relates his call to be a prophet as follows:
... I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here I am; send me.
And he said, Go, and tell this people.
The call of Jeremiah to be a prophet illustrates beautifully the fact that prophets are chosen, appointed, and called by the Lord. To use Jeremiah's own words:
Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak for I am a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child; for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.
Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.
In the book of Moses we read about Enoch's call to be a prophet as follows:
And it came to pass that Enoch journeyed in the land, among the people; and as he journeyed...
... he heard a voice from heaven, saying: Enoch, my son, prophesy unto this people.
In addition to being called of the Lord, true prophets teach the people what the Lord commands them Jesus Christ, the greatest of all the prophets, declared:
For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
Throughout history many of the great prophets have been visited by holy angels and some of them have seen God and have conversed with him as one man converses with another. For example, we read in the Pearl of Great Price:
And I, the Lord God, said unto Adam,
Again we read:
And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses,
And he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence.
Abraham wrote:
Thus I, Abraham, talked with the Lord, face to face, as one man talketh with another.
Referring to the Prophet Alma, Amulek said:
As I was journeying to see a very near kindred, behold an angel of the Lord appeared unto me and said: Amulek, return to thine own house, for thou shalt feed a prophet of the Lord; yea, a holy man, who is chosen man of God.
"THUS SAITH THE LORD"
After the death of the Savior and his apostles, the heavens were closed, and for many centuries God ceased to appoint holy prophets among men. Finally, as I have already stated, a living oracle was sent to earth again in the person of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Eternal Father, his Only Begotten Son, and numerous holy angels talked with Joseph face to face, even as they had done with the prophets of old. Thus the word, the will, and the commandments of God came from heaven to mortals again in exactly the same manner as they had come in past ages. At the beginning of the majority of the revelations received by the Prophet Joseph, such statements as the following appear:
Hearken unto the voice of the Lord your God, while I speak unto you.
And again:
Listen to the voice of Jesus Christ, your Lord, your God and your Redeemer.
Also:
Thus saith the Lord God, the Mighty One of Israel.
As an example of the numerous visions of heavenly beings that Joseph beheld, I quote the following:
And we beheld the glory of the Son, on the right hand of the Father, and received of his fulness; And saw the holy angels, and them who are sanctified before his throne, worshiping God, and the Lamb, who worship him forever and ever.
The Prophet Joseph Smith, like all the holy prophets, who preceded him, always prefaced his teachings with the divine dictum of "Thus saith the Lord." Truly of him it can be said as it was said of the Man of Galilee, "... Never man spake like this man". Since Joseph Smith received what he gave to the people directly from Jesus Christ, such should be the case.
The Lord declared in modern revelation that the words spoken by prophets when they were moved upon by the Holy Ghost should be considered as scripture. To quote:
And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation.
LIVING ORACLES
I wish to emphasize the fact that this revelation is not limited to Joseph Smith and the other great prophets who preceded him. We have standing at the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today living oracles through whom God reveals his will. Certainly the words of this revelation apply to President George Albert Smith, to his Counselors, to the Twelve Apostles, and to me Patriarch to the Church just as much as they did to Joseph Smith, or to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Moses, Nephi, Alma, Peter, Paul, or to all of the other ancient prophets of God.
A TEACHER OF DIVINE TRUTHS
The greatest job that a prophet has to accomplish is to be teacher of the divine truths revealed to him from on high. He is to God's mouthpiece here on earth-God's spokesman, the revelator of the plan of salvation. Through the keys and power of the priesthood which he holds, the kingdom of God is established upon earth and all the ordinances requisite for the salvation and exaltation of the human family are performed. It is in their capacity of teacher and dispenser of the mind and will of God that the holy prophets in all ages have made their greatest contributions. During his three short years of missionary service, Jesus Christ did more to affect the destiny of the human family than have all the kings that ever sat upon the thrones or all the armies that ever marched. Moses' great contribution was in giving Israel the law. Nephi, Paul, Alma, and the other prophets perpetuated the true Church in their times. And Joseph Smith was the prophet of God who was called and foreordained to usher in the last dispensation of the gospel, the greatest of the dispensations.
When we consider the three volumes of scripture given to the world through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and when we consider that all the knowledge, powers, keys, doctrines, and ordinances that had ever been given to the prophets from the time of Adam to the present day were restored to him, then we can fully realize that Joseph certainly was one of the greatest prophets that ever lived. I make the claim that he was the greatest of the prophets except Jesus Christ.
LOVE OF FELLOWMEN
Finally, a prophet of God loves his fellow men intensely, even to the point of giving his life willingly for them if necessary. Before the death of the Savior, he had full knowledge that the Jews had rejected him, and that they would bring about his crucifixion. Yet, as he sat upon a hill overlooking Jerusalem a few days prior to his death, he prophesied to his apostles regarding the destruction of the holy city and the scattering of his people because they had rejected their Lord and Savior. So intense was his love for those who had become his enemies that "Jesus wept". He had taught the people:
... Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.
While hanging on the cross he put those teachings into effect. He looked down upon the jeering mob standing at the foot of the cross and then, casting his eyes toward heaven, prayed:
... Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
So it was with the Prophet Joseph Smith. When he, Hyrum and others were making plans to flee to the Rocky Mountains for safety, Emma sent word for Joseph to return because the Saints were accusing him of being a coward. Knowing full well that they would be killed if they should return, he turned to his brother Hyrum and said: "If my life is of no value to my friends it is of none to myself," and so they returned to Nauvoo. It was his deep love for the Saints that impelled him to return and voluntarily to give his life as a sacrifice for them. The following day while on their way from Nauvoo to Carthage, Joseph made this memorable statement:
I am going like a lamb to the slaughter, but I am as calm as a summer's morning. I have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward all men. If they take my life I shall die an innocent man, and my blood shall cry from the ground for vengeance, and it shall be said of me, "He was murdered in cold blood!".
TESTIMONY SEALED WITH BLOOD
Three days later the assassins' bullets found lodgment in the body of the Prophet of God. As he fell from the windows of Carthage jail, he died with the words on his lips, "O Lord, my God!"
He began his career as a prophet with the glorious vision of the Father and the Son and ended his earthly career with the name of Deity on his lips. As did the Savior of the world, he sealed his testimony with his blood. Regarding Joseph's death, God revealed to Brigham Young the following:
Many have marveled because of his death; but it was needful that he should seal his testimony with his blood, that he might be honored and the wicked might be condemned.
And like all of the great and holy prophets of old, the Prophet Joseph, being dead, yet lives on forever. Today a million people sing:
Hail to the Prophet, ascended to heaven! Traitors and tyrants now fight him in vain; Mingling with Gods, he can plan for his brethren; Death cannot conquer the hero again.
From the bottom of my heart I want to bear my testimony that I know that Joseph Smith was one of the greatest prophets that ever lived upon this earth. May the Spirit of God be with you and me that we might live according to the teachings that he gave us, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Clifford E. Young
Clifford E. Young, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 37-40
This is a very overwhelming sight, my brethren and sisters, and is a position that I dread very much. I sincerely trust that I may have an interest in your faith and prayers the few moments that I stand before you this afternoon.
THE UPLIFT OF WORSHIP
I want to express my appreciation for the privilege of being here in this great assembly. It is certainly a Sabbath day feast to come and attend these three days of general conference. It does something for our souls. You know in our agricultural pursuits Brother Widtsoe will tell us of the need of fallowing our land, permitting it to rest, that it might be recharged and revitalized. We come together for that purpose in these conference sessions, that we too might be revitalized and recharged, and verily these conference sessions give us the rest and peace of a Sabbath day.
The Lord has told us that we should go to his holy house on his day and there worship before him, offer our oblations to him that we might be built up and strengthened. It isn't that the Lord wants us to honor him, but like all of his laws, they are for our benefit and blessing. His injunctions are that we might be happy, that we might grow and become spiritually strong, that we might ultimately be as he is, that we might take upon ourselves great power. We are here in this life for that purpose, that we might understand life and, as the scriptures say, that we might have life more abundantly.
AGE OF SCIENTIFIC MARVELS
President Smith referred this morning to the fact that these services were not only being broadcast but also that the Saints who are assembled in the Assembly Hall are permitted to see just what is being done, to see the Tabernacle Choir in its singing and to see those who are called to the stand to speak. It is verily a marvelous age. Reference was made by Bishop Isaacson to the fact that he talked to his son by long-distance telephone last night. You and I may talk to our sons even in Europe. We may not only talk to them but we may also see them. What a source of comfort it will be for a parent to pick up the telephone and talk to his son in a foreign country and at the same time see him visually, to know that he is well.
Twenty-five years ago, had anyone said anything about television, we would have wondered whether or not he was sound in his thinking, and yet today we have these marvelous things right at our door.
One of our brethren was down in our locality a few weeks ago to talk to one of our service clubs, Brother Alvin Pack, a son of Dr. Fred J. Pack who formerly was connected with the University of Utah, and has now passed to the other side, a lovely character, a man in all of his scientific work stimulating faith. We were informed of some of the present-day marvelous achievements. He told us that as he came around the point of the mountain in his car a little flash on his dashboard indicated that he was wanted on the telephone and on picking up the receiver he was informed that he was wanted in New York on long distance. With only a flip of a button he was able, as he was traveling fifty or sixty miles an hour, to make that connection and talk to New York. Certainly this is a marvelous age. It is an age for youth, an age of opportunity, and as I thought of these things and thought of this achievement of television I wondered in my own heart if perhaps the time will not come when we can see our loved ones on the other side. That is not beyond the pale of possibility. To us now, of course, it seems impossible. Television was impossible for us not so long ago.
WE MUST WALK BY FAITH
Is it not within the range of possibility that we may at some future day be able not only to commune with those dear to us on the other side, but to see them? What an assurance this would be. God in his mercy has seen fit not to grant to us this great blessing and privilege now, because he recognizes we must walk by faith. We must live by faith. Human experience has taught that when we walk by pure knowledge, we forget the place of God in our lives. I think it was William Dean Howells who made this observation on one occasion, that he wondered if one of the reasons why the other side was shut out from our view was because if we positively knew, we would be less kind, we would be less sympathetic in the positive knowledge that would come to us, we would delay the day of making right wrongs that beset us; but the fact that we walk by faith, the fact that sometimes there is some uncertainty in our walking leads us to be more careful. Certainly the Lord in his great wisdom has withheld from us some of the things that we would all love to know and see; and yet, as we contemplate the marvelous experiences of life from day to day, we are conscious of the fact that in his great providence we will eventually be able to surmount all of the physical things that beset us. Then we will be ushered into the eternal things, and we will know as God knows. We will have power as he has power. Jesus had that power. He said in effect, "No man taketh this life from me, but I have power of myself to lay this body down and by the same power I shall take it up. This I have received from my Father". Even so will we, his children, be given these great powers, but all of them predicated upon our subscribing to is divine laws and living in accordance with his holy will.
PARENTAL GUIDANCE NEEDED
I said a minute ago this is a great day for youth. Our boys and girls are having opportunities the like of which we never had in our generation. It certainly is a thrilling time to live and yet, my brethren and sisters, I have wondered many times if in this great field of physical progress we are keeping pace spiritually. I am led to this conclusion because of some of the experiences that our boys and girls are having and some of the things that are coming to light of their experiences. One of our boys recently came home from Japan, and when I interviewed him for a mission, he said frankly, "Brother Young, I find it much harder here to withstand temptation than I found it over in Tokyo." In interviewing some of these boys we find that they are lacking some of the parental care that they should have and doubtless did have a generation ago. I am wondering whether we as parents are frank enough with our boys and girls, if we take them into our confidence, if we are not relying too much on this mechanical age, for which we are truly grateful, for their spiritual strength, for the parental counsel that they need. It seems to me that this is one field of our activity that we need to emphasize more strongly than ever before. Our boys and girls need our help. They need our guidance; they need to know some of the pitfalls that may confront them in their experiences; and they need to be talked to very frankly about some of their sex problems, my brethren and sisters, the field that we seem to avoid. We need parents to sit down with their boys and girls and to warn them of dangers that are on every hand. There is no change, in all this progress, in all the present-day opportunities, in some of the fundamental concepts. It is just as wrong today to steal as it was four thousand years ago when the Lord gave his great commandment. It is just as wrong today to commit adultery as it was then. It is just as wrong today to violate the Sabbath day as it was then. It is just as important today that we should honor God, honor his holy name, not profane it, keep his holy day as it was four thousand years ago. These things never change. It is just as right and proper that we should honor virtue, that we should honor womanhood as we were taught centuries ago. These things never change.
GLORIOUS AGE FOR YOUTH
And so, I repeat, my brethren and sisters, with all of the great opportunities we have before us, the opportunities that our boys and girls have, it is a glorious age in which to live, one that brings happiness, if we keep the commandments, one that thrills us because of the great opportunities, and yet, with it all we must also keep pace spiritually and not forget some of these fundamental concepts that are always true and will never change. So I repeat again, we need to go back to some of the old customs of fathers and mothers sitting down with their children and talking through some of the problems that confront our youth. Our boys and girls need our help. I am not one that would say to a boy or a girl.
You're not worthy to go to the temple," but I would say, "You're not quite prepared. Let us sit down together and see if we cannot help you to become prepared." It may take six months or it may take a year, but the fact that our boys and girls may not be prepared does not relieve us of the responsibility of doing the thing we should do of helping our youth to become prepared for the problems of life and for the great spiritual opportunities that are theirs in this great Church to which we belong.
May God help us that we may have wisdom in the direction of our youth, in helping them in their problems and above all of having a sympathetic understanding of them and what they have to face, and may he sanctify to our spiritual growth the great opportunities with which we are surrounded, these glorious physical opportunities, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder Antoine R. Ivins
Antoine R. Ivins, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 40-43
The pleasant thing about standing before you, brethren and sisters, is to have the opportunity to look at you and recognize among you many of our friends. If you love me as dearly as I love you, then I am happy. I would like to serve you since the Lord has said that inasmuch as we serve the least of his children, we serve him. That is our purpose, and that has always been my purpose, to serve God to the best of my ability. I am sure that he lives, and I am grateful for all that he has done in my behalf.
THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST
Last Sunday we celebrated Easter, the day on which we recognize the resurrection of Christ, our Lord. It is a wonderful thing to contemplate what he did for us. I am not so happy to think of what might have been our lot if it had not been for him. But when we realize the wonderful gift which he gave us through his atonement, it should give us great joy and happiness and a new determination to serve him, to serve him to the very best of our ability. He gave us an opportunity to go back into the presence of our Father in heaven, from whom we came. He promised, too, that if we would repent of the things which we do which are not right, and repent honestly and sincerely and come through the waters of baptism into the body of the Church, and there serve him well and faithfully to the end, that he would forgive us of those transgressions, that when we should appear before him he would hold us guiltless before the Father, that he would carry the burdens of our sins. He tells us, in the Book of Mormon, that that is his gospel and that he came into this world to give his life for the world; that whosoever should repent and endure in righteousness to the end, would be saved, the sins of those people being blotted out from the Book of Remembrance; the dearest consolation of all, perhaps, that I find in reading the scriptures.
He did for us, as has already been said, the thing which no one else could have done, having power over life and death: he gave his life for us. God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son for us. The Only Begotten Son so loved the world that he gave his life for us. We should learn to appreciate it and to honor him and to help in the realization of his worthy purposes.
"MY PEACE I GIVE UNTO YOU"
It was said, on one occasion, that he was not bringing peace to the world, but the sword. And then, again, he said, "... my peace I give unto you", not the peace of the world, but his peace, the peace that passeth understanding, the peace that one can feel in one's heart in the midst of trial and turmoil and persecution. And if we could get that peace, especially in this time of uncertainty, what a wonderful thing it would be for us. The peace that passeth understanding-how are we going to go about getting it?
He told us on one occasion, too, that the first commandment was to love God with all our hearts and with all our might and with all our strength, and that there is another commandment like it, which is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. If we will do that, we will serve our neighbors as we would hope that those neighbors would help and serve us. If we could bring ourselves to that wholehearted service of men, I am sure that we would be on the highway of the realization of that supreme peace. In this day when everybody is struggling with everybody to get gain, it is hard to find time to serve one another wholeheartedly. But, before we ever realize that peace, we will have this to do; we must eradicate from our hearts, from our feelings, and from our program, all selfishness. If we could do that now, we would be happier. If we could impress our neighbors with the fact that they should do it now, they would be happier. If we could impress the governments of the nations of the earth with the fact that they should be unselfish, there would be peace, not only a peace that the world could enjoy, but an opportunity for man, himself, to realize in his heart that wonderful peace.
CONSCIENCE FREE OF OFFENSE
Today at the dinner table I asked my guests, "What is it that you worry over most, the offenses of other people made toward you, or the things you do to other people which are offensive?" I have come to believe that you will never have that peace so long as you are constantly doing things to other people that you know you should not do. If we ever get to a state where our minds are free of offense toward other people, then I believe that peace will begin to creep into our hearts and that we will love them and love them so that we can bring them to our embrace and serve them. Until that time comes, perhaps, we will never know that peace. I believe that it is possible, in the midst of the turmoil of today, to get that peace, the peace of God. I believe that during the conflict that we recently terminated-and which some people fear is imminent again-there were many of our boys our boys who went through the struggles of warfare with that peace in their hearts, a conscience free of offense to other people and knowing that if they could give their lives for us they were not fearful to meet their God and give account of their services. It might be possible for us to enjoy that same spirit in our business relationships with each other if no man should ever take advantage of another. It ought to be possible for us to enjoy that same feeling of peace in our social relationships with each other, that no man should ever say offensive things about another to hurt his feelings.
PEACE COMES FROM RIGHTEOUS LIVING
If you will permit a personal reference, I believe that I feel worse over the thoughtless things I do and say to other people than I do over the things they say and do to me, and I would like to enjoy the Spirit of God to such an extent that I never would say or do a thing that would be detrimental to another. Then, perhaps, I might enjoy that wonderful peace of Christ. He said in effect, "I leave it with you", and that implies that it is possible of attainment, but we must admit that the struggle of attainment is great, that none of us is perfect, that failure seems to be the lot of most of us in most things that we attempt to do to approach perfection. But we must strive for it, nevertheless. It was held out as a goal to us, and the nearer we approach perfection in that respect the greater will be our joy and our happiness.
I have been thinking of that lately a good deal, how can we approach the peace that Christ would leave with us? And I have come to the conclusion that if and when we enjoy it, it will be because we repent of our sins and purify our lives. There is no progress without repentance. We cannot enjoy the Spirit of God in sinful living. And inasmuch as I feel that that peace is the most desirable thing in the world, then I feel that my duty and yours is to repent and purify our lives that we may have claim upon God, our Heavenly Father, for his Spirit. Once we get it, we will have that peace. And regardless of the uncertainties of our lives, we will not worry over them, but we will have the peace that comes from the realization that we are the children of God and that if our lives are holy in his sight, our exaltation and election will be sure, and that eternity is so much more important than mortality. This life is not a goal, it is just a means of preparation for eternity, that we may go back, eventually, into the presence of our Heavenly Father and there enjoy whatever blessings he may have to bestow upon us. "My peace I leave with you". God bless you. Amen.
Bishop LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 43-48
My brothers and sisters, I appreciate the privilege of worshiping with you in this conference. It is a marvelous thing to be associated together in the work that is so dear to the hearts of all of us.
TESTIMONY OF THE SPIRIT
Last Sunday night, as I returned from attending conference in the northern part of Idaho, I listened to President Clark over the radio deliver such a beautiful sermon on Easter and conclude by bearing his testimony of the divinity of the Christ and his resurrection, which testimony, he indicated, was given to him by the Spirit. I wondered if, in the Church as a whole, we realize the value of the testimony of the Spirit. It was Moroni who said that by the Holy Ghost we might know the truth of all things. In our Church we are rich with knowledge and testimony through the Holy Ghost.
Jesus said to his disciples:
... It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.
And he said:
... I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
Then we are told that he shall teach us all things, and by the Holy Ghost we might know the truth of all things.
Nine years after my grandfather, Franklin D. Richards, had been baptized a member of the Church, during which time he had filled five missions in the United States, had come up through the grades of the priesthood to the office of high priest and was then serving as a member of the presidency of the European Mission, he records in his journal the following: "Most of all things, this day, I desire the Holy Spirit, which giveth life, yea life, more abundantly to both body and spirit." This is the power by which this kingdom grows.
You will remember how Peter denied the Christ thrice before he received the Holy Ghost, but after he received the Holy Ghost, when he was commanded that he should no more preach Christ, and him crucified, in the streets of Jerusalem, Peter replied, "Whom shall men obey? God or man?". And he considered himself not worthy to be crucified as was his Lord. This is the testimony of the Spirit and the power by which this kingdom is growing in the earth.
DEVELOPMENT OF GIFT OF THE SPIRIT
You will recall the admonition of the Apostle Paul to his brother, Timothy, when he put him in remembrance that he should stir up the gift of God which he had received by the laying on of his, Paul's, hands. Was this idle talk, or do we receive the Spirit of God by the laying on of hands of his servants? If so, should we not all seek to stir up the gift of the Spirit that he might guide and direct us?
I cannot conceive that any Latter-day Saint can be without a testimony of the divinity of this work if he will but consider what has been accomplished in the Church because of the gift of the Spirit of God which is in it.
It is said that during the twenties, when the elders were being persecuted in Great Britain, the government sent an officer here to investigate the "Mormon problem" and see what it was that made them so determined to carry their message to other nations. When he returned his report was that the "black secret" of Mormonism was the individual testimony of its members. And surely, brothers and sisters, this is the "black secret" of Mormonism. You can travel throughout the wards and stakes of Zion and the missions of the Church or go where you will, and wherever you find Latter-day Saints who have received the gift of the Spirit by the laying on of hands, this spirit is evidenced through their activities in the Church. A power is there that cannot be found anywhere else in all the world.
LETTER FROM CONVERT
We received a letter at the Presiding Bishop's office a few days ago from a young convert to the Church through meeting our boys in the armed forces. He sent in a substantial amount of tithing. Then he bore his testimony in his letter, and I would like to read a portion of that testimony to you today. He wrote:
Before closing I would like to mention that I have gained a very strong testimony of very many great, wonderful, and glorious things, since being baptized. I could not make this letter long enough to bear my testimony, but I would like to say that I know, with a sincerity, that I have God's blessing upon enclosing this money. It is a glorious inspiration when you see the road of life, the direction of God's path, and the beam of his eternal goodness. These things I have; these things I shall never forsake. With these, I have eternal happiness. Although this money which I am sending is termed in the thought of "coins," I know, we know, that actually it is a symbolic but compact measurement of one-tenth of what the Lord has given and provided me as a blessing in life. Although this measurement is earthly, it has a spiritual meaning, the same as all of God's ordinances. This ordinance I feel pleasured, humble, and privileged to offer and perform.
The Lord said that he had never given a temporal commandment unto his children, that all of his commandments are spiritual, and this new convert to the Church feels the power and the spirit of it; and I thought of this when my father, President George F. Richards, was talking on the law of tithing this morning.
THE LAW OF TITHING
I read in the last "Kiplinger Letter" that contributions to the churches were falling off because of financial conditions in the nations. But, as the Presiding Bishop of the Church, I can say to you that the contributions in this Church are not falling off. They are increasing because there is spiritual power and meaning in the Church.
I remember while in the mission field, Sister Richards and I were invited by a member of another church to attend a lecture by an itinerant preacher who was going through the land explaining to the churches how they could get out of debt. His program was that they should turn to the Lord's way of paying their tithes and their offerings, and if they would just do it for ten months, their churches could all get out of debt. After the meeting I had the privilege of being introduced to him, and I told him I would like to bear testimony that he was getting near the truth, that we had been preaching the law all our lives. Then I added, "But what I cannot understand, Reverend, is that if tithing is the Lord's law of blessing his people, why you do not ask them to pay their tithing all their lives, so that they, can have the blessing of the Lord, instead of for only ten months." He replied, "Mr. Richards, we cannot go quite that far, yet." Now this is the difference between a man-made system and one where the Lord puts into it the breath of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit by which we know the truth of all things. We do not send out any collectors in this Church for tithing. We do for fast offerings and for donations to build meetinghouses, as you know; but if you could be in our office, you would see the number of men who come in years after their tithing is due to make settlement, because the Lord continues to speak to their souls through the power of the spirit of the Lord until they cannot find peace. We have gone back-not ten years-but twenty and more years to give credit to the brethren on their tithing record. The spirit of the Lord is a better collector than anyone in the world. We have ministers come in our office to inquire how we run the tithing system in our Church, and when we tell them that all the wards and branches send in all the money they receive to us, and we send back what their allowance is, they shake their heads and say, "They wouldn't do that in our church. The local organizations would take out what they need, first; and if there were any left they might send it to headquarters."
THE POWER OF A TESTIMONY
Well, that same spirit carries through in all the activities of the Church. The testimony of the Spirit of God is the most marvelous thing I know of in this world, and I would rather see that testimony planted in the hearts of my children than anything I know of today.
Brother Ballard used to tell about the colonizer in the northwest who had learned what a marvelous work we had done in colonizing, and came down here to write a treatise on it, to see if he could make it work. After trying it he said, "Mr. Ballard, you tell us what is wrong with it. You read it over. I have tried it, but it just will not work for me." Brother Ballard read it and said, "You have here a perfect corpse. If someone would just breathe into it the breath of life, it would work." Now you know what the breath of life is.
We were in the temple on Wednesday for seven hours and twenty minutes with the mission presidents. One of them told of his father in Canada who was sent up there to colonize when he was a mere lad, by the President of the Church. He has wanted to return for years, and his son asked him why he did not come back. He said, "I cannot return until the President of the Church gives me my release." And I have met many others all up and down these valleys who have had similar experiences. When they came here in the early days, they would have gladly remained in Salt Lake with the body of the Church and the brothers and sisters they had known, save for one thing and that is the testimony of the Spirit of God. When they were called by his servants to settle other localities, they were true to their call. This is the spirit by which the Church has accomplished so much.
FAITH OF MISSIONARIES
While I was in Idaho recently, a stake president told me of a trip he and his wife had just made to Texas. They wrote their missionary boy that they would pick him up-of course, they would make arrangements with the mission president-and take him up to Chicago on a trip with them. But when they got there, the boy said, "No, Father, I could not be a quitter. I could not leave my mission. I cannot go on the trip with you. You and Mother go on and have a good time and leave me here in my missionary work."
Some of you have heard Bishop Isaacson tell a similar story about his boy. When he went east to make arrangements with his company so he could come into the Presiding Bishopric, he wrote his boy in Boston that he and the boy's mother were coming up to visit him, and the boy wrote back and said, "Well, Father, I would surely like to see you and Mother, but just remember I will not have much time to spend with you. I cannot spare it from my missionary work."
President Smith, this morning, referred to the seventy odd thousand missionaries who have gone out for this Church. I dare say that out of that seventy thousand you could not have found a half dozen who would have deserted their missionary call for all the money in this world or for any position that might have been offered to them. Is there any power in the world that can plant such feelings in the hearts of the children of men? Do you think Joseph Smith could have done it, that Brigham Young could have done it, that President Smith could do it? No, that is the power of the testimony of the Holy Ghost.
Some of my Dutch friends, a man and his wife, came into the office the other day, and they said, "Brother Richards, we have filled one mission together, but we would surely like to go on another." Then he said, "If we sell our home and our automobile, we can finance ourselves." Is there any other cause in this world for which men would ask for the privilege of selling all they have-even to their homes-other than that they might bear witness to the truth of this great Latter-day work? Much more could be said about sacrifices for missionary work.
LOYALTY TO CHURCH LEADERS
Some of you will remember hearing President Anthony W. Ivins in a priesthood meeting here in this Tabernacle, tell how many times he had sold all he had that he might answer the call of his Church, and move on, even down into the colonies of Mexico, that great leader who could have been such a political leader here. Why did he go? Would he have chosen or elected to go of himself? No, he went because of a testimony of the Spirit of God that burned in his soul, and that is the power by which the kingdom is growing.
You have heard President Grant tell how he was offered a salary of forty thousand dollars to affiliate himself with an insurance company in the East, when he was but a young man. But he was called of God to be an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he could not accept the insurance company's offer. I want to tell you that some of our leaders today have given up positions that were worth just about ten times as much as the allowance they are getting from the Church to live on. They did not ask for the privilege to serve thus, and they did not ask what they were going to receive. They were called by the voice of the Lord's anointed and that is all that mattered, because in their soul was a testimony of the Spirit of God,
May God help us so to live and labor and teach that this testimony may ever live in the hearts of our boys and our girls, the youth of Zion, I humbly pray, in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie
Bruce R. McConkie, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 48-52
This is a glorious privilege-to speak in a session of the general conference of the Church. I am grateful for it.
I know that the work you and I are engaged in is true. Bishop Richards has spoken of getting a testimony of this work by revelation from the Holy Ghost. I, for one, as an elder in this kingdom, know that the work is true. I know just as well as I know anything in this world, that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God; that Joseph Smith, a choice seer, was the instrument in his hands in our day, of giving us the laws and ordinances of salvation; and that the keys of salvation have remained with the Church from the days of Joseph Smith to the present moment.
SALVATION FOR THE DEAD
One of the doctrines of this kingdom, in which there is great comfort for the Saints, is that of salvation for the dead. We know that in the mercy of God our worthy ancestors may become joint heirs with us of the riches of eternity-and this because our God is no respecter of persons. Joseph Smith said that the greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us-speaking to the Latter-day Saints of their individual responsibility-is to seek after our dead. We know that we, without them, cannot be made perfect; neither can they, without us.
But at the same time, in this glorious doctrine of salvation for the dead, there is a warning to the Latter-day Saints. This warning arises because the doctrine is limited to those who die without a knowledge of the gospel. It has no application to us. As far as I am concerned, as far as you are concerned, as far as all the people are concerned who have a knowledge of the gospel, now is the time and the day of our salvation.
No people in all the world have been blessed as we have been blessed. We have living oracles at the head; we have prophets and apostles to guide us, to give us the mind and will of the Lord. We have the opportunity to walk in the light of latter-day revelation. And, accordingly, we have the responsibility to accept that light and walk as God would have us walk if we would reap the glories and honors of eternity.
PROPHET'S VISION OF CELESTIAL KINGDOM
Shortly before the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in 1836, there was a period when the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the people in great abundance, particularly upon the leaders. On the twenty-first of January 1836, Joseph Smith and many of the leading brethren were assembled in the Kirtland Temple. In the Prophet's language, this took place:
The heavens were opened upon us, and I beheld the celestial kingdom of God, and the glory thereof, whether in the body or out I cannot tell. I saw the transcendent beauty of the gate through which the heirs of that kingdom will enter, which was like unto circling flames of fire; also the blazing throne of God, whereon was seated the Father and the Son. I saw the beautiful streets of that kingdom, which had the appearance of being paved with gold. I saw Fathers Adam and Abraham and my father and mother, my brother, Alvin, that has long since slept, and marveled how it was that he had obtained an inheritance in that kingdom, seeing that he had departed this life before the Lord had set His hand to gather Israel the second time, and had not been baptized for the remission of sins.
Alvin had died on November 19, 1824, five and one-half years before the Lord had organized, through the Prophet, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He had not been baptized. Baptism is the gate to the celestial kingdom of God. It is impossible to enter that kingdom unless one is born of water and of the spirit.
At the time this vision was given, the Prophet's father, among others, was with him in the Kirtland Temple. Thus it is a vision of what was to be in the future. Joseph continues to write:
Thus came the voice of the Lord unto me, saying-
All who have died without a knowledge of this Gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God; also all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of it, who would have received it with all their hearts, shall be heirs of that kingdom, for I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts.
There is no promise-that I know anything about-that those who reject the gospel in this in this life will be heirs of the celestial kingdom in the world to come.
When the Prophet wrote his epistle on the subject of baptism for the dead, he said that it was
... for the salvation of the dead who should die without a knowledge of the gospel.
NOW IS THE DAY OF OUR SALVATION
To me, and to you, and to everyone who has a fair and a just and an equitable opportunity to accept the truth in this life, the law, in my judgment, is that given by Amulek. He said:
... now is the time and day of your salvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you.
For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold, the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.
... do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.
The Prophet Mormon, speaking as he was moved upon by the Holy Ghost, pronounced this curse upon those who, having opportunity to accept the laws of salvation in this life, reject them:
... wo be unto him that will not hearken unto the words of Jesus, and also to them whom he hath chosen and sent among them; for whoso receiveth not the words of Jesus and the words of those whom he hath sent receiveth not him; and therefore he will not receive them at the last day;
And it would be better for them if they had not been born.
Jacob, the brother of Nephi, adds this testimony:
... wo unto him that has the law given, yea, that has all the commandments of God, like unto us, and that transgresseth them, and that wasteth the days of his probation, for awful is his state!.
These revealed principles are but specific applications of the eternal law that:
... of him unto whom much is given much is required; and he who sins against the greater light shall receive the greater condemnation.
When the Resurrected Lord appeared to the Nephites, he preached to them, in purity and in perfection, his everlasting gospel. He gave them, among other things, the Sermon on the Mount, substantially the same as he had given it to the Jews, as is recorded in the New Testament. But one of the additions he made was this:
... come unto me and be ye saved; for verily I say unto you, that except ye shall keep my commandments, which I have commanded you at this time, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
THE HEIRS OF SALVATION
These revelations divide the heirs of salvation into two classes: first, those who have opportunity to accept and live the gospel in this life-this means all of the Latter-day Saints and all others who have a sufficient witness of Christ borne to them-all of them are under obligation to accept the truth here and now, to hearken to the counsels of the living oracles, and to live according to the best light and knowledge that God gives them. If they do this they work out their salvation.
The other class of people who will be heirs of the celestial kingdom are those who would have accepted the gospel with all their hearts, had they had opportunity to accept it here. For them, the ordinances of salvation will be performed and they will be heirs of the kingdom, and with the righteous and faithful of this life, will go into our Father's kingdom and have eternal rest.
We can get, here and now, in this life, that peace of Christ-the peace which passeth understanding of which President Ivins has spoken-by obeying the laws and ordinances of the gospel. Then if we press forward and continue throughout life to keep the commandments, we can have that same peace and that same rest in eternity.
THE TERRESTRIAL WORLD
Now the question naturally arises, in the light of these principles and doctrines, "What happens to those who have an opportunity to accept the truth in this life, but who fail or neglect to do it, and who hereafter accept it in the spirit worlds." The Lord has given us answer by revelation. Speaking of the terrestrial world, he said: These are:
... they who are the spirits of men kept in prison, whom the Son visited, and preached the gospel unto them, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh;
Who received not the testimony of Jesus in the flesh, but afterwards received it.
Well, to me and to you, and to those to whom our missionaries go, this is a great warning. It is a warning that now is the time for us to keep the commandments of God. I do not know any reason for believing that a man who has belonged to this Church, and has then rebelled against the truth, who has forsaken it and gone his own wilful way, will have another chance to be an heir to that kingdom. Christ's law, as it fell from his own lips, is that,
... No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.
I do not sit in judgment. Judgment is the Lord's and he will repay. But at the same time since these doctrines have come to us in such great plainness in this day, we are bound to know them, to live in accordance with them-and failing such, we will merit the penalty which a just God has decreed for our disobedience, for our sinning against the light.
IMPORTANCE OF MORTALITY
We lived in the pre-existent world. We walked by sight. We gained knowledge and intelligence, and we obeyed in a greater or less degree. Then the Lord put us down here in mortality, drew a curtain over our remembrance of pre-existence, and ordained that while here we should be tried and tested, that we would undergo a final examination for all the life we had lived in that pre-mortal world. He ordained, at the same time, that this mortal probation would be an entrance examination into the kingdoms and glories and worlds that are prepared in eternity
As far as you and I are concerned, at this time, this life is the most important part of all eternity. We have the light and knowledge and revelations of heaven. This life is the time for us to prepare to meet God, to keep the commandments of God, to hearken to the counsels of the living oracles and to press forward in righteousness.
The plan of salvation is to find the truth; and the Latter-day Saints have found it. It is to accept the truth; and we have accepted it in the waters of baptism by covenant, a covenant that we will keep the commandments of God. The remaining step is to endure to the end, in righteousness and in faithfulness. Nephi said that repentance and baptism are the gate to salvation, and that having entered in by the gate, men are then in the straight and narrow path which leads to eternal life. We Latter-day Saints have entered in by the gate. We are now on the path. It remains for us to press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. It remains for us to press forward, feasting upon the words of Christ, and endure to the end, which if we do, we will gain eternal life.
LOVE LIGHTENS OUR COURSE
I do not know that there is anyone among us, unless he has sinned away the opportunity of repentance, who is not capable of starting from this point and going forward in righteousness and truth and gaining the celestial kingdom of heaven. The gospel course is either hard or easy, depending upon whether we love the Lord. If we do not love the Lord it may seem hard and the course may seem rugged. If we love the Lord and desire to keep his commandments, then his yoke is easy, and his burden is light. We can have peace and joy and satisfaction and solace and rest here and now in this life. We can have the guidance of the Holy Ghost, we can make our calling and election sure for eternity on the one premise of keeping the commandments of God.
Now
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
In the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Harold B. Lee
Harold B. Lee, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 52-58
Today as always, on these occasions, I seek interest in your silent prayers and for the sustaining power of my Heavenly Father.
PIONEER HERITAGE
Several weeks ago there appeared in our local newspaper, an account of an interview with an elderly statesman who seems to wield great influence today in American politics. This elderly statesman, in explaining the reason for his determination and zeal told of an interview or rather a statement his own father-now long since dead-had made to his four his four sons just before he died. This is what the father said:
America, with its government and constitution, is the greatest institution invented by the mind of man. If you let them touch a stick or stone of it, I will come back and haunt you.
As I thought of that statement, my mind went back to our ancestors who pioneered in this dispensation even a greater constitution than that of this American nation, even the constitution of the kingdom of God, which might be said to be another definition of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
During the centennial year, the year just passed, we were reminded in pageant, in sermon, and in song, of our pioneers who came here and settled in these western valleys. We were reminded of their virtues, their accomplishments, and of the underlying principles that made them willing to leave all that they possessed, and even willing to sacrifice their lives, if need be to uphold and to maintain. As I remembered that and thought of the statement of this aged American patriot, I wondered if we might not say:
The Lord help us to keep in memory our ancestors that we might be willing to uphold and sustain by our lives and all that we possess, that for which they gave so much.
THE PRINCIPLE OF GATHERING
If we thought deeply about the events of the centennial year, perhaps we were stirred by the realization that we were but commemorating, the operation of a principle that is as old as the human family, a principle which has been invoked by the command of the Lord in every gospel dispensation. I refer to the principle of gathering.
The first reference we have, in the revelations, to gatherings of the Lord's faithful people was that spoken of when Adam gathered together his seven righteous sons, from Seth to Methuselah and all of their posterity, in the valley of Adam-ondi-ahman, and there he gave them his last blessing and prepared them for the appearance of the Lord which they received at that time.
I have thought it more than mere coincidence that one of the first martyrs in this dispensation, David W. Patten, a member of the Twelve Apostles, lost his life near the valley of Adam-ondi-ahman, that same valley in which Adam had gathered his posterity, which the Lord had revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith was near Wight's Ferry, at a place called Spring Hill, Dayless County, Missouri. To me it has also been significant that this martyrdom resulted directly from the obedience of the Latter-day Saints to the commands that had been given to them to gather in certain places as members of the newly restored Church.
It was the lament of the Master, just before his crucifixion:
O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!.
Apparently the Master was referring to the repeated revelations he had given to the prophets from Adam down to his time, in which he had told of not only the scattering of the children of Israel, but also of a subsequent gathering. To Jeremiah he had promised,
... I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you unto Zion:
And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
To Ezekiel he said:
And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out.
And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face.
To the prophets Isaiah and Micah, he told of the time when,
... the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
An apt description of those who would be gathered thus, by command of the Lord, is given in the parable of the Master, when he said that:
... the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind.
Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.
THE GATHERING IN THIS DISPENSATION
The first command to gather, in this dispensation, was within six months after the Church was organized. The Prophet Joseph Smith, in announcing this revelation, made this significant declaration as recorded in the History of the Church:
... We soon found that Satan had been lying in wait to deceive, and seeking whom he might devour.
The meaning of that revelation and the purpose of it all was explained in these words:
... and ye are called to bring to pass the gathering of mine elect; for mine elect hear my voice and harden not their hearts;
Wherefore the decree hath gone forth from the Father that they shall be gathered in unto one place upon the face of this land, to prepare their hearts and to be prepared in all things against the day when tribulation and desolation are sent forth upon the wicked.
For the hour is nigh and the day soon at hand when the earth is ripe; and all the proud and they that do wickedly shall be as stubble; and I will burn them up saith the Lord of Hosts, that wickedness shall not be upon the earth.
Three years later the Lord again spoke upon this subject:
... It is my will, that all they who call on my name, and worship me according to mine everlasting gospel, should gather together, and stand in holy places.
Thus, the Lord has said plainly to his Saints that the gathering was to prepare their hearts "according to the everlasting gospel," and to be prepared in all things "by standing in holy places."
Six years after the Church was organized, the keys of gathering were committed to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple. The record of that marvelous restoration is given in these words:
After this vision closed, the heavens were again opened unto us; and Moses appeared before us, and committed unto us the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north.
The spirit of gathering has been with the Church from the days of that restoration. Those who are of the blood of Israel, have a righteous desire after they are baptized, to gather together with the body of the Saints at the designated place. This, we have come to recognize, is but the breath of God upon those who are converted turning them to the promises made to their fathers.
PLACES OF GATHERING
But the designation of gathering places is qualified in another revelation by the Lord to which I would desire to call your attention. After designating certain places in that day where the Saints were to gather, the Lord said this:
Until the day cometh when there is found no more room for them; and then I have other places which I will appoint unto them.
Thus, clearly, the Lord has placed the responsibility for directing the work of gathering in the hands of the leaders of the Church to whom he will reveal his will where and when such gatherings would take place in the future. It would be well-before the frightening events concerning the fulfilment of all God's promises and predictions are upon us, that the Saints in every land prepare themselves and look forward to the instruction that shall come to them from the First Presidency of this Church as to where they shall be gathered and not be disturbed in their feelings until such instruction is given to them as it is revealed by the Lord to the proper authority.
REFUGE FROM THE STORM
Again, in 1838, the Lord gave a further reason for the gathering:
Verily I say unto you all: Arise and shine forth, that thy light may be a standard for the nations;
And that the gathering together upon the land of Zion, and upon her stakes, may be for defense, and for a refuge from the storm, and from wrath when it shall be poured out without mixture upon the whole earth. Why was this to be called a "place of refuge" and a "place of safety"?. Said the Lord in another revelation,
... the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come unto it, and it shall be called Zion.
The time when these things shall be would be as the Lord said, when:
... the wicked shall slay the wicked, and fear shall come upon every man;
And the saints also shall hardly escape; nevertheless, I, the Lord, am with them, and will come down in heaven from the presence of my Father and consume the wicked with unquenchable fire.
Another and further reason for the gathering is given us with this revelation:
Wherefore, seeing that I, the Lord, have decreed all these things upon the face of the earth, I will that my saints should be assembled upon the land of Zion;
And that every man should take righteousness in his hands and faithfulness upon his loins, and lift a warning voice unto the inhabitants of the earth; and declare both by word and by flight that desolation shall come upon the wicked.
As we sit here today, we should be mindful of the fact that we are those of whom these revelations have spoken. We are those who have been gathered from out of spiritual Babylon, or perhaps we represent the second or third or even the fourth or fifth generation of those who heeded the call and felt the spirit of gathering. Just as was the case in the days of the Prophet Joseph Smith, so in our day the leaders of the Church have told us that "Satan has been lying in wait to deceive, and seeking whom he might devour"
WARNING OF DANGERS
As I have thought about these things, I have been sobered by the realization that during my lifetime three presidents of this Church have spoken upon those dangers which are within the Church which are seeking to destroy us and to defeat the purpose of our gathering.
It was President Joseph F. Smith who said:
There are at least three dangers that threaten the Church within, and the authorities need to awaken to the fact that the people should be warned unceasingly against them. As I see these, they are flattery of prominent men in the world, false educational ideas, and sexual impurity.
But the third subject mentioned, personal purity, is perhaps of greater importance than either of the other two. We believe in one standard of morality for men and women. If purity of life is neglected, all other dangers set in upon us like the rivers of waters when the flood gates are opened.
It was President Grant during his declining years, who repeatedly-in all our conferences and in all his addresses-urged upon the Latter-day Saints to keep God's commandments, time and again impressing upon us that there was no greater mission for him to perform, as the President of the Church, than to so warn the Latter-day Saints. By divine inspiration, he directed a movement to build brotherhood in this day, designed to foster the greatest security possible in this material world. Much has been done to bring about the full purposes of the Church welfare program, before it is too late, in order to provide that "defense" and that
... refuge from the storm, and from wrath when it will be poured out without mixture upon the whole earth.
President George Albert Smith, who presides over us today, has repeatedly counseled the Authorities of the Church and in his public addresses has spoken of the dangers that are confronting the homes of our people today-the carelessness of marriage out of the Church and out of the temple, the lack of the sanctity of marriage, and a lack of an understanding of the sanctity of the marriage covenant; the increase of divorce among us, the failure to hold sacred the covenants we have made in the House of the Lord. Well might we remember the warning of the Lord to John, the Revelator, when he said:
Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
As I think of the counsel of these, our leaders, that has been given us from time to time, I have been reminded of a story told of a president of one of our great universities in Nova Scotia who called his representatives to him and sent them out to teach a great principle to the humble fishermen of that land. His parting counsel to them was: "If you want to educate a man, you have to let him see a ghost."
DEFENSE AGAINST EVILS
May the Latter-day Saints be haunted, if it need be, by the memory of those who pioneered the work of gathering in this dispensation, and be haunted by the memory of the teachings and work of Adam and Moses; of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and others of the prophets and the purposes for which the gospel has been restored, which the Lord told us in his preface to the revelations was because he knew the calamities which were about to come forth upon the children of men.
May we, as a people, see the "ghost" of our possibilities and that which we might be able to accomplish by our own strength and ability to stir us up to deeds of righteousness and to build a greater brotherhood to provide that defense against the evils which threaten to destroy our homes today.
May we do all this in preparation for the coming of the Son of Man which, I pray God, may not be long delayed. God speed us in that preparation while it is yet day and increase within us the testimony of the divinity of the work in which we are engaged. And as we may live in the day when the terrors and trials and struggles, all foretold by the prophets, come to pass when "fear shall be upon every man" and when it shall seem that there is no place safe upon the earth, may the Latter-day Saints who are living the commandments of God be comforted again by those words with which the Master has comforted those who have lived before us in similar times. "Be humble, and the Lord will take you by the hand, as it were, and give you answer to your prayers". "Be still, and know that I am God". For I bear you solemn witness that I know these things told by the prophets are true. I know that those who have counseled us in our day of the dangers that are before us have spoken as the prophets of the Living God and I bear you this testimony humbly, in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph F. Merrill
Joseph F. Merrill, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 70-75
Brethren and sisters, including radio listeners:
A year ago from this pulpit I spoke to the theme of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, indicating that, aside from Jesus Christ, I looked upon him as second in greatness to no other religious teacher that ever lived And judged by the same standard used in judging greatness in men-by his works-as with Shakespeare, Washington, Lincoln, Einstein, etc. I still believe my view of him is correct and that he is the greatest man America ever produced. Hence I am convinced that he is deserving of a careful, thorough, and honest study by every person interested in his personal well-being. According to first-class evidence, Joseph Smith did actually, really see and hear the Father and the Son, two highly glorified beings, they seemed to him, in whose image man himself is made. If this is not a fact, he was the greatest religious fraud this world has ever seen. Between these two positions-prophet or fraud-there is no middle ground, or compromise. This is a strong statement, I admit, but certainly a correct one. Which of these two positions is the right one? If the first one is right, then certainly Joseph Smith's teachings should be studied by every human being qualified to study, for Joseph was God-taught and made available to the modern world the knowledge that every person must have, and by which he must live, if he would return from mortality to the celestial kingdom, the realm where God personally lives.
LORD'S LAW OF HEALTH
With this brief introduction, I wish to talk for a few minutes on a phase of one of Joseph Smith's revelations, commonly spoken of as the Lord's Law of Health, or otherwise known as the Word of Wisdom.
But why the Word of Wisdom as a part of religion? someone may ask. In the language of the document itself the Word of Wisdom shows:
... forth the order and will of God in the temporal salvation of all saints in the last days-
And those:
... who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones.
And health is an important factor in the work of serving God and man.
The apostle Paul asked,
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
Now, in order that health may be maintained, it is common knowledge that the laws of health must be observed. Scientists have long taught that law is universal throughout material realms. With this thought in mind the poet wrote of the "music of the spheres." The Prophet Joseph Smith taught the universality of spiritual laws when he wrote:
There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-
And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.
All over the Church the belief is general that the Word of Wisdom is practically observed if the individual abstains from the use of tea, coffee, liquor, and tobacco. But a careful reading of the revelation shows this belief to be erroneous. There is much more to the document than abstention from the use of narcotics. Among the statements are these:
Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving.
Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly;
And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.
IMPORTANCE OF BALANCED DIET
It is to flesh as an article in human diet that I wish to direct your attention. It is needless to confess that I am not an authority in the field of nutrition. So I hope you will tolerate my quoting freely from writings of men generally accepted as authorities. These authorities say that generally food has more to do with health than any other factor affecting health. But that food may do its most for our health we must have a balanced diet, made up of five essential substances in the right proportions-these substances being proteins, fats, carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins.
QUOTATIONS FROM "HOW TO LIVE"
In How To Live, perhaps the most widely read and authoritative book in English for the layman on the subject of personal hygiene and published under the auspices of the Life Extension Institute, Inc., we find a great fund of reliable information given in simple language by the authors, Professor Irving Fisher of Yale University and Dr. Eugene Lyman Fisk, medical director of the Life Extension Institute, Inc. The book was first published in 1915 under the auspices of the board of directors of the institute, of which Judge William Howard Taft was chairman and writer of the forewords to the first and the fifteenth editions. My citations will be from the fifth printing of the eighteenth edition, 1929.
As just stated, the essential foods are proteins, fats, carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins. Protein is the tissue-building constituent of foods. It is found in meat, eggs, fowls, milk, peas, beans, grains, especially wheat, most vegetables, fruits, etc. Lean meat and the white of eggs are particularly high in protein. The book, How To Live, page 42, says:
They consist entirely of protein and water; also most ordinary foods contain more or less protein.
And the book goes on to say:
... foods should be so selected as to give to the ration the right amount of protein, or repair-foods, on the one hand, and of fats and carbohydrates, or fuel-foods, on the other.
According to what are regarded as the best investigations, the right proportion of protein is generally about 10 percent of the total number of heat units consumed. This means 10 percent of the total nutriment, that is ten calories of protein out of every one hundred calories of food.
And further on the books says:
... a chief and common error of diet consists of using too much protein, two or more times too much.
And on page 47, we read:
At a meeting of the Inter-Allied Council of Physiologists during the World War I, it was decided that meat was not a physiological necessity-since the proteins of meat can be replaced by those contained in milk, cheese and eggs-as well as by the proteins of vegetable origin.
And why is too much protein injurious? On page 47, we read:
When protein is taken in great excess of the body's need, as is usually the case in the diet of Americans, added work is given the liver and kidneys, the circulation is over-stimulated and the "factor of safety" of these organs is exceeded
And on page 68 is the following:
Before leaving the subject of intestinal poisoning, we may here again mention the importance of avoiding the poisoning that comes from too much protein
Now please give particular attention to the following, found on page 250:
Even the most ardent advocates of a meat diet cannot produce a scientific evidence to show that intestinal putrefaction to a high degree due to the presence of meat is in any way beneficial to the organism; hence, in seeking the best form of diet, meat as a source of protein may well be excluded and the requisite protein secured from milk, nuts, cereals, and vegetables. If in the average diet a pint of milk daily is substituted for whatever meat portions have theretofore been taken, there would be no danger of protein lack.
And on the following page is found:
We have quoted Hubner, one of the world's foremost authorities in hygiene, as condemning the very popular idea that meat is very "strengthening." Actual experiments on this point have shown exactly the opposite to be the case.
This statement will surprise most people. But the book continues:
Meat eating and a high-protein diet, instead of increasing one's endurance, have been shown, like alcohol, actually to reduce it.
Then experiments conducted at Yale University by Professor Fisher are described, after which the book continues:
The experiments furnished a severe test of the claims of the flesh-abstainers. Two comparisons were planned: one between flesh-eating athletes and flesh-abstaining athletes, and the other between flesh-eating athletes and flesh-abstaining sedentary workers. The results would indicate that the users of low-protein and the nonflesh dietaries have far greater endurance than those who are accustomed to the ordinary American diet.
Now let me read to you a few words from the Word of Wisdom, given by the Prophet Joseph Smith to the world long before science knew any of the facts that I have just read to you from How to Live. As a promise for observing the Word of Wisdom the revelation says:
And all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones...
And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint.
Do the Yale experiments and the statements read from How To Live confirm or discredit the teaching of the Word of Wisdom relative to the eating of meat? How do you account for the fact that Joseph Smith could give these truths to the world many years before science knew about them?
"HEALTH AND EFFICIENCY"
Now I wish to quote from Health and Efficiency, a book written for schools by Professor M. V. O'Shea of the University of Wisconsin and Dr. J. H. Kellogg, superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, and published by the Macmillan Company in 1927. I believe anyone could read this little book on hygiene with a great deal of profit. From the chapter on "Food and Efficiency" I condense the following statements:
Proteins are body-building materials. They may also be used by the body as fuel, but this occurs only in case of necessity. When heat producing foods-fats and carbohydrates-are burned up proteins are used for fuel. So if the body does not need the protein for repairs it will use it, but it is a bad form of fuel, for it leaves behind what might be called clinkers. When fats and carbohydrates are consumed, they leave no "ashes." With protein foods the story is quite different. These, when formed, yield substances that are not ready for elimination by the kidneys until they have been chemically changed by the liver. These products are poisonous and circulating through the body are present in excess in the blood of heavy meat eaters. The result is that the liver and kidneys are much overworked and thus wear out prematurely
Again:
Of the food eaten, a small portion remains behind in the intestine undigested. This is particularly true of protein food, the unused residue of which is usually much greater than that of the carbohydrates and fats. When more protein is eaten than needed some of it remains in the large intestine until it is discharged. The warmth of the body causes it to putrefy.
It is evident, then, that if one's diet is such that a considerable amount of undigested meat is left to decay in the colon, harmful poisons will be absorbed in the blood and will do harm to the liver, kidneys, blood vessels, and the other tissues.
Dr. Newburgh, a University of Michigan professor, as a result of his researches, has concluded that an excess of protein in the diet resulting from heavy meat eating, is one of the causes of the great increase in recent years of diseases of the kidneys, heart, and blood vessels.
The foods to be used most sparingly are those which contain a great excess of protein, such as meat, eggs, cheese, and beans. On this account, there are many authorities who think that it would be safer to discard the use of meat altogether than to continue to use it so freely as many Americans are doing.
And then the book quotes Dr. McCollum of Johns Hopkins University, an eminent authority on nutrition as follows:
I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that a vegetarian diet, supplemented with fairly liberal amounts of milk is the most satisfactory type of diet a man can take.
Next, Professor Chittenden of Yale University is quoted:
With vegetables of all kinds and milk, bread, and butter, you have at your command all the necessary resources for a nutritious diet.
Then the book speaks about a bulletin by the United States Department of Agriculture in which we are told that
... meat may be omitted from the diet altogether, for it has been determined that all necessary protein and energy may be obtained from other materials.
As a final quotation from the book Health and Efficiency I give the following:
Energy can be gotten from food only after it has become part of a living cell. The excess protein is never assimilated: it never becomes an actual part of the body; it is burned to get rid of it, just as rubbish is. Even the heat produced is extra heat which the body does not need and so is carried off by an increase in the insensible perspiration. Under conditions of extreme exposure to cold the heat might be of service. On the other hand, in case of fever, and in hot weather, the heat excess induced by ton much protein may do great harm.
MEATS TO BE USED SPARINGLY
Now I read again the words of the revelation to the Prophet:
....they are to be used sparingly; And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.
Latter-day Saints, why should you complain of the scarcity or high price of flesh foods? Have you not known that in any case you should eat them sparingly? The Lord told you so. I have quoted from some of the highest authorities in the world to the effect that they are not essential to your physical well-being. But Americans did not know this until God revealed it to them through his Prophet, Joseph Smith.
And now I sum up. Proteins are the building materials of the body, the needed amount of which is largely determined by age and the kind of physical activity: but for the average adult it is about 10 percent of food intake. More than this should be avoided. Meat is the richest source of proteins but sizable amounts are found in the excellent foods-eggs, milk, cheese, beans, nuts, wheat, and more or less in other cereals, vegetables, and fruits. Americans eat too much meat, a non-essential in human diet, because all the proteins needed are available in the other foods just named.
May the Lord help us to accept and live by every word he gives to us by the mouths of his holy prophets, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Marion G. Romney
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 76-79
My beloved brothers and sisters, I have here in this book a talk upon which I have spent many hours in thought and preparation. I had intended to give it at this conference. If I had spoken before President David O. McKay, I would have talked to you about the necessity of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as an effective means of bringing peace to the world. He has given my talk, body and soul, and in a much better way than I could have given it. I shall therefore not talk on that subject, but I will ask each of you, if you will, to offer a silent prayer in your heart for me, and for you, too-because you probably will stay here and listen to me-that I may have the Spirit of the Lord while I speak to you wholly extemporaneously.
PERSONAL TESTIMONY
I have something for you which no other person in this world can give to you. It is my personal testimony. You have your testimony, and you can give that, but I have mine, and while you are not bound by my testimony, I am bound by it, and I would like to bear it to you if the Lord will give me strength.
FAITH IN GOD
I know that God lives. The first article of our faith begins, as I recall it, "We believe in God, the Eternal Father". I believe in him as a personal being. I do not think he is an immaterial substance. I do not think that, as a person he fills the immensity of space and at the same time is so small that he can dwell in my heart. I believe that his spirit can be in my heart, but I believe that God is my Father, a person. I believe with all my soul that he appeared personally with the Savior to the Prophet Joseph Smith in the grove and talked to him. At least he introduced the Savior to the boy Prophet in that great revelation and vision which opened this last dispensation. I believe he is the Father of my spirit and the Father of your spirit. I believe we were born to him and to our mother in heaven. I do not know the process, but I do know how we are born to our fathers and mothers in this earth and that is the way I think about it. I feel that there is a similar relationship between him and me that I feel toward my earthly father, or that I did feel toward him when he was here. I have always thought about God in this way. I believe I was born to him as a spirit child in the spirit world before I was born here, and what I say about myself-and you will pardon the personal reference-I feel about every other human soul that lives in the earth. I believe we all lived with him before we came here.
DIVINE MISSION OF JESUS CHRIST
I likewise believe in the Lord, Jesus Christ. With all my soul I believe in him, and I put my hope of peace in this life and of exaltation and happiness in the life to come in the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe he was a Son of God in the same sense that we were sons and daughters of God in the spirit, and I believe that he was and is the Son of God in the flesh. I do not believe that Joseph was the father of Jesus Christ, although I do believe that he was a good and great man. I believe that Mary was the mother of Jesus as my mother was my mother, and I believe that the father of Jesus Christ in the flesh was Elohim, my Eternal and Heavenly Father.
I believe that Jesus came into the world with a very definite mission. I do not regard him merely as a great teacher nor as a profound philosopher, nor do I merely profess to believe in him, as is the case with many so-called Christian people of the day. President Grant used to illustrate their lack of faith in Him by telling of the experience of Senator Beveridge, who among several hundred eminent ministers of popular churches of the day, whom he interviewed and interrogated, failed to find a single one who could unequivocally say that he believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of the Living God, sent by him to save the world. I believe that, with all my soul I believe it, and I believe that in Gethsemane and on the cross Jesus suffered for the sins of all men, good and bad, that they might be resurrected from the dead and have immortal life. I believe that through his atonement, Jesus paid for the sins of every human soul who has lived or will live upon the earth, upon condition of repentance and acceptance of the gospel. I believe that by living the gospel we may be washed clean through his atoning blood and come back into the presence of God, our Eternal Father, when life is over; and live with him eternally in his celestial presence.
These things are realities to me. I do not believe the past experience of my own life any more than I believe these great truths.
THE HOLY GHOST
I believe in the gift of the Holy Ghost. On one occasion the Prophet Joseph Smith was in Washington talking to one of the presidents of the United States, I believe it was President Van Buren. I often think of that picture. There sat the president of what in my judgment is the greatest nation in the world and with him, although he was unknown, sat a man who was infinitely greater than the president of the United States, the Prophet of the Living God, the man whom God had reserved in the spirit world to come to earth in these latter-days to be the instrument through whom God would restore the everlasting gospel in this last dispensation. "Well," said President Van Buren to the Prophet, "What is the difference between you and the rest of the Christian world?" The Prophet answered in one sentence, "We have the Holy Ghost."
I believe that the Holy Ghost is the third member of the grand council that presides over the destinies of this world. I believe he is a person, because when Jesus spoke of him he said,
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.
I believe he is not a person with a physical body of bone and flesh, but a spirit person, and I suppose if I should see him he would look something like the Savior looked to the brother of Jared when he appeared to him on the Mount. When Jared's brother looked upon him, he appeared to be a personal being as we appear, as men appear. Jesus explained to him that what he was looking upon was the body of his Spirit. Now I am not saying this is the doctrine of the Church. It is, however, the only way I can think about a spirit person, so I think about the Holy Ghost in this way. I believe his influence and his power are capable of spreading out into the hearts of all people, as many as will accept the gospel and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
When I was made a member of the Church, Elder George Teasdale, one of the Council of the Twelve, confirmed me. He laid his hands upon my head and confirmed me a member of the Church and said in words about like this, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." All of us who are members of the Church have had that same gift given to us. He did not tell the Holy Ghost to come to me; he told me to receive him. I believe that if I live the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost will come to me and guide me into all truth. Every one of us can be led and directed by this third member of the Godhead. The Prophet Joseph Smith said that his whole purpose was to bring light and intelligence and truth to the minds of men and women, and they cannot be deceived as long as they have his spirit with them.
Now, I believe that the gospel which we have accepted is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I do not think that President Smith, as much as I admire and love him, is the head of this Church. I think it is the Church of Jesus Christ, and I believe he directs its affairs.
CHURCH GUIDED BY REVELATION
My testimony of revelation does not end with the revelations of Joseph Smith. I believe that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F. Smith, and Heber J. Grant were led, guided and directed by direct revelation. I believe that President George Albert Smith is now guided in the affairs of the present day by the revelations which come from Jesus Christ directly and through the Holy Ghost. I do not believe revelation has ceased. If I did, I would not spend my time doing what I am doing. I believe that these prophets of God now seated on this stand live by revelation. I believe that when a man is chosen in the Council of the Twelve, he is chosen by revelation through the mind of President George Albert Smith, and I believe that when a man becomes President of this Church it is not just because he has lived a long time. It is because God Almighty wants him to lead this Church in the earth.
What these men say I follow, not because I think they are almighty as individual men, but because I think they live true and pure lives and through them God gives the direction he wants his Church to have. I believe that I would be a very unwise man to put the little information and knowledge I have above the vision of the Almighty which guides these men.
I believe this is the Church of God. I believe that it will yet save whatever of the world is saved. I believe we have the commission to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to all the world. God help us that we may keep this testimony burning in our hearts and that we may do as he would have us do and live so that when life is over we will have brought ourselves within reach of the atoning blood of Jesus Christ and enjoy his rest forever, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Levi Edgar Young
Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 79-82
In speaking to you at this time let me recall to you the lesson contained in the story of Jonah as given by Dr. A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard University.
FAILURE TO SEE ARIGHT
Temptations beset every one of us in every walk of life. By temptations I mean failures to see aright. Jonah's was the case of a man who in success lost sight of the real object of his work. He failed to see the right path. He did no harm because God disposed otherwise; but if he could have had his way, he would have destroyed all the people of Nineveh, and thought he was doing right. Yet, had he stopped to ask himself seriously what was the right of his mission, his own answer would certainly have been that it was to bring the people of Nineveh to repentance. His neglect to ask himself that question was the cause of his error. He lost sight of his object, not because he could not see it, but because he did not try to.
Men have good intentions; they mean well: but they do not act well. They do not continually ask themselves, "In what does my best consist?" They pursue lesser aims, not because they prefer them, but because in the press and strain of events, in the cares of life, they become absorbed in immediate objects and forget the higher ones. Then, too, many of our young men do not realize the importance of long, hard work. They have not disciplined their minds to persevere in diligence and steadfastness. They have not learned how to endure strenuous, conscientious work; how to wrestle and work through delays, through disappointments, and failures, through the darkness till the breaking of the day. Let us be sure we never become busy calling attention to our own virtues. Never let us thirst for praise but do right for right's sake. Above all, avoid that indifference, that apathy, that is glad to wrap itself under the cloak of piety, and be self-satisfied, self-righteous. The knowledge that is really the crown of life, is that we may exercise choice, for we have our free agency. Let us never forget that the divine spark is in every man, in him alone, and that he is free to disregard it or to heed it, and to come closer to God by showing his eagerness to work with him and for him.
CONFORMITY TO IDEALS
The spectacle offered by humanity today is a deeply sad one. The gestures of faith, constant attendance at Church, outward piety, signify nothing if man does not conform his acts and his life to the ideals of the teachings of Christ. Men must be made to understand that the important thing is to develop what is within them, to purify themselves, to better themselves, to come closer to the perfect ideal which Jesus taught. He has shown us the way. The path is straight before us. We must love God; we must love our neighbor; we must do unto others as we would have them do unto us. We must pray that the kingdom of God may come to the earth as it is in heaven. The sincere desire of men to progress morally and spiritually leads to the erection of an inside temple, without which the outward manifestation of faith becomes useless. In I Corinthians, we read:
... the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
And we read in II Corinthians:
... where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
HUMAN DESTINY
Says Le Comte du Nuoy in his Human Destiny:
There is only one way to attain peace. First, to reestablish the cult of historic peace, by teaching the youth of the entire world with the same substance, thus establishing a basis for mutual understanding. This is a preliminary step and it can be taken immediately. Next, to try to establish the cult of individual human destiny, and to improve man by stifling wrong instincts. This will be the work of centuries to come. It is only by direct action on youth that a better society can be successfully molded. All so-called philosophical and political principles must be replaced by Christian principles, the only ones based on liberty and the respect of human destiny.
And then Le Comte du Nuoy goes on to say that God gave men liberty and conscience, and the whole nobility of man is derived from the proper exercise of this liberty. The time has come for nations as well as individuals to know what they want. If civilized nations want peace, they must understand the basic elements of the problems Peace must be established by creating within man a spiritual consciousness and not by erecting external structures. The source of all wars lies in us;* the source of peace will come when we begin to teach the youth of the world that peace depends on the individual development of man from within, on the deep penetration of the virtues of the Holy Scriptures, on the comprehension of human dignity.
WORLD SUFFERS FROM DISTRUST
All nations of the world believe in the Golden Rule, and all Christians are agreed to the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ. These are the fundamental doctrines to be taught to the children of the world, for nothing permanent is built that is not the consequence of a deep previous transformation in the individual soul. We must have greater faith in mankind, and the divinity of man should be made known to children from the time they can walk on up to manhood or womanhood. It is from distrust that the world is suffering. We must be more determined than ever before to fulfil the great task expected of us; to make ourselves better; to make others better; to make this a better world to live in and to bring mankind nearer to God-to have peace in our hearts and love for all men.
SALVATION FOUND IN RELIGION
We believe that the only salvation for mankind will be found in religion, in the true and everlasting gospel. Never in its two thousand years has Christianity had a more urgent call and a nobler opportunity to fulfil its obligations as the comforter and guide of humanity.
I believe that faith and works must be taught and developed in our children. By works, I mean that there is a meaning to intellectual effort and that it plays an important part in our spiritual stature. Else why should the activity of divine intelligence, the power to think and reason, have been created? Intellectual effort is not condemned in the search for spiritual truth, for our spiritual growth, our religion have their roots in the deepest aspirations of man.
How deeply divine are the words of Joseph Smith when he said:
The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.
Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.
These words inspired the Prophet Joseph to establish in his day schools of learning, and even a university. He advocated the study of the ancient classics, of all the learning of the world. No other American ever advocated as he did, for his wisdom and understanding came from the works of God.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
We may further express this idea by saying that all the intellectual acquisitions, all the facilities which society puts at the disposal of man-schools, universities, libraries, laboratories, all things offered by religion, all the occasions given him to develop his own aptitude, his work, his leisure, all must be considered by him as tools destined to improve his personality, his moral self, and to make him feel the divine purpose of God. If the moral law and true religion dominate the world today, mankind will be on the right road to the winning of peace and happiness for humanity.
Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.
Elder Ezra Taft Benson
Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 82-87
I pray for the inspiration of the Lord as I address you for the next few moments. I have been thrilled with the testimonies that have been borne in this conference. I love this work in which we are engaged.
I am grateful, my brethren and sisters, for this land in which we live. I never return from foreign shores but what I have a feeling of gratitude for the prophetic mission of America. I love Zion, both as a place and as a condition.
THE FREEDOM TRAIN
During the last few weeks there has traveled from one end of the country to the other a so-called Freedom Train, the purpose of which has been to direct our attention and focus our interest upon our heritage and blessings as American citizens, and to call our attention to those foundation principles upon which this great country has been established as a Christian nation.
It has been an attempt to call to our attention sacred documents which mark the origin and development of our liberties and to reawaken in us an appreciation of the American way of life. We have had called to our notice important things that we must do if we are to continue to enjoy and pass on to coming generations the priceless blessings which are ours. Embodied in these sacred documents are eternal principles-God given-and of the utmost importance to all of us.
Now, while the world is literally in a mess, is a good time to take stock. We are inclined so much to take our blessings for granted. We are five generations-170 years-removed from the founding of this great nation.
We are living in a critical period of the world's history. We note, on every side, the spread of coercive systems, the increased power of dictators, and the influence of state control and its power over the individual. Recently, we have witnessed nations which have succumbed to the onslaught of these coercive systems. I am sure it has caused deep reflection upon the part of all of us who enjoy the blessings of freedom in this blessed land of America.
MISSION OF AMERICA
I am grateful for the prophetic mission of this nation as it has been proclaimed by prophets, ancient and modern. I have before me, this morning, some of those prophecies made by Book of Mormon prophets which I should like to refer to briefly.
I have always been grateful that the Lord saw fit to hold this nation, as it were, in the hollow of his hand in preparation for its great mission as the cradle of liberty and the cradle for the Church and kingdom of God that was to be established, and now has been established, in this the last dispensation.
The prophet of the Jaredite colony, Mahonri Moriancumer, commonly referred to as the brother of Jared, spoke of this land as a choice land, a land choice above all other lands. He indicated that those people who live here should worship the God of this land if they were to enjoy the blessings of freedom and liberty and be free from bondage. Otherwise, if they failed, they were to be swept off. And he proclaimed that this is the everlasting decree of God.
Sixteen hundred years later the Prophet Nephi was privileged to see a large part of the history of the establishment of this great nation. He spoke in no uncertain terms regarding its mission. He told that the Spirit of the Lord came down and wrought upon a man upon foreign shores, and that he went forth and discovered this land. He also saw other gentiles follow to these shores under the influence of that same Spirit. And he saw that the Spirit of the Lord was here and that multitudes of people came to these shores and that God prospered them because they humbled themselves before him; that he was with them and that his power was here, and that during times of struggle and conflict-referring to the Revolutionary War-that the Lord was with them and sustained them and bore them off victorious. He further saw that this land was consecrated to those whom the Lord should bring and who would serve him and keep his commandments; that it should be a land of liberty; that it should never be brought down into captivity unless it be because of the iniquity of the people.
The Lord promised through Nephi that the power of God would be with the gentiles whom he should bring to this land and that the wrath of God would be "upon all those that were gathered against them to battle".
Later, after the colony, which came to be called Nephites, arrived on the western hemisphere, their prophet-leader Lehi declared:
Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever.
The Prophet Jacob, a brother of Nephi, twenty-five years later was privileged also to see into the future regarding this land and to proclaim that God would fortify the land against other nations; that he that fought against Zion would perish; that no king would ever be raised on these shores; that God would forever here be a light unto the people who accepted and listened to his words.
And so this great nation, my brothers and sisters, has come into being under the inspiration of the Almighty to accomplish his purposes. Through modern revelation we have had made very plain to us something of the mission of America and the establishment of our national Constitution in this dispensation.
THE CONSTITUTION A GLORIOUS STANDARD
During the dark days of Missouri when the Saints were being persecuted and driven, and their lives threatened, and their property taken from them, the Lord commanded the Saints, through the Prophet Joseph, to continue to importune for redress. He said:
According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established.... for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles.
He proclaimed, at that time, that it is not right for men to be in bondage one to another. Then he said:
And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.
Earlier, the Lord had said:
... verily I say unto you, my law shall be kept on this land.... Let no man break the laws of the land.
He commanded the people to be subject to the powers that existed.
In the Kirtland Temple, in that glorious dedicatory prayer which, according to the Prophet, was given by revelation, we find this significant verse:
Have mercy, O Lord, upon all the nations of the earth; have mercy upon the rulers of our land; may those principles, which were so honorably and nobly defended, namely, the Constitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever.
And so, every true Latter-day Saint has a deep love and respect for the Constitution of this land.
It is no wonder that the Prophet Joseph said-even though he knew he would suffer martyrdom in this land-"The Constitution of the United States is a glorious standard; it is founded in the wisdom of God. It is a heavenly banner."
Yet, according to his contemporaries, he foresaw the time when the destiny of the nation would be in danger and would hang as by a thread. Thank God he did not see the thread break. He also indicated the important part that this people should yet play in standing for the principles embodied in these sacred documents-the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
SPREAD OF COERCIVE SYSTEMS
We see abroad today on every hand, and to some degree in our own land, the spread of coercive man-made systems, which are contrary to eternal principles and which strike at the very foundation of all we hold dear as American citizens. These programs would take from us our liberty and freedom, and those opportunities for achievement which the Lord has promised for this nation in order that it might perpetuate those eternal principles so that a haven might be established here where men from all lands might come and enjoy the glorious blessings of freedom and liberty.
We see abroad in the world an increase in these coercive systems. We witness millions of God's children in bondage, who have had their blessings of liberty and freedom taken from them. Great numbers of liberty-loving people no longer have their free agency, no longer have freedom of choice such as we enjoy here. They no longer have the privilege of living where they wish, taking advantage of any educational or work opportunity, but on the contrary they are under the power of these coercive systems and have lost completely their God-given free agency.
The impelling force in the hearts of the founding fathers as also in the hearts of the pioneers of these valleys was their love of truth and virtue and their belief in the overruling power of Almighty God. They believed in the existence of eternal laws and principles in both the physical and spiritual realms. These, they believed, never change but are eternal and are embodied in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was their conviction that there are certain inalienable rights which are God-ordained and that no man, group of men, or nation has the right to withhold these blessings from others of their fellow men. To them, governments should be the servants and not the masters of the people. There was no place in their hearts for the principles of communism, fascism, or any other coercive system which endangers the enjoyment of freedom.
WARNING AGAINST COMMUNISM
One of the greatest conflicts ever known to man is rapidly spreading throughout the world. Eternal principles of right and wrong are involved. Communism, to my mind, is not merely an economic program. It is a total philosophy of life utterly atheistic and utterly opposed to all we hold dear as a great Christian nation. There should be no place in the heart of any true Latter-day Saint for the principles enunciated by the leaders of these coercive systems such as communism, fascism, or any form of state control.
I am pleased to quote to you a part of a statement which was made by the First Presidency of the Church in 1936, and reaffirmed later, regarding this problem of communism which has been referred to. It reads as follows:
Communism being thus hostile to loyal American citizenship and incompatible with true Church membership of necessity no loyal American citizen and no faithful Church member can be a communist.
We call upon all Church members completely to eschew communism. The safety of our divinely inspired Constitutional government and the welfare of our Church imperatively demand that communism shall have no place in America.
A MESSAGE OF PEACE
My brothers and sisters, our message to the world is, of course, first of all, a message of peace, a message of love, a message of the restored gospel. At the same time we stand firmly in support of the principles enunciated in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and every Latter-day Saint would defend to the last those eternal principles. We should measure every coercive system, every program that might be offered, by the standards of those principles set forth in these sacred documents. At the same time, as we face the spread of communism and the spread of other coercive forces in the world, we must keep our hearts free from hatred and remember ever that we should carry with us always a love for the children of men. We should renounce war and declare peace. The Lord has commanded us so to do. Our message is a message of peace. We are followers of the Prince of Peace, and we should rededicate our lives to the spread of truth and righteousness and the preservation of the liberty and freedom, which have been vouchsafed to us as American citizens and as Latter-day Saints.
SECURITY BASED ON RIGHTEOUSNESS
This nation rests upon a solid spiritual foundation, established by the Lord of heaven, and I hope and pray that the nation may go forward to accomplish its great mission. There is no security except upon the basis of righteousness. The prophets, ancient and modern, have so declared. And so may we value these spiritual principles and keep them close to our hearts and preserve this land as a land of liberty and freedom, that this, his Church, which has been established by the hand of the Lord, might go forward and accomplish its great mission.
I leave my testimony with you, my brothers and sisters, that God has again spoken from the heavens, that he has raised up a prophet as he said in the first section of the D&C;, in preparation for the calamites which will follow:
Wherefore, I the Lord, knowing the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the earth, called upon my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and spake unto him from heaven, and gave him commandments.
Zion is intended to be a place of refuge, a defense from the storm that is to come, from the wrath which shall be poured out upon the entire earth. God help us to be true and to live the gospel and do all in our power to promote righteousness in this great land. This is God's work, and I testify to you that God lives, that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the world, that Joseph Smith is his Prophet, raised up to establish this work in these, the last days, in preparation for the second coming of the Master. I leave this testimony with you in all humility, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Albert E. Bowen
Albert E. Bowen, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 89-94
One cannot read the record of Paul's missionary service without sensing his deep solicitude for those who through his ministry had been converted to the faith. As he moved from place to place, he contrived by one means or another to keep himself informed of the progress and failures of the bodies of the Church which he had previously established. To him they appeared to be as children who had not yet learned to walk alone, and he stood over them with outstretched hand to pick them up and steady them again when their childish unsteady feet stumbled and they were threatened with too disastrous a fall. Out of the gleanings of such information as filtered through to him, he constructed a picture of their doings and of the particular nature of the dangers which threatened their steadfastness.
LETTERS OF PAUL
Then he wrote them letters of instruction and of admonition and of promise, designed to fortify them in their beliefs, and to warn them of the disastrous consequences of unwholesome practices and to revive in their hearts the stirrings of a reborn hope-a pattern incidentally which might profitably be studied by all having responsibilities of leadership,
Among the objects of his special concern were the Philippian saints, He wrote them some letters, one of which contained this pregnant exhortation:
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
So great was Paul's yearning for them that it is easy to picture him as willing, even eager, if he could have done it, to have made their struggle for them that they might have been spared the disappointments and discouragements and heartaches incident to their climb upward to the high plane which his teaching had set for them. But that could not be done. They had to fight their own fight; they had to rise through their own endeavor. In short, they had to work out their own salvation, and he so told them.
That is the statement of a principle of such primary importance that it ought to be received as axiomatic.
WORK ESSENTIAL TO PROGRESS
Work is a condition precedent to progress and accomplishment in every realm of life. It is a commonplace, accepted by all without question, that the way to develop strength of muscle in the physical body is to exercise the muscles, to put them to work performing the function for which they were intended. By inaction, nonuse, they would grow flabby and finally lose the power to fill the duties of their natural offices. It is readily admitted, too, that mental vigor comes only when the powers of the mind are extended to the mastery of difficult tasks. We all have had the disappointing experience of seeing young men of apparently scintillating brilliance fail utterly of achieving the distinction which their natural endowment gave promise of, just as we have been happily surprised at the success gained by some of slower mentality. The difference lies in their differing degrees of industry and endurance. The tenacious, plodding mind has often outrun the quick and apparently more alert one simply because the possessor of the former has been willing to submit himself to the rigid discipline of weary hours of toil which the latter would not endure. Almost we might, it seems to me, lay it down as a working rule that achievement is in proportion to the amount of intelligent effort one is willing to put into an enterprise.
SPIRITUALITY DEVELOPS THROUGH PRACTICE
Strangely enough, while the truth of these observations is readily admitted in relation to physical and mental development, there seem to be relatively few who recognize their equal applicability to what is spoken of as the spiritual realm. Taking people by and large, it would seem that an overwhelmingly preponderant number of them, while recognizing fully that intellectual growth can come only through unremitting toil, and that the development of physical skill can come only through persistent effort, yet somehow, when their religious or spiritual lives are concerned, they act as if a different rule governs. The attitude seems to be that religion is a placid, quiescent thing imposing no dynamic demand, and whose details can be put into the hands of some chosen class to take care of, who relay to the masses the essentials in the way of formulas, admonitions, or exhortations. What is spoken of as spirituality seems not to be thought of as being susceptible of development through practice. By some occult process it is supposed to bloom without cultivation and bear fruit without tending.
I find no warrant anywhere for such an assumption. If one aspires to fashion wood, or metal, or stone into houses, or cathedrals, or temples, or into some more delicate form of beauty, he must develop the skill for his craft through painstaking toil and endeavor. If he would paint a sunset, or coax music out of the harp or lyre, he must cultivate the artistry to do it by interminable practice with color and brush or instrument. It makes no difference how richly he may be endowed by nature with talents of craftsmanship or artistry if he lets those talents lie unused or uncultivated, he will never arrive at the state of excellence in craftsmanship or art. Howsoever lavishly one may be gifted with the qualities of mind that would fit him to be a great mathematician, or chemist, or physicist, or biologist, or historian, he never can become either except at the price of grueling struggle directed with intelligence to the desired end. That is the inexorable law of life. It may neither be escaped nor circumvented. The old copybook maxim was: "There is no excellence without labor." That must remain forever true. It is the uncompromising law of this world.
EVERYTHING HAS ITS PRICE
Everything has its price, and, if obtained, the price must be paid. No one ever gets anything for nothing. People sometimes flatter themselves that they do, but they are deceiving themselves. They always pay in one coin or another. It may be in the coin of the realm, or may be in the forfeiture of a degree of self-respect, or of honor, or of liberty, or the free exercise of the right of choice. We see abundant examples of this all about us today, individuals and whole nations, too, beguiled by the seductive promises of plenty without the trouble and anxiety of care for their own concern, surrendering themselves to the fatuous allurements of deceptive demagogues or to the blighting tyrannies of ruthless despots. Like Esau, they are selling their birthright for nothing better than a mess of pottage. And, saddest of all, they are dwarfing their own powers for progress and blighting their own prospects for achievement.
The struggle must be one's own. Nobody may do the learning act for another. One cannot obtain wisdom, or learning, or beauty of character as a gift or an inheritance. One's father and a long line of ancestry may have achieved distinction in one or more of the fields of notable endeavor, but the individual may not ride in on the accomplishments of either or all of them. Here, as elsewhere, he must perfect himself through his own striving; and he cannot rise above the level of his own accomplishment wrought through his own labor. There is just one way by which an inspiring son may rise to the same eminence as an illustrious father, and that is through the same process by which that father rose to the high plane he occupies, by the perfecting of his own powers, through mastering obstacles, overcoming discouragements, cultivating virtues, and pressing unremittingly towards his goal. There is no other way.
THE GOAL OF RELIGION
The same law governs in respect to religious or spiritual life. We have no warrant for supposing that we can build, or piece together, or fashion, a beautiful or perfect life without working painstakingly at it. And the goal of all religion is the perfection of life. It can be attained only through practice of the deeds which lead to perfection. It was the Master himself who, in the course of that inimitable Sermon on the Mount, invited his listeners to this high aspiration:
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
And before the eyes of the rich young man who came inquiring what good thing he should do that he might have eternal life, Jesus dangled the concept of perfection as the ultimate goal of life:
... If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
Here was no promise of a sheltered, placid life, but rather a bidding to heroic action. If the young man had been able to do it, he would have achieved a spiritual grandeur beyond anything all his wealth could buy.
Paul says of the Master himself:
Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.
And to the Corinthian saints he wrote:
... and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
To the same body he further declared:
Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
JUDGMENT ACCORDING TO WORKS
The Revelator declares concerning those who in vision he saw come forth from the dead:
... and they were judged every man according to their works.
In that beautiful parable of the builders, Jesus likened that man who heard his sayings and did them, to a wise man who built his house upon a rock, and when it was caught in rain and flood and tempest, it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock; but he who heard his sayings and did them not, he likened to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand, and when the rain descended and the floods came and the wind blew and beat upon that house, it fell, and great was the fall of it.
Modern-day revelation is replete with the same teaching, declaring with directness that at the final reckoning, every man shall be judged:
... according to his works and the deeds which he hath done.
It goes much further than that. It declares that:
Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.
And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.
That is only another way of saying that ennobling qualities woven into a life are eternal things. They never cease to be of value or to bring their reward. It is to be noted, too, that the only way to get them is by diligence and obedience. They do not come as gratuities. In fact, it is the growing process induced by diligent effort that eventuates in the final result. There is no need to multiply evidences. Scriptural teachings as well as the teachings of experience and reason are all one way.
That I may not leave any chance of being misunderstood, I want to say now I have no intention of getting involved in the old controversy as to whether salvation is by works or by grace. With a proper definition of terms there is no basis for controversy.
GROWTH DEPENDS ON INDIVIDUAL EXERTIONS
Neither do I wish to be understood as saying that technical intellectual training is essential to spiritual progress or understanding. There are too many evidences to the contrary. There need, however, be no enmity between the two, though their methods may be dissimilar. Perhaps the assumed distinction between the spiritual and the temporal grows out of the limitations of our understanding. We may find when we come to see far enough down the perspective that they unite in one. In fact God has said that to him all things are spiritual and not at any time has he made anything that is temporal. Perhaps, for safety, I ought to say, too, that I do not intend to discount the reality or the value of divine interposition in aid of struggling mortals, providing redemption and the plan of living which they could not provide for themselves The thing that I do want to make clear is that the principle, that progress and growth depend upon our own exertion and compliance with the governing laws, is a universal principle applicable in the spiritual realm no less than in the realm of the temporal. Otherwise there is no meaning to the great parable of the talents spoken of by Jesus. He likened the kingdom of heaven to a man about to journey to a far country who called his servants to him and delivered to them his goods in proportion to their several abilities. To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one. He who received the five talents forthwith traded with them and doubled them. So likewise did he who received the two talents. But he of the one talent hid it. When the master returned, each gave his accounting. They who had multiplied their talents were commended, but he who returned but the one talent which had been given him was denounced as a slothful servant, and it was taken from him and given to the one who had converted the five into ten.
CHURCH PROVIDES OPPORTUNITIES TO WORK
This brings me to the lesson I want to draw from all that has been said before and furnishes the justification for saying it. This Church is so organized that it provides something for every member to do. And the doing of those things offers the only means by which members grow toward their promised destiny. Teachings are, in themselves, mere abstractions, powerless to save unless they are translated into deeds. It is the doing of the deeds that leads to growth through development of latent powers and the evolving of desired qualities of character. And deeds are the individual acts of persons. One might sit passively for an eternity hearing the best of instruction, or the exposition of the loftiest of principles without being much improved unless those teachings and principles were made fruitful through conversion into practices of living. It is what we make of our lives that counts. It is at once a marvel and a beauty of Christ's gospel that for every requirement it lays down in the way of admonition to righteousness, it provides a practical means for bringing it about. And that way is always to provide things for the individual to do which result in the development of the desired qualities of mind and spirit. This it does through the organized Church.
Thus does the Church become the medium for giving practical effect to the teachings of the gospel. It introduces order where ineffectiveness and frustration would otherwise be. It provides the means by which its members may step by step build into themselves that aggregate of desired qualities which make men good and crowd out the qualities that are bad. Thus do they grow towards perfection and do their part towards working out their own salvation.
Elder Oscar A. Kirkham
Oscar A. Kirkham, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 95-96
I am very grateful to my Heavenly Father for this privilege. I wish to bear to you my humble testimony that I know that this is the work of God and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. These very words and the utterance of this testimony have already brought a blessing. The joy that floods my heart and soul as I bear this testimony is a great satisfaction.
During the administration of President Calvin Coolidge as President of the United States, I became a great admirer of the things he said and did. I want to read a few lines from President Coolidge:
There is no substitute for morality, character, and religious conviction. Unless these abide, American citizenship will be found unequal to its task. Somehow we must get back to God, and that is very difficult for modern minds who have lost simplicity.
I read this morning this verse from Jeremiah:
Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.
I am extremely grateful for the privileges that have come to me during my last calling in the Church. I have had the opportunity under assignment of going to Europe, Canada, and Mexico as well as traveling in many of the states of the United States. Today I would like to express appreciation for a number of simple incidents that have come to me recently. They may seem to you simple things on an occasion like this when great, profound doctrines are being taught, but to me these simple incidents have been deeply impressive, for constantly they have said to me,
Have more faith, live your religion, be what you say.
FAITH EXHIBITED
I shall not forget soon a young man at the hospital. He was entering the operating room. He was a very worthy young man and very dear to me personally. As they were wheeling him into the operating room, the doctor noticed that his eyes were closed. He said to the nurse, "Take his pulse quickly. He may be gone." The young man opened his eyes and said, "No, I'm not gone doctor. I was just talking to the Lord. I told him to be sure to be with you when you perform this operation. You may go ahead any time now. I am ready.
I am grateful for the privilege I had with the Mexican people of the Mexican and Spanish-American missions at the Arizona Temple, when I saw a humble Saint, entering the grounds, take off her shoes at the iron gate. I hurried over to her and said, "You may take your shoes off when you get inside," and she said, "Oh, no, I will take them off here. This is sacred ground to me." Then a little later in the sealing room I saw one of these dark-skinned mothers take into her arms her sixteen-year old son after they had gone through the sacred ceremony of sealing. She embraced her boy and said, "Now you are mine for eternity." I can't forget these simple things. To me they are truly great things. They have kept saying to me.
Have more faith. Know more about the temple of God. Seek the privileges of these great sacred opportunities.
CALIFORNIA CELEBRATION
Under a special assignment I was asked this year to go to Coloma, California, to be at the celebration of the anniversary of the discovery of gold and to represent our people on the program. Fifty to sixty thousand were in attendance. The governor and other dignitaries of that great state of California were present. They started three great years of celebration. I was very happy to have the privilege, humbly, to represent a group of Latter-day Saint men of the Mormon Battalion who were there at that time a hundred years ago. They had taken a contract to build a mill when the discovery of gold came, when people across the world started a trek to California and thousands left their homes and work. Even in San Francisco, judges were leaving their benches. People left their businesses. They rushed wildly to the place where gold had been discovered. I was proud to represent these humble Mormon men. They stayed with their task and finished their contract. They had made their promise to finish the mill, and on March 11, 1848, the mill was finished. Then they made their journey over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to meet their families and friends. The character, stability, the word of these men told me again what I must do.
TRACTING EXPERIENCE
I am grateful for a young missionary this year whom I met in the mission field. He told me of an incident that happened just a few days before. He said, "Brother Kirkham, I had a rather interesting experience just the other day. My companion and I were going out tracting. We had been instructed always to be prayerful as we approached a house, and when I came to the door the woman said to me, 'I understand you are a Mormon missionary. Well, I don't want anything to do with you. I know something about your people. You're just a menace. Leave this place.' Then," said the young missionary, "I had been told to be prayerful, so I continued in my heart to pray as I stood listening to what she had to say. The woman continued telling me what she thought of me and our people, and asked me again to leave. I continued to pray. In a few moments she turned abruptly and said, 'Well, why don't you come in?'" Thank God for the stability of the generation that's marching on to the greatest destiny of our people. They have taught me many helpful lessons.
May God grant that I may live worthy of their association, that I may live and do the thing I speak. May God grant that same high privilege to you, for then happiness shall be ours, and we will not need to go away to carry the message. The world will come to us.
God bless us, I humbly, pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder S. Dilworth Young
S. Dilworth Young, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 100-104
While I have been sitting here today, I have been wondering how many of you in this audience have sons or daughters in the mission field. I don't believe President Smith would mind if I ask you to show your hands. Please do so. I am interested also in knowing how many of you folk here have ever traveled on missions for the Lord and for the Church and at one time or another on those missions have traveled without money. Would you mind showing your hands? The number is sufficient to give me courage to go ahead and talk.
RESPONSIBILITY OF A MISSION PRESIDENT
I have a distinct feeling of humbleness when I realize that I am one of a large number of men in whom the Presidency of the Church has placed the responsibility of guiding the young men of the Church on missions. The Lord said, in trying to explain his purposes to men, and of course he had to use the words of men:
... this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
When I see your boys come out into the field, with fear in their eyes and fear in their hearts, not knowing how to commence, I realize that somehow my responsibility is to bring to pass in their hearts and their lives what the Lord desires when he said he wanted to bring men into eternal life. It fills me with fear. I confess to you that I have spent more hours of the night in sleeplessness since I arrived on this mission, worrying about it, than I have at any other time in my life.
I am sure, too, that I speak for my co-laborers when I say this.
WITHOUT PURSE ON SCRIP
How well these young men perform you need have no fear. They are remarkable. They come among the people of the world, and they are determined that theirs shall be a mission filled with honor. They do not yet know for certain the one great lesson they must learn before they can be good missionaries, but they certainly are anxious to learn it. I can still see a six-foot four lad with eyes so large-it seems to me they filled his whole face they were so large-he came into the mission home after a long ride and sat down, and we talked. Somehow he had heard he was going to go out and do some work in the country so he was nervous about it, and he began to ask me questions. He said, "President Young, are we going to carry copies of the Book of Mormon with us?" I assured him that he was. He said, "May we read these copies of the Book of Mormon?" "Oh," I said, "we want you to read them. You are supposed to know what's on the inside so you can tell the people of the world about them." He thought about that for a minute. He said, "Do you mean we can read the Book of Mormon we carry with us, and that we're going to carry some?" "Yes, sir." He heaved quite a sigh of relief and finally said, "Well, I don't mind going without purse, but I didn't want to go without script." The boy really thought we were going to take his Bible, his Book of Mormon, his D&C;, his Pearl of Great Price, and all of his tracts away from him and let him go with an empty suitcase.
CARRYING GOSPEL TO INDIANS
Now, I should like to say one thing with regard to the principles of this matter. Brother Bowen's remarks today are the key to it. Any boy who goes into the mission field with an idea that he is going to get personal development out of it will fail. If he goes into the mission field forgetting himself, with only the idea that he is going to do something for the people of the world, that his message is the most sacred trust that he can possibly have, he cannot fail. That's the lesson that the elders learn. How well they learn it I should like to attest before you by letting them speak for themselves. I sent two of your boys out, recently, to a tribe of Indians. That's nothing unusual. Ever since Brother Kimball has urged us to get busy, most of the brethren in the missions have done so, but I have delayed until just recently. These young men said to me before they left, "What are your instructions?" I had none for them. I did not know what to tell them, so I said, "I don't know, but you go up there, and if you have had the proper training in this mission, you will know what to do, after you have asked the Lord." I assured them that if they were humble enough and really desired to help those people find out about their ancestors, the way would be opened. Their faces were white when they left, and I am sure they were uneasy about the assignment. May I now let them speak for themselves? I borrowed from one of the boy's parents a letter and would like to read a small portion of it to you:
"President Young gave us no instructions, but we have had free rein and have only to depend on the Lord to guide us in presenting our message. He has blessed us even more than we could have hoped for." Then he tells how they hired a hall in the reservation hoping the Indians would come out, how only one or two showed up, even though they had promises from many, how they felt very much discouraged about it. Finally, they left. An old gentleman at the hall walked out, too. Catching up with them on a corner, they began to talk as they walked along. Finally the gentleman said to them. "I know a lady down here who I think would like to hear you."
Their letter continues:
"Well, we had nothing to lose and felt we should go in and see her, so we did. They were the people to whom we had loaned a Book of Mormon, a Mrs. Shay and a couple of other people. These are Indian people with American names. We were just going to spend a while visiting one or two people, we thought, and maybe to talk about the Church some, but the Lord had other ideas. The people who were in the house didn't avoid us as most would, but came on in the living room and sat down, and another girl came in and sat down in the living room. The Franceses came in, then came another Mr. and Mrs. Shay who were going to the hall quite late, but finding us not there just happened in at the place where we were. Another young man drifted in and took a chair, another young girl, then two ladies came. They had been directed to where we were by a sick man who had just heard," "I wonder how he heard about where we were.
"Then Chief Tahachee himself drifted in, and before the evening was over a couple or three more. It was miraculous how people just seemed to gravitate to where we were. It just worked in perfectly for a warm friendly cottage meeting which I suggested, as Elder M. felt the same way. With an audience of ten or twelve adults and a couple of children we began the meeting. Elder M. prayed beautifully. I stood and talked on the restoration of the Book of Mormon for twenty minutes or so, the most inspired, easiest talk I ever gave. It was promoted by the Holy Ghost; I know it was. I bore my testimony humbly and fervently to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, their book, and that the Church is true, and that Jesus lives. I told them of the vision of Joseph Smith, of the bringing forth of the book, about the Witnesses, the need for the Book of Mormon. The people were very attentive and drank it all in, and then Elder M. got up and gave a beautiful talk confirming mine, telling more about the Book of Mormon, how to get a testimony and other great points pertinent to the time. It was an inspired talk. Then a half hour of questions, and we loaned or gave to them" "five more Books of Mormon. They were eager to have them, and I think will really read them with real interest and with real intent to know the truth. After I closed with prayer, there was a little more questioning, and we left with a fine spirit in the place and went with Chief Tahachee toward the river. As we left, Mrs. Shay told us we could hold a meeting at her place again if we didn't get the hall, and she would invite those interested. Chief Tahachee took us to his house to meet his wife and played records of her singing of Indian songs, and he chanted and played tom-toms for us. He was very friendly. As we left his place and headed home across the frozen river in the bright moonlight, I said, 'You can't tell me prayers aren't answered.'"
That letter is from a pair of missionaries who went out some time ago in the mission field and were obedient, with the belief that if they did their best and were humble, they could hear in their hearts the voice of the Lord directing them what to do. They are opening up the work with that particular tribe of Indians, not by my direction, I assure you, but under the inspiration the Lord gives to those who humbly desire to discover for themselves by works what he desires.
CHANGE WROUGHT IN MISSIONARY
I would like to give one more incident, if I may: We had a missionary go out to stay but a year. He informed me that he had come out to get an experience. He didn't want to go through his life and finish his college without being able to say that he had had a missionary experience. He felt it would do him good. This is what he writes:
"In these past three months He has abundantly blessed me beyond my power of words to express, and a rich deep feeling of happiness which I have within me at this moment and which I have enjoyed during this work has been pay enough for me. May I enumerate just how He has blessed us and what the results are?"
"The way was opened to us to change our place of lodging and to find a lovely three-room apartment completely furnished for only ten dollars a month, "living in the house of good Christian people and every opportunity to preach the gospel to them. During these three months we have sold forty-five copies of the Book of Mormon and held fifty-two cottage meetings.
" We organized a Sunday School with an attendance of twenty-five persons there this past Sunday and a promise of fifteen others that they would start attending in the immediate future. Been invited out to ninety dinners, thus cutting down our expenses, and also providing a way that we could preach the gospel to them. We have had the following items given to us: Thirty-three quarts of preserves, ten dozen eggs, three pies, four cakes, six jars of jams and jellies, three cans of honey, thus cutting down some more on the expenses. Perhaps the greatest exhibit to show for this work is the fact that five persons have requested baptism at our hands, and two men who have been members of the Church, have repented of their sins and are earnestly living the Word of Wisdom and are desirous of advancing in the priesthood.
"Two future requests to speak before large groups of from forty to sixty people on the subject of Mormonism. All of these items point to the fact that it can be done if a missionary desires to do the will of his Father in heaven and realize the hopes of the folks who send him, and it can be done in the period of a few short months."
Those two young brethren, my friends and fellow workers, are only two of four thousand who feel just exactly the same way.
May the Lord help us to give them support by our faith and prayers, I ask, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 104-110
My brothers and sisters, it is a great inspiration to see all of you folk before me, you who are leaders in the stakes and wards and missions. I pray for the blessings of the Lord.
WORK AMONG INDIANS PROGRESSING
It has been hard for me to refrain from talking about the Indians this time, but I must mention one or two items inasmuch as President S. Dilworth Young has spoken of them.
Down on the Navajo Reservation, the Indians call the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Gamalii." Recently at mission headquarters, they were trying to ascertain from the natives, themselves, what this word meant to them. And one Navajo said, "A 'Gamalii' is one who invites you to dinner and does not charge you for it." And another said, "A 'Gamalii' is one who has the same father and mother that we have."
I will just say that the work among the Indians is progressing, for which we are deeply grateful.
ERUPTION OF MT. VESUVIUS
I want to comment on another theme and preface it by a little experience: Back in 1937, Sister Kimball and I had the privilege of traveling through some of the European countries, and it was our privilege to go, among other places, to Italy. And one of the most intriguing sights in that country was Mt. Vesuvius in eruption. Here we saw a high, conically-shaped mountain, and at night for nearly a hundred miles we could see the display of fireworks in the heavens. We came around the semi-circular bay of Naples to the city of Pompeii. As a child I had read the book, The Last Days of Pompeii, telling about the eruption of 79 A.D., when the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed. Here we were, visiting the city of the dead, which had been covered and hidden for nearly two millenniums. We walked through the streets of this deserted city, now excavated; we went into the shops, homes, and temples; we saw their liquor establishments and houses of prostitution with the pictures still on the walls in original colors. These all had been buried under ashes for long centuries. We climbed this mountain with its cinders and lava, and when we came into the great crater at the top, we were amazed to find that a few inches beneath our feet was molten lava, still flaming.
We climbed up into the crater of that volcanic mountain. In ages past there had been a terrific convulsion of nature, and a mountain was born. Lying dormant for long centuries, the monster had watched with evil eye the coming of the inhabitants, the planting of vineyards upon its sunny slopes, and the building of homes upon its foothills. But finally in jealous rage at seeing green things grow, and children laugh and play, and life spring up in contrast to its age-old environment of desolation and death, the ogre burst forth in fiery blasts spewing its seething vomit from its corrupt throat in molten lava to run down its sides and to fill the heavens with its ash and steam and rocks. The volcano was merciless. It would leave nothing to grow upon its breasts.
In a matter of hours the fury of this powerful destroyer had seared the trees, the vines, and all living things, long before the slow moving lava had reached them to crush and burn them into nothingness. The heavens were filled with ashes which soon smothered all life including the humans who were utterly helpless before the whims of this destructive element.
All was destruction: Plants and people were destroyed; homes, shops, baths, and circuses leveled; soil covered with a conglomerate mass of hardness which would take the elements ages to pulverize into soil again. All was death!
WONDER OF THE NILE RIVER
Then across the blue Mediterranean is a contrasting picture of the builder in nature. The Nile River, one of the greatest wonders of the World, changes the dead and barren sands of the desert into a fertile land with trees and grass and animal life. The heavy April showers in the basin of the White Nile start the flood, and the May rains in Abyssinia swell the stream with its rich muddy water that fertilizes as it irrigates, and this sterile sand becomes fertile land to bring life from death. The mud and water constitute the difference between the Sahara Desert and the green gardens and fields of Egypt. Those of us who have been in the Gila Valley in Arizona, which is one of the most notable examples of soil erosion in the world perhaps, will know about what has been done in the valley of the Nile. The rich sediment is laid gently on the land so that it might produce crops. The productive valley is a gift of the river Nile. It is at once a garden and a museum; a composite of the ancient and modern; the land of Abraham and Joseph and Moses with its sphinxes and catacombs and pyramids, and the land of today with its 19,000,000 people; a land of brilliant sun deep blue sky, and vivid colors, with the driest air in the world. In contrast to the sand under the glare of the sun and the dull color of the river, the fields and palms appear the greenest things in the world. The sand pours over the yellow rocks in a torrent of gold, and the rocks cast purple shadows. All this is the bounty of the Nile, which nurtures life in the very jaws of the death of the hot dry desert through which it flows. Its annual overflow is one of the greatest marvels of the world. It has risen to within a few hours of the same time and to within a few inches of the same height year after year for unknown ages.
Another spring, another flood, the soaking stream, more fertile mud and the Nile continues to give, to build and sustain, while Vesuvius burns and crushes and suffocates. The volcano is a destroyer-the river a builder.
MEN MAY BUILD OR DESTROY
I find that men are like rivers and volcanoes. They construct, and they destroy; they purify and inspire, and they defile and mystify; they give life, and they bring about death. Recently I had a visit from a handsome youth, the product of a builder. His eyes were bright; his step was light; he walked with calm assurance. Here were courage, optimism, and positiveness. He was clean. He had a wholesome attitude toward life, no sourness, no bitterness. He looked life straight in the eye and met its challenges. "All my life," he told me, "I have been taught that 'cleanliness is next to Godliness.' Through all the priesthood and auxiliary organizations I have learned Pants statement:'... that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?'
" 'If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.'". He had been eager to fill a mission, for said he: "Since my earliest recollection, I have earmarked my savings for my mission: I have listened intently to every returning missionary and anticipated with eagerness my opportunity to go. All my life I have been taught by men of God who have stirred my ambition, stimulated my thinking, built my character, and increased my faith. There were always markers at the crossroads which I could recognize, for these valiant people had prepared me to identify them. Oh, how grateful I am that such builders have had a part in making my life! They have helped to lift the fogs, dissipate the mists, banish the doubts, and fortify me against the temptations. My life is full there is no remorse I have no fears-life is glorious and rich in promise."
And I remembered the words of the Lord through his ancient prophet:
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace;... that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!.
VICTIM OF HUMAN DESTROYERS
In contrast, I had a visit from one of the victims of the human destroyers. He was a fair-haired youth of twenty-two years; the last four of those years had been filled with experiences too sordid and too horrible for a lad of those tender years-experiences which would challenge the resistance of a veteran. His manner was mild, his approach shy, but his voice registered sincerity. My heart immediately opened and took him in. "Brother Kimball," he asked, "would it be possible for me to go on a mission? I think it would help me to find myself again. I do want very much to go into the mission field."
"You've had some frustrating experiences, haven't you?" I asked. And he poured out his soul in a series of heart-rending stories. So many upon the head of a youth-and so concentrated! Why, he had hardly recovered from one until another blow fell upon him. He continued: "I hope that if I can go out and preach the gospel, I might be able to get my thinking straight, to be really happy again, to get back that which I have lost. You see, Brother Kimball, I grew up in the Church clean and with never a doubt. I was active, faithful, believing. My trust was complete. I felt secure in my faith, never questioning seriously the truth. It was as though my bark of life were in a safe harbor, securely tied with heavy cable to docks which were immovable. My parents and my Church leaders gave me anchor to hold me safe. Oh, if I could only have again that sweet spirit of tranquility and peace and sureness!"
Then he told me of the storms that had engulfed him. He had fought a war. There were horrors in the battles; there were temptations in the camps. At eighteen he had been surrounded suddenly by all the accumulated sins of the world. The pressure was crushing. For two years he had been hearing vile and vulgar speech and the name of God desecrated by constant use. He told how well-meaning entertainers had come to the camps but had sung for them sexy songs, told them ribald jokes, and had acted to satisfy the coarse, the crude, and vulgar. He had seen motion pictures in which smoking was universal, drinking was approved as smart and proper, immorality was condoned, and broken homes and infidelity in marriage were common; he had spent his leisure hours in cities near the camps and had been accosted by women of the streets. And he had come to wonder! He had attended a class in his ward and had heard a discussion on the mysteries. Subjects were debated on which there was little recorded revelation and on which there were conflicting opinions, and he had heard criticism of Church leaders, of Church policies, and of Church doctrines, and he wondered! He had read a book, the author of which was one of rich endowments, of much learning, and of considerable prestige. The things which our youth had always accepted were ridiculed. Logic was used; rationalizing was done; corrupt writers of a bygone day were quoted; the supernatural was explained away; the revelations were said to be man's wisdom; prophets were demoted to the status of laymen; and even Gods were dethroned and made a creation of man. All this in strict denial and total destruction of the basic things which had always been his life-and he continued to wonder. He had gone to school when the war was over, under the G.I. Bill of Rights. Here he had been further confused. There was no personal God, he was told, but God was a figment of the imagination, a creation of intellectual man. And God, being a creation of man could not help him, but man was alone to work out his own destiny. He was led to believe that religion was for only the simple and gullible. He found that in the schools:
Atheism may be taught our children, but not the word of God, not the Bible, not the Prophets, not the Apostles. Karl Marx is legal in the schools, but not Isaiah, or St. Mark. They suffer from Bible affiliation.
And his props had been moved from under him. His lighthouse was destroyed: his anchor broken loose; his harbor blasted. His bark was at sea in a storm without anchor, sail, or rudder; and with a pilot who had lost his compass and knew not his way. His heaven was clouded, and his stars were hidden. His lights were all but extinguished, and his vision dimmed. And he said again: "Oh, if I could only get back what I have lost of peace, of hope, of virtue, of faith! I had hoped that a mission might dispel the fog and mists; prove my repentance; build back my faith in sacred things and return to me the testimony I once had with all its peace, security, and happiness. I had hoped I might repair my bark and get it in full control and steer it again into calm waters and safe harbors."
REDEEMER'S VIEW OF OFFENDERS
And as I felt the sincerity of this young man struggling for a foothold, for a foundation, for something to which to cling, there came these words of the Redeemer into my memory:
And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.
And the words of the Lord came again:
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
Not all scribes and Pharisees lived anciently. There are today wreckers as well as builders among men and in nature. In the Church library there are more than 1,700 books and pamphlets of a defamatory character. The books are dead. They are seldom consulted. They can be purchased from secondhand bookstores at low cost. The authors likewise are dead. They flickered for a moment and went out, dying of their own corruption, after having polluted the minds of a few. They went into the discard while the cause they fought went steadily on. Simon Peter warned us:
... there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring unto themselves swift destruction.
The Lord said:
Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: the fulness of the scriptures; ye enter not in yourselves, into the kingdom and those who were entering in ye hindered ).
TEACHERS TO BE DIRECTED BY THE SPIRIT
Apparently there were in the early church those who taught for doctrines the sophistries of men. There are those today who seem to take pride in disagreeing with the orthodox teachings of the Church and who present their own opinions which are at variance with the revealed truth. Some may be partially innocent in the matter; others are feeding their own egotism; and some seem to be deliberate. Men may think as they please, but they have no right to impose upon others their unorthodox views. Such persons should realize that their own souls are in jeopardy. The Lord said to us through the Prophet Joseph:
... teach the principles of my gospel, which are in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, in the which is the fulness of the gospel. And they shall observe the covenants and church articles to do them, and these shall be their teachings, as they shall be directed by the Spirit.
... And if ye receive not the Spirit ye shall not teach.
OBJECTIVE TO BUILD FAITH
The great objective of all our work is to build character and increase faith in the lives of those whom we serve. If one cannot accept and teach the program of the Church in an orthodox way without reservations, he should not teach. It would be the part of honor to resign his position. Not only would he be dishonest and deceitful, but he is also actually under condemnation, for the Savior said that it were better that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he be cast into the sea than that he should lead astray doctrinally or betray the cause or give offense, destroying the faith of one of "these little ones" who believe in him. And remember that this means not only the small children, it includes even adults who believe and trust in God.
Man is like the volcano which in a few weeks can devastate the countryside, wreck cities, and smother human lives. And the human destructionist can likewise inject into other human lives in a short time the doubt and skepticism which can mean total loss of faith. It may take centuries for the other forces of nature to pulverize the lava around a volcano so that it may eventually again give life to plants and animals, and just as surely the damage to faith of an individual done by an iconoclast, whether deliberate or not, may take years or ages of rebuilding, if it is ever fully restored.
The Savior also said:
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
In our own Society, the murderer who kills the body is hunted, imprisoned, and executed, but the character who kills the soul by implanting doubt and shattering faith is permitted not only to go free but also is often retained in high places. The body which is killed will rise again in the resurrection with little damage to its eternal welfare, but he whose faith has been shattered may suffer long ages before complete restoration of spiritual stature can be had, if at all. And Jesus said:
Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!.
Far better to take from a man his flocks or herds, his lands or wealth, even his sight or limbs, than to be responsible for the loss of his faith. The Son of God put it this way:
Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt and maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast It from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
And so we admonish the leaders in stakes, wards, and missions to be ever vigilant to see that no incorrect doctrines are promulgated in their classes or congregations. Wolves will come in sheep's clothing and will deceive the very elect, if that were possible. And we warn again those who write or preach or otherwise teach subversive doctrines, that their punishment is sure for their "worm dieth not".
And like the rich man who despised the beggar Lazarus, they will eventually come to a realization of the statement of the Lord Jesus Christ:
And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed.
The Lord bless you, my brothers and sisters. May we all, like the Nile River, build and nourish, strengthen and fortify, rather than be like the volcano which brings only death and desolation and destruction, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Richard L. Evans
Richard L. Evans, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 166-169
My Brethren, I am awed in your presence, and I express my gratitude to my Father in Heaven for my fellowship among the Priesthood of this Church. One cannot be here and not feel that there is strength in Israel, and I am deeply grateful to be ever so small a part of it. And I earnestly ask that my Father in Heaven, through your faith and prayers, added to my own, will give me utterance during the few minutes I shall stand before you here this evening.
I could not help thinking this morning, during President McKay's message, of another verse of scripture that tied in very closely with the one which he reiterated, a verse from the Psalms which mentioned a man who was greatly blessed:
He shall not be afraid of evil tidings.
There are many blessings recorded in scripture which are of surpassing worth, but this particular one for our particular day impressed me as being one of the greatest: "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings."
President McKay spoke this morning of the Savior's words, "Let not your hearts be troubled". I believe that in this body of the Priesthood there is less of fear of evil tidings than there is among any like number in all the world; although, it is very difficult not to be afraid of evil tidings. But I am grateful that our faith helps to sustain us in times when evil tidings are being spread about thickly. It is unthinkable that there should be talk of war, earnest talk of it, so soon after the terrible experience this world has been through. I am sure, in my own mind, that no one ever won a war-it is only a question of who lost the least or the most. And our losses in the last war are, by no means, calculated yet. But, again, I am grateful that we have here the faith which enables us to be equal to the prospects that lie before us.
THE COSTS OF WAR
There came to my desk within a few hours-this morning's mail brought it-just one indication of some of the costs of war which cannot by any means be stated in manpower or in money. One of the results-an appalling result-is the high incidence of divorce. In the United States in the year 1947-an all-time high-there were six hundred thirteen thousand divorces, as against fifty-five thousand in 1900; and as against about five hundred thousand in 1945.
I think this subject is somewhat on my mind at this moment because of a young couple that called on us some weeks ago. One of our girls from a nearby community had married a young man from the East after a very brief acquaintance, he of another church. They had only been married a few months and they were beginning to have their problems as to which way they should go: he with her, or she with him. And they were earnestly trying to solve their differences. He was much better able to defend his faith than she was-better informed as to the letter of it-but there was something burning in her heart that made her seemingly immovable, also.
PROBLEM OF THE SPLIT HOME
I believe the problem of the split home in this Church is one of our great problems, one which we have the means and the agencies within our hands to go a long way toward helping to solve-but one which is so far-reaching in its consequences that it affects not only the generation in which it occurs, but all succeeding generations. It is a problem that requires our earnest attention. And I believe that our Ward Teachers and our Stake Missionaries, if they are given proper direction and proper help and manpower and freedom to go about their work and encouragement in it, and if they take their assignments seriously, can do as much or more than any other agency.
As we go about the Wards and Stakes in some areas, particularly in some communities, it is noticeable that there are quite a number of children over nine years of age un-baptized, which means that someone has failed in his assignment-either a parent or a ward or stake or mission officer. It cannot mean anything else.
It is difficult enough in these days to rear a family when parents are solidly united in their ideals and purposes and convictions, and in the things toward which they direct their children. But it makes it virtually impossible to be assured of any satisfactory results when parents are divided on these matters. With a divided house, principles become a matter of contention, rather than of conviction. It is not fair to any child to be pulled between two parents in two different directions, or to be asked to make his choice between two people to both of whom he is bound by ties of authority and love and affection. It makes for confusion and for instability. Too often the home that is divided becomes a home of irreligion; quite often it goes one way or the other, but in neither case is it often very satisfactory.
Sometimes there have been evidences of defection from the faith because people have gone their way in neglect and have been overlooked by us, or because we have wearied of working with them.
When this young couple came to us some weeks ago, we immediately got in touch with a former member of the faith of the young man who had married one of our girls and asked him a number of questions. We asked him, for example, "what would be the attitude of his church if someone were to marry outside or otherwise withdraw himself from activity." He said that that would be the signal for them to be more kindly and more attentive. I wonder if that should not be the cue to our own attitude and action, not only in this, but in many other things.
I am reminded of the story of the prodigal son. Certainly we must distinguish between a man who is in full duty and who is mindful of all his obligations and the man who has stepped over the line in the wrong direction. There is a distinction between them, and we cannot help but be mindful of it. But certainly, also, we must do our best to bring those who have wavered into activity with us again. The brother of the prodigal son, for whom there was no feast made, was somewhat unhappy about it, but his father explained to him that his inheritance was assured, but when the penitent sinner returned it was cause for rejoicing, and a feast was made, and he was welcomed back warmly.
I hope, my brethren, that we will keep a consciousness of our responsibility toward these children who are not baptized, who are of us, and toward these families that pull in different directions, toward all those who by every natural reason should be in full fellowship with us, but who will go elsewhere if we do not have time for them, as will our children if we do not have time for them. They will find activity, they will find companionship, they will find their place in some social circle, in some group. And if we do not have time for them, it will be in some group not of our choosing, and perhaps not to our liking.
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SEVENTIES
I should like to say one word on another subject, just for a moment, concerning the Seventies, and appeal to you Presidents of Stakes to assure yourselves of the worthiness of those whom you recommend to us to become Seventies, before you send in their recommendations, because you know them and we do not. And we of the First Council feel, and I think our other brethren here are in accord with us-and if they are not theirs is the opportunity and right to modify our views-we feel that any man who is recommended to be ordained a Seventy should comply with the standards of the Church in all particulars. We feel that, generally speaking, there is no reason why a man should be made anything other than an Elder, if he is already an Elder, unless there is some particular function for him to perform and unless he has the qualifications and the worthiness to perform that function. We are not interested, generally speaking-and there may admittedly be justification for exceptions for which we shall ask you to take the responsibility with us-merely in multiplying Seventies or Seventies' Quorums. We are interested in men who are students of the gospel, who are capable of proclaiming it, and who have an interest and a willingness along these lines. And we ask you, our brethren the Stake Presidents, to take responsibility in these matters for us, if you will, as you send in these names for recommendation.
STORY ON STATISTICS
I should like to close with one story, and I think maybe this is a good time to tell it. It is my favorite story on statistics. I have told it in a number of places. It is not my story, but it belongs to Brother Roscoe Eardley, and if I violate the spirit of it I believe he is here and he can correct me-I may violate the statistics, but not the spirit, I hope. Knowing of my interest in the subject, he stopped me one day and said, "I have the latest story on statistics for you. We were coming from California by automobile and we had all been over the road a number of times and were somewhat bored with it, and, as travelers often do to pass time, we began counting service stations. And we counted one for almost every mile along that almost eight hundred mile journey. But that is not the story. We were so busy counting service stations that we ran out of gas!"
I did not sympathize with him too much because he had already told me there was one service station for about every mile. Then he said, "That's statistics for you. Where we ran out it was about fifteen miles to the nearest gas pump!"
Now I hope, brethren, in all our activities and responsibilities in this Church, that we do not become so absorbed in our statistics that we presume they are the end rather than merely the indicators, the barometer rather than the storm. What is on paper means nothing except as it is a symbol of what happens in the life of a man or a woman or a boy or a girl.
May God help us to discharge our obligations as members of the Priesthood of this Church, and help us to bring every man into activity. It is much better that three men should hold three jobs than that one good man should hold three jobs.
I should like to close by expressing my gratitude for my assignments in this Church, for the glorious experience I am having on Temple Square and in my other obligations. Even though they are arduous, I am grateful for them and ask the blessings of my Father in Heaven in helping me as I ask for His blessings in helping you to discharge every obligation. And I bear witness unto you of the conviction of my soul as concerning this being the work of God, our Father in Heaven, as to the divine calling of the Prophet, Joseph Smith, and the divinity of the Lord, Jesus Christ, and I do it in His name. Amen.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 170-173
Brethren and co-workers, some of you who have had to occupy this pulpit can appreciate the deep sense of responsibility which I now have. No man can face an audience of the Priesthood of God without a sense of humility and a prayer in his heart for guidance from our Heavenly Father.
THE TRAGEDIES OF WAR
When President Evans referred to the casualties of war, my mind went out to the parents whose boys did not come back from the battlefield. I had two sons and a son-in-law in World War II and they all three came back unmaimed. So the tragedy of losing a son did not come directly home to Sister McKay and me. I have a very dear friend however-who lost his only son, an ideal son full of promise, and a worthy member of the Church. My heart has bled, with my friend, in that loss. But he went from the world gloriously, and I use that word advisedly, for I am sure that no young man living complied more aptly with the old saying, "Be fit to live, be ready to die," than that young man. These thoughts came to me just with the mentioning of that tragedy of war.
They were followed by other tragedies here at home, deeper, more poignant, more tragic than the death of the boys on the battlefield: That is the degradation of our girls. And there came to my mind the picture of one home out of which came three young girls. They came to Salt Lake City to get work, prompted, undoubtedly, by a desire to help in the war. Perhaps they did help win the war, but they lost their souls. A policeman gave me his confidence and told me their story. It is tragic. Unfortunately, it has been repeated here in this city and I suppose in Ogden, and other large cities. I mention this in connection with the tragedy of divorce. I commend with all my heart the suggestions made by President Evans.
What I am leading up to is this: The brethren realize that the dangers to our young girls who leave home and go out to work or for other purposes, are still among us. There are daily tragedies now in this city. If possible, we should like to prevent them, or at least reduce them to a minimum.
COMMITTEE TO ASSIST L.D.S. GIRLS
Many of you, perhaps, do not know that during the war Elder Charles A. Callis and President Alma Sonne were appointed a committee to see what could be done to protect the girls who left their homes and came to the centers. You, perhaps, do not know that there has been appointed a young woman a mother to assist this committee in finding these girls and keeping them from arrest and degradation. Brother Callis has gone; Brother Sonne is in Europe. Two other brethren have been appointed, Elder Spencer Kimball and Elder Mark Petersen of the Council of the Twelve. The reports of the activities of this young woman and those who have assisted her are in their hands. It is pleasing to note that a number of girls have been saved; but some have been lost.
Recently, you received a letter, Bishops, asking that you notify these brethren of any young girls who leave your Wards for whatever purpose and go to another town. It will be necessary for the Ward Teachers and those who are in charge of the young girls-the teenage girls to assist you in this duty. Here is an opportunity to apply the injunction of our Father in Heaven to the teachers, "Watch over the Church, always. Be with and strengthen them". No other organization in the world, I think, is so adequately equipped as is the Church to guard our young men and young women and to keep them from the tragedies of sin. Will you please cooperate with these brethren, for your own sake, for the sake of the fathers and mothers who, perhaps, have lost control of their children. The reports indicate that most of these unfortunates come from broken homes. They are tragedies.
LOST SHEEP
Another thing, once a month, through the courtesy of two County Officers, there come to my desk reports of the young men and older men who have been caught in the meshes of the law. In these reports, those who hold the priesthood are designated. Do you teachers know about them? So many Deacons, so many Priests, so many Teachers, so many Elders, Seventies and High Priests. These too may be tragedies! Remember that the injunction, "Watch over the Church, always," does not mean just once a month.
In the parable of the lost sheep, ninety-nine were safe in the fold, but one had strayed; and the Good Shepherd did not rest until the lost one was found.
I have in mind another theme, tonight, which I should like to preface with these statements: That truth never grows old; and that responsibility is never disassociated from the Priesthood.
THE IMPORTANCE OF EXAMPLE
To the Priesthood here assembled tonight I quote the truth and the admonition given by the chief Apostle to the members of the Priesthood over nineteen hundred years ago-that chief Apostle, my favorite, wrote this letter,
To the Elders which are among you.
I who am also an Elder, and a witness of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Feed the flock of God, which is among you, taking the oversight thereof not by overruling, but willingly, not by constraint, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples, examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Likewise, ye younger submit yourselves unto the Elders; yea, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud, or rather seeth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, unto the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you. Be sober, vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished to your brother in the world.
Just one element I wish to emphasize. The instructions I give are nineteen hundred years old, yet new today and applicable as then to elders, from the chief elder. But he said, "Be an example to the flock". Ever keep in mind, fellow workers that example should start at home. That is the best place to exercise the lofty ideals of the Priesthood.
GRATITUDE FOR PARENTS
The older I grow the more grateful I am for my parents, for what they did for us children in that old country home. They lived the gospel. Father used to preach it, particularly to visitors who came, more than to us boys and girls; but both Father and Mother lived the gospel. And I have realized throughout this conference, more than ever before, that my testimony of the reality of the existence of God dates back to my childhood, that my parents' teachings and their examples led me to the absolute knowledge that God is my Father; that I received then the knowledge of the reality of the spiritual world, and I testify to you tonight that that is a reality.
It is just as easy for me to accept as a divine truth the fact that Christ preached to the spirits in prison while His body lay in the tomb, as it is for me to look at you from this pulpit. It is true. And it is just as easy for me to realize that one may so live that he may receive impressions and direct messages through the Holy Ghost. The veil is thin between those who hold the Priesthood and divine messengers on the other side of the veil.
That testimony was born in that home, because of the example of a man who lived the Priesthood and a wife who sustained him and lived it in daily life. I do not know that Peter had that in mind, particularly, when he mentioned, "Be an example to the flock", but I know that each home is a part of that flock. The influence you spread in your home will go throughout the town, will go throughout the county, the Wards and the Stakes.
TRUTH NEVER GROWS OLD
The most precious thing in the world is a testimony of the truth. I repeat, truth never grows old, and the truth is that God is the source of your Priesthood and mine; that He lives, that Jesus Christ, the great High Priest, stands at the head of this Church, and that every man who holds the Priesthood, if he lives properly, soberly, industriously, humbly and prayerfully, is entitled to the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. I know that is true.
STRENGTH TO RESIST EVIL
Peter admonished the young men to be careful about the sins of the world. Evil things tempt them. Now is the time when our young men are tempted. They always have been. Some have resisted and some have not, but those who have resisted have succeeded and are happy. It is the happiest life. The boys of our Church who uphold the standards are the ones who are respected and who receive honor from the men of the world as well as from those of the Church.
For the benefit of those young men who have inspired us tonight and come here in such a large body to sing the songs of the Lesser Priesthood, I am going to conclude with a story of a boy who was not in the Church-as far as I know-but he grew in his teens and using and using the inheritance of his father, he started in business. His father had set him a proper example. Then he found himself in financial difficulties; and in distress he went to a friend of his fathers, a Mr. Chaplin. "Mr. Chaplin," said the young man, "I am in distress, and I need ten thousand dollars. Those upon whom I have depended have not paid me. Perhaps they will, but they have not to date, and I need money. I have come to you because you knew my father." "Come in," said Mr. Chaplin, "Have a glass of wine." "No, thank you," said the young man, "I do not drink." "Well, come in anyhow, and have a cigar." "No, thank you, I do not smoke." "Well, I am sorry, but I do not think I can lend you the money." "Very well," said the young man, "I am sorry." And he started to go out. "Wait a minute," said Mr. Chaplin, who had just been testing him, "Come here. Your father asked me those same questions years ago. He trusted me for five thousand dollars, and I am going to trust you for ten or five times that amount if you want it. No, do not thank me, I owe it to your father. He trusted me as I am trusting you, and I am just trying to pay him back."
Think of that, young men! Try to picture what would have happened had the boy taken his wine and taken his tobacco, just to show off in the presence of another. An example!
The responsibility of keeping these young men and aiding them is started in our homes and is never disassociated with the Priesthood.
God help us to be true to the testimony which is ours; give us power to discharge the responsibility placed upon us when the Priesthood of the Almighty was placed upon our shoulders and given to us as an eternal endowment, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 174-177
My brethren, I think perhaps if I were as wise as I ought to be, I would endorse, as I do fully, all that has been said by President Evans and President McKay, bear my testimony, and take my seat. However, I suppose that perhaps you expect me at least to try to say something and I shall meet, so far as I can, at least part of your expectations.
I hope that the very few minutes that I shall stand before you, I may really have an interest in your faith and your prayers. I am not saying this idly, I am saying it because I know and you know the power of prayer, and that if I am aided by your prayers, I will be able to say a little something, at least that may be helpful to all of us.
LOSSES RESULTING FROM WAR
I should like Brother Evans' permission to refer to one of his observations, and that is as to the losses we suffered during the last war and as a result of that war. I am not speaking now of the loss of loved ones, great as that loss was. I wonder if I can strike at the very root of the loss. You cannot fill the hearts of men with murder and then have a normal world. When you get hate into the hearts of men, anything can happen-lying, cheating, stealing, immorality, and the thousands of other things that follow. For when we lose our regard and respect for human life, we have very little left. And that is one reason why the Church has taken the position it has taken regarding compulsory military training; because the military men may speak as they wish-I have been rather close to them in years past and have been among some of the best of them-but I tell you that to make an army, you must teach to kill and that must be the thing that you get into the hearts of these young people. And, I repeat, plant that once in their hearts and everything else is possible.
I am going to push the problem one step farther. So far as one can judge, the next war is now planning under a system that will call for the use of weapons which will wipe out cities and, if necessary, nations. I have had it reported-I do not know how accurately-that our military men are saying that if we had a forty-eight hour lead, the war would be over. How many of us brethren are really horrified by the thought of the indiscriminate, wholesale slaughter of men, women and children-the old, the decrepit, the diseased; or are we sitting back and saying, "Let's get at it first." How far away is the spirit of murder from the hearts of those of us who take no thought in it? We have travelled a long distance since the opening of World War I.
COURSE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
There is not time for me tonight to trace, even briefly, the course of international relations since the day when the great Grotius wrote his great work concerning war and peace; but I would like to say to you this: That when we went into the Civil War, there was no rule or regulation of war, and I would like to say to you, further, that the United States Army-the Union Army-drew up the first Military Code that the world has ever known. It was drawn by Francis Liebert, a political exile from Germany, and it is known as General Order 100. And I should like to tell you, briefly, that it provided that unfortified places should not be bombarded, that works of art should be sacred, that hospitals should be protected, that non-belligerents should not be killed, that the children, the aged, the infirm, the mothers and the babes at their breasts should be preserved, and it was sought to make war as human as an agency of Satan can be. Today, we sit quietly, with our consciences scarcely stricken when we contemplate Nagasaki and Hiroshima where we introduced the use of the Atom Bomb. Now, if you want to know where the losses of war are, that great field to which I have referred is where you can look.
PRINCIPLE OF UNITY
I want to revert to my favorite theme in these Priesthood meetings, that of unity; and I do urge you brethren to come to a unity of faith in your feelings, one with another, in your ministrations among the people, in your administering of the affairs of the Church. I hope that we shall not have brought to the ears of the First Presidency, more situations where Bishops and Presidents of Stakes cannot agree. You Presidents of Stakes have no right to try to impose your will upon the Bishops; and you Bishops have no right to resist the counsel of the Presidents of Stakes, because you feel somewhat differently. Work together. Make mutual concessions on matters of opinions. There are precious few all-wise men in the world.
RELIEF SOCIETY WHEAT
One more point I would like to touch: Some of you older men here have been through what I have been through out in the fields. I do not recollect the days of the scythe, but I do remember the days of what we called the "dropper," which was a great advance over the scythe. And you who know about it will remember that you had to have enough men scattered around the field to bind the grain as fast as it was cut. The next advance was where it was raked off at the side, and then we had the self-binder, etc.
In the early days of this Church, in the days of the scythe and the "dropper," while it was felt that we might have trouble to get enough to eat, the Relief Society was asked to begin to accumulate wheat. And how did they do it, brethren? They were to go out in the fields and glean after we men had taken out of the field all that we thought was worthwhile. And to those of you who have bent in the sun, as some of us have, and had the sun bake your backs as you bound the grain by hand, working as perhaps you had not worked before, and maybe since, so that you know the heat, dirt, and the discomfort and all the rest of it-I want you to think about the women that we afterwards let go into the same hot fields where we had cut the grain and taken all we cared to garner, that they might glean, pick up the occasional wheat heads we had left. This wheat which the sisters so gleaned, was hauled into the yards and threshed. Over the years, it accumulated in their bins until they had three hundred or four hundred thousand bushels, wheat laid up against a day of need. Enough to give bread for one year to 50,000 or 60,000 people.
Then we got into international trouble and the Government came along and took it and paid us for it. The Presiding Bishop handled this wheat fund for years, paying to the Relief Society an interest return thereon. When the Welfare Program was set up, we reinvested the money in wheat.
BUILDING FOR WOMEN
But in the meanwhile the sisters had been promised a building and they began to build what we now call the Presiding Bishop's Office. The sisters thought it was to be their house, but time went on and the Presiding Bishopric needed it-not this Presiding Bishopric, I do not know what they would do about it if the situation arose now-but the Presiding Bishopric then needed the building, so they took it, and it became the Presiding Bishop's Office. Well, I hear of some Bishops who expect the Relief Society to furnish the money to run the Ward. I am always reminded, as I think about such a situation as between a husband and the wife, of the farmer's wife who makes a little butter and gathers a few eggs, etc., you brethren know-she gets a little money and father gets into financial trouble and does not have any money to pay his taxes or other obligation, and so he "borrows," he "borrows" Mother's money and too often never gets where he can pay it back.
You know these women of ours are as near angels as some of us are going to see for a long time.
Now, these Relief Society sisters are starting out with high hopes and a great deal of confidence in the Presiding Bishopric-they want to build a building for themselves. There has been some talk about it as being the wrong time. It is nearly always the wrong time for Mother to have a little bit of money.
Now, brethren, Bishops, let us see if we cannot help them a little. I know no reason why we should not, and every reason why we should. If there is any Bishop in this Church who thinks he can get along without his Relief Society, he does not yet know his job. And if he is getting along without his Relief Society, he is not doing his job. So, I ask you, brethren, not to hang back in helping your wives in this matter. They are not going to ask you for much, five dollars, I believe-any one of them is worth five dollars. Let us hear no more sour talk about this Relief Society Building.
THE CONDITION OF OUR HEARTS
Now, I want to return-and then I will close-to this question of the condition of our hearts. Brethren, I beseech you, put hate out of your hearts, fill them with the love of your fellow-men and bring into your consciousness the enormity of the crime that is contemplated and pray God that some way may be found to avoid it. If the nations will seek for peace in the spirit of the peace of Christ, it will be found. I fear they will not do it.
God give us strength to live our lives day by day, give us the testimony that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph was the Prophet, build the testimonies we already have until they fill our beings, to the upbuilding of our strength, our determination to do the will of God, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus, Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 177-185
I endorse heartily the fine instructions you have already received. I think perhaps this is the largest assembly of Priesthood that the world has ever seen. Every man here and every boy here, who has conferred upon him the Aaronic or Melchizedek Priesthood, has a portion of divine authority. In my judgment, no other place in the world in our day or in olden times has had such an experience. And there are not very many places in the world where you could get as many men together in a religious service as we have here tonight.
The brethren have been calling our attention today, to the fact that we have some things to do that we have not yet accomplished. Immorality is just as terrible in the world today as it ever has been; that is, the results are just as bad. Dishonesty brings the same dread and destruction. Conditions generally are pitiable.
LETTER FROM GERMANY
I have a letter here that comes from a portion of the old world, and I will call your attention to part of it. Here is a man who is writing to a friend. This brother is in the Russian Zone of Germany. He is writing to a young man who had performed a mission in Germany several years ago. The letter reads: "As you know, my wife is very fragile and delicate, as you were in Dresden when she brought our little Claus into the world. He will be nine years old on the thirty-first of March. Three years later she bore me another son, and this year in June, we are expecting another child. Now, I am fearful that my wife will not be able to carry on, because of this famine and undernourishment." He says. "You know, together with others, what we need. This is what I have to ask you, and do not be afraid. The Church has already helped us twice with food, besides the times they have given us clothing, but it is only a drop of water on a hot stove-not delicacies that we need, but bread and potatoes. We have no potatoes at all in our house and there are none that can be bought in the stores. The daily ration of my wife in her present critical condition is, as follows: nine ounces of bread, a little less than one ounce of sugar, less than one ounce of meat, a little less than one ounce of lard, one ounce of marmalade, and a little less than one ounce of other staples."
EUROPEAN RELIEF
This condition is the result of war and famine in Europe. He calls attention to the fact that they do not know what to do, they do not know where to obtain food. They appreciate what the Church has already done. We have shipped a hundred carloads of food, bedding and clothing, since the war, into those countries. Unfortunately, in this particular section, much of it has been taken-that is, some of it has been stolen, thus preventing delivery to those for whom it was intended. Many of our people here have been sending packages. And if you send small packages by mail this individual says that it will probably be delivered, but if it comes any other way that the Russian Government, that is, those that represent the Russian Government will just take it, no matter what quantity it is, and dole out just enough to keep people from starvation. By the way, there was another thing in that letter-and I want to be sure I get it right, because it was astonishing to me. He told how much milk the small children were permitted to have. Perhaps I cannot turn to it in this letter in a hurry, but the small children have nothing else but just a small portion of milk once a day.
When I think of the blessings that we have, brethren, think of the way the Lord has made the desert to blossom and bear fruit; when I think of the comforts that we have in our homes, our opportunities, and then realize that there are some of our brethren and sisters in the old world that have not enough to eat but are suffering for the want of food and other necessities, I am grateful to the Lord for his bounties extended to us and am glad that we are sharing with those in need.
RELIEF SOCIETY BUILDING
President Clark has referred to our Relief Society that has done a marvelous piece of work in providing quilts and bedding for thousands of needy people and who are on hand always to help. The suggestion is now that we assist them to build a house, for their own use. They started the house that they are now in, and it was intended to have been a women's building but it became necessary, apparently, to take most of it over for other purposes and the sisters have had one floor of the house that was to have been theirs for the Relief Society. But they have not complained, and have gone right along. It would be a fine thing if the women of this Church could possess an office building and meeting place of their own and I hope that each of us who know of what they are trying to do-when they come into the neighborhood they will probably ask for a little contribution to help build a house-will feel that they are worth a good deal more than the small amount they ask for, and that we will demonstrate to our wives and our daughters that we appreciate their efforts.
CONDITION OF THE WORLD
It seems to me that the world never could have been in any worse condition than it is now, even at the time of the flood, or at the time of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the time of the destruction of other places in the world, the destruction in this country at the time of the crucifixion of the Savior. Wickedness was so terrible, and people did not believe in God, apparently; they refused to accept the idea that there was a God; notwithstanding, they were warned in time to repent if they would have done. In the case of Nineveh they did repent and were not destroyed, but we find so many people today who do not believe in God, do not believe in the divine mission of Jesus Christ-millions of them-and yet, He is the Father of us all. It is a strange thing how difficult it is for many people to believe that there is a God. There are many who are anti-Christ, they can believe in anything, almost, that you can think of and produce arguments for believing it, and I want to say to you today, that the largest portion of the population of the world that we live in is anti-Christ, not the followers of Christ at all. And among those who claim to believe in Christianity, comparatively few of them really believe in the divine mission of Jesus Christ.
Well, what is the result? People have turned away from the Lord and He cannot bless them when they refuse to be blessed. Our Heavenly Father has said to His children, all down through the ages, "If you will follow Me and keep My commandments, the fullness of the earth shall be yours." That has been His promise, and it has been fulfilled, notwithstanding that selfishness and immorality and other sins creep into the hearts of individuals, and they turn away from the Lord.
It is a good deal like a man once said to me-or remarked in a place where I happened to be-"Why, these people here seem to think I am full of the devil, but I am not." And I said to him, "My brother, did you ever know anybody that was full of the devil and knew it?" That is one of the tricks of the devil: To get possession of you and keep you from knowing it. And that is one of our difficulties.
ABSENCE OF SPIRIT OF GOD
This community has been an example in many respects-I speak now of the Latter-day Saint communities in different parts of the country-our sons and our daughters have been very reasonably careful to honor us and help us, I am sure. But this terrible world war that has filled people with hatred for one another, has had its effect on everybody, apparently. And there is no longer the idea among the children of men that they can sit down around a peace table and satisfy all those who are concerned. Why? Because they do not have the Spirit of God; and without it they never will come to an agreement. Now, we know that and the world does not know it.
DANGER OF ANTI-CHRISTS
In our own country we are in danger of anti-Christs; we are in danger of those who prefer to have their own way regardless of whether it is right or wrong. And I want to say that there are in our own community men and women who are looking with toleration and with some anxiety that we do not say anything unkind about those people across the sea who are just as wicked as they can be. It is not our business to criticize them. But it is our business to see that they do not bring into our community the policies and falsehoods and wickedness that control them in their own land.
The newspapers give us a little information now and again-not very much. And there comes in through the mails, to many of us, magazines of various kinds. I wonder if we are paying attention to what is going on, as a people, and realizing that if we do not prevent anti-Christs from controlling our Government of the United States, we have got to take a stand on the side of the Savior. We cannot be on the other side of the fence.
Now, we have had information and instruction that no other people in the world have had. We know that God lives. We know that Jesus is the Christ. We know that the Gospel is upon the earth, but the other people do not know that and are in the hands of the adversary. If they only had the understanding that we have, that God lives and that we are all His children and that we will be judged by our works here in this earth and by our lives, probably they would feel different, but they do not seem to know that. And on the contrary, there is bitterness and hatred in their hearts, for one another, and it is not a question of whether it is right or wrong; it is a question of which one has the most power.
INSTRUMENTS OF DESTRUCTION
Reference has been made to the Atom Bomb. That is only one thing. But just imagine, take this group here tonight, one bomb dropped upon this house that we are in, such as was dropped over there in Japan and there would not be any of us left to tell the tale. They are being manufactured, and other instruments of destruction, through the wisdom and intelligence of men, all of them sons of the living God, but they are being utilized not to find the way of peace, but to find other means of power and aggression against those that they associate with. That is' our danger. And this Church cannot remain idle and silent in regard to things of that kind.
If people come into our community and try to teach our families things that are harmful, surely, knowing our responsibility, we will ask the help of our Heavenly Father to teach them better. We do not have to become angry. We do not have to be filled with hatred, but we should be filled with wisdom that comes from our Heavenly Father when we keep His commandments. We should have the privilege of going to the Lord in prayer for guidance when we are in doubt. He will always hear and answer our prayers if we are worthy to be heard.
AID FOR WAR-STRICKEN COUNTRIES
And so, my brethren, let us set our houses in order. Let us see if we cannot do a few things that we have not been doing. We are becoming so wrapped up with the world that we forget the people who are suffering that we could help, in many cases. The Church that you belong to has done a magnificent job, and the people who belong to it have been sending means in addition to what the Welfare Organization has sent to the war-stricken countries, including food, clothing, bedding and medicines. They have done a fine piece of work, but it is only partly done and we will have to continue, and unless we are willing to continue we can hardly go to the Lord and say, "Heavenly Father, give us a bounteous harvest." They are all His children. They need us; they need not only our moral support and our religious teaching, but they need food and clothing and bedding and help of all kinds because, in many cases, they haven't anything left. If you could see some of the letters that come into our office from some of the poor people over there, it would wring your hearts. People who have been taken away from their homes with the idea that they were going to be allowed to settle elsewhere, and all of a sudden deserted, and then when they returned to their homes, found them pillaged and robbed of what they had-everything-and left helpless, with, no place to go.
GRATITUDE FOR BLESSINGS
And so, tonight, as we sit in the comfort of this grand auditorium, this house that was reared during the poverty of the people, when we did not have so many conveniences, at the same time when the Temple was going on, think how the Lord has blessed us! And I am sure we are.grateful for it and we will continue to be grateful as long as we have the Spirit of our Heavenly Father; the feeling of gratitude as a result of enjoying the Spirit of the Lord. And when we have so much to be grateful for, surely, we will be glad not to let somebody else do it, but to do our portion.
Now, we have had a wonderful two days of conference. We have another day tomorrow, and what a privilege it is to know that we can sit here in comfort, enjoying the influences that come from our Heavenly Father, listening to the most delightful music that you can hear anywhere in the world, and then go where we can find food and places where we may be able to lay our bodies down when they are tired.
And, by the way, brethren, if you know of anybody who has not a place, let us all try to help out, because there are people here from many places, some of whom have been unable to find rooms. If you will go to Bro. Romney's office, who looks after the Welfare Organization, at 19 W. South Temple, today, or tomorrow, or the day after as long as the city is crowded, I am sure he will try to be of assistance. I am giving you that because there might be cases, and we have had that happen once or twice here in Salt Lake City, where people did not know where to go and they stayed out all night or sat in the hotels in chairs. Well, now, that is a part of our work. They are our Brothers and Sisters, that have come in and we want them to be happy, and I am sure most of you have done something, who live here, to help take care of the group. I know that I never have any difficulty in having the house I live in filled, and I know that I am happy when they come and help to fill it and the Lord has blessed me for it.
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
Now, there are many things that I might talk about, tonight, but I want to raise my voice to you and say, our Heavenly Father raised up the very men that framed the Constitution of the United States. He said He did. He gave to us the greatest Palladian of human rights that the world knows anything about, the only system whereby people could worship God according to the dictates of their consciences without, in any way, being molested when the law, itself, was in effect. Now that is what the Lord gave to us. That is the Constitution of this country. Yet, we have people who would like to change that and bring some of those forms of government that have failed absolutely to make peace and happiness and comfort any other place in the world and exchange what God has given to us-the fullness of the earth and the riches of liberty and happiness. Yet, there are those who go around whispering and talking and saying, "Let us change this thing." I am saying to you that to me the Constitution of the United States of America is just as much from my Heavenly Father as the Ten Commandments. When that is my feeling, I am not going to go very far away from the Constitution, and I am going to try to keep it where the Lord started it, and not let anti-Christs come into this country that began because people wanted to serve God.
People who came here came that they might honor God without molestation. They did some very foolish and unwise things, but after awhile the Lord took a hand. He was ready to organize His Church, or would be soon, and so He raised up men that knew how to frame the Constitution of our great country and made it possible for an organization such as is in this house tonight to enjoy the blessings that we have enjoyed all these years, sometimes under difficulties, of course, but not the trials and distresses that other countries have had. So let us appreciate it and let us evidence to our Heavenly Father that we do appreciate it, not by talking about it but by letting our light so shine-the light of righteousness, the light of faith, the light of honesty, the light of generosity, the light of truthfulness, all those things that our Heavenly Father indicates that we should manifest to the world-let that light so shine that others seeing our good works will desire to be identified with an organization that seeks to live the commandments of God and honor Him. If we will do that I am sure that some problems may pass us by that otherwise may come to us.
KINDNESS TO WIVES ENJOINED
Brethren, be kind to your wives. I hope that there is no man here who has married one of the daughters of God-and He loves them, they are His daughters-who is not willing to willing to do by her as he knows the Lord would have him do. Do not make her just a convenience' in the home to do the slavery and to gratify his appetites-that is not what women were given to men, as wives, for-and I want to say to you that it is your duty and your privilege, as men who hold the Priesthood, to honor your wives and your children if you expect them to honor you. Unless you honor them, God will not be pleased with you. Live in such a way, in love and kindness, that peace and prayer and thanksgiving will be in your homes together. Do not let your homes just be a place to hang your hats at night and get your meals and then run off someplace else but let your homes be the abiding place of the Spirit of the Lord. And so, let us reach out, each of us, help our neighbors as well as ourselves, set the examples in our homes and as sons and daughters of the living God in our great community, working hand in hand.
SET HOMES IN ORDER
Reference has been made to some of the divorces that are increasing in the land. I want to say to you that the larger portion of the divorces are the result of infidelity and immorality, and unfortunately on the part of both men and women. So, brethren, let us set our own homes in order. Let us make our adjustments. Let us live so that we can truthfully look toward the skies and say, "Heavenly Father, we want to be worthy of what you have given to us. We would like to be an example to our neighbors and to all who come in contact with us." And if we will do that, our wives will be true to us, and our children will appreciate us and be true to us. I want to tell you if we want happiness in the Celestial Kingdom of our God, we will have to lay the foundation for it right here; and part of that requirement of the Lord is that we do right in our homes and live right. Some men think that because they hold the Priesthood that that gives them a special way in which they may conduct themselves in their homes. I want to tell you that you men who hold the Priesthood will never get into the Celestial Kingdom, unless you honor your wives and your families and train them and give them the blessings that you want for yourselves.
The fact that they hold the Priesthood will be to many men a condemnation, because of the manner in which they have treated it, regarding it as though it were something very ordinary. Priesthood is a word as the titles Apostle, Prophet, are words and names that ought not to be repeated unnecessarily. We ought to honor these sacred names that bring to us the blessings when we understand.
GRATITUDE FOR COMPANIONSHIP
Brethren, I have no way of expressing my gratitude to you who are here tonight for your companionship. I have no way of explaining to my brethren whom I associate with, my Counselors, how thankful I am to them for their help and their kindness and their cooperation. I love my brethren. When I see this fine lot of young men here tonight, who are here to sing to us-a glorious group-all these boys, every one of them, a child of our of our Heavenly Father with the possibility held out to them to grow to manhood, to grow to greatness, to grow to eternal happiness in the Kingdom of our Lord. I think what a privilege it is to have them here tonight with us. What a joy it must be to them to be in this great house of the Lord tonight under the influence of the Spirit of our Heavenly Father.
The Lord bless you, brethren. We have other meetings tomorrow; the usual meetings will be held as we have been holding them the last two days, and in addition to that we have a meeting on Wednesday in the Temple, for the brethren who have been invited, the Presidents of Stakes, Bishops, and a few others, because the Temple is so small it will only hold a comparatively few, but we would like those brethren to plan to be here in this building at eight o'clock on Wednesday morning, all of those who are expected to go there, assemble here in Stake capacity. The Stake Presidents meet with your counselors and meet with the others of your Stakes that are supposed to go, and we will find right here, before we go into the Temple, who is going in and whether we can all get in or not, and of course we are hoping that we all can.
Bishop, what time is your meeting tomorrow night? Seven o'clock in this building. The Aaronic Priesthood of the Church, represented by the Bishops and those whom they bring with them are expected to meet here in this building tomorrow night at seven o'clock, and I am sure those who are fortunate enough to be here will have a happy time.
LORD'S SIDE OF THE LINE
Now, brethren, again I pray that the Lord will bless you, not only tonight but henceforth and forever. Let us each go from this house this night with a renewed determination that we will stay on the Lord's side of the line, no matter what the others may do, for on His side of the line there is safety, and on the other side of the line there is not. I pray that He may give us wisdom to choose that which is holy, for it will give to us the blessings we desire, and I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 116-127
My brethren and sisters: Here are more statistics. I hope you get more pleasure out of hearing them than I get out of reading them. There is one situation, however, and a very important one, that I should like to call to your attention, and that is that the figures are all in the black. There are none in the red.
Before reading the annual financial statement, we may note a few preliminary matters, some by way of repetition of what has been said on like occasions heretofore.
REVELATION AT FISHING RIVER
At Fishing River, Missouri, June 22, 1834, the Lord declared that the commandments which he had given concerning Zion and her law should be executed and fulfilled after Zion's redemption. This suspended the operation of the United Order in Zion-i.e., Missouri. The Order continued for a time thereafter in Kirtland, but was later discontinued there.
In the years immediately following there was no organized plan for meeting the money needs of the Church, and the financial situation became increasingly serious.
THE LAW OF TITHING
In July of 1838 the Prophet was again in Missouri, at Far West. On the eighth of the month, the Prophet, urged by the serious financial needs of the Church, went to the Lord, enquiring:
O Lord! Show unto thy servant how much thou requirest of the properties of thy people for a tithing
The Lord answered with two revelations-the first giving the law of tithing, and the other fixing the order of its distribution.
COUNCIL ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF TITHES
Pursuant to these revelations, and as explained at recent conferences, the Church has a Council on the Distribution of Tithes, made up of the First Presidency, the Council of the Twelve, and the Presiding Bishopric. This Council considers the proposed budget of the Church, which is itemized under general headings, and then approves and authorizes such expenditures as it deems proper.
A subcommittee of this Council on the Distribution of Tithes then makes the detailed appropriations from the sums approved and authorized by the Council. This subcommittee is known as the Committee on Expenditures, and is made up of the First Presidency, three members of the Council of the Twelve, and the Presiding Bishopric. A Church Building Committee acts under the direction of the Committee on Expenditures. The Financial Secretary to the First Presidency acts as the secretary of the Committee on Expenditures.
The budget authorized by the Council on the Distribution of Tithes is made up of two parts:
1. The regular approved authorizations for the various items covered by the budget, in the amounts estimated as necessary to carry on the work of the Church for each item of expenditure; and
2. A contingent reserve out of which can be met any unusual expenditures not provided for in the budget, either as to budget items or as to special or unforeseen expenditures. This contingent reserve is likewise spent under the authorization of the Committee on Expenditures. In 1947 the reserve set up was a little over eight percent of the total budget appropriations from the general funds of the Church; this year this reserve equals about five percent of the itemized budget. Last year the reserve was more than ample to cover the supplementary appropriations. It is believed the reserve for this year will be likewise sufficient.
All unexpended appropriations lapse with the end of the fiscal year and are returned to and are absorbed into the general funds of the Church, subject to appropriation therefrom as are other like Church funds.
EXPENDITURES OF THE CHURCH
The expenditures of the Church are increasing at what seems to me to be a disquieting rate. For the ten years 1936 to 1945, both inclusive, the average expenditure from our general Church funds was just under $5,000,000 annually. As we reported to you at the last April conference, the expenditures for 1946 equaled $6,890,000 from general Church funds, and, including all other cash expenditures made by the people on various accounts, the expenditures amounted in total to $12,310,000. As we shall see, expenditures for 1947 were $11,263,000 out of general Church funds while the total cash expenditures, general funds, plus non-budget funds contributed by the people, were $18,919,000. The total cash expenditures, including budget and nonbudget items for 1948 are put at over $20,000,000.
I may observe that we owe no money. We shall not have to borrow any money to meet our budget. But in my own view, we must all watch more carefully our spending.
As individuals our standard has become, not our need, nor our comfort only, but our luxury. Many of us are not yet willing to bring ourselves under control and to quit spending not only all of our savings, but also all we are making, and in addition, running in debt on installment buying. Our young people, particularly our boys returned from the service, are being inveigled into running debts that, in most cases, will take all their surplus for the next ten to twenty years, and under circumstances and conditions that will cause them to lose everything they have put into their ventures, if there should come to them any incapacitating illness, or accident, or if death came, or if the hard times should come that so many predict and that some fear are even now beginning.
DANGER OF INFLATION
Unemployment is increasing, and if it continues it could become serious. In that event, if we shall follow the pattern other countries have followed, we must not be too surprised if the people, accustomed over the last few years to a certain standard of living and not having money enough to buy the things that will enable them to continue that standard of living, raise the cry that there is not enough money. In other countries when this cry has become sufficiently insistent and from sufficiently large numbers, they have started the printing presses going to print money, always under the delusion that the presumed restrictions and safeguards which are then provided, would enable the stopping of the money flood before it becomes dangerous. But again, if the pattern of other countries worked out here, it would not be possible to stop this flood of paper money once it was well started, and then would follow the inflation that ruins not the very wealthy, but those of moderate means and those with means that are less than moderate. In other words, the poor people are the ones who always suffer most in such financial debacles. Our people should remember the lessons of history, even very recent history, and do all they can to avoid this catastrophe, for such it has always proved to be in the past.
MODERATION IN EXPENDITURES
As to Church spending, for my own part, I should like to urge the people to cease building cathedrals for ward meetinghouses, and to stop furnishing them as if they were palaces. I think I should say to you that the First Presidency is not urging the building of these expensive, luxurious buildings; indeed, they consider that often the load placed upon the people thereby is both unfair and unwise; they feel we could well be much more moderate in many of our expenditures.
The Lord still does not look at the magnificence of our meetinghouses, nor at the luxury of the pews, nor at our expensive carpeting, nor at our overstuffed furniture and the mahogany chairs of the foyer and of the high council and other rooms. The Lord still looks at the humble heart and the contrite spirit of his children, and as he said when he walked with his apostles in the Holy Land:
... where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
It is not the place in which we meet, but the spirit in which we gather together that concerns the Lord. Not pride but humility brings him into our midst.
But I think it might be well to say here that under arrangements which have been made and which we are making, we are photomicrofilming the public records of several of the countries of Europe as well as parts of the United States. Great as our genealogical library already is, when we get through with this operation which we are now undertaking, it will, I am sure, be easily the greatest genealogical library in the world; and our people will be able to come here to our library, those who come from foreign lands or whose ancestors come from foreign lands-and all of us come from foreign lands originally-will be able to come to our library here and do their record work here in great part which heretofore they had to go to Europe to do.
As President Smith told you yesterday, we have now shipped as of this date one hundred carloads of food and clothing to Europe. Their needs are still great, but there are some observers returning from Europe who say that they are eighty percent of their normal production. It may be that notwithstanding the individual cases that we hear of, of great hardship, yet they over there may have acquired some of our habits and are glad to take all they can get. Please do not misunderstand me. The suffering is great, and we must not discontinue our efforts. But it is a relief to know that possibly the whole situation is not so bad as we might expect.
LORD'S ADMONITION TO PARENTS
Now I would like to read to you a little scripture to conclude with. In November of 1831 the Lord said:
"Again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents".
Furthermore in the same revelation:
"Now, I the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them; and their children are also growing up in wickedness; they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness".
The First Presidency of the Church was organized March 18, 1833. On May 6 the Lord gave a revelation regarding the conditions with reference to the children, and he began with the First Presidency, and I will read what he said:
"But verily I say unto you my servant Frederick G. Williams, you have continued under this condemnation;
"You have not taught your children light and truth, according to the commandments; and that wicked one hath power, as yet, over you, and this is the cause of your affliction.
"And now a commandment I give unto you-if you will be delivered you shall set in order your own house, for there are many things that are not right in your house.
"Verily, I say unto my servant Sidney Rigdon, that in some things he hath not kept the commandments concerning his children; therefore, first set in order thy house."
And then to the Prophet he says:
"Verily, I say unto my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., or in other words, I will call you friends, for you are my friends, and ye shall have an inheritance with me-
"I called you servants for the world's sake, and ye are their servants for my sake-
"And now, verily I say unto Joseph Smith, Jun.-You have not kept the commandments, and must needs stand rebuked before the Lord;
"Your family must needs repent and forsake some things, and give more earnest heed unto your sayings, or be removed out of their place.
"What I say unto one I say unto all; pray always lest that wicked one have power in you and remove you out of your place."
And then he goes to the bishop:
"My servant Newel K. Whitney also, a bishop of my church, hath need to be chastened, and set in order his family, and see that they are more diligent and concerned at home, and pray always, or they shall be removed out of their place".
PRESENT NEED FOR PARENTAL GUIDANCE
As has already been said in this conference, these principles are as applicable today as they were at the time when the Lord gave them. Some of us sometimes think that these messages addressed to particular persons in the D&C; during the early days, are not applicable to us. I have always felt and believed that out of every personal revelation given in those early days, and given today, there is a lesson to the whole Church.
You parents need to instruct your children, to admonish them, and then yourselves so to live that they may emulate your example. I do not know whether you have thought of this fact, and fact I think it is: we have become so fearful about our children that discipline has too largely disappeared. The youth of today are very largely by their insistent requests, sometimes demands, directing the course of action of the whole world. We are so keen and anxious, as we should be, to keep them near us so that they will live properly that we are almost giving them everything they ask without any thought as to whether it is wise or unwise.
I appeal to you parents, take nothing for granted about your children. The great bulk of them, of course, are good but some of us do not know when they begin to go away from the path of truth and righteousness. Be watchful every day and hour. Never relax your care, your solicitude. Rule kindly in the spirit of the gospel and the spirit of the priesthood, but rule, if you wish your children to follow the right path. Now I am not talking about cruelty; I am not talking about whippings. Those are the recourses and the last recourses, of the unrighteous man. I am talking to you about loving them, bringing them to you, but always giving them counsel.
May God always be with us and help us to do his service and increase our testimonies; bring to us a testimony that Joseph Smith was the instrument through whom God restored the gospel and the priesthood. If that were not true, we would have nothing. It is true, and you should so teach the youth. Do not be fearful to tell the facts about your religion. Teach Jesus the Christ, the Son of God; teach Joseph the Prophet; teach God as a being who loves his children; and by your own lives and examples see that your children know that that is what you believe. And you teachers, see that your students know that is what you believe.
God bless us, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
Joseph Fielding Smith, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 131-136
My dear brethren and sisters, I need your assistance and the guidance of the Spirit of the Lord. I would like to read a little from the book of Malachi, whom I may designate as a prophet of the restoration, for he has a great deal to say about the restoration.
In the third chapter we read:
A PROPHET OF THE RESTORATION
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.
Throughout the world the idea prevails that this prediction has reference to the first coming of Christ in the days of his ministry, but this is not the case, it has reference to his second coming, for the predictions which follow were not fulfilled at his first coming, but are to be fulfilled when he comes in power, at and preceding the second coming. We read:
But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap:
And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.
Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.
And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers. and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.
Now we understand, and the whole world could understand, that the offering of Judah in the days of Christ's ministry, was not pleasant. Levi was not at that time cleansed, but Judah and Levi turned away from the Lord. It is in the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times that these things are to be fulfilled.
In the fourth chapter Malachi speaks again of the coming of the Son of God, in these words:
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
This will happen when our Savior comes in his glory to take vengeance upon the ungodly and take his place as King of kings and Lord of lords. Then this prophet Malachi goes on to say that before that day can come, which will be terrible, Elijah the prophet was to come, and these are the words as we have them in this King James translation:
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
GREAT AND DREADFUL DAY NEAR
The whole world ought to take notice of this prediction, but the world does not understand it. Surely the signs of the times point to the fact that the great and dreadful day is near, even at our doors. The fig tree, figuratively, is putting forth her leaves. The turmoil, trouble, the war and bloodshed that we have seen, and which we still see, all point to the fact that this day for the coming of the Son of God is near. Therefore, Elijah the prophet is due to appear. I am sure you agree with me that he has already appeared, for we have it so recorded by the testimony of witnesses. It was on the third day of April, 1836, when he came to the Kirtland Temple, to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, and conferred upon them the keys of his priesthood and told them that he came in fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to their fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse.
Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors.
RESTORATION BY ELIJAH
Well, of course, the world does not believe that Elijah came to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery; but they have no record in the world that he has come to anyone else. There has been no appearance and no claim of an appearance, and a restoration of his priesthood to anyone else. May we not, then, with perfect consistency, put forth the claim that he did come on that occasion and that he did restore his keys of authority to these two humble men, which turned the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers? No one else has ever disputed this claim by the giving of another claim. And why could he not come to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery as well as to anybody else? I testify to you that he did come, and if the world want to know it also, they can. We have an abundance of evidence that this story is true. If Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had lied, it would have been impossible for them to have turned the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Surely, they would not have any power to do that. It is true that following the declaration by them that Elijah did come, the hearts of the children commenced to turn to their dead fathers. There is strong presumptive evidence that this was because these keys were restored. This is a demonstrative fact, that the hearts of children have turned to their fathers.
ACTIVITY IN GENEALOGY
I have a little information here that I think is important, and this coming of Elijah is one of the vital things in the history of this world. It is vital to me and to you and to every other soul upon the face of the earth. Before the days of the coming of Elijah in 1836, there was no endeavor of any import to search the records of the dead. What was done, here and there, was usually where some estate was involved. The people were not turning their hearts to their dead fathers. They were not searching the records. They were not compiling them. There were no organizations or societies on the face of the earth, as far as I can learn, gathering records of the dead, before the year 1836. In 1837, however, one year later, Great Britain passed laws providing for and compelling the preservation of records of the dead. In the year 1844, the New England Historical and Genealogical Society was organized in Boston, and I think this was the first organization of the kind in the world. In 1869, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society in the city of New York was organized. Then followed rapidly other societies up and down the Atlantic coast of the United States, from Maine to Georgia. Then these organizations began to spread inland, and this spirit took hold of the people in other parts. I have visited some of these societies in various parts of the United States, and they have extended now from the east to the Pacific Ocean. In Great Britain, genealogical societies have been organized in practically every county in that land and in Scotland. These records have been kept and flied also in other countries in Europe, the countries from which the Latter-day Saints have come. The spirit has taken hold of the people, not only in the Church, but also of many who are not of the Church, and they, too, are searching the records, and compiling them, of the dead.
PREVALENCE OF GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH
In the year 1902, I had the privilege of going east on a genealogical mission. My father wanted me to go because there was some confusion in our family line in those early days, which he wanted me to straighten out. I went back to Essex County, Massachusetts. At Topsfield, where our ancestors first settled in the United States, I became acquainted with Mr. George Francis Dow, a very prominent gentleman of Massachusetts. I told him the purpose of my visit to that part of the country. He invited me to his home. I asked him where I could find the best sources for information in my search. He said: "You do not have to go anywhere. I have all that information. I have compiled it." So he put in my hands this record, and I found it already prepared. He was working on many other lines also. While there I met a Mr. Perley, a prominent lawyer of Salem, Massachusetts. He likewise was engaged in genealogical research. I had a long conversation with him. He told me that he had undertaken a great work for the benefit of the descendants of people who settled in Essex County. "It is my ambition," he said, "if I can do it, to search out the records of every individual who came to Essex County before the year 1700. I said to him, "Mr. Perley, you have cut out for yourself a big work, haven't you?" He replied, "Yes, and I am afraid I'll never finish it." Then I said to him, "Why are you doing this work?" He thought a moment and looked rather puzzled and then replied, "I do not know why, but I got started, and I cannot stop." I said, "I can tell you why you are doing this and why you cannot stop, but if I did, you would not believe me and would laugh at me." "Oh," he said, "I don't know. If you can tell me, I am sure I will be interested." Then I told him of the prophecy concerning Elijah and the fulfilment of this promise to the Prophet Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, April 3, 1836, in the Kirtland Temple, and how this spirit of research had taken hold of many people, and they had turned their hearts to the seeking after the dead in fulfilment of this great promise which was to come before the second coming, so that the earth would not be smitten with a curse. Now the children were turning their hearts toward their fathers, and we were doing the ordinance work for the dead that they might find redemption and have the privilege of coming into the kingdom of God, although dead.
When I got through, he laughed and said, "It is a very pretty story, but I do not believe it." Yet he admitted that there was something compelling him to carry on this research, and he could not stop. I have met a great many others who also started and could not stop, men and women who are not members of the Church. So we find today thousands of men and women searching out the records of the dead. They do not know why, but it is so that we can obtain these compiled records and go into our temples and do the work for our dead.
President Clark told us that the Church is putting forth considerable sums for the purpose of collecting records in Europe that we might search out our ancestors and go into the house of the Lord and do work for them.
Now here is something which I think is interesting. In 1935, Mr. T. B. Thompson published A Catalogue of British Family Histories. It included the titles and years of publication of some two thousand seventy-one families and was supposed to be a complete list of all such published records up to that date. Here are his figures from the date of the invention of printing:
From 1450 to 1600, were published 2 family histories. From 1600 to 1700, were published 18 family histories. From 1700 to 1800, were published 72 family histories. From 1800 to 1836, when Elijah came, were published 100 family histories. From 1837 to 1935, were published 1,879 family histories.
THE KEYS OF SEALING POWER
These were records in Europe, and since the year 1836, there have been published in Great Britain and the United States thousands of records of the dead. I have some other things I would like to present but cannot at this time. Let me call your attention to the fact, however, my good brethren and sisters, that Elijah restored to this Church and, if they would receive it, to the world, the keys of the sealing power; and that sealing power puts the stamp of approval upon every ordinance that is done in this Church and more particularly those that are performed in the temples of the Lord. Through that restoration each of you, my brethren, has the privilege, of going into this house or one of the other temples to have your wife sealed to you for time and for all eternity, and your children sealed to you also, or better, have them born under that covenant. What a glorious privilege it is to know that the family organization will remain intact. It is not destroyed. It does not come to an end wherein we have complied with the divine law by virtue of the keys which are held by the President of the Church. We may go into the house of the Lord and do these things and be baptized for our dead, those who have died, the scriptures say, and we have heard it repeated at this conference, who died without the knowledge of the gospel. Our duty is to search out our dead, and I am very grateful that the Church is helping us in these matters by securing the records of the dead that we might have them, and our duty is to perform the necessary ordinances in their behalf in our temples.
STATEMENT OF PROPHET JOSEPH SMITH
The Prophet Joseph Smith has said:
The Bible says, "I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse".
Now the word turn here should be translated bind or seal. But what is the object of this important mission? or how is it to be fulfilled? The keys are to be delivered, the spirit of Elijah is to come, the Gospel to be established, the Saints of God gathered, Zion built up, and the Saints to come up as saviors on Mount Zion.
But how are they to become saviors on Mount Zion? By building their temples, erecting their baptismal fonts, and going forth and receiving all the ordinances, baptisms, confirmations, washings, anointings, ordinations and sealing powers upon their heads, in behalf of their progenitors who are dead, and redeem them that they may come forth in the first resurrection and be exalted to thrones of glory with them; and herein is the chain that binds the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, which fulfills the mission of Elijah...
The Saints have not too much time to save and redeem their dead, and gather together their living relatives, that they may be saved also, before the earth will be smitten, and the consumption decreed falls upon the world.
I would advise all the Saints to go with their might and gather together all their living relatives to this place, that they may be sealed and saved, that they may be prepared against the day that the destroying angel goes forth; and if the whole Church should go to with all their might to save their dead, seal their posterity, and gather their living friends, and spend none of their time in behalf of the world, they would hardly get through before night would come, when no man can work....
The question is frequently asked: "Can we not be saved without going through with all these ordinances, etc.?" I would answer, No, not the fullness of salvation. Jesus said, "There are many mansions in my Father's house, and I will go and prepare a place for you". House here named should have been translated kingdom; and any person who is exalted to the highest mansion has to abide a celestial law, and the whole law, too.
I call your attention to these things. The Lord bless you, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
Joseph L. Wirthlin, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 142-148
It is with a prayer in my heart, my brethren and sisters, that I attempt, this afternoon, to express one or two thoughts.
THE PRE-EXISTENT STATE
This morning as we listened to that beautiful number, rendered in such an inspirational way by the choir of Ricks College, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life", it took my mind back into the pre-existent state, when God our Eternal Father sat in counsel with the great and the mighty ones in an endeavor to evolve a plan whereby his children might come to the earth and have all the experiences of mortality, and at the same time, a plan which would permit them to return and dwell with him throughout the eternities to come. There were presented in that great council two plans; one by Lucifer, a son of the morning. His proposal was that all of the children of God should be saved and returned to him. But he would force salvation upon them, and foe that achievement he was to have all of the honor and the glory. That plan was rejected and another son of God came forth in the spirit of, "Lord, here am I", proposing a plan whereby all spirits should have their free agency and where, through a gospel of love, a gospel which would bring them a knowledge and a testimony that God the Eternal Father loved them and because of his great love for them, they in turn would love and obey the Lord and thereby have the privilege of returning to his presence.
I am quite sure that when our Heavenly Father looked into that great multitude of spiritual faces, he knew that there were not any two of them alike, in personality, or in gifts or talents, and hence a plan had to be adopted which would fit all of these personalities and their talents. Hence, he accepted the plan of the Lord Jesus Christ; and then he so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son that whosoever believed in him should not perish but should have everlasting life.
ADVENT OF THE SON OF GOD
In the meridian of time the Son of God appeared among men, and he made it plain that he had come to serve God and to give God all the glory and the credit for his achievements, and said he,
For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
He also taught the people that he had come as the living bread which came down from heaven.
... if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
As we contemplate the ministry of the Savior, we will recall the time when, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he suffered spiritual and mental anguish in anticipation of the crucifixion that was just about to take place, and in that hour he called to his Father in heaven,
... if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
And the Savior was crucified. His bleeding and pierced body was taken down from the cross, consummating the plan of the great atonement, as Paul said,
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM
There was another father and his son, Father Abraham, a man without guile, and who was privileged to walk and talk with divine beings. Abraham was an old man, a man ninety-nine years of age and up to that time he had not been blessed with a son by his wife Sarah. Three heavenly messengers appeared to him and promised that he and Sarah in their declining years should have the blessing of a son. A son was born unto them, and he was named Isaac, becoming their most precious possession. Abraham heard the voice of the Lord calling and in response to the Lord said, "Behold, here I am", and the Lord said to him:
... Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
Abraham secured wood and a knife and requesting two young men to accompany him, made the journey to the base of the designated mountain, and there Abraham requested the two young men to remain behind, and taking Isaac by the hand pushed toward the summit. Arriving there, an altar was built, wood was placed upon it. The curiosity of the boy was aroused, and he asked his father, "Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" And Abraham said, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering".
Abraham's faith in God was so implicit and profound that, although in the moment of offering up his own son, he felt that God would provide a lamb for the sacrifice. Isaac was bound upon the altar. The arm of Abraham was raised to strike the fatal 'blow when he heard the voice of an angel calling to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him, a ram caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son".
Abraham's faith in God was wholly justified, for while he was about to sacrifice his own son, God provided a ram. The obedience of Abraham in this incident, without a doubt, is one of the greatest examples of obedience in the history of the whole human family, and because of his great love for God and having implicit faith in God, God made him the father of all nations, promising him that his descendants would be as numerous as the sands of the seashore. God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son, and Abraham so loved God that he was willing to sacrifice his son at the command of God.
APOSTASY PROM THE TRUTH
The law of sacrifice was ended upon the cross and a new era was inaugurated, the era of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ which would give men the opportunity to serve God in the spirit of love. After the crucifixion and the resurrection of the Savior, his apostles went forth and preached the gospel of the kingdom. Shortly after, they too gave their lives and disappeared; the Church's organization disintegrated; men substituted their own doctrines for those of the Christ; they changed the organization and the ordinances; and it was only a short time until the shadow of the great apostasy was upon the earth. For some two thousand years ecclesiastical and political tyranny dictated to men as to what kind of God they should worship and what kind of principles they should follow and obey. There were many of them who had the inherent blessing in their hearts, that of free agency, who refused to accept man-made gods and man-made doctrines, and consequently, the penalty was death. But the dawn of a new day was upon the horizon, the day when the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ should be restored, and in answer to the supplication of a humble boy in the woods of western New York, that same God who presided in the great spiritual council, and his Son, Jesus Christ, who had been crucified and resurrected stood before him. The Father introduced him, saying to the boy, "This is my Beloved Son, hear him!".
RESTORATION OF THE GOSPEL
The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ was restored in its fulness, and just one hundred and eighteen years ago, on this very day, the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ was officially organized. It has a complete organization, with a prophet of God standing at its head, twelve apostles, and the two priesthoods, and with every officer that is necessary to have it function as perfectly in behalf of the Lord's children as it did two thousand years ago.
The people joined the Church by the hundreds, those who had been seeking light and truth. The early members of this Church were driven from Kirtland to Independence, and from Independence to Nauvoo, and from Nauvoo to these promised valleys. Perhaps we shall never realize or know what they suffered or what they went through. In thinking of them, with your indulgence I would like to speak of my own grandfather. He caught the spirit of gathering in one of the far-off European countries, and made the long journey to the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Upon arriving here he stood on what is now Main Street, with just the clothes he had on his back, with one silver dollar in his pocket, and a pair of shoes that were about worn out, for he had made the long trek from the banks of the Mississippi to the valley of the Great Salt Lake afoot. He soon married, and going out to what is now the corner of Eighth East and South Temple, he built a mansion, a one-room dugout in the ground. Becoming somewhat prosperous, after two years they came up out of the ground and erected two rooms upon the surface. Here my father and other children were born. They were in the vale of poverty, but that mattered not. They had received the light and the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They felt it was not only a blessing for them, but a blessing also for their unborn posterity, even down to the fourth and fifth generations. Were they not in the shades of the temple of which Isaiah spoke, which was being slowly but surely erected? Did they not have the privilege of coming into this historic building, hearing the voice of the prophets of God and accepting their counsel as if it came directly from God?
FAITH OF GRANDPARENTS
In a short time the Lord did speak to them through his prophet, my grandfather being called to go on a mission. They took inventory of their resources and discovered that they did not have the finances to pay his traveling expenses back to his mission field. It was decided to sell the family cow, their only source of food. It was sold without any hesitation, grandfather taking the money and making his way back to Switzerland. My grandmother had the responsibility of maintaining the family and of doing what she could for her husband in a financial way. She went to work sewing salt sacks for one dollar a thousand, payable in tithing scrip.
I am quite sure that many of us would say that was a great sacrifice: that it was in the extreme; that it was fanatical. We might even say it was radical; but I want to say that if any of us were ever to make such an accusation against our grandparents who gave their all for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are forgetting that they loved God with all their soul, might and strength. We forget too, that God had endowed them with a divine revelation that we call a testimony by the power of the gift of the Holy Ghost, so that they knew that God lived, they knew that he who was crucified upon Calvary's Hill was the Redeemer of the world, and the humble boy who supplicated God in the woods of New York was his chosen servant in the last days through whom the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ was restored. To accuse them of being fanatical would be to accuse God of being fanatical, because he gave his Only Son, it would be to accuse Abraham of being radical, because he too was willing to sacrifice his only son upon God's command.
The spirit of the pioneers is reflected in these words, "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of God shall give unto you".
TWO KINDS OF SACRIFICE
In thinking of our fathers; our Heavenly Father, our father Abraham and our pioneer forefathers, I wonder what all this means, to you and to me. I wonder if we accept the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and all of its obligations as an opportunity, or I wonder if we accept these obligations somewhat in the spirit of sacrifice. I tell you there are two kinds of sacrifices. The greatest sacrifice was made by God, namely the offering of his son for the atonement and salvation of mankind, and that of Abraham in the offering of his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice out of pure love for God and his full understanding of the law of obedience. The other kind of sacrifice has the atmosphere of selfishness which causes men to feel that they are giving too much for this great cause, and that kind of sacrifice, let me tell you, circumscribes and restricts people in their activities in this great Church, for God expects us to give liberally and freely of our talents, our resources and our all for the upbuilding of his kingdom, as did our pioneer forefathers.
Do you approach your assignments in the spirit of sacrifice, do you do your temple work in the spirit of being a savior on Mt. Zion, or do you do it in the spirit of sacrifice? Do you pay your contributions as a sacrifice or do you pay them because you wish to express gratitude to God for the many blessings that he has bestowed upon you, and you are but returning that part which belongs to him? Do you who are called to go out and teach the people the doctrines of the kingdom, do it in the spirit of sacrificing your time, or do you do it in the spirit of liberality, with a desire to contribute all you can for the salvation of the souls of our Heavenly Father's children? Do you who send out missionaries, do it in the spirit of sacrifice or do you do it in the spirit of promulgating through your children the gospel of Jesus Christ as your forefathers and mine preached it? If we go forward in the spirit of the gospel, which is the spirit of opportunity, the spirit of service and love, there is no question that the Lord God will bless us and keep his promises in providing us with our daily needs. We should always follow the admonition of the Savior,
... seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you,
never forgetting that the first and great commandment is to,
... love the Lord thy God with all flay heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,
which brings me to another thought. When thinking of this great welfare program can you think of an opportunity that is comparable to it in loving our neighbors as we love ourselves? If modern-day Israel ever received a revelation in this day with reference to what we should do in loving and helping our neighbor, let me tell you the opportunity has come through the great welfare program of this Church. The hundred carloads of food that we have sent has been a blessing to those who have been in need, but think of the blessings that will come to us because we thought of them, expressing our love in food and clothing.
LOVE OF GOD REQUIRES ACTION
Love of God is something that requires action, for men cannot have faith in God, nor love him, unless they are acting in his cause, with their whole heart constantly thinking of him and giving of their physical strength in love.
... God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
and Abraham so loved God that he was willing to give his son, and your fathers and mine so loved God that they gave their all to establish the kingdom here in the tops of the mountains, where you and I might enjoy every blessing which will be for our spiritual and temporal good. Let us remember this, too, that God calls men in this day exactly as he called in the day of Abraham, exactly as he called in the day of the Savior, and in the day of Joseph Smith. He may call to you and he may call to me, through his servants-the First Presidency of the Church, through the Council of the Twelve or through any of the other General Authorities. He may call to us to render some service through the stake presidency or our bishop, and please remember when they call, it is the voice of God, speaking through them to us, and they are not calling because of their choice, but because they are God's servants endowed with the authority to call upon us to render service whenever, it is needed. So, in the Spirit of Jesus when that call comes let us answer as Abraham answered, and as the Prophet answered, and as your forefathers and mine answered; "Lord, behold, here am I," and never forgetting that God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son, that he who believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life, which I pray will be the blessing and the destiny of each and every one of us, in the name of our crucified Savior. Amen.
Elder John A. Widtsoe
John A. Widtsoe, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 148-149
My brethren and sisters, it is always a great privilege to be allowed to bear testimony of the truth of the great work in which we are engaged. It may be in the great Tabernacle where we are now assembled or it may be in a humble cottage meeting; it matters little. It is very good for all of us, every member, to give voice to his testimony, to his belief, to his faith in this the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
TESTIMONY OF THE TRUTH
This work is of God; established by him, by the voice of revelation. It is the truth. It has been my joy, throughout the years of my life, to discover from time to time, that every principle, every doctrine, every historic event in the building of this great latter-day kingdom, are in harmony with every discovered and revealed truth. This is the truth, and we must rely upon it, learn to understand that it is the truth; otherwise the great joy that the Lord has offered us in this work will not be ours. I agree with Brigham Young that another name for the gospel might well be truth.
Along with truth comes light. Light is never found except in the presence of truth. The Lord in his latter-day revelations said over and over again that truth and light go together. We who receive truth have light to point the way, to solve our problems, to tell us where we are going, and to give us an enlightening faith to help us in the journey of life.
Truth also does something else for us: It gives us power, not only principles and doctrines of truth and light, but it also gives power to accomplish the work of the Lord in these latter-days.
THE SEALING POWER
I trust all of us listened intently to the sermon by Elder Joseph Fielding Smith today. The power of the priesthood, the power of this Church, culminates in the sealing power which is exercised ordinarily in the temples of the Most High. He might have quoted, if he had had more time this morning, from Moroni the prophet, who was visiting Joseph Smith the boy, as he was then, the change made in the statement of Malachi. Moroni said, if I remember correctly,
Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers.
If it were not so-and this is the greatest part of this revelation,
If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.
That is the power that belongs to the Church, to the priesthood, to those who walk in truth and light. It is the power that holds the earth's events together, that makes possible the accomplishment of God's purposes in these latter-days.
IMPORTANCE OF TEMPLE WORK
I trust that we all, as has been advised here today, seek to win the power that flows out of the temples of the Lord, by giving some of our time and means to genealogy and temple work. Thereby strength will come to us, for the temples are places of revelation. They are the places around which the Saints have always gathered and will do so, more and more, in the days to come.
I bear testimony to the truth of this work, to its accompanying light, to its great accompanying power, and thank the Lord for the gospel of Jesus Christ, restored in these days. I pray that all of us may get some measure of the exquisite joy and happiness that come to those who accept the truth and live its principles, who surrender to it. God be with us all and bless us, bless all who labor in this great cause. May the work grow and increase until it shall cover the earth with its truth and light and power, I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Mark E. Petersen
Mark E. Petersen, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 152-156
This conference has certainly been a great inspiration to me. I am grateful for the strength that I have received from my brethren as they have talked to me and to you. I am very glad that the Lord has blessed them so, and I hope that he will bless me as he has blessed them.
GRATITUDE FOR FAITH OF YOUTH
I have been more than happy with the participation of the young people in this conference. Like you, I was thrilled in my soul by the singing of the Brigham Young University chorus, yesterday; by the Aaronic Priesthood chorus in our priesthood meeting last night, and now again, by the singing of these wonderful young people from Ricks College. I am glad for them. As I have visited the various stakes and met with your young people in firesides and other meetings, I have been everlastingly grateful for them, I am glad for their strength, for their faith, and their devotion, and I have a feeling of confidence that in the years to come, when the affairs of the Church are given into their hands, that all will be well.
I realize that there are many pitfalls in the paths of our young people, and some fall into those pitfalls, and for them we grieve. With this in mind, I would like to direct my remarks more particularly to the young people, and I desire to talk about cigarettes.
REVELATION ON USE OF TOBACCO
I wonder, young people of the Church, if you have ever seriously thought about what a cigarette means to a Latter-day Saint. It means more to us than it does to other people. I know that some of you will say that you do not see why, that you have friends in other churches who smoke, and they seem to get along all right, and their churches do not criticize them for it, and you do not see why our Church takes the attitude it does on this subject. Just remember, if you will, that the Lord has not spoken to your young friends in the other churches, nor to the heads of their churches, giving them any divine revelation directing them to abstain from these harmful things. In their churches they do not even accept the principle of modern revelation.
But with us, it is entirely different. God has spoken to us by his latter-day prophets. He has given us modern-day revelation, declaring that tobacco is not good for man. That is the word and the will of the Lord to the Latter-day Saints. Whenever we turn our backs upon that principle, to that extent we turn our backs upon the Lord.
The average young American is an individual who loves freedom, wants to be his own boss, and does not like to have other people regulate his life for him. But some of them misunderstand their independence, and in a spirit of misunderstanding say, "Well, if I want to take a smoke, that is my business. I have a perfect right to. It is a free country, isn't it?" But in submitting to the enslaving influence of nicotine, they contribute to a loss of the very freedom they talk about.
CIGARETTE HABIT DETERMINES COURSE OF LIFE
If you adopt the cigarette habit, it will, in large measure determine the kind of life you are going to live, the kind of friends you will have, the kind of person you are going to marry, even the kind of children you may have. Do you regard that as an extreme statement? Let us think about it for a few moments.
If, at your house, you happen to take a newspaper or a magazine which carries cigarette advertising, and those alluring advertisements tempt you to smoke and try to make you think that it is smart to puff on a cigarette, and if you fall for that temptation, what is the first thing you do?
You brush to one side all the teachings of your parents, your Church, and your friends who love you. Instead, you take the advice of a tobacco merchant who has no more interest in you than to get what money he can out of you by making you a slave to his product. And then, you tell yourself "I think I will buy some cigarettes." And so, with a guilty conscience, and feeling as if the eyes of the whole world are upon you, you go and buy your first package of cigarettes. Then, you wonder where you are going to smoke them. You do not want to smoke them in front of your parents because you know it is wrong, and you know it would break their hearts. You do not want to smoke in front of your non-smoking friends because you know what they would tell you. And so, you go some place where neither your friends nor your parents can see you. Then you open the package, and you take out that first cigarette, put it in your mouth and light it. Then you make a great discovery: You find out that by sucking on one end of that cigarette, with the light on the other, you can actually get smoke out of it; and having read what you have in the advertisements, and having puffed away on that cigarette, the whole operation inflates your ego. So you throw back your head, and you blow the smoke in the air, and you say, "Well, I really must be somebody."
SMOKERS ASSOCIATE WITH SMOKERS
You want to smoke some more, inasmuch as you have fallen for that temptation, but you do not want to do it in private all the time, and you do not want to be the only smoker in a non-smoking crowd, so you seek out other people who smoke, so you can smoke with them. It may be that you already have some smoking friends and that they were the ones who provided those first cigarettes and that you began to smoke with them. In either case, you begin breaking off your connections with your non-smoking friends and start to form your associates among smokers. And in this way, your cigarettes begin to choose your friends for you.
One of the very difficult things about this is that the habits of smokers so often do not stop with smoking, but they include drinking and unwise partying, as well. And when you start going with people who do those things, it will not be very long before you are doing the same things they are, and in that way the cigarette lays the foundation on which you form other evil habits.
CIGARETTE USER STAYS AWAY FROM CHURCH
If you are going to be a smoker, you realize that you are breaking one of the commandments of God, and you do not feel good about it. You know that over in the ward they speak about the Word of Wisdom every once in a while and now that you are a smoker you do not like to hear about the Word of Wisdom. You have heard about it all your life and you do not want your conscience to hurt you any more than it already does, so tell yourself you had better stay away from your meetings. You begin to realize that for a Latter-day Saint, worship and smoking just do not go together. And so the cigarette persuades you to stay away from church.
When you were small, your parents taught you to pray, and you prayed with more or less regularity all your life. But now that you are a smoker, you feel out of harmony with the Lord and you hesitate to go to him in prayer.
CIGARETTES UNDERMINE FAITH
You begin to discover that, for a Latter-day Saint, cigarettes undermine faith and interfere with prayer. And as a child who has been hurt avoids the instruments which hurt him, so you with a smarting conscience shy away from your religious duties. You have come to know that spirituality and smoking are incompatible. And so the cigarette persuades you to stop praying.
Your parents also taught you to pay tithing on everything you earned, but now that you do not go to church very often and you are not very proud of your Church connections, you stop paying your tithing. 'What is the use?" you ask yourself. You say, "This tithing money itself would buy quite a few cigarettes; they cost real money these days." Rather an expensive habit you have picked up! And so the cigarette persuades you to stop paying your tithing.
When you get old enough to get married, you ask yourself, "Whom shall I marry?" If you are a boy you say, "Will it be Helen or Jane or Elizabeth?" And if you are a girl, you ask yourself, "Will it be Tom or Dick or Harry?" And then you tell yourself that you like Tom better than Harry, and Jane better than Elizabeth. And why do you like them better? Because you know them better. And how did you get to know them better? Because they are in the crowd you go with; you know, the smoking crowd. And they do the things that you do. They are like you. Why, you would not even think of marrying one of your former friends in the non-smoking crowd. How ridiculous! Why, he would not smoke with you-would not even take a cocktail, and he would not neck, and he would not pet, and he would not party around. Why, you would not marry one of them! You are going to marry one of your own crowd. And then, if you want to sit down together and smoke together you can, and there is no embarrassment-so you tell yourself. There is nobody to get after you if you fill the house full of tobacco smoke, and no one to nag at you if your cigarette burns a hole in the overstuffed, or if you drop hot ashes on the new rug. So your cigarette has helped to choose the kind of person you marry.
WORLDLINESS IN HOME LIFE
What kind of home will you have? There will not be much faith in it, because the cigarettes have already undermined your faith. And you will not say very many prayers because the cigarettes have taken care of that too. And there will not be much Church activity in your house, because the cigarettes have checked that off also. So you will have a worldly home with precious little of spirituality in it. Is that really the kind of home you want?
Will you have any children in that home? If you are like many of the smoking young people of today, you will not have any children. One of them recently said, "Why a squawking kid would cramp my style! Do you think I am going to stay up and walk the floor in the middle of the night with a squealing baby in my arms? None of that for me." And so the cigarette may help to rob you of one of the greatest blessings that God gives us in this life: The privilege of having little children.
But suppose by some chance you do have children-what will they be like? Why, they will be just like you. They will not believe very much in God, because you will not make religion very important in their lives. They will not say very many prayers because you will not teach them how. And they will not go to Church much because you do not. And when they get a little older, they will acquire the other habits that you have, and they will be just about like you. So the cigarette determines in large measure the kind of children you will have.
Do you not see, young people of the Church, how the cigarettes can mark out your life for you-point the path for you to follow? Are you, as young Americans, willing to surrender to the tyranny of a cigarette? Are you willing to allow a cigarette to determine in such large measure the kind of life you are going to live? Are you going to allow a cigarette to choose the kind of friends you have, the kind of person you will marry-even the kind of children you may have? Are you, as a young Latter-day Saint, willing to allow a cigarette to determine your attitude toward God?
THE VALUE OF RELIGION
Let me ask you one other thing: What do you think of religion, anyway? Is it worth while? Is it worth the trouble we go to? Does it do any good in the world? Or would we be better off without it?
I once read an advertisement which asked this question: "How would you like to live in a town in which there were no churches?" And then it listed the crime and the violence and the debauchery and the filth and the heartbreak and the sorrow and the disappointment associated with persons who reject the soul-elevating, character-building influence of true religion. Would you like to live in a town in which there were no churches? Bring it right down to your own case and ask yourself about it. Would you like to live a life in which there was no religion? Do you really want the degrading influence of the irreligious? That influence is just as deadly for an individual as it is for a whole town.
Choose for yourself: Do you want to live a life without God? The cigarette would like you to. But remember, you can never live successfully without the Lord. So many have tried, and all have failed.
And so I come back to the question with which I began: Have you ever really considered what a cigarette means to a Latter-day Saint? You who smoke now, do not make the mistake of supposing that the Church is against you, because it is not. It only desires your welfare, and it hopes and prays for the day when you will declare your independence from the slavery of nicotine. And you who do not smoke, before you take that first cigarette ask yourself, "Will it help me or hurt me?" Think it over carefully, and may God guide you in your thinking, I earnestly pray for you, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1948, pp. 157-164
It falls to my lot as the President of the Church to make some concluding remarks.
I would like to ask all of you, could you imagine any other place that we could have been during the past three days, where we would have been nearer to our Heavenly Father than we have in this great conference? Is there any place in the world where you could gather together a group of men who, one after another, would stand on their feet and bear witness that they know the gospel is here and that we are partakers of it and testify of the blessings that result from keeping the commandments of our Heavenly Father?
SMOKER FAILS TO GET JOB
The brethren have reminded me of one or two little incidents that I think I will relate. One has to do with a cigarette. One of our missionaries who filled a good mission came home and sought employment and was unable to find it here. He had been a smoker before he went on his mission, but he had quit, so when he came back and became a little bit discouraged, he took up his habit of smoking again. About that time a non-Latter-day Saint businessman spoke to one of the prominent men of the Church, also in business, and said, "I need a man to come into my business, one that is capable and able to grow to take my place, because I want to retire after a while. I can pay him a good salary, and I have concluded that, while I am not a member of your Church, I would like to have one of your returned missionaries. They have had such wonderful experiences, many of them. I've heard some of them talk. If one of them comes home and you know of him, you don't need to tell him what it is all about, just send him to me with the understanding that there may be a position. I'd like to interrogate him."
Not long after that the young man who had been seeking work visited the office of the brother who told me this story. He said to the young man: "I think I know where you can find employment." He sent the returned missionary to the individual who had told him without hesitation what he wanted. This returned missionary was a fine, intelligent, young fellow, and he supposed it meant a job for him.
Our Church businessman said, "I met the young applicant on the street two or three days after, and asked him, 'How did you come out?" The young man said, 'I didn't succeed. The man asked me a few questions and then remarked, "I think we had better not try it out together."
Sometime later the two businessmen met, and the member asked the non-member why the young man had not been employed. He replied, "When the missionary came into my office, he told me you had sent him. I thought to myself, this is my opportunity. He was a fine-looking young fellow and appeared satisfactory to me. As he entered the office, I was smoking my pipe, and all at once he took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it, and we started to talk. I said to him, 'I thought you were a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.' He replied, 'I am,' and I said, 'I thought you were a returned missionary.' 'I am,' he answered.
" 'I'm sorry, I wanted just such an individual as I thought you might be, but what are you smoking for?' and the young man said, 'You are smoking; why shouldn't I smoke?' I said, 'The difference is this: You have been taught that it is not a proper thing to smoke; I was never taught that. You are violating the advice and desires of those who love you, and I think there is no use discussing this matter any further. I will just say that I haven't any position ready for you, and we'll part.'"
That young man lost a fine position because he had that filthy habit, and that's the only word I can think of just now that exactly fills the bill.
RETURNED MISSIONARY WHO LACKED COURAGE OF CONVICTION
Another instance that may be of interest: one of our missionaries returned from the Eastern States where he had become acquainted with a shop foreman in a large manufacturing establishment, and after returning home he tried for some time to secure employment but was not successful. Finally he said to himself, "Well, I believe if I go back East, my friend there will give me a job."
He was a very fine, capable young fellow, but the friend that he spoke of did not know that he was a member of the Church. So when he went to him and said, "I've come back. I wonder if you will give me something to do?" the foreman said, "Certainly I will; come right in." So the young man began work in the very city where he had been laboring as a missionary. He avoided the members of the Church; he didn't go to meeting; he kept away from them because he was afraid the men who employed him who were not members of the Church would not give him the same kind of opportunity for advancement if they knew who he was. But he was a good worker and kept at it for some time.
One day, after he had been there about three months, the shop foreman called him and said, "You had better go upstairs; the president wants to see you." The president had told the shop foreman that he needed a young man for another department who had ability. He wanted a young man with a good education. He said, "Look around, and if you can find such a man as that, let me know."
The foreman replied, "We have just such a man working for us right now."
"Already in our employ?" the president asked.
"Yes." The president said, "That pleases me. Send him up to see me." So the young man, not knowing what the circumstances were reported to the president's office and said, "I understand, Mr. Grant, that you want to speak to me."
He answered, "Yes. Have you been sent up by the shop foreman?"
The young man replied, "Yes, sir."
"Please sit down. I want to know something about you; I'd like to know where you are from."
"Well," the young man said, "I live away out in the Rocky Mountains." That was the first hedge.
"But, what part of the Rocky Mountains?" "Well," he replied, "not very far from Idaho." "But what are you doing here?"
"Well," he said, "I'm here working as one of your employees." "Were you ever here before?" "Yes."
"Do you know anybody here in the city?" "Not very many, just two or three."
"Well, I don't quite understand why you came back here for employment."
I want to say before going any further, the president knew all about this boy. He had had somebody check his record, and so when he kept hedging, the president asked, "But who are your friends here?"
"Oh," he replied, "they're just people that work around town."
"But," the president continued, "do you belong to any church?"
"Well, not here."
"Did you ever belong to a church?"
He said, "Yes, I did at one time," and he began to be afraid the president did know who he was, and he didn't want him to find out now, so he kept on hedging and said, "At one time I was a member of a church, but I didn't take much interest in it, and I'm not doing much at it now."
"What church was it?"
"Well, you'd call it the Mormon Church."
The president said, "Do you mean to tell me that you are a son of a Mormon family?"
The boy knew the man was up with him then; so he answered, "Yes, sir."
The president queried, "Do you mean to tell me that you would desert the faith of your parents, when you had known that they were Mormons and desired you to be one?"
"Well, not exactly that."
"I'm afraid," the president said, "you're not much credit to them. If you haven't the courage to stand up for your faith, what good are you? Now," he said, "I will be plain with you. I thought you were the man I was seeking for this position, but I want to say to you that if you would betray your parents and go back on the Church you belong to; I'd be afraid to give you any kind of a job where you have to handle money." And so the young man lost his opportunity because he did not have the courage to do his duty by his Church and his family.
These things happen so many times; while on the contrary our boys and girls who keep the commandments of the Lord, and observe the advice of our Heavenly Father, need not be afraid anywhere.
ADVANTAGES OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP
I have traveled considerably in the world, myself. I have covered approximately a million miles. I have been in the homes of the rich and the poor, in many parts of the world, and I never have found one instance among the better class of people where I have been, where if they knew I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it was any detriment to me. But I have known many cases where it has opened the way and offered opportunity that I couldn't have had before. You know, it is a strange thing that it is possible for an individual to belong to the Church, not just a church, but to belong to the Church, to have had a witness and a testimony that the Lord himself established this Church, to know that he spoke by the power that he had, in his wisdom, and gave to us in this day the gospel of Jesus Christ, again, and to belong to just such an organization. No other church in the world makes such a claim as we do. When I see this wonderful group of young folk, behind us here, and the choir, and those that we had from Provo yesterday, and others that we meet all the time, I know of no other place in the world where you can find such young people as the Lord gives to us in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Where can you go, in all the world, and find such companionship as you can have in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? It is his Church. He gave it his name, and he advised us that it should be so called. Again I want to mention that fact to some of our brethren. Don't let the Lord down by calling this the Mormon Church. He didn't call it the Mormon Church. It is all right for us to believe in the Book of Mormon. He expects us to do that but he told us what to call this Church. The Lord has said:
THE NAME OF THE CHURCH
And how be it my church save it be called in my name? For if a church be called in Moses' name then it be Moses' church; or if it be called in the name of a man then it be the church of a man; but if it be called in my name then it is my church, if it so be that they are built upon my gospel.
This is his Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I sometimes feel disappointed that so many of us seem to be timid, if I may use that term, and give this Church that the Lord has permitted us to be identified with rather a casual reference. I am so proud of membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when I think that all the blessings of the world may be mine as a member of his Church, and if I were not a member how many blessings there may be lost for me. Think of the wonderful people in the world and in all these various churches. I want to tell you that there are thousands of them, I think I would be safe in saying millions of them who, if they knew what we know and had the testimony that God has given to us, wouldn't hesitate to join the Church. They would be afraid not to take advantage of the opportunities that he has given to us. In this wonderful conference where we have been assembled the past three days, think how we have mingled together. I have shaken hands with people all the way from Australia, to Portland, Maine, and from Europe to Hawaii, who have come here, happy to make these long journeys, delighted to be permitted to associate and to shake hands with the membership of this Church.
I feel it is a great compliment to you, my brothers and sisters, that so many of you find in the lives of one another the things that make you proud and grateful to be identified with this organization. When we think of what the Lord has done for us-think of the thousands of our young men and women who have had an education that they could obtain in no other way except in the missionary field, and that we have more than four thousand out in the world today-what a privilege it is! This is not a Church to criticize, to find fault with others. The Lord doesn't advise us or counsel us to make it uncomfortable for other people who don't understand, but the Lord in every way encourages us to set an example that others seeing our good works will be constrained to glorify his name.
GRATITUDE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
I am so proud and grateful for the young people of this great organization as I meet them in different parts of the country, and I am so thankful for their fathers and mothers who have given them the training that encourages them to pray and to walk uprightly before the Lord, encourages them to avoid bad habits and not partake of things that otherwise would hurt them. Think of it. Do you realize, my brethren and sisters, that there isn't a blessing, a real blessing in any church in the world that is enjoyed in that church that you may not enjoy as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? You can't think of a thing that is worthwhile in preparation for eternal life that we do not have and while we are only a small organization compared with the great ones in the world, all that they have, all together, that is necessary for eternal life in the celestial kingdom, we have, plus the authority of our Heavenly Father and the promise of eternal happiness if we will obey his commandments.
This is not a man-made organization. It is not just a small fraternal department in this great world; this is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Think what that means, a Church of the Son of God, who gave his life that we might live again. So today as I worship here with you I am thankful for my birthright, thankful for parents who taught me the gospel of Jesus Christ and set the example in their home. If I did anything that I should not do in my life, it would be something that I could not have learned in my mother's home. There were sweetness and kindness and love always. With a large family of children it took a mother with a good deal of patience, but she was always patient with us.
KEEPING COMMANDMENTS BRINGS JOY
It will not be very long, in the natural course of events, till the summons that took Father and Mother and other loved ones to the other side, will reach me. I look forward to that time with pleasant anticipation. I have lived a long time, as contrasted with the average of human beings, and I have had a happy life. I can think of nobody who has had a fuller life than I have had, and I don't say that boastfully, but gratefully; and I want to say to you that every happiness and every joy that has been worthy of the name has been the result of keeping the commandments of God and observing his advice and counsel. So, as we go forward, each of us, each having an influence with our neighbors and our friends, let us not be too timid. We do not need to annoy people, but let us make them feel and understand that we are interested, not in making them members of the Church for membership, but in bringing them into the Church that they may enjoy the same blessings that we enjoy.
WORLD IN CRITICAL CONDITION
This world is in a critical condition. It is a pitiable situation that faces us, and not anything in the world but the power of our Heavenly Father can preserve the civilization of our day and the people who live upon the earth at the present time. The adversary is having his innings because the people of the world have refused to listen to their Heavenly Father. Now it is our privilege, not only to set the example but also to encourage others to take advantage of it. Nobody knows, when we pick up a paper today, what the headlines may read. So many lives destroyed here, so many there, some from accident, some from warfare, some from wickedness, and the greatest destruction of all that is going on in the world today is the result of immorality. There was a time, as we have been reminded, when, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah could not produce, in those two cities, ten individuals who were worthy to live. They had been so wicked that they were not fit to live any longer, and so they were consumed by fire.
Now, brethren and sisters, somebody said in this conference that the same laws apply, the same rules govern today, and it is just as necessary for us to keep the commandments of our Heavenly Father. today as it was for any of the prophets of old or any of his faithful sons and daughters who have lived upon the earth, who have earned a right to a place in the celestial kingdom. We can't gain our exaltation by the good lives of our neighbors, but we can profit by their good example, and we can improve ourselves.
With love in my heart for every one of you, may I say I am grateful. I haven't any way of expressing my thanksgiving to the people of this Church and many people out of the Church, where I have traveled in the world, for their kindnesses to me, one of the humblest of our Father's sons. I wish I could return in full measure all the good which has been done for me wherever I have been.
RICHES OF ETERNAL LIFE
And now, brothers and sisters, it is not so important how many valuables you may have, how much property you may possess, and how many of the honors of men you may acquire, and all those things that are so desirable in the world, the thing that God has given to you that is worth more than all the rest is the opportunity to obtain eternal life in the celestial kingdom and have as your companions, throughout the ages of eternity, sons and daughters, husbands and wives with whom you have associated here on earth. That is what the Lord teaches us, and when the world is so distressed and uncertain, we ought to be grateful, we ought to be thankful for our blessings. I can think of no people in the world who have so much reason to be thankful for their blessings as right here in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
BLESSINGS OF CONFERENCE
This will be the conclusion of a remarkable conference. It has been delightful to me, these wonderful choirs that have made us so happy with their singing, the fine advice and counsel that we have received from our brethren, the opportunity even to sit in the room and feel the influences that are here, because everyone who is here, I am sure, has felt as I have felt the inspiration of our Heavenly Father and the spirit of love and kindness and a determination to do better than we have ever done before.
This is God's work. It is for the salvation of all the human family if they will accept it, and we who have received it and know it is true should be ever alert and watchful to share with others the things that we know. Let our homes be the abiding place of prayer and thanksgiving and gratitude. Every day when we go out from our homes, let us leave a place that has been sanctified by the righteousness of our own lives, and when we return to it that we may feel that influence that is always there when the Spirit of God is present.
I pray that these fine boys and girls who have come to sing to us, along with the other visitors, may go home from this conference, that you may return to your various homes in safety and in peace, and take with you a renewed desire to be real members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, worthy to be called members. Now, I pray that the Lord may add his blessing, that his peace may be upon you and in your lives, and in your home. Let us pray for the great men and women of the world who need the Lord but do not understand his interest in them. Pray for the President of the United States who, at the present time, so much needs guidance from our Heavenly Father. Pray for our representatives in Congress, our governors, our mayors of cities, the men who have influence in politics in our various communities, that they may do the things that will be better for all of us and make us happier, and please our Heavenly Father. That is our privilege. I say to you that the power of prayer is something that cannot be measured. If there were time, I could tell you many instances where prayer has been answered in a marvelous way. People have risen from beds when they have been told they could not live, that it was not possible, and yet they have lived and performed a great work. This is the kind of Church that you belong to. This is the kind of organization the Lord has offered to all people. Think of our great educational institutions, the opportunities which are given to our children to learn all that the world can teach them, plus the glorious truths that are necessary for us to absorb and make a part of our lives in order that we may gain an exaltation in the celestial kingdom.
ADMONITION TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER
God bless you, my brothers and sisters. I feel I want to be with you. I am so grateful for the privilege of being here, and now I am anxious that you may all go to your homes and carry with you love unfeigned, love for your boys and your girls, for your husbands and wives, for your neighbors and friends, and let that love abound wherever you may be. If we will do that, when the returns come from this conference and we hear from the various stakes and missions of the world, where people have gone from here, we will discover that we did receive a blessing and that the Lord did magnify us and give us our opportunities, and we will go on keeping his commandments.
I pray that every one of us will remember that to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an honor beyond all price in comparison, and that we may so live that our neighbors and friends who know us, who may not be members of the Church, will be grateful for our fellowship. Peace be with you. May you go to your homes in peace and safety and continue to live in love and happiness as long as you are upon the earth. And when the time comes for us to depart this life, may each of us find our names recorded in the Lamb's book of life, not one missing, entitling us to an inheritance in the celestial kingdom, right here upon this earth, in the companionship of those we love, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 3-9
I appreciate the fact that there are many people who come to this house from time to time who do not realize what a blessing a gathering' of this kind means to those who attend. As your first speaker this morning, and for the benefit of the radio audience, I will say, George Albert Smith, the President of the Church will now speak.
RELIEF SOCIETY CONFERENCE
I announce to you that you can find nowhere else in all the world a gathering comparable to this one. We have had two days of meetings on this block. This house has been filled with women of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered here, representing the stakes and missions of the Church. They represent the oldest women's religious organization in the world. They came, not on a sight-seeing trip, but to worship, and to be instructed. They came here to the house of the Lord knowing that if they were assembled under proper conditions, they would be blessed. Their two days of mingling and rejoicing together have prepared the way for this other great general conference.
This conference will continue three days, and during that time it will be remarkable if all the seats in the building are not taken and people standing, and in addition to that the Assembly Hall, which has been equipped with radio television, will take care of an overflow as far as possible, and also the open air will be enjoyed by many people listening to the amplified program outside.
As I came in this morning and saw this wonderful audience, these beautiful flowers, our sisters here representing a great organization, the Singing Mothers, I felt subdued in my soul and thankful to my Heavenly Father that it is possible for me to meet with you today. When we think of the disturbances that are in the world, the uncertainty that is in the minds of individuals everywhere as to what may occur, we are grateful to come into the Lord's house as we do this morning, a house that was dedicated to him in the days of the poverty of our people, a house that has been recognized as unusual among all the houses of worship in all the world, and from this tabernacle every Sabbath day there goes forth a broadcast to all the states of the American Union and to many parts of the world in other lands, a broadcast of religious music and a sermonette. Not anything to compare with this program can be found anywhere. These singers voluntarily come here every Sunday to render these programs.
SERVICE OF TABERNACLE CHOIR
For twenty years this great choir has been rendering service to the delight and the spiritual uplift of hundreds of thousands, yes, millions of people, by means of radio, and the choir itself receives no compensation. This organ, when it was built, was one of the great organs of the world and still is, and it has been heard in many lands. Personally I have had the pleasure of hearing it and the choir while visiting in the missions in the South Seas and other places. They are devoting their time, every Sunday, singing praises to our Heavenly Father, causing his children everywhere to rejoice.
Here in Salt Lake City a large percentage of the population are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but thousands of them listen to this program and seem to have joy in telling us that they feel that it is a rich, spiritual uplift to them.
MISSIONARY WORK
This morning we have over five thousand missionaries scattered throughout the world. For what purpose? "Surely," as one minister said to me in England many years ago, we don't desire you to come over here to preach; we have all the churches that we can fill." And he said, "We have all the preachers that we can afford to pay. Why do you come over here?"
And my answer to him was, "My brother, we are over here without financial remuneration to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the wonderful people who dwell in this part of the world."
He asked, "Why don't you go to the heathens like we do?" And I answered, "We do." He asked, "Where do you go?" And I said, "We come right here."
He looked somewhat annoyed, and I said to him, "Now don't be disturbed, my brother. That isn't intended as an offense at all. There are no finer people in the world than you have here, but what is a heathen anyhow?"
With some hesitation he answered, "Well, a heathen is a man who doesn't believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Jesus Christ."
I said, "Do you have any people like that here in Great Britain?" He dropped his head and said, "Yes, I am sorry to say we have." Then I said, "Surely you are not going to complain about us if we come over here to help you convert them. You haven't been able to do it, and that is why we are here. We want them all to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ."
Today our five thousand missionaries are scattered over the face of the earth, paying their own expenses or having them paid by their loved ones at home, and the sole purpose of that great missionary effort is that all of your brothers and sisters and mine, all of the children of our Heavenly Father, may be brought to a knowledge of the purpose of life and be given understanding of what it means to be born into this world and to know that we are living eternal lives. The entire world is a marvelous missionary field for this great Church! There are some nations in which we have been unable to do missionary work, but the Lord in his own way, will provide for doing that. And, of course, many people hear the gospel of Jesus Christ by means of radio, who wouldn't otherwise hear it.
CENTER OF MISSIONARY ACTIVITY
Speaking of the missionary field, I wonder sometimes, if we realize that Salt Lake City is the center of our great missionary activity. There isn't a city in the world, in my judgment, that is better known than this city because of the temple, the Tabernacle, and the great organ and choir broadcasting as they have been every Sunday for nearly twenty years. Salt Lake City is one of the world's most beautiful cities.
I wonder if some of you realize the hours and the days and the months that are spent by your brothers under the direction of President Irvin T. Nelson of the Big Cottonwood Stake beautifying the grounds, making the flowers to bloom and the shrubs to be delightful, the lawns to be kept green. I would like those brethren who do that fine work to know that many of us appreciate it very much. They are helping the people who come here to become interested in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and many of them say, "Why we never saw anything like this any place else," and they go away and tell their neighbors and friends.
Wherever I go, it seems to be in the minds of people, many of them, and they say, "I'm going to Salt Lake City some day. I want to go out there and see what you people have accomplished in the wilderness." We haven't done it all, brethren and sisters. This is the Lord's Church. He gave it the name of his Beloved Son. He directed the pioneers to come here. He didn't send them some place else, and, under his guidance, and under his inspiration, the people have lived out here and, with his blessing, the soil has been made fruitful, and there is no more beautiful place in all the world that is occupied as homes by the sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father than the section of country that you live in. Surely we should be grateful.
Referring to the missionary work, think of sending more than five thousand into the world to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to people who believe that they already have it, and yet when they compare what the Lord has revealed in this latter-day in addition to what they already have, they discover that it took the revelations of the Lord to the Prophet Joseph Smith in our day to make the Bible, the Old and the New Testaments, plain to these people.
CONVERSION THROUGH BOOK OF MORMON
I remember a good many years ago when I was down in California, I met a man who was a great geologist, whose name was Robert Hill. While being employed in research in Mexico and Central America by the Smithsonian Institute or National Museum, a Book of Mormon fell into his hands, and he read it. He was working under the direction of the department at Washington, where they collect all of the curiosities from the various sections of the country. He was there as a government employee. The National Museum, I presume, is where much of the material may be found.
When he read the Book of Mormon he asked for a leave of absence. He came to Salt Lake City and inquired for somebody who would indicate to him the source of the Book of Mormon, for he said, "This book explains some things that the scientists are unable to harmonize." Dr. James E. Talmage took him in hand and informed him as to the source of the Book of Mormon, how it had been revealed, how the people had come here under the direction of our Heavenly Father and built up this country. Before Robert Hill left, he said, "This is what I have been looking for," and he was baptized and became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He returned to Mexico, and I saw him later in Los Angeles. When I asked him what effect the Book of Mormon had on his life, he said, "Why, Brother Smith, it enabled me to understand the Bible as I have never understood it before."
There have been distributed hundreds of thousands of tracts and books teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, the expense for which has been paid by the Church and its members in order that other people might enjoy what we enjoy.
There isn't anything that enriches our lives like an understanding of the purposes of life and the ability to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. All happiness worthy of the name comes to us when we observe the teachings of our Lord and live to be worthy to be his sons and daughters.
VISITORS TO TEMPLE SQUARE
Since coming into this building this morning I have asked how many strangers there are who come onto this block each year. Last year I had supposed was the greatest year we have ever had because of the number coming here during our celebration, but I understand that this year up to today 840,662 of the children of our Heavenly Father, your brothers and sisters and mine, have come here onto this block to see and learn what the Lord has done. I think it is marvelous, and so this morning as I stand here in your presence, I am grateful that I belong to the same organization that you belong to, grateful that all the good things that the world enjoys, all that is true and wholesome and uplifting and educational may be enjoyed by the membership of this Church without having to give up one thing.
I have said to many people when they have asked me, "What is there about this organization that you belong to? What is it that you are so concerned about, that you send your missionaries all over the world?" I have replied sometimes, "We want you all to be happy. We want you all to rejoice as we rejoice. After awhile we will have to meet our record, and if we have been faithful, I am sure the Father of us all in the world will thank us and bless us for bringing so many of his sons and daughters to an understanding of the purpose of life and how to enjoy it under the influence of his spirit."
OBEDIENCE BRINGS BLESSINGS
It is glorious to live in this part of the world. I might say it is glorious to live in this age of the world notwithstanding the sorrow and distress and uncertainty that exist. We have received an assurance that our Heavenly Father is mindful of us if we will be faithful. We have no promise that he will care for us on any other terms, but he has said that if we will honor him and keep his commandments, he will watch over us and protect and bless us. I think of that lovely audience that I saw here yesterday, all our sisters, and now this morning there is a great mixed audience apparently mostly men. Yet we are only a small portion of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that has become identified with the Church of the Lamb of God since the year 1830. It is marvelous, my brothers and sisters, what the Lord has done-and he has done it.
INSPIRATION OF GENERAL CONFERENCE
We will have the pleasure today and during the days to follow of hearing quite a number of those who devote their time to teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have people here from nearly all parts of the Church throughout the world. Many have come a long way, not to hear men speak, but to feel the inspiration of the Almighty as it flows to those who are called to address us, play for us, and sing for us in this wonderful house of the Lord.
I know that God lives. I know that Jesus is the Christ. And I am thankful to know that we are all brothers and sisters-thankful that he gives us all opportunities so to adjust our lives here that when mortality is complete and our work is done that we will dwell in his presence and enjoy the companionship of those we love forever. Shouldn't that make us feel that our homes must be the abiding place of the Spirit of the Lord? Shouldn't that make each of us feel, where we know what the Lord has advised us to do, that it is the best for us and we will do what he wants us to do? I want to say that the happiest people in all the world are those who obey the counsel of our Heavenly Father.
I pray that his spirit may continue with us. I pray that when we have finished this conference, we may go away feeling that we have waited upon our Heavenly Father and not in vain. We will return to our homes, sharing what we have enjoyed here with those not able to come, and to our families with a renewed determination that we will keep the commandments of God and that we will so adjust ourselves that our homes will be the abiding place of his spirit that will guide us into all truth. That the Lord may add his blessings and his peace be with us, as we go through this conference, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President George F. Richards
George F. Richards, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 9-13
It is written that faith is the first principle of revealed religion, the foundation of all righteousness. This being true, all our righteousness is due to faith, and it follows that our unrighteousness is due to a lack of faith. We desire in preaching the gospel to the Saints and strangers alike to establish as far as possible faith in the minds and the hearts of people that they may bring forth righteousness, for righteousness is what makes for salvation in the kingdom of God, and we are all candidates for salvation.
EVIDENCES OF GOD'S EXISTENCE
In my remarks today, I desire to speak of some of the evidences of the divine, personal, and glorified existence of God, the Eternal Father, and of his Son, Jesus Christ, a knowledge of whom I regard as the world's greatest need; also to give evidence of the fact that Joseph Smith was a divinely inspired prophet of God, that he was an instrument in the hands of God in the restoration of the everlasting gospel, and the establishment of the Church and kingdom of God on earth in this, the gospel Dispensation of the Fulness of Times.
JOSEPH SMITH'S FIRST VISION
On a beautiful spring morning in the year 1820, a fourteen-year-old boy of Manchester, New York, being considerably exercised over religion, and believing the scripture which reads:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
he retired into a grove of trees nearby to pray. He tells his own story as follows:
After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.
But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction-not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being-just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.
It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other-This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!
My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right-and which I should join.
I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: "they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof."
He again forbade me to join with any of them....
It is of supreme importance that the story told by this boy Joseph Smith, and the evidence of its truth, be carefully and prayerfully considered, for upon the truth or falsity of his story, Mormonism, so-called, must stand or fall.
TRUTH CONCERNING GOD REVEALED
In this eventful experience there was revealed to the boy Joseph, and through him, to the world, two exceedingly important truths. First, that God the Eternal Father and his Son Jesus Christ are separate, living personages, glorified and exalted; and second that all the religious creeds were wrong.
Whatever Joseph's views or understanding pertaining to the personality of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ may have been, he now had a perfect knowledge on that point. He had not before entertained the thought that all the creeds or denominations might be wrong, but on these two points his mind was now clear and at ease.
The debris of a decayed religion having now been removed, room is made in the world for the establishment of the true religion of the Master. It later developed that this boy, Joseph Smith, was raised up of the Lord to be the mighty prophet of the last days, an instrument in the hands of God in the restoration of the everlasting gospel, and in the establishment of his Church and kingdom anew upon the earth, as described by Daniel the prophet in his interpretation of the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar.
EVIL POWER OF SATAN
As important evidence that Joseph's story is true, when he kneeled down to pray, he was seized upon by an evil power which bound his tongue, so that he could not speak. Such an attack by Satan might well have been expected.
If his story had not included his experience with the evil power, at that psychological moment, it would have lacked vital evidence of its truth. Satan, who is the enemy of God and of man, has from the beginning thus operated in an effort to defeat the purpose of God whose purpose is the saving of the souls of men.
When Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, straightway came Satan tempting them, with the same evil intent. After the personal visitation of God to his servant Moses, as recorded in the first chapter of the Book of Moses, Satan came tempting him, saying:
Moses, son of man, worship me...,
a presumption of which only Satan could be capable.
When the Savior had fasted forty days and nights and was an hungered, Satan came tempting him, saying:
... If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.
In what respect was the boy, Joseph Smith, so different from other fourteen year old boys of his time that Satan should seek his destruction; and why mention him in connection with Adam and Eve, Moses, and Jesus as objects of Satan's attack? Let us see if we can find the explanation in the following scripture:
Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these were many of the noble and great ones;
And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.
JOSEPH SMITH CHOSEN FOR HIS WORK
Joseph Smith was also one of those noble spirits chosen before he was born. Had any number of boys fourteen years of age, other than Joseph Smith, gone into the woods to pray for light and spiritual guidance, not one of them would have had the vision given to the boy Joseph. He was chosen and ordained for the special work of restoration and this vision of the Father and the Son was the first step in his life's ministry. No doubt Satan knew of Joseph's calling, and that if he did not succeed in destroying him at this time, he would not be able to do so thereafter; hence the vigorous assault made upon the boy's life.
Again, by the testimony of the eleven living witnesses to the Book of Mormon, the truth of Joseph's story is established, for had his story been untrue, he would have been a great imposter and as such, God would not have used him in bringing forth the Book of Mormon, which contains a fulness of the gospel, as taught by Jesus Christ to the ancient inhabitants of this American continent, which fact is logically established by eleven living witnesses.
NEED OF NEW REVELATION
The need of this new revelation of God today, as in 1820, is apparent from statements such as follows:
In a radio address Elder Thomas C. Romney related a conversation with a professor in a great educational institution in which the professor said to Elder Romney:
Your conception of God, to me, is most absurd. I cannot conceive of a group of people who claim to keep abreast of the times in science, art, and religion, still clinging to the antiquated doctrine that God is in the form of a man.
On page 15 of Shorter Catechism, a textbook of the Presbyterian Church, is found the following:
We must be content to call Father, Son, and Holy Ghost persons; but while we do so, we must always remember that they are utterly unlike any personalities we have ever known. In modern philosophical usage, the term person means a separate and distinct rational individual. But the personality of God is not a numerical or essential trinity of three beings, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Another reference showing the need for a new revelation from God is the following:
The Bishop of Liverpool performed the consecration ceremony at Holy Trinity Church, Southport, yesterday, October 11, 1911. In his sermon he said one of the great needs of the Christian Church was power. Religion today was wearing silver slippers and moving in high places, and yet he ventured to think there was a strange want of power about the Church of God, not only in their church, but about every other branch.... What was the cause of the strange paralysis that had befallen the church? He believed that the church needed today a rediscovery of God; he believed the church was weak today because God was so distant, so unreal, so dimly seen. Today they saw the results of that dim vision of the distant God.
The first article of religion in the Church of England Prayer book reads as follows:
There is one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things, visible and invisible, and in the unity of this godhead, there are three personages of one substance, power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
PERSONALITY OF GOD
There are some men of considerable eminence who are not bound by religious creeds, who are frank in their professions of belief in the personality of God, and their views should be weighed in this connection as in opposition to the views of those who do not believe in a personal God. For example:
In a discourse by President Brigham H. Roberts, delivered in this Tabernacle March 15, 1914, he quotes a statement made by William H. Gladstone, a great English statesman, and at one time prime minister of Great Britain, in response to the question put to him as to what he regarded as the world's greatest need; and his answer to that question in substance was that the world's greatest need was to hold more firmly to the conception of God as a personality, to whom man was accountable for his deeds. Said he:
I mean a living faith in a personal God. After sixty years of public life, I hold more strongly than ever to the conviction, deepened and strengthened by long experience, of the reality, and the nearness, and the personality of God.
Henry Ward Beecher, in his book entitled, Lectures on Preaching, page 129, says:
I am compelled to say that I must form an ideal of God, through his Son Jesus Christ. Christ is indispensible to me. My nature needs to fashion the thought of God, though I know him to be a spirit, into something that will nearly or remotely represent that which I know. I hold before my eyes a glorified form,: therefore, but after all this glory, whatever may be the nimbus and the effulgence round about it, it is to me a glorified form of a glorified man.
The first Article of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reads as follows:
We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in his Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
What we believe concerning these members of the Godhead is set forth in the D&C;, section 130:22, as follows:
The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit....
These latter quotations and interpretations are in complete harmony with Joseph Smith's vision and with the teachings of the Bible, both the Old and the New Testament, and cannot be successfully controverted. They are truths which all men must accept who would be saved in the kingdom of God; and to which I bear testimony, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Milton R. Hunter
Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 14-19
My dear brethren and sisters, it is a real inspiration to look into the faces of so many people as are assembled in this vast congregation. I do humbly pray that the Spirit of God will attend me in the few remarks that I make on this occasion. It is my desire this morning, with the help of the Lord, to say a few words which will supplement the beautiful talk just given by President George F. Richards.
THE CHARACTER OF GOD
It is my sincere desire to bear my testimony and say a few words regarding the Latter-day Saints' concept of God the Eternal Father, whom we as members of the true Church of Jesus Christ so devotedly, humbly, and prayerfully worship.
Shortly before his death, the Prophet Joseph Smith stated that:
It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God..
We read in the gospel of John that:
... this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
From these statements made by holy men through divine revelation, we find that the concept of God that a people have is very important in helping to determine the type of life that they live. History affirms that when any group of people have had as their belief the concept that God was a God of love, charity, and kindness; in other words, when they have accepted God as a divine Being possessing all of the characteristics of goodness in an infinite portion, those people have tried to emulate in their lives that type of Deity On the other hand, when a group of people have believed that the Eternal Father was a God of caprice, a God who is unjust and prone to play favoritism, we find that those people have resorted to very low forms and modes of worship, such as human sacrifice. In fact, their moral behavior was on the same plane as their concept of God.
As I occupy this position this morning, I realize that it will be absolutely impossible for me to explain very accurately the Latter-day Saints' concept of the personality of God the Eternal Father, because he is an infinite being with infinite characteristics and attributes while I am merely a finite man. It is impossible for the finite to understand and fully comprehend the infinite; and yet I would like to say a few words, as I have already indicated, to supplement what President George F. Richards has so masterfully explained regarding Elohim-the Eternal Father.
GOD A PERSONAL BEING
We believe that God is a personal being. By a personal being, we mean that he is a man-an exalted man. Approximately one hundred years ago, soon after Lorenzo Snow became a member of the true Church of Jesus Christ, he formulated a remarkable couplet which has since that time become famous. He said: "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become." Time and time again during the period of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Prophet Joseph Smith, various evidences were given to him sustaining, amplifying, and explaining the personality of God. If time would permit, many excellent quotations could be cited from the D&C; which would help to describe the personality of our Eternal Father. However, I would like on this occasion to quote a statement taken from a great sermon which was given by the Prophet Joseph shortly before his death. This quotation is a continuation of the statement I have already quoted from the Prophet. To use his exact words:
It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of as all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did...
I will go back to the beginning before the world was, to show what kind of a being God is. What sort of a being was God in the beginning? Open your ears and hear, all ye ends of the earth...
God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible,-I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form-like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instructions from, and walked, talked and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another.
I would like to discuss with you for a moment or two the doctrine of what kind of being God is at the present time. He is an exalted, glorified, celestialized man, but actually and literally a personal being. By this description I mean that his body is eternal, being composed of spiritual matter which cannot decay, age, nor deteriorate. Furthermore, Elohim, or the Eternal Father, is a being brighter than the noonday sun. From that Divine Personage radiates light, light with the characteristic of excessive brilliance.
THE FIRST VISION
I believe that in order best to define what I have in mind, we could with profit refer to that wonderful experience had by the Prophet Joseph Smith, known as the "First Vision," which was so beautifully explained a few moments ago by President George F. Richards. When the Prophet Joseph was engaged in deep prayer on that memorable spring morning in 1820, a pillar of light, as he explained, brighter than the noonday sun came down from heaven and fell upon him. In the midst of that light, Joseph saw two "... Personages whose brightness and glory defy all description," as far as their glory, radiance, and brilliance are concerned.
The Boy-Prophet returned from the Sacred Grove that morning with more knowledge, yes, with a clearer concept in his mind regarding the personality of God and the Godhead than had all the ministers in the world combined. And it would be no exaggeration to say that his knowledge of God, received through that divine manifestation, surpassed the understanding had at that time by all the people in the world combined. I feel deeply that it is a fact that one of the principal purposes that God the Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son had in coming to the Prophet Joseph Smith on that beautiful spring morning was to give to the world again a true concept of the personality of God.
THE HOLY TRINITY
Jesus Christ came into the world in the meridian of time to reveal to the human family the Eternal Father. Shortly before Christ's death Philip asked him to show the Apostles the Father. The Son of Man answered that those who had seen him had seen the Father, meaning that he was a perfect prototype of the Father and that he exemplified the Father in all things. Throughout the pages of the New Testament we find a very definite doctrine proclaimed of the actuality and existence of three members in the Godhead-three personal beings, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost-constituting the Holy Trinity.
During the early Christian centuries following the death of Jesus' Apostles, darkness crept into the minds of the Christian leaders. This fact resulted in the holding of council meetings during the early portion of the fourth century for the purpose of re-defining God. At those council meetings, the "Christian Fathers" formulated a creed or creeds in which they attempted to define the personality of God and the Godhead. In those creeds, the three Divine Personages of the Godhead were merged into one. Their new and corrupted concept of God did away with his personal attributes, making of him a God without body, parts, and passions. In fact, they confused and polluted the beautiful concept of the Holy Trinity which had been revealed to his followers by the Son of God by making the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible and indefinable. During the following fifteen hundred years, all Christian churches were affected by the erroneous and benighted thinking of the fourth century "Christian Fathers."
REVELATION OF GOD'S PERSONALITY
Since the Prophet Joseph Smith revealed the fact that the first principle of the gospel is to know for a certainty the character of God and the world was engulfed in spiritual darkness, it became necessary for Elohim, the Eternal Father, to open the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times with a new revelation of his personality. As a result of that revelation and the restoration of the gospel in its fulness, Latter-day Saints accept the viewpoint that God is omnipotent, that he is omniscient, and that he is omnipresent. In other words, he is all-powerful and all-knowing. There is nothing that God takes into his heart to do but what he has the power to do it and will do it. However, we believe that he always works according to natural law. We believe that he understands a multitude of laws, an infinite number of eternal laws, and through his understanding of those laws and by putting them into operation he has created worlds without number, that is, they are not numbered to mortal man. In fact, he created this earth upon which we live and gave the laws or put the laws into operation which govern it. Also, he put into operation the laws which govern all the worlds that he has created.
We believe that God is omniscient: that he is all-knowing, that he sees all things and that he hears all sounds. In other words, that his sight and his hearing know no bounds, and that his knowledge is absolutely unlimited. We even believe that so great is the infinite power of that Divine Being that he can see the things that we do at nighttime in our private chambers or even read the secret thoughts of our hearts.
We also believe that God the Eternal Father is omnipresent. Now by that I might point out that since he is a personal being, he can be in only one place at one time; and yet from him emanates a divine substance or spirit which we term the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord, or the Holy Spirit. That divine substance emanates from God to fill the immensity of space. It is through that divine spirit that he performs his great work. Also, it is through that divine Spirit that he is omnipresent.
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES
This Supreme Being whom we worship has a number of attributes. In fact, all the good attributes that you and I possess, he possesses to an infinite degree. The attributes of love, justice, mercy, kindness, integrity, honesty, charity, purity, and constancy are among those that belong to him. The author of the Gospel of John was explaining and defining God, and he summarized his great explanation by saying that "God is love". So deep, so great, so universal, and so all-comprehensive is the love of our Divine Father that John's definition-"God is love"-describes the Infinite and Eternal One very aptly.
We are informed by the holy scriptures that God is a God that cannot sin; and also, that God is a God that cannot lie. He lives in accordance with truth and eternal law, therefore, every act that he performs is in complete harmony with divine truth and divine law.
The Book of Mormon prophets proclaimed that all truth emanates from God and that he is the author of all truth. Having put himself in harmony with all truth and by I being interested in you and me, he reveals to us those divine and eternal truths as fast as we are willing and able to receive them; and so he is the author of all truth.
One of the greatest attributes of God is the attribute of intelligence. We read in the D&C; that "The glory of God is intelligence". In the great vision given to Father Abraham, referred to by President Richards, the Lord showed the ancient patriarch the spirits that he had created and made the remark, "I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all". For these reasons I have concluded that God's intelligence is one of his greatest attributes.
You and I are closely akin to God. He is our Father. He is actually and literally the Father of all people who have ever been in this world and who ever will be in this world. We were born unto him in the spirit world as his sons and daughters. By being his children, we inherited from him the divine attributes that he as our Father possesses. It is our duty to develop those attributes. Since we are his sons, he has a great concern over us and a great love for us. He desires that we live in harmony with the gospel plan of salvation in order that we may eventually come back to dwell in his presence.
TESTIMONY
In conclusion I would like to bear my testimony. I know that God lives. I know that he is the Father of the human family. I know that he has a deep concern and love for us. I know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the true and Living God, the Savior of the world, and that his name is the only name given whereby salvation can come to the children of men. I know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God, and the great prophet who was foreordained to open the last dispensation of the gospel. If you and I will live according to the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I know that we will some day return to the presence of God our Eternal Father and become exalted, glorified, and celestialized beings, receiving a portion, along with him, of the great glory that he possesses.
I humbly pray that you and I will do this, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Thorpe B. Isaacson
Thorpe B. Isaacson, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 19-22
President Smith, my dear brothers and sisters,, I feel very humble this morning, and I can publicly admit that I have asked the Lord not once, but many times, to bless me this day while I speak to you for a few moments. I am sure that I could not occupy this position and say anything worth while without the help of the Lard, and I will be grateful to you if I can have an interest in your faith and prayers.
DEFENSE IN SPIRITUALITY
This is surely a spiritual conference, and the Spirit of the Lord is here in rich abundance. Each one of us knows that. The testimonies that we have listened to about the Prophet Joseph are true, and the words that we shall hear from your brethren will be inspired by the Lord. I hope that we can take the advice and the testimonies that will be given to us, that our minds and hearts will be open.
Truly, we can rejoice in the gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ.
If we can live close to our Father in heaven, we can partake of his Spirit. If we get too far away from the Lord, we cannot partake of his Spirit. I have come to believe that the only defense that we can have against the spirit of the adversary or against the spirit of the devil is the Spirit of the Lord. That is truly the great defense that we can have.
May I repeat from Corinthians, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him". As I think of that, it makes me feel that I cannot quite understand the blessings that the Lord has in store for us if we love him. They are great blessings, but, to the best of our ability, we can partake of them if we truly love the Lord. How can we love our Father in heaven? The best way, I believe, is for us to draw near to him each day of our lives, and it is good for us to study his words and his life. We have so beautifully heard this morning, "Love our Father in heaven, try to serve him and keep his commandments, and he will bless us to a greater degree than we can ever realize."
PRINCIPLE OF REPENTANCE
It may be necessary for us to make some adjustments in our lives. It may be necessary for us to overcome some things, but the Lord has promised us great blessings if we try to repent and come unto him and partake of his life and his Spirit. And what has he said about him that overcometh? In Revelation we read:
To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life....
To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written.
We can come near to our Father in heaven through that great principle of prayer and repentance. We have been known as a praying people. We are glad to be known as a praying people, because we believe in prayer. We bear witness to the world that the Lord does hear and answer prayers if we ask in humility, and so we can go to the Lord each day of our lives. We do not need to worry about talking to the Lord, no matter where we are, about any of our trials and sorrows and problems, and the Lord has told us if we ask in faith, he will bless us.
PRAYER A VALUABLE HABIT
What is prayer? Someone has said, "Prayer is the most valuable habit a boy can have. It is a safeguard in youth, a comfort and a pillar of strength and power in middle life, and in old age a consolation that wipes away the sting of the grave and takes from death its victory." That is the way we can become close to our Father in heaven, yes, through the principle of prayer, and, oh, that we could keep our lines open so that we can communicate with the Lord and so that we can hear his answer.
Just a little poem on prayer:
I say a prayer each, morning, So the day will turn out right, And when the sun has disappeared, I tell the Lord good night.
The world looks brighter in the dawn When I pronounce a prayer, Because it reassures me The Lord is really there,
And that I seem to walk with him Each hour of the day, While I am occupied with work Or taking time to play.
I listen to his counsel And find my courage strong, Whenever I am weary Or when anything goes wrong.
And when the day is over, And the moon and stars are bright, I feel the least that I can do Is tell the Lord good night. -Author Unknown
May we draw nearer to the Lord each day, thank him for the blessings that we enjoy, try to serve him and keep his commandments with all the strength that we can muster, because therein lies the happiness of life and its fulness. Without those blessings, we are not happy nor can we be successful.
GOODNESS OF THE LORD
I want to bear testimony of the goodness of the Lord to me. I am grateful for the association that I have with the brethren of the General Authorities of the Church whom I love very dearly. I want to say to the people of the Church and to the whole world that there is no disunity in the Church so far as the brethren are concerned. No greater love hath one man for another than is experienced in the associations with these men. I know they are men of God; I witness their faith each day; I know they believe in the principle of prayer; and I know they encourage the people and bless the people because they know that is the will of the Lord.
OBSERVANCE OF SABBATH DAY
With reference to the Sabbath day, I was quite astonished recently regarding the London Olympic Games of the world wherein those great games were not held on Sunday, even though many of the people of that great city wanted those games to go forward on the Sabbath day, because they could get large crowds and because the revenue would be great. But there is a law in London that says there can be no games or sports on the Sabbath day. When I read that letter and read that law and read that article that was sent to me about the Olympic Games from one of our people in London, I could not help feeling a little ashamed that here we are living right where those doctrines and principles have been given to us, and sometimes we have a hard time living the Sabbath day and keeping it holy as the Lord has told us to do. I hope that we can popularize the Sabbath day and keep it holy and truly worship the Lord with all our hearts and draw near to him so that we can partake of his Spirit and be happy in our daily life and in our homes.
I hope that our young people are not being robbed of the blessings of prayer and that we are not too busy in our daily life to call our family together, or that we will not become too self-sufficient, or too modest, or too backward, to call our family together. Even though there are only one or two home, do not let us deny our children the blessing that comes from family prayers. Do not let us feel sufficient without the Lord's help, because it is impossible for us to succeed and reach eternal life and have joy and happiness here upon earth without those blessings that come from our kind, loving Father in heaven.
ENCOURAGEMENT TO OVERCOME MISTAKES
In closing, I would like to bear you my testimony that I know the Lord hears and answers prayers. I know that he will help his people overcome some of their weaknesses. I know that he will help them in their problems. I like to believe that I can go to my God, the Eternal Father, no matter what my problems may be, no matter how far I may have drifted. I want to feel that I can go to him, and I hope that our young people, and for that matter, all of our people, will never feel as though they can make a break with the Living God, even though they have mistakes to overcome. There is no time that we can forsake the Lord, least of all when we are weak, least of all when we are discouraged, least of all when we are disappointed, and I hope that the young people will not live with their mistakes long. I think they should be encouraged to go to the Lord as soon as they have made mistakes, and I hope we as bishops, Aaronic Priesthood advisers and advisers to adult members of the Aaronic Priesthood, can be so true with those men, yes, likewise, with all young men and young women, that if they have made mistakes or if they need help, do not let us cut them off sharp. Let us be kind and lovable to them so they can come to us with their sorrows and their mistakes and their problems, and then encourage them to go to the Lord and ask him to forgive them, and go to the Lord and ask him to help them overcome some of the things that they have done that they should not have done.
I like to believe in the law of repentance where the Lord has said in effect: "If you come unto me truly and repent of your wrongdoing, I will forgive you." I am grateful for the law of repentance; it's never too late to repent.
The Lord has never forsaken us. He has told us, "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise". And in closing, may I urge that we start all over again and try not to make those mistakes. In the words of Emerson: "All that I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen."
God bless you that you may enjoy the spirit of the conference, that the spirit of prayer may always be with us, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie
Bruce R. McConkie, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 23-28
That I may have your sustaining prayers and the Spirit of the Lord to be with me, as it has been with the brethren who have spoken this morning, is the desire of my heart.
Today we have heard President George F. Richards and President Milton R. Hunter talk to us about the nature and kind of being that God the Eternal Father is, and about our relationship to him. If he will sustain me I would like to bear you my witness and tell you what I understand to be the doctrine of this Church and kingdom with reference to his Beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
"WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST"
When Christ was among men, in one of his last conversations with the Pharisees, he asked: "... What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?" He received the answer, "The son of David." Thereupon he asked:
How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying,
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?
If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?.
Because those Jews had lost the knowledge of God and of Christ, they were unable to answer. The world by wisdom knew not God. Like many devout people today they had inherited from their fathers lies, vanity, and things in which there was no profit. They did not know that God the Eternal Father was the Father of Christ, and that Christ was of the seed of David through Mary, his mother. People in that day needed, just as did the people in Joseph Smith's day, a new revelation of God and of the plan of salvation.
As I understand it, our mission to the world in this day, is to testify of Jesus Christ. Our mission is to bear record that he is the Son of the Living God and that he was crucified for the sins of the world; that salvation was, and is, and is to come, in and through his atoning blood; that by virtue of his atonement all men will be raised in immortality, and those who believe and obey the gospel law both in immortality and unto eternal life.
And the position which Joseph Smith holds in the scheme of things is that he is the chiefest witness of Christ that there has been in this world since the Son of God personally walked among men and bore record of himself saying, "I am the Son of God!".
FIRSTBORN IN SPIRIT WORLD
We believe, and I certify that Jesus Christ is the Firstborn Spirit Child of Elohim who is God, our Heavenly Father. We believe that while he lived in the pre-existent world, by virtue of his superior intelligence, progression, and obedience, he attained unto the station of a God. And he then became, under the Father, the Creator of this world and all things that are in it, as also the Creator of worlds without number.
We believe that he was the Jehovah of the Old Testament; that it was through him that God the Father dealt with all the ancient prophets, revealing his mind and his will and the plan of salvation to them.
Christ gave the gospel to the ancients beginning with Adam and going on down, dispensation after dispensation, until this present time. And everything that has been given in the gospel and everything that has been in any way connected with it has been designed for the express purpose of bearing record of Christ and certifying as to his divine mission.
IN THE SIMILITUDE OF CHRIST
From Adam to Moses and from Moses to Christ, God's prophets and priests offered sacrifices. Such were in the similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father who was to come. When Moses lifted the serpent on the pole in ancient Israel and told the Israelites that those who would look would live when they were bitten by poisonous serpents, it was in similitude of the fact that the Son of God would be lifted up on the cross and that all who would look to him might live eternally.
Every ordinance of the gospel is designed to point and center the attention of men in Christ. We are baptized in similitude of his death, burial, and resurrection. We honor Sunday as the Sabbath because it was on that day when he arose from the grave, breaking the bands of death and becoming the firstfruits of them that slept. The ancients honored the seventh day as one of rest and worship because it was on that day that he rested from his labors after working under the direction of his Father in the creation of this world. In fact, as Jacob says:
... all things which have been given of God from the beginning of the world, unto man, are the typifying of him.
Every prophet that there has been in the world has borne record that he is the Son of God, because in its very nature that is the chief calling of a prophet. The testimony of Jesus is synonymous with the spirit of prophecy.
CHRIST'S EARTHLY MINISTRY
We believe that Christ was born into the world, literally and actually, in the most real and positive sense as the Son of God, the Eternal Father. He was born with that Being as his Father just as certainly and just as actually, just as literally and definitely as he was born with Mary as his mother. It was by virtue of that birth that he was able to say that no man took his life from him, that he had power to lay down his life and power to take it up again, and had been so commanded of his Father.
We believe that he came into the world with the express mission of dying upon the cross for the sins of the world; that he is actually, literally, and really the Redeemer of the world and the Savior of men; and that by the shedding of his blood he has offered to all men forgiveness of sins conditioned upon their repentance and obedience to the gospel plan.
Our revelations say that when he came into this life he received not of the fulness at the first, but that he continued from grace to grace-which, I take it, means from intelligence to intelligence, from a low degree to a higher one-until he received a fulness of the glory of the Father. Then the revelation recites that if you and I keep the commandments of God and walk in the paths of truth and righteousness, we, too, shall go from grace to grace until we receive of the fulness of the Father and are glorified in Christ as he is in the Father.
We understand that he was in all points tempted as we are, and yet remained without sin. We accept Paul's statement that
Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.
In his ministry he preached the gospel of salvation, revealed to men his Father who must be known if men gain life eternal, and went forth working many mighty miracles. He raised the dead, caused the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, the deaf to hear, and cured all manner of diseases. He suffered temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death.
In the Garden of Gethsemane when he took upon himself the sins of the world, conditioned upon the repentance of men, his agony and suffering were so great that he sweat drops of blood from every pore. Then it was he suffered for all that they might not suffer if they would repent, which suffering, he says, caused himself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit, and would that he might not drink the bitter cup that the Father had given him.
"Nevertheless," he says, "glory be to the Father, and I partook." It was the spirit, "Thy will, O God, not mine be done". It was exactly the stand he had taken in the counsels of eternity when the Father had presented the plan of salvation and explained the need for a Redeemer. In answer to that call for a Redeemer he had said: "Here am I, send me". And also: "Father, thy will be done and the glory be thine forever". And such, to my way of thinking, is the perfect answer, the one we should all give in all things pertaining to life and salvation and to all of our affairs during this mortal probation, and then on in eternity. It is the will of the Father that you and I want to follow, not the will of anyone else; we want to rise above our own wayward courses.
LATTER-DAY APPEARANCES
We believe that Christ has appeared in this our day with his Father, as has been certified to from this pulpit this day. His latter-day appearances began when he and the Father came to the Prophet Joseph Smith in the sacred grove. We believe that from the day of its organization, his hand has been guiding and directing and looking after the affairs of this Church. He has given us the spirit of revelation, and the Light of Christ, and also the Holy Ghost which bears record of the Father and the Son, to light our path and guide the destiny of the Church.
And it will not be a far-distant day when with power and glory and dominion the Son will return to reign a thousand years on earth with righteous men. And there will be a time appointed when you and I and every person who has lived from Adam to the last man will be called to stand before the judgment bar and be judged by him according to our works.
WITNESSES OF CHRIST
When we Latter-day Saints pass through the waters of baptism, it is with a covenant that we will stand as witnesses of Christ at all times and in all things, and in all places that we may be in, even until death, that we may be redeemed of God, numbered with those of the first resurrection and gain eternal life , by which we mean life in the celestial kingdom of heaven. One of our revelations says that it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor. That is our responsibility.
You and I are the most blessed and favored people on the face of the earth. God has actually spoken in this day and that through the men who have presided over this kingdom. We have that testimony, and the Holy Ghost bears record of its truth to us. And now our obligation is to carry that message to the world, to proclaim Christ's divine Sonship and the salvation which comes through him. He is the Savior of the world, and I think that every one of us ought to take every opportunity that comes to us to bear that witness.
Now it is not always a matter of just saying in so many words that these things are true. First of all, I think we bear witness of Christ in the life that we live, by letting our light shine and by letting the gospel principles speak through us. If we can get the love, charity, integrity, humility, and virtue that are part of the gospel into our hearts so that others may see our good works, we are by that fact testifying of the fruits of Mormonism, of the fact of the restoration of the gospel, and of the divinity of Jesus Christ whose hand is in this work.
THE MESSAGE OF SALVATION
Having done that, it remains our responsibility, I think, to teach the doctrines of the kingdom, to expound the principles of salvation to the world. Our time is too important to teach ethical platitudes. We are expected to give all men to whom we have opportunity to give it, the message of salvation, the glad tidings of the restoration, the fact that God has spoken in this day, and the assurance that there is peace and joy and happiness by living the gospel here and now, and an eternal reward in the world to come.
Then after we have taught people the principles of the gospel, after we have let our light shine before them, it remains for us to seal that witness with pure testimony, as moved upon by the Holy Ghost, that we as individuals know that these things are true.
Last Sunday I was in the Granite Stake. They have about 5500 members of the Church and sixty-three missionaries serving in the foreign field, nearly 1.2 percent of their stake population. Two weeks ago I was in the Juarez Stake. The Dublan Ward has 214 members of the Church and twelve foreign missionaries now serving. As President Smith said, there are 5000 missionaries out in the world today, which is one-half of one percent of the Church population.
I am not so sure but what we can increase our missionary force, but what the quorums of the priesthood can do more to assist in the support of worthy missionaries who cannot otherwise be supported in the mission field. By doing this they will be helping to roll forth the testimony of Christ in this day. Our ward teachers have the glorious opportunity of bearing testimony of Christ every month to the members of the Church, by teaching them the doctrines of the kingdom and urging them to righteousness.
The Lord has given us every opportunity. We have the promise that, if we are valiant in the testimony of Christ and keep his commandments, we will receive glory and honor and reward in eternity, but if we do not what the Lord says, we have no promise.
I know that this work is true. I know that God's hand is with this Church and that the men who now preside over it as prophets, seers, and revelators are giving the mind and will of the Lord to the Latter-day Saints, the things that will lead them to glory and honor and reward in the eternal world. I think every member of this Church who has arrived at the years of accountability is both entitled to be and expected to be a witness for Christ. That you and I may stand valiant and firm in the testimony of Christ is my prayer, in his name. Amen.
Elder Henry D. Moyle
Henry D. Moyle, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 32-36
My brethren and sisters, it is with humility that I seek the sustaining influence of your faith and prayers while I endeavor to fill this most important responsibility.
THE WAYS OF THE WORLD
I have been impressed, since this call came to me, with the fact that it is very easy for the children of our Heavenly Father, in their lives, to follow the will and the ways of the masses. There seems to be something that naturally attracts us in our weakness to go with the ways of the world. In so doing we lose sight of the fact that one of the greatest gifts bestowed upon us is our own free agency, and that free agency of ours should compel us to make our own decisions, to exercise our own judgment, to know where we are going, and to know the means by which we expect to arrive at our destination. There is so much that could be said upon this subject because, unwittingly, it would seem that so many of us are sacrificing this right of free agency. We are so imbued with the idea that we must do as the world does, be one with our neighbors regardless of what their ideals and ambitions may be, that we are unwittingly forfeiting the right to make our own judgments and our own decisions.
OBJECTIVES OF LIFE SIDETRACKED
There are few of us who, if we were to take a trip, would not give some concern to the vehicle in which we would travel, the road along which we would walk or go, and the goal we would seek as a destination. Now all of these things seem commonplace to us in our everyday life, but when it comes to knowing where we are going, so far as life is concerned, where our goal is, the objective of our creation, the fulfilling of our purposes here upon this earth, we seem to be very easily sidetracked.
I was very much impressed in reading recently a statement of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He said:
Consider for a moment, brethren, the fulfilment of the words of the prophet; for we behold that darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the inhabitants thereof -that crimes of every description are increasing among men-vices of great enormity are practiced-the rising generation growing up in the fulness of pride and arrogance-the aged losing every sense of conviction and seemingly banishing every thought of a day of retribution-in temperance, immorality, extravagance, pride, blindness of heart, idolatry, the loss of natural affection; the love of this world, and indifference toward the things of eternity increasing among those who profess a belief in the religion of heaven, and infidelity spreading itself in consequence of the same-men giving themselves up to commit acts of the foulest kind, and deeds of the blackest dye, blaspheming, defrauding, blasting the reputation of neighbors, stealing, robbing, murdering, advocating error and opposing the truth, forsaking the covenant of heaven, and denying the faith of Jesus-and in the midst of all this, the day of the Lord fast approaching when none except those who have won the wedding garment will be permitted to eat and drink in the presence of the Bridegroom, the Prince of Peace!.
LOSS OF NATURAL AFFECTION
In thus enumerating the crimes of which the world would, in the future, be guilty, the Prophet Joseph evidenced his true prophetic nature-the power which he possessed, given him from on high to see into the future, for I warrant that in the days of the Prophet no one realized the extent to which the people of the world, would lose their, "natural affection", in the years to come. Today there seems to be a greater urge to destroy this "natural affection" than to commit any other offense of comparable enormity.
We are for the most part, not conscious of the existence of agencies at work in our midst with this result as their purpose. We are losing one of our most precious prizes which mankind can hold on to if they will.
Certainly natural affection is something that was bestowed upon us at birth. We had an abundance of love at that time for our parents. The child loves its mother. We are brought to a time in our lives, in the history of this world, today, when we should begin to inquire as to whether there is any less degree of affection existing between us, as we grow to maturity, for our parents, than that which existed in the days of our childhood and our youth. If we find the slightest difference, if we find that there has been any loss of affection, then we should examine our lives carefully to ascertain what we can do to bring about its restoration. Of all the people upon this earth we should be the last people to consider accepting any of the philosophies of the world, no matter what the prize attached thereto might be, if so to do would be to withdraw from that close affinity and affection which must exist between father and son and mother and daughter if we are to realize here in our mortal existence the full purpose of our creation.
It is a serious matter to me and one which has been brought close to my heart, because of my work in our welfare program. I am thrilled when I read the statistics of how much we have accomplished in the welfare program, how many trainloads, carloads, shiploads of supplies we have sent to the needy Saints in Europe and how much we have accomplished in the organized stakes of Zion. It seems as though those things may be measured in tons, but there has been a benefit come to the people of this Church as a result of this welfare program of a spiritual nature which cannot be measured. It cannot be estimated, but the good which has been accomplished can be seen in the increased affection which this work has brought between the children and the parents. If we were to work all the days of our life and sacrifice all of our surplus and keep only that which we actually need for ourselves and bring into our lives as a result thereof a closer love and affection for our children than we have heretofore had, no one would deny but what we have spent our means well.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE HOME
It would seem that all of the philosophies of the world today are set upon destroying the home. As we travel through the world, the people of the world seem to have lost in their lives the significance of home. We as Latter-day Saints cannot do this. We must still maintain the home as a place where we can kneel down daily with our children and teach them to pray. Our home is the place where we can teach them the gospel. We cannot be saved in ignorance, and neither can our children. What a wonderful work it would be if today we could bring back into the home the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ as a means of overcoming the delinquency there is in the world, among the youth. We can't deny the fact that there is greater delinquency among the young people of the world than ever before. We as Latter-day Saints have the responsibility to see to it that this delinquency of which the world is guilty does not creep into our homes. I have had occasion many times, to suggest that maybe if we would enter into this family relationship with the same enthusiasm, with the same ambition and the same energy and the same desire as we do our temporal affairs that our families and the home would mean more to us than they do now. It has been my thought for a long time, certainly my considered opinion and my testimony to you today that one way to combat divorce in the World is for men to pay more attention to their wives and for wives to pay more attention to their husbands, and let some of the things of the world go by and do not tale the example of the world as that which we must follow but rather apply ourselves to the performance of some of the humbler duties of life.
The Lord bless the mothers in Israel who keep their flock under their arms, who teach them to pray at their knees, and the Lord bless the fathers in Israel who are willing to take time off from their business and from their farms to spend with their sons and their daughters.
VIRTUE IN CHURCH ACTIVITY
Of course I see a great deal of virtue in this welfare program. If fathers would pull themselves away from their work and would engage themselves in the various projects that have been initiated in this welfare program, they would soon see the blessing to be derived from taking their sons with them and mothers their daughters.
As I go into the meetings of the Saints, I always have a feeling, I have it today, that the adversary has absolutely no power over us so long as we are assembled here in the Lord's house and worshiping him. Brethren and sisters that same protection goes with us throughout our lives and in all our activities if our associations be with those who have the same ideals and the same objectives in life. The priesthood was given to us to be a protection, and in order that it be a protection we must be active in the quorums to which we belong. Men who associate actively in the priesthood quorums of this Church will keep themselves from the power of the adversary. Their motives will always be righteous. They will bring into their homes a spirit and an atmosphere that will keen their children in the line of their duty. It will give to each and every one of us a desire which we cannot overcome except we fulfil it, to see to it that every son and daughter with whom we are blessed knows as much about this gospel of Jesus Christ as we do.
It would be a reflection upon the people of the Church if their sons and daughters as they come to us to be interviewed to go on a mission should tell us that they had never heard their father or their mother hear their testimony. So we should go to our various places of labor throughout the Church and teach our people to bear their testimonies to their children and to teach them the simple but the fundamental principles of this gospel. There will be none of our youth leave our Church and join any of the churches of the world if they once have within themselves a knowledge of the true gospel of Jesus Christ as restored through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith. I tell you, my brothers and sisters, we have a responsibility to make of our homes a sacred place where our children will want to come and bring their children and kneel with us in prayer and read the scriptures with us and discuss with us the problems of life.
PARENTAL INFLUENCE IN THE HOME
Now, if we devote ourselves to the institutions of the world, and they are multiplying daily, we will have no time for the Church. All of us have opportunities to join this organization or that organization, and it is time for us to realize that every organization which we join, no matter how good its purposes may be, detracts, to some extent at least, from our observing and practicing the things which we should do in our home and above all giving of ourselves to our families. It is not enough in this day and age to make money, to be able to bestow the riches of the world upon our children to let them live in luxury, give them all of the things of life that they might want. Better than all that is to give a little of ourselves to our children, that they might know us for what we are and feel of the spirit which we have and which we receive through keeping the commandments of our Heavenly Father.
I was reading the other day what President George Albert Smith said many years ago, and in conclusion I want to read his statement:
Grateful should we be for a knowledge of the eternity of the marriage covenant. If in this life only have we hope we would indeed be of all men the most miserable. The assurance that our relationship here as parents and children, as husbands and wives, will continue in heaven and this is but the beginning of a great and glorious kingdom that our Father has destined we shall inherit on the other side, fills us with hope and joy, One of the greatest evidences to me of the divinity of this work is that it teaches there is life eternal on the other side and that there will be a reunion there of the loved ones who have known each other here, consequently as parents we may well be patient and loving toward our children, for they will eternally abide with us on the other side, if we and they are faithful. The few years that we live here will be regarded as a time in which we become acquainted, but when we mingle in the other life, we will know each other better than we have here.
President Wilford Woodruff said on one occasion:
Bless your souls, if you live here in the flesh a thousand years, as long as Father Adam and lived and labored all your life in poverty and when we get through, if by your acts you could secure your wives and children in the first resurrection to dwell with you in the presence of God that one thing would amply pay you for the labors of a thousand years.
Now let us make the sacrifice, my brothers and sisters, of the labors of a day or two a month to spend with our children and help them to gain a place in the celestial kingdom of our Heavenly Father, there to dwell with us and to add to our glory eternally. I pray humbly this may be our happy lot, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Bishop LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 40-47
My brothers and sisters, I have been delighted with the messages we have heard from the brethren during this conference. I love to meet with the Latter-day Saints. I have a great appreciation in my heart for you fine people and for your kindness to me as I am privileged to visit in the various stakes of Zion.
FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS
In trying to think what I might say today that could be an encouragement or help to you, I thought I might say a few words on our financial and temporal obligations to the Church because they are many, and there are some among us who feel that they are heavy. One stake president said: "It costs a lot to be a member of this Church," and I have thought a great deal of it. I have thought of the payment of our tithing, our fast offerings, our welfare contributions, our ward budget, our great missionary work, the building of our chapels and temples and places of worship, the temple work we are doing, and genealogical work, and I feel as many of you do that when we consecrate all that we have to the building up of the kingdom of God it really is a substantial thing as far as our temporal obligations and responsibilities are concerned.
The Lord revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith that he had never given a temporal commandment unto his children, that all of his commandments were spiritual, for they all have a spiritual meaning and a spiritual development and a spiritual purpose, because behind all that the Lord is attempting to do in the earth, he has indicated that
... this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
And hence, all of his commandments have been given for the achievement and the accomplishment of that great objective.
"NO MAN CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS"
However, the Lord has made some definite statements with respect to temporal things and our responsibility therein. That is, I suppose, what Jesus meant when he said:
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
I take it he understood that in the lives of most men the time would come when they might have to make a choice as to whether or not they should choose God or mammon, and it is my conviction and my testimony that when we make the choice, if we choose to serve the Lord, it is just like forming a partnership with him. He will be on our side, he will see us through; and I wonder sometimes if we really sacrifice when we choose to serve the Lord, rather than to serve mammon, and make the necessary effort and contributions required to show our faith in him.
You will recall that before the Lord needed any financial help to promote the interests of his kingdom in the earth he gave unto Cain and Abel the law of sacrifice. The Lord did not need the fruits of the field from Cain nor the first of the flocks from Abel, but they needed to give it; they needed to put their faith to the test. They needed to be able to show to God whether they served and chose God or mammon, for you cannot serve two masters.
And you will recall that Cain brought of the fruit of the field, and his offering was not acceptable to the Lord, and Abel brought the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. We are told that Abel's offering was accepted. We do not know just why Cain's was not; probably he did not bring the best of his field, but at any rate, he was very much perturbed and put out when his offering was not accepted, and hardness entered into his heart. The light of the Lord left him, and he turned to that terrible sin of murdering his own brother. And the Lord indicated to Cain when he expressed his displeasure:
"If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?".
We often see in our midst brethren who turn away from the Lord, who cease to pay their tithes and their offerings, who neglect to prove to God that they love him better than they love mammon, and darkness comes into their lives, and they do things that are not pleasing to the Lord. They walk in the ways of darkness and cease to help to build the kingdom of God in the earth
EXPERIENCE OF JOB
You will recall the experience of Job when the devil came to the Lord and the Lord said: "Hast thou considered my servant Job?". And the devil rather laughingly said, in substance:
Oh, that is easy. You have surrounded him with so much. You have given him everything. No wonder he is your friend, but just let me take it away from him.
The Lord gave him the privilege; told him he might take everything away if he would just spare his life. So he took everything away, his lands and his herds, and his buildings were burned, and his family died, and when his body was afflicted and sore, he lay there, and his wife said unto him: "Dost thou still retain thine integrity?".
Now, brethren and sisters, I would like to read the testimony that came from Job. I think it is one of the most beautiful things that we have in holy writ, for this is what Job said:
Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!
That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
And though after my skin worms destroy this body; yet in my flesh shall I see God:
Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.
Is there any amount of wealth in this world that could take the place of that positive assurance that Job had in his heart, as a friend of God, through the testimony of the Holy Ghost, that though his body should be destroyed yet in his flesh should he see God-whom he should see for himself?
MALACHI'S ADMONITION
Malachi gives us this call back to service of the Lord in the matter of the payment of our tithes and our offerings. I think the third chapter of Malachi was directed entirely to the people of this generation, for he begins that he would send his angel to prepare the way for his coming, and then he should come swiftly to his temple-that did not occur in the meridian of time-and that he should come cleansing and purifying as refiner's fire and as fuller's soap, and then he invites all Israel to return unto him, and they say:
... Wherein shall we return?
Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
And I presume there is not one here today who realizes what the truth of that statement was, for I think there was no church or people in all the world paying tithes at the time the Church was restored in these latter days, when the Lord sent his angel to call them back to serve him.
And then the Lord said:
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.
And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.
A DELIGHTSOME LAND
Brothers and sisters, when we think of the condition of this land when our pioneer fathers came here, has not the Lord fulfilled his promise; has he not made it a delightsome land; has he not proved that he would keep his promise? The Lord has indicated that he is bound when we do what he says, but when we do not what he says, then have we no promise. The Lord has made this a delightsome land, and all nations who know us and know of our prosperity call us blessed, and out of this land we are able to send forth the gospel message, as David of old saw, unto the inhabitants of the earth, for David said:
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.
There is one part of that third chapter of Malachi that we do not usually hear much about, and I would like to read it to you today.
After the Lord said that all nations should call us blessed, he adds:
Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee?
Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?
And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.
A BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE
In other words, as the scriptures say, the rain falls upon the just and the unjust, and when we see the unjust in our midst enjoying blessings of the Lord, sometimes, in our own estimation, beyond even the blessings of him who walks in His ways and keeps his commandments, we begin to argue whether or not it pays to serve the Lord. That is what Malachi saw, and the Lord heard them, and said:
Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.
And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
I would like to see every friend of mine in this Church have his name recorded in that book of remembrance, and I am sure that when he comes to claim his jewels, he will realize that no sacrifice that has ever been required at his hands could compensate for the lack of that very thing, for they will be numbered among his jewels. That is what I think being partners with him means.
What a promise! What a promise that he will bless the land! I wonder as we go about our daily duties from day to day if we are able to realize how much of the joy and the happiness and the success that is ours in life is really ours by virtue of our own doings and how much of it is the result of the blessings of the Lord.
REDEMPTION OF ZION
Do you remember the statement of Daniel Webster about this western part of America, when he said that he would not vote one cent from the public treasury to place the Pacific coast one inch nearer Boston than it was then? And Jim Bridger, when Brigham Young met him, said that he would give one thousand dollars if he only knew we could raise an ear of corn in these valleys, but Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the prophets of old, had seen the prosperity of Zion in these valleys of the mountains. The Prophet Joseph had declared that the Saints would continue to suffer persecution and be driven, and many would apostatize, and some would be put to death, and that they should ultimately be driven to the Rocky Mountains, and here they should become a mighty people in the Rocky Mountains.
I want to read to you two brief statements from Isaiah with respect to what the Lord promised to do in the redemption of this wilderness, to make it blossom as the rose, and I want to say to you it is a miracle in my mind the part "water" was to play in the redemption of latter-day Zion.
Isaiah said: "Behold, I will do a new thing," and as far as my understanding of this scripture is concerned, that new thing was the great principle of irrigation. It is true the Saints had to make the canals, they had to make the ditches, they had to put in the dams, but the land might have remained arid had not the Lord put into their minds the inspiration to do this very thing, and that is what Isaiah saw that the Lord would do. He said:
Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert....
If you want to see the rivers in the desert, just go up through Idaho and see the great canals that come out of the Snake River. They are greater than many of the rivers of the land.
... to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise.
And Isaiah states:
I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.
So as you brethren gather in your crops by day in the harvest time, remember that it was the Lord God of Israel who did this new thing in this great wilderness to make it to prosper as a rose and to be a land that would attract the attention of all the world.
PRESIDENT GRANT'S EXPERIENCE
Now, I would like to remind you of a little statement that President Grant used to make often. He said:
I believe that to those who are liberal, the Lord gives ideas, and they grow in capacity and ability more rapidly than those who are stingy. I have that faith and I have had it from the time I was a boy.
I believe the Lord gives ideas to men who are liberal and men who have desires to serve God, and those who choose to serve the God of Israel rather than the God of mammon, and I remind you of President Grant's story. It impressed me when I was a boy. When he heard Bishop Woolley, President Clark's grandfather, in a fast meeting ask the Saints to be liberal in their contributions, he promised them that, if they would be liberal, the Lord would bless them four-fold.
President Grant was then only a boy. He had fifty dollars in his pocket. He was working at the Zion's Savings Bank and intended to deposit it, but he handed it to the bishop, and the bishop wrote him a receipt for five dollars and gave him forty-five dollars change, but President Grant indicated that he wanted to pay it all. He wanted to put the Lord in his debt, because his mother needed two hundred dollars, and, if he paid fifty and he got four-fold, he would have his two hundred dollars. And Bishop Woolley said: "Do you believe, Heber, that you will get your two hundred dollars sooner if you give this fifty dollars to the Lord?''
He said: "I do." And the bishop wrote him a receipt for the other forty-five dollars, and on the way back to the bank he got an idea. Where did he get it from? He might never have received it had he not paid the fifty dollars. God Almighty sends ideas and he has regard for each one of his children individually. President Grant wired a man in the East, and in a few days he sold him enough bonds to make $218.50 profit, so when he paid the tithing on it the Lord had given him his two hundred dollars and almost enough to pay the tithing.
TESTIMONY OF LAW OF TITHING
I met a man in the East when I was there on a short-term mission. I noticed that he paid a large tithing and that he was very regular in the payment of his tithing, and I said,
Brother so-and-so, you must have a wonderful testimony of the law of tithing, and he said, "I have."
I said: "Would you tell me?"
"Well," he said, "my wife and children joined the Church a few years ago in England but I didn't join because I did not have enough faith to pay my tithing, and I did not want to be a hypocrite. And so," he said, "one day when one of the young missionaries was being released, he came to me and said:
"Brother so-and-so, I want to baptize you before I go home."
And I said, "You cannot."
"Why not?"
"Well," I said, "I have not the faith to pay my tithing, and I am not going to join the Church until I have."
And then that young elder spoke up, under the influence of the Spirit of the Lord, and the Lord heeded his words and his promise when he said: "Brother so-and-so, if you will let me baptize you before I go home, I promise you that within a year from now you will be in America earning three times as much as you are earning today."
I said: "All right, where shall we go? That is good enough for me. If you are a servant of the Lord, I will take your promise." "Now," he said, "I did not see how in the world it could be fulfilled, because I was under contract to work for my company for three years, and I knew I would not break my contract."
This was during the first world war when we had great difficulty here in America to get dyes that would hold their color, and we sent representatives from America to England to get dye workers. They went to this man's father, and his father said:
"I am not interested, but I have a son who may be."
They went to the son. The son said: "I cannot go. I am under contract with my company."
"Well, if we will buy you off, will you go?"
And he said, "Yes."
"Now," he said, "to make the story short, the Lord just threw in a little for good measure.
"Within a year I was in America with my family, and I was earning four times as much as I was when that young elder made me that promise."
THE LORD FULFILLS HIS PROMISES
I told the elders, where it has been my privilege to preside in the mission field, if they wanted to see what the Lord did in the way of fulfilling his promises just to keep their eyes open as they went around among the Saints-those who kept the commandments, paid their tithes and their offerings-and compare them with those who failed, and they would know that the Lord is true to his promises.
I say to you brothers and you sisters, may God bless you, and when you give, remember you are only giving to show your loyalty to him whom you have chosen to serve, for "No man can serve two masters".
God bless you all, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Harold B. Lee
Harold B. Lee, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 51-56
Two of the speakers this afternoon have expressed their appreciation for the courtesy and the consideration that is given them by the Saints as they move out on Church assignments throughout the stakes and missions of the Church. I have likewise in my heart an appreciation for that service. Not the least of the compensations that come to me from my present appointment is the fact that wherever I am sent under such conditions, during that period of service, I am visiting with and laboring with the finest people in the community and the finest people in the world.
It is about some of the observations that I have made while thus privileged that I would like to speak for a few moments, and time is too short to go into much detail, but merely to mention a few of those observations.
DANGERS CONFRONTING OUR HOMES
Elder Moyle has called our attention to some of the tragic things that warn us that there are dangers confronting our homes. The increase of crime and the increase of divorce, the increase of juvenile delinquency, all indicate that there is a weakening of the good influence of the family home, and an increase in the dangers that threaten to destroy it. From the stress that has been laid upon the subject of home and marriage, not only in the scriptures, but also in our conferences from time to time, it would appear that it has always been considered fundamental to the establishment of a strong religious life and the building of the kingdom that the homes of our people be safeguarded and marriage be held sacred.
In the first marriage that was performed upon this earth, the Lord made four significant declarations. First, that it was not good for man to be alone; second, that woman was formed to be a help meet for man; third, that they twain should be of one flesh; and fourth, that man should leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife.
At a later time the Lord reinforced that by saying:
... What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
LOFTY CONCEPTS OF THE HOME
There is no other people on the face of the earth, that I know anything about, who have the lofty concepts of marriage and the sacredness of the home as do the Latter-day Saints.
In a revelation given in our day the Lord said:
... marriage is ordained of God unto man.
Wherefore, it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation.
There are, however, unmistakable evidences that the same dangers that are abroad are among us and are seeking to destroy this God-given institution, the home. Many there are who have given counsel in the scientific fields, relating to family life, but largely have their findings about the homes in the modern day been taken from broken and unhappy homes. It has been my privilege to visit, with the others of the General Authorities, regularly in the finest homes of our people, and it is from those visits that I have gleaned some things that I should like to mention to you, suggestive of the elements that build for strength and happiness in the home.
LOVE AND DESIRE FOR CHILDREN
If I were to name the first thing that impresses me always in these fine Latter-day Saint homes, I would say it was a love for and a desire for children. These are homes where the having of children was not delayed because of some social or educational or financial objective, and where the size of the families has not been limited by the practice of birth control.
A few years ago I read some statistics taken from the United States Census Bureau which indicated that out of 180,000 divorces for that given year, 57 percent were in homes where there were no children, 21.2 percent where there was only one child; and in families with five or more children, divorces ranged all the way from none to only.7 of one percent. Clearly is it evident that parental love and oneness that come from planned parenthood is a safe and sure guarantee to the happiness of the home.
MIRACLE OF MOTHERHOOD
Sometime ago I was privileged to hear something about the influence that had come from one of these homes in a letter that was written by a lovely daughter who had just given birth to her first baby In the early hours of the morning the baby had come, and late in the afternoon she was in a reflective mood; in this reflective mood she had written home to her family. In her letter she told first about her impressions and feelings at the miracle of motherhood, how she had been privileged to be a participant in this wonderful creation. Then she wrote this:
I wonder that we women are not required to undergo even more than labor pains to bring these little ones from another world into this one. It seems so right that we through pain are forced to slip for a few minutes, at least, half-way into another sphere, to sort of bring our baby by the hand into this new world.
The beauty of that girl's thinking about the lofty ideals of womanhood and the sacred calling of the mother in the home is matched only by that which I heard in Canada when I interviewed a young man who was preparing to go on a mission. I sought to find out what his idea and standards had been with respect to honoring womanhood. He looked me unflinchingly in the eye and replied:
Brother Lee, my mother has taught me all my life that a mother can rear her daughter, but it takes a mother plus a good pure girl in order to rear her son properly.
GUARANTEES OF A HAPPY HOME
I am reminded of the remark of a young man to his sweetheart and her reply, when he planned to postpone their marriage because of finances. He said to her somewhat facetiously: "I think probably all I can promise you is a sagebrush home in Idaho," and she replied: "Well, that is fine, then if we ever get anything, it will belong to both of us and not just you."
I am thinking of that mother blessed with a family of girls who kneeled down each night and prayed God that somewhere there would be a mother rearing some sons worthy to become the husbands of her daughters, and then, the daughters finally married. In talking with the mothers of the sons, she found that those mothers had been praying ever since their boys were born that somewhere God would be preparing some girls worthy to become the wives of their sons.
I say to you, brethren and sisters, such lofty concepts of home, family, and the responsibilities of home and family, are certain guarantees to a happy and successful home.
Coming home on the train from California this last week, I rode with one of these lovely mothers whom I have known and who has reared an excellent family. We talked about the things that had helped to keep her family in line. She said:
Brother Lee, I made it my practice and rule, when my children came along that I was going to make as many contacts with my children in the home as I possibly could. I was always there when they went to school; I planned to give up everything else, if necessary, to be there when they came home; I was there when they had their parties and their friends in the home; and I always waited up after the evening parties in order to greet my children when they came home from the party, because I found that at such moments I was able to encourage a frankness between us, and it permitted me to enjoy their confidences that over the years builded a comradeship which kept them safe in times of difficulty.
What a blessing is such a wise mother! Such children, so taught, with whom mothers and fathers have made such comrades, in times of stress and storm will turn to mother and father as the ship laboring in the storm to the port for safety.
LOVE IN THE HOME
The Apostle Paul, because apparently of the importance that he saw of love in the home, made this statement:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.
So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.
And another prophet condemned the infidelity of men and their unfaithfulness to their companions, those who had failed in their parental responsibilities in these words:
For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, yea and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands.
... Ye have broken the hearts of your tender wives, and lost the confidence of your children, because of your bad examples before them and the sobbings of their hearts ascend up to God against you. And because of the strictness of the word of God, which cometh down against you, many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds.
CHILDREN MADE PARTNERS
I have found in these Latter-day Saint homes that one of the characteristics that mark them as outstanding is that the family has been made into a partnership. Father and mother in the early days, managing the income, have given small weekly allowances to the children to make them partners. As they have grown older, there has been a sort of partial partnership with father and mother as the parent corporation, and still older, a full partnership, and then in old age the parents sell to the children and retire on the income from the properties thus disposed of. Learning how to do on the farm, having a part in homemaking and the family earnings is a sure guarantee against juvenile delinquency. The blase girl who is overpainted and immodestly dressed presents but the unlovely picture of the unhappy girl who is making a bid for a kind of popularity that personal endowments did not provide. The boy with his first smoke and the first drink and the beginning of profanity ofttimes is one who is trying to flag a feeling of inferiority, and acts thus to make himself seemingly equal to a difficult situation. The kinds of homes that I have been describing, as found among the leaders throughout the stakes and missions of this Church, are homes where delinquency is rarely to be found, because of the responsibilities that have been given to the children throughout their growing years. Individual responsibilities assigned to family members seems most vital in the building of these successful homes.
RESPECT FOR EACH OTHER
I see these families showing respect towards each other; father to mother, and affection for her, and mother to father; no quarrellings, no bickerings before the children at least, misunderstandings talked out sensibly-I saw one such home with nine lovely children where the children bear testimony to the fact that they have never heard their father and mother quarrel. The result is now that in the nine homes of these children, following this period of instruction, and the good example of parents, there are nine more lovely and secure families living happily together.
I contrast that with the lament of a father who said: "What is the matter with my family? In every one of their homes, now they are married, they are having trouble, and divorce is threatening." I saw the kind of home they grew up in, and I contrasted it with this other home where safety and security have been provided.
MAINTENANCE OF SPIRITUAL CONTACTS
The maintenance of spiritual contacts, the exercise of family prayers, the constant attention to Church duties have all been some of the things that have helped these homes to be successful, and so as I close with these few observations, may I remind you that the Lord has said that those who are sealed in the temple by the Holy Spirit of Promise shall pass by the angels and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation in all things.
May I call that to your attention, you brethren, reminding you that your marriages shall be eternal and shall be perpetuated through eternity only so long as you keep the covenants that you have made. The Spirit of Promise is the spirit which searches the hearts of men, and only when his sealing approval is given-only then will your blessings become eternal.
God grant that the homes of the Latter-day Saints may be blessed and that there shall come into them happiness here and the foundation for exaltation in the celestial kingdom in the world to come, for which I humbly pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph F. Merrill
Joseph F. Merrill, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 58-63
Brethren, sisters and friends-those listening here and elsewhere: I propose in the few minutes allotted to me to talk primarily to the Mormon people, but I would feel complimented if any others would care to listen. It is trite to say that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has many characteristic teachings-those not accepted and taught by other churches as we teach them. Some of these are basic and therefore fundamental to Mormonism, as you all know. Among them are that Joseph Smith was the recipient of divine visions, visitations, and revelations, that the Book of Mormon is a God-given volume to the world which, by reason of the miraculous way it came forth, is the most marvelous book in print today and that the Holy Priesthood-the authority to act for and in the name of Jesus Christ-was given to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery by the laying on of hands of heavenly messengers-first, John the Baptist, and a little later, the Apostles Peter, James, and John. To members of our Church these are actual facts to which countless thousands of them bear fervent testimony, saying in effect they really do know, not believe only, that these things are true. Incidentally, may I say testimony bearing of this nature is, as you know, a characteristic practice among us.
TESTIMONIES OF RETURNED MISSIONARIES
Since the current policy of interviewing returned missionaries by some one of the General Authorities began a dozen years ago, I have interviewed hundreds of these young people and on questioning, at least ninety-nine percent of them readily and positively declared they knew certainly that God lives and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is his Church. Were these young people telling the truth? Did they, and can any one, positively know that God lives? Multitudes of worldly people answer, nay. But in such a case a negative answer has no value. All it can do is to show that the witness is without knowledge. The testimony of a single witness who has the facts far outweighs the testimony of the multitudes who have no facts.
We read that Jesus once declared:
My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.
If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
Further, on one occasion addressing the question to his disciples, Jesus asked:
But whom say ye that I am?
And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
The Latter-day Saints accept this teaching, and multitudes among them declare they know by personal experience that it is the truth. "But how can they know?" the doubter asks. Those having the knowledge rarely, if ever, claim they have ever seen or heard God. "Then how can they know?" the doubter asks. The answer is: by the power of the Holy Ghost, as Moroni declared. Was it not by the power of the Holy Ghost that Peter got his knowledge?
AVENUES OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE
There are avenues of getting knowledge other than those of seeing, hearing, or touching. One of them is mind and feeling. If one has a pain, does he not know it? How? Through his feelings. If he is elated, or sad, or depressed, or hungry, does he not know it? It is through our feelings that much of our knowledge comes. In his work of translating the Book of Mormon, how did the Prophet Joseph Smith know when a particular translation was correct? By a "burning" in his bosom, he declared that is, by a feeling of perfect assurance.
Many a prayer has been divinely answered while the petitioner was still on his knees. How did he know the answer came from above? By the way he felt-the feeling of satisfaction, of elation, of perfect assurance, of right accompanying the mental impressions received. But it is well for us to remember that mental impressions may come from two different sources-one from above, the other from below-from the Lord, or from Satan. Satan. We may know the source of the impression by the way we feel. If it is from the devil, it is never accompanied by a feeling of joyous satisfaction and positive assurance of right-a characteristic of impressions that come from the Lord. The one who prays need not be deceived by impressions that come into his mind in answer to prayer. Divine impressions have accompanying characteristics of genuineness.
VISION GIVEN TO JOSEPH SMITH
Yes, God does live. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three separate personal beings, alike in form, in whose image man is made. In order that these basic fundamental truths, lost to the world through centuries of erroneous teachings, might again be available to people of our day, a new revelation was necessary, and this was given to the fourteen-year-old Joseph Smith in the form of the most glorious vision ever given to mortal man, so far as the records indicate-a vision in which Father and Son appeared simultaneously JS-H 1:17)-given to this uneducated, backwoods boy in order... that I might show forth my wisdom through the weak things of the earth" -a youth who three and one-half years later was told by a messenger from heaven that his name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues. Yes, Joseph Smith was divinely called, a truth to which his works and the personal testimony of hundreds of thousands of his followers sincerely testify. And judged solely by his works-the measuring stick universally employed in determining greatness in men-Joseph Smith surely presents a challenge to every normal-minded adult human being interested in the good and happiness of himself and fellowmen, a challenge to give careful study and thorough investigation to his claims and teachings. Personally, I believe that even very many of our Mormon people are more or less careless and indifferent to the significance of the message Joseph Smith was called to deliver to the world.
SATAN RESPONSIBLE FOR WORLD TROUBLES
In this connection, it is perhaps well to remind ourselves that Satan the devil, whom I mentioned a moment ago, is a real personal being, a spirit brother of ours with a spirit body in form like that of all other men. He is here on earth with a multitude of other spirit children of our Father in heaven. He and his hosts are doing all they can to handicap the work of the Lord by handicapping the Father's children here in mortality. All our troubles, sorrows, miseries, sins, and wickedness stem right back to Satan, who through his temptations and machinations leads men away from the paths of peace, fair dealing, and righteous living, from the love of God and love of their fellow mortals.
When traveling about Europe twelve to fifteen years ago, we frequently met people who said, "There is no God who loves us and whose children we are; otherwise, he never would have permitted the First World War, entailing misery and destruction to many millions of human beings." Of course the answer of Mormonism to such false conclusions is that Satan, and not God, is responsible in the final analysis for these troubles. To every child that comes into mortality our Father in heaven has given his free agency-freedom to do as he pleases, freedom to yield to the temptations and power of Satan, freedom to reject God and righteousness. These matters are fairly well understood by Latter-day Saints, but not by many of their non-Mormon brethren. Yes, Satan is the father of lies, the inspiration of wickedness, and the source of wars. Years ago a great newspaper in the Middle West entitled its lead editorial "Hitler, the Devil Incarnate." God works through men willing to obey him, to lead his mortal children to paths of righteousness. Likewise, Satan works through men willing to yield to temptations, to bring troubles and destruction to God's children. Whether we serve God or Satan is a matter for the individual to decide. But having given each person his free agency, God holds him responsible for the way he uses it-whether for the good and uplift, or otherwise, of his fellow men.
THE POWER OF SATAN
Relative to Satan, perhaps he has more influence among men today than ever before in human history. We have yet no treaty of peace with Germany or Japan, and none as yet in sight, though fighting with these countries ended more than three years ago. In the First World War, Armistice Day came the 11th of November. In the following June a treaty of peace with Germany was signed. What is the trouble now? My answer is Satan. I think the leaders of certain nations who have a voice in making treaties are in the power of Satan. And Satan does not want peace. The more trouble, fighting, and wickedness in the world, the more Satan laughs. How childish, weak, and stupid many of us are! We yield more or less readily to our destroyer, both in matters that affect us in person and in mass. But Russia is wholly atheistic. In all the public schools there, from the kindergarten to the university, the children are taught the Satanic doctrine that there is no God. The "law of the jungle" rules in government circles. When will treaties of peace conformable to Christian standards, in the making of which Russia has a voice, become effective in Germany and Japan?
But we need not look abroad to see troubles and unchristian conduct. We have plenty in our beloved America. But whether in our country or abroad, the ultimate cause is the same-the influence of Satan. And this influence is largely manifested through a universal human trait-that of selfishness. Have not all the major wars of history been due to selfishness, especially when associated with the similar traits of ambition and greed? The Christian rule of conduct is indicated by the second great commandment: "Love thy neighbor as thyself". If you do this, then necessarily you treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated in similar circumstances. In other words, you observe the Golden Rule, a thing so difficult to do that perhaps no one fully succeeds in doing it. But the rule expresses the Christian ideal. If this ideal, even approximately, motivated the makers of international treaties, peace between nations would soon be here-the great desideratum of the vast majority of the people of every country.
DEVIL-INSPIRED TROUBLES
Now in our own country what do we see? A multitude of devil-inspired troubles, most of them having their roots in uncontrolled and excessive selfishness, exhibited by excessive prices of necessities, work stoppages, strikes, mass picketing, lockouts, crimes, and indulgence in sinful practices, pressure groups making inordinate demands, struggles to get something for nothing-to name only a few of them. Unless America wakes up to the grave dangers of the trend of the times and takes steps to curb and eliminate these evils, her doom is sealed as a land of free, prosperous, and happy people. This land is to continue as a "choice land above all other lands", only on condition of the righteousness of her inhabitants.
Latter-day Saints will observe that I have said nothing new-nothing that they do not already know. But my purpose in saying these things is to call them again to our attention. In obedience to the divine will given to us by revelation, we partake weekly of the emblems of the Holy Sacrament as a reminder and for a renewal of our covenants. The Lord knows we have very good forgetters; he knows we need to be frequently reminded.
REPENTANCE NEEDED
Brethren and sisters, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we need to repent of sinful worldly practices in which many of us indulge more or less. We need to bring our selfish desires and practices within the limits of the Golden Rule. We need to cultivate humility and do more sincere praying, particularly in our family circles. We need to keep more vividly in mind the commandments of the Lord and with more determination increase our efforts to govern our lives accordingly, that is, implement these commandments in our daily living.
Every one of us has more or less influence with those who see and know how we act, how we live. And since we are all expected to be missionaries and teach the gospel of Christ our Lord to all the world, we should keep in mind the fact that in the long run the most effective way the majority of us can do this is by example. We are all familiar with the old saying, "I would rather see a sermon than hear one"-a very natural attitude to take. With the Apostle James we teach that faith without works is dead and that in the great day of judgment we shall be judged according to our works.
OBSERVANCE OF SABBATH DAY
In this connection may I mention the Fourth Commandment which enjoins us to keep holy the Sabbath day -a commandment so frequently violated by multitudes of people, even by some of our own people. Whatever non-members may do in violation of this holy day does not justify us in any degree whatsoever in doing likewise on this day. We cannot go to movies, or ball games, or other kinds of commercial entertainments. We may not go hunting, or fishing, or golfing, on the Sabbath without violating the holiness of the day-such is a doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ as we interpret it, notwithstanding the teachings of some professing Christians to the contrary. The Lord has spoken in modern days on this subject.
I have spoken of some characteristic teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In addition we have some teachings that are at the basis of every acceptable Christian life. Some of these are indicated in the Thirteenth Article of Faith:
We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men....
Brethren and sisters, God has again showed himself and spoken to man in modern times. He is a personal being in whose image we, his children, are made both in the spirit and the flesh. This is his Church, the only one on earth that he recognizes as his own, a truth that we declare not boastfully but in humility, very thankful that we have been given eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to feel, and minds to understand.
God help us all to accept and continue loyal and faithful to these truths I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Richard L. Evans
Richard L. Evans, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 63-67
Somehow or other, this task never seems to become any easier. In fact at times I feel that it becomes more difficult, and I earnestly hope that you will sustain me with your thoughts and prayers and that my Father in heaven will give me utterance.
TESTIMONY OF INFORMED WITNESS
I was struck by a thought that Dr. Merrill presented in the opening paragraphs of his talk, that the testimony of one informed witness is worth infinitely more than the testimony of many who don't know, I have often made the observation that an idiotic opinion multiplied by fifty million is still an idiotic opinion. Sometimes our children endeavor to induce us to give them permission to do things we know they shouldn't do, with the well-worn phrase that "everybody is doing them."
But no matter what everybody does, an error is still an error even though it is multiplied millions of times. So is an evil, and it doesn't matter how popular or how glamorous or how universal evils become, they are still evils. Some evils have been made very glamorous, very appealing and very popular, but we must be aware of the fact that they are still what they are, regardless of who partakes of them or what they are called, or what appearance they assume. History has proved many times over that the opinion of one man who knows and who knows that he knows, the opinion of one man who has the truth and proclaims it, is much more important than the opinions of many millions who don't know.
EVENTS OF A CENTURY AGO
I can't look at this audience this morning without thinking of another audience that gathered on Temple Square a hundred years ago. It is one hundred years this month since the first general conference was held on Temple Square. A bowery was built here in 1847. A special conference was held in that year, in August, I believe, and the two general conferences following that one, one on Christmas day, 1847, and one in April 1848, were held back in Kanesville, Iowa. The first general conference of the Church on this square was one hundred years ago now, and what has happened since then, here and elsewhere, is almost beyond belief.
The picture of those people comes before us-men and women who faced the harsh realities of physical existence, who had been, that summer and that spring, through the ordeal of seeing their crops threatened by complete destruction, and many of whom had witnessed the deliverance through their Father in heaven by the episode of the seagulls, which is now immortalized in stone on this block.
With what little they had, ragged, I am sure, many of them, and worn and weary, nevertheless they continued to consult their convictions rather than their convenience, and the fact that they did so accounts for what we have here today, physically and tangibly, as well as the greater spiritual and intangible values that have so blessed our lives and the lives of our children. May God bless their memories and help us to be worthy of the heritage they gave us.
FAME OF TEMPLE SQUARE
This square has since become one of the most visited and most talked-of ten acres in the world, I am sure. President Smith told you yesterday that we had had more than eight hundred forty thousand visitors up to this time this year. About a million people a year are coming here currently, a little more or less. There are still many people who come here from all parts of the country who remember and who speak feelingly of their visits in decades gone by, when they met such men as Joseph Peery who so greatly influenced what went on, on this block, for so many years.
But we are facing new circumstances so far as the operation of this square is concerned. It was only fifteen years ago, in 1933, that there were about one hundred thousand people who visited this place, and I rather think that that figure might have included the general conference visitors. We have about ten times that number now, excluding general conference visitors. It was only three years ago, 1945, that we had about a third as many people come here as we have now, three hundred seventy-seven thousand in 1945. You can see that we are facing new problems of organization and administration, and if the activities on these grounds continue to multiply in the next ten or fifteen years as they have in the past, these ten acres literally will not accommodate them.
TEMPLE SQUARE GUIDES
We have some seventy-five guides functioning now on these grounds, faithful men and women who take time from their businesses and their professions and their homes at a moment's notice to come here and render such service as is needed. We have about eight lawyers, three or four doctors, and many successful businessmen, who leave their clients, their patients, and their customers waiting in their offices while they come here to conduct strangers about these grounds. There are many times when we have five or six groups moving on the grounds at once, and if one building is tied up, it means that there are many times when we have no place to take these people who come. They come at their convenience, not at ours, and we have to take care of them when they come or not see them at all.
These grounds are open about fourteen hours a day at the present time, and they are open almost every day of the year, seven days a week. The only day we have been closed in my experience here is Christmas Day, and I am sure we could have conducted some people about the grounds even on that day. This is our window to the world, and I want to express my appreciation to the Presiding Bishopric for their most helpful and sympathetic cooperation in maintaining the personnel and the physical appearance of these grounds, and to the First Presidency, President Smith and President Clark, and President McKay, in helping us to get the help we need and in helping us with many of our problems and in acquiring the physical facilities we need here. I almost believe at times, without being able to prove it, that not only do we see more people here than anywhere else in the Church, but that more strangers see us here than in all the rest of the Church put together.
TEACHINGS OF KARL G. MAESER
I am grateful to Brother Frank Otterstrom for inviting again my attention a few sentences from the mind and heart and experience of Brother Karl G. Maeser who had such an influence on this Church and its educational policies in his generation, and on the lives of those who have succeeded his generation.
Here is one which we may all have heard many times over but repetition of which is well worthwhile:
The Lord has unconditionally declared the triumph of his Church, but his promises to me are all conditional. My concern, therefore is about myself.
I have no fear, and I know you haven't, as to the ultimate destiny of this Church, and of the Lord's work in the earth. But many individuals fall by the wayside, and in the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord has in a number of places distinguished between his pleasure with the Church collectively and his pleasure with people individually, or displeasure as it may be. One such utterance is in the first section, where he declares that he is pleased with the Church speaking collectively but not individually. Regardless of the great strides the Church has made, in the words of Karl G. Maeser, "my concern... is about myself" and my own part and contribution to it. I commend to you the beautiful and profound thought of President Ivins yesterday: "Serving for the sheer joy of service, without thought of self."
Another sentence from Brother Maeser:
No man shall be more exacting of me or of my conduct than I am of myself.
And another one:
I would rather trust my child to a serpent than to a teacher who does not believe in God.
Here is another:
The Lord never gets in debt to any man.
I am reminded of Bishop Richards' remarks here yesterday.
And here is another sentence from Karl G. Maeser that is pertinent to our present problems:
Youth demands recreation, and if it is not provided in high places they will seek it in low places.
Brother Moyle touched on that yesterday: Spending time with our children regardless of our other pressing professional and business pursuits. These children of ours are going to grow up. What we have said about the visitors who come here, that they come at their convenience and not at ours, is true of children. They grow up at their convenience, or at Nature's convenience, and not at ours, and we had better touch their lives while they are with us and while we have the opportunity. They are going to find companionship somewhere, and if it isn't our companionship, it will be the companionship of someone else. If it isn't our influence, it will be some other influence that shapes and molds them, because they are not going to be isolated from outside influences, and we shall have no cause for complaint about the influences that do mold their lives unless we do our best to see that ours is dominant in the shaping and molding of their characters.
A final sentence from Brother Maeser:
If you want excuses, go to the devil-he can give you any number. We can go to the devil for a good many things, and sometimes, in some instances, I'm afraid that is the source of too much that is plentiful in the world. The law of supply and demand does not seem to work as well as it should in this instance.
REPENTANCE AND FORGIVENESS
I am grateful, however, as Bishop Isaacson expressed yesterday, that this is a Church that proclaims the principles of repentance and forgiveness. If it weren't for repentance and forgiveness, life would be hopeless for most of us, if not for all of us.
I was talking a day or two ago with two of our brethren who are attorneys, and we were speaking of some of our penal practices and problems, about life imprisonment, for example. A man who is imprisoned for life, and who knows that there is no hope for him, hasn't much inducement, perhaps, to be on his good behavior. I recall a scene to which I was a witness not long ago, which involved a small boy who had been invited to stay in the house for the rest of the day because he needed some disciplining. He was rather obstreperous during the day and said, "Why should I be good? I can't go out anyway."
Well, he had to be reminded that there was another day coming. If there isn't another day coming, there isn't much inducement, and I am grateful for the principle of repentance and forgiveness. There is another day coming for all men, with some rare exceptions, on terms of repentance and forgiveness, and obedience. "Go thy way, and sin no more". There are two parts to that equation and they involve both forgiveness and sincere repentance.
I am grateful for my fellowship with you, my brothers and sisters, more than I can speak. And I am grateful that the mysteries of the kingdom have never troubled me much. I think that the simple truths of the gospel are so plain and so beautiful that I don't worry much about the things that no man can explain; and I am sure in my own heart that if we will just live as well as we know how to live, we will be all right here and hereafter. It won't be the things that we don't know that will give us trouble. It will be the things that we do know and fail to abide by.
May God help us to go forth and live our lives and meet our problems and counsel our families and render service in his Church and be accepted into the kingdom of our Father in heaven, with his approbation, when that time shall come, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Thomas E. McKay
Thomas E. McKay, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 67-71
President Smith, President Clark, President McKay, and President Richards, and brethren and sisters, may I join with some of the other speakers who have preceded me in expressing sincere appreciation for my membership in the Church and for the gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith in our day. I am especially thankful for the gospel because of the many opportunities it has given me and is giving me to work. I think work is on of the greatest blessings a kind Heavenly Father can bestow upon his children.
I quote the following lines about work, signed "Author Unknown." It starts out by asking the question, "Who am I?"
WHO AM I?
I am the foundation of all prosperity. I am that from which all blessings flow. Everything that is of value in this world springs from me. I am the salt that gives life its savor. I am the sole support of the poor. And the rich who think they can do without me live futile lives-fill premature graves. I have made America. I have built her matchless industries, laid her incomparable railroads, created her citizens, and reared her skyscrapers. I am the friend of every worthy youth. If he makes my acquaintance when he is young and keeps me by his side throughout his life, I can do more for him than the richest parent. I keep bodies clean and fit, minds alert; and when neglected, both bodies and minds grow fat and sluggish. I am even the parent of genius itself. I am represented by every paper that flies from the press, in every loaf of bread that springs from the oven, in every train that crosses the continent, and in every ship that steams the ocean. Fools hate me; wise men love me. The man who keeps his hand in mine through life never dies-because that which he has created with my help lives on after he is gone. The man who shirks me and scorns my aid, never lives-Never really lives, even though he may continue to breathe. Who am I? What am I? I am WORK!
Author Unknown
OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHURCH SERVICE
I am especially grateful for the great organization of our Church, an organization that gives every person, who desires, an opportunity for work. Even the members are supposed to be missionaries and set the proper example. "A clean life is the greatest sermon in the world."
I am indebted for the following figures, showing how the organization works, to the general committee on statistics of the Church off whom Dr. Widtsoe is the chairman.
Speaking first of the ward units:
Offices to be filled from ward membership: 257
Number of wards and dependent branches in stakes: 1,419 - Total: 364,683
Offices by stakes: 256
Number of stakes: 172 - Total: 44,032
Estimated offices in missions including missionaries: 60,000
General Church officers: 400
Total Church offices to be filled: 469,115
There is no other organization in the world comparable to the organization in our Church. Then think of the priesthood officers and the priesthood members, all of whom have special assignments.
High Priests:
Quorums: 172, Membership: 30,451
Seventies:
Quorums: 332, Membership: 20,675
Elders:
Quorums: 1,001, Membership: 95,204
Totals:
Quorums: 1,505, Membership: 146,330
Priests:
=11,821 and =20,011:
Quorums: 1,263, Membership: 31,832
Teachers:
=15,455 and =15,422
Quorums: 1,296, Membership: 30,877
Deacons:
=26,162 and =15,478
Quorums: 2,168, Membership: 41,640
Total Aaronic Priesthood in Stakes:
Quorums: 4,727, Membership: 104,349
Aaronic Priesthood in missions:
Membership: 17,296
Total Aaronic Priesthood: 121,645
Total all priesthood membership: 267,975
CALLING OF A WARD TEACHER
All these officers and teachers have an opportunity to work. Some may think, "Oh, it doesn't matter if I don't keep the Word of Wisdom or am only a part tithepayer. I'm only a deacon, or I'm only an elder, or a counselor in an organization; if I were a bishop or a president of a stake. I'd keep the Word of Wisdom. I wouldn't break the Sabbath day, but I'm only a ward teacher." Only a ward teacher! There is no greater calling, brethren, in the Church, than that of a ward teacher. If the ward teachers realized what an opportunity that is and if they were doing their duty, we wouldn't have the condition exist that Brother Ivins referred to in his splendid talk yesterday. The bishop would know through these ward teachers if any of the children in his ward were over nine years of age and not baptized, or needed shoes before they could enter school. He would know if the ward teachers were doing their duty, where our boys are who are in the service at this time, and when they changed their address. They could always get such information from the mothers in the homes they visit. It doesn't matter, brethren and sisters, so much what the position is. It is how we fill that position. We are given a job to do. It may be the only position that we have to show our Father in heaven that we can make good, that he can depend upon us.
VISIT TO WESTERN STATES MISSION
I am very grateful for the opportunity that I have in visitingthe stakes and the missions. I wish to endorse what Brother Clifford Young said yesterday with reference to our mission presidents and missionaries-the fine work they are doing. Just recently Sister McKay and I returned from a very strenuous but interesting and beneficial tour of the Western States Mission with President and Sister Francis A. Child. They also are doing a wonderful work. They are real leaders, fine executives, and they have the respect, confidence, and love of all the missionaries as well as of the members and non-members.
We traveled by auto nearly five thousand miles, averaged about three hundred miles a day; held nineteen district conferences and eleven district meetings with the missionaries. In these thirty meetings we contacted and heard from all the one hundred and fifty missionaries. They are doing a fine work. We were certainly delighted with the manner in which President Child meets the new missionaries as they come into the field. They are taken to their home headquarters and made to feel that they are welcome. President and Sister Child get acquainted with these new missionaries by holding a testimony meeting and a "search-for-talent" meeting, an impromptu meeting where these new missionariesare given an opportunity to show what they can do; and then they are given their instructions and their assignments. I was especially delighted with one of the instructions.
Here's a good thing to remember and a better thing to do.
Aways join the construction gang and never the wrecking crew.
THE GOOD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
President Child is an optimist. He exemplifies what I like to call the "boost spirit." I think we need more of it in the Church and in the world, more "boost spirit" and less knock-knock; more builders and fewer wreckers, more lifters and fewer leaners.
"If we look for the good and the beautiful, the good and the beautiful will come back to us." A prominent writer expresses this truth as follows:
The universe pays every man in his own coin: if you smile, it smiles upon you in return; if you frown, you will be frowned at; if you sing, you will be invited into gay company; if you think, you will be entertained by thinkers; and if you love the world and earnestly seek for the good that is therein, you will be surrounded by loving friends, and nature will pour into your lap the treasures of the earth. Censure, criticize and hate, and you will be censured, criticized, and hated by your fellowmen. Every seed brings forth after its kind. Mistrust begets mistrust, and confidence begets confidence; kindness begets kindness, and love begets love.
How much happier we would be and how much more joy there would be in the world if we looked for and spoke only of the good and the beautiful; if we looked at the beauty of the hawthorn twig, its symmetry, instead of pointing out to everyone the dead leaf; if we enjoyed the fragrance and the beauty of the rose, instead of frowning and calling people's attention to the thorn on the stem; if we enjoyed to the fullest the uplift of the purity of the lily instead of calling attention to the little dirt left on the roots! I like this story of the old frog:
Once on the edge of a quiet pool, Under the bank where 'twas nice and cool, Just where the stream flowed out of the bay, There sat a grumpy and mean old frog, Who sat all day in the sand to soak, And just did nothing but croak and croak. A blackbird hollered, "I say, you know, What is the matter down there below? Are you in trouble or pain or what?" The old frog growled, "Mine is an awful lot." "'Tis a dirty world," thus the old frog spoke- "Croakety, croakety, croakety, croak." Then the blackbird said. "I see what's wrong. Why don't you smile or sing a song? Look up, young feller, why bless my soul, You're looking down a muskrat hole!" A wise old turtle, who boarded near, Said to the blackbird, "Now, friend, see here, Don't waste no tears on him," says he. "That fool's down there, cause he wants to be."
BUILDERS AND NOT WRECKERS
In the future when any of us have the urge or are tempted to repeat gossip or speak unkindly or perhaps untruthfully of a neighbor or a brother, let us think that we also are just looking down a muskrat hole and then look up at the birds. Imagine we can hear the beautiful song of the meadow lark or the robin or the red-winged blackbird. My, how I used to thrill to listen to those red-winged blackbirds after a hard and dreary old winter, singing that early spring song! How much I am indebted to the Church, to the gospel of work since those early days! I trust, my brethren and sisters, that the Lord will bless us that we may be boosters and not fault-finders, builders and not wreckers, lifters and not leaners; that we may look for and speak of only the good and the beautiful and above all that we may do our work so well, no matter what the calling is, that it can never be said of us truthfully or written after our names that we were called and found wanting, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Marion G. Romney
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 72-77
I would like to ask each of you to offer a silent prayer on your own behalf that while I speak you may enjoy the spirit of the Holy Ghost and that I, too may enjoy it, that we may thereby all be edified.
Like some of the other brethren, I have just returned from visiting one of the missions, the Canadian Mission. President Eyre, with the able support of his good wife, is doing a good work. While there, I was impressed as I think one might be who was watching a great experiment, an experiment in which it was being determined what the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ can do to the changing of the lives of men and women. The experiences of that visit are still upon my mind.
EARLY MISSIONARY EFFORTS IN CANADA
I was reminded of some of the events which took place during the early rise of this kingdom in these latter-days. The Prophet Joseph Smith, with Sidney Rigdon, was in Brantford, Ontario, in 1833. They went there following receipt of the revelation we know as the one hundredth section of the Doctrine and Covenants, in which the Lord had shown unto them great mercy and consideration in advising them that their families were well. They had been separated from their families for some time and were concerned about them. While in Canada, they experienced the fulfilment of the promise the Lord made in that revelation, that an effectual door would be opened for them in the land round about. At Mount Pleasant and Brantford, some sixteen or eighteen people joined the Church. The promise that the Holy Ghost would bear record of the truthfulness of what the brethren said was there fulfilled.
Of one meeting the Prophet said:
Elder Rigdon preached to a large congregation... and I bore record while the Lord gave his spirit in a remarkable manner.
Toward the people the Prophet evidenced the same kind feelings that the Lord had shown to him and Sidney Rigdon. Of them he makes entries in his journal, such as, "The people were very tender and inquiring." And again, "O God, seal our testimony to their hearts."
You are all acquainted with the fact that in 1836 Parley P. Pratt went to Canada following a great prophecy uttered by Heber C. Kimball, in which Parley P. Pratt was instructed to go to Toronto. He was told that he would there find people waiting for him who would receive the gospel, and that from there the gospel would spread into England where a great work would be done. You know how he found President John Taylor, the Fieldings, and others, and how from correspondence that went out from that place the ground was laid for the opening of the great British Mission.
In August of the next year, 1837, the Prophet Joseph Smith with Sidney Rigdon and Thomas B. Marsh, then president of the Twelve Apostles, visited Toronto. Riding in a carriage and holding evening meetings by candlelight, they visited the churches. Elder Taylor accompanied them. "This was as great a treat to me as I ever enjoyed," he said. "I had daily opportunity of conversing with them, of listening to their instructions, and in participating in the rich stores of intelligence that flowed continually from the Prophet Joseph."
SPIRITUALITY NOTED IN CANADIAN MISSION
As we traveled through the mission, it seemed to me that the spirit which accompanied these early brethren in their missionary labors was still to be found among the people in that goodly land.
We could feel it among the missionaries as we shook hands with them and conversed with them and heard them make their reports. The power of the gospel operating upon them is effecting a marvelous transformation in their lives. In the missionary meetings they bore eloquent testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and of its restoration through the Prophet Joseph Smith. Their eyes would fill with tears as they expressed their appreciation to their Heavenly Father, to you their parents, and to others of their loved ones, who are making it possible for them to fulfil their missions.
It was inspiring to see these young missionaries-who a few months ago were to a large extent, irresponsible, carefree boys and girls-watching the doors of the meetinghouses as the time for meeting approached. As their contacts arrived, they gathered them together, shepherded them to seats near the front, and proudly and tenderly sat down in the midst of them.
At the conferences there were in attendance in every one of the general meetings from seven to twenty non-member friends of the missionaries who were interested in the gospel. Some of them came as far as three hundred miles to attend the meeting-of course, some of the Saints came much longer distances-and they all said it was worth it. As the gospel has affected the lives of the missionaries in this great work, so has it affected the lives of the members and the investigators. When they truly accept the gospel of Jesus Christ, they have a completely new outlook on life.
After the meetings they are loath to leave the premises. They stand around for a long time. Of course that is characteristic of all Latter-day Saint gatherings. Speaking to one of the non-members after he had been there an hour, he said to me: "Well, since the meeting I have shaken hands with that young missionary over there four times. And," he said, "I have enjoyed it every time."
May I say again that the effect that the gospel of Jesus Christ has had upon these missionaries and upon these members and sincere investigators is proof positive of its power to change the interest and the very lives of men and women. It has always been that way.
EXPERIENCE OF ENOS
I call to mind the experience of Enos, a grandson of Lehi, who longed in his heart for a knowledge of the truthfulness of the things of which he had heard his father, Jacob, speak, and so while he was hunting beasts in the forest, he kneeled down upon the ground and called upon his Father in heaven in mighty prayer and supplication And as he was praying, he heard a voice say unto him:
... Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed. And he cried out:
Lord, how is it done? And then the Lord said:
... Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou hast never before heard nor seen... wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole.
Now the effect upon Enos of that testimony of the truth and the knowledge of the gospel which he had is shown in the following paragraph in which he said:
Now, it came to pass that when I heard these words I began to feel a desire for the welfare of my brethren, the Nephites; wherefore, I did pour out my whole soul unto God for them.
And not only did his heart change that he had a desire for the welfare of the Nephites, who were his brethren, but he had a similar desire for the Lamanites, who were his enemies, and he poured out his soul unto God for them.
GOSPEL EFFECTS CHANGES
In the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters of Alma we have a dramatic account of the power of the gospel changing almost a whole nation from a bloodthirsty, indolent, warlike people into industrious, peace-loving people. Of these people the record says that thousands were brought to a knowledge of the Lord, and that as many as were brought to a knowledge of the truth never did fall away,
For they became a righteous people; they did lay down the weapons of their rebellion, that they did not fight against God any more, neither against any of their brethren.
And:
... there was not one soul among all the people who had been converted unto the Lord that would take up arms against their brethren;... they would not even make any preparations for war.
On the contrary, they gave thanks unto God that he had given them a portion of his spirit to soften their hearts.
That is the great message I want to leave here. It is the softening of the hearts that this gospel does to the people who receive it.
The record continues:
... and this they did, vouching and covenanting with God, that rather than shed the blood of their brethren they would give up their own lives; and rather than take away from a brother they would give unto him; and rather than spend their days in idleness they would labor abundantly with their hands.
And:
... they buried the weapons of war, for peace.
Now this remarkable transformation wrought in the hearts of these thousands of people was done in a very short period of time under the influence and power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It would do the same thing today for all the peoples of the earth if they would but receive it, for in very deed it is, as Paul said, "the power of God unto salvation", not only spiritually, but also temporally and politically and in every other way.
It is a marvelous light even now shining in the darkness in this benighted world, but, unfortunately, as John said:
... the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not.
RESULTS OF REJECTION
Time and time again during the history of man's sojourn upon this earth, the Lord has sent his gospel, this marvelous light, into the world to change the hearts of men in the time of crisis, that they might be saved from destruction, and time and time again the peoples of this earth have rejected it.
Just as acceptance of it changes the hearts of men and women, bringing righteousness, love, peace, and happiness, so the rejection of the gospel of Jesus Christ brings wickedness, hate, war, and suffering. History clearly establishes the fact that the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ cannot be rejected with impunity.
On this point I call to mind and ask you to consider with me for a moment the experiences of the Jews in the meridian of time. The Savior presented himself and taught his gospel personally to them, but they rejected it. Near the close of his ministry, knowing that they had rejected both him and the gospel which he taught them, he was moved with profound sorrow and broke forth in that great well-known lamentation:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
He said, as a result of this rejection:
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Elder James E. Talmage says he probably uttered these fateful words as he stood on the heights of the temple for the last time overlooking the city of the great king. This thought seemed to continue with him, because a short time thereafter as he was leaving for the final time the temple environs, the Apostles came to him and pointed out to him the beauty of the temple and the buildings on the temple site. His only answer was:
... verily, I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.
He returned again to this subject on his way to Golgotha when he said to certain women who, following him, bewailed the fate to which he was going:
... Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.
And then he detailed to them the terrible events that would accompany the destruction of Jerusalem, which he saw coming as a result of the rejection of his message by the people of that day. He told them that those times and events would be so terrible that they would call upon the mountains to fall upon them and upon the hills to cover them.
You all know the sequel, how the Jews carried through their awful plot and crucified the Son of God, and how thereafter they continued to fight against his gospel. You remember, too, the price they paid, how in 70 A.D. the city fell into the hands of the Romans as the climax of a siege in which the historian Josephus tells us there were a million one hundred thousand people killed and
... tens of thousands were taken captive, to be afterwards sold into slavery, or to be slain by wild beasts, or in gladiatorial combat for the amusement of Roman spectators.
All of this destruction and the dispersion of the Jews would have been avoided had the people accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ and had their hearts changed by it.
CHOICE BEFORE WORLD TODAY
Today the peoples of the earth stand at the crossing of the same roads as did the Jews in the days of Jesus. The same choice is before them. They may accept the gospel of Jesus Christ and move on to righteousness, peace, love, and happiness, or they may reject it and suffer wickedness, hate, war, and destruction.
The Lord in his great mercy has seen the events of our time coming, and he has sounded the warning and offered the way of escape. Remember that in the first section of the D&C; he said:
... I, the Lord, knowing the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the earth, called upon my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and spake unto him from heaven, and gave him commandments;
And also gave commandments to others, that they should proclaim these things unto the world.
Instructing his servants as to what they should proclaim to the world, he said:
... ye shall go forth in the power of mu Spirit, preaching my gospel, two by two...
... just as we are doing.
in my name lifting up your voices as with the sound of a trump, declaring my word like unto angels of God.
And ye shall go forth baptizing with water, saying: Repent ye, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
... and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come.
This declaration that Jesus is the Son of the Living God, that he was, that he is, and that he is to come, is, I think, the core of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A testimony of its truthfulness constitutes the only motive that I have ever been able to find which is strong enough to change the hearts of men from hate and wickedness to peace and righteousness. Rejection of that message, according to the words of the Lord, will bring scourges,
... until the earth is empty, and the inhabitants thereof are consumed away and utterly destroyed by the brightness of coming.
Continuing with this modern revelation, the Lord makes references to that experience of Jerusalem, of which I have told you:
Behold, I tell you these things even as I also told the people of the destruction of Jerusalem; and my word shall be verified at this time as it hath hitherto been verified.
Now my beloved brethren and sisters, in conclusion I bear witness to the fact that the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored to the earth in these latter-days through the Prophet Joseph Smith is intended to be and it is the key to the solution of the problems which face our world today, both people individually and collectively. May we who have accepted and declared our allegiance to it keep it brightly shining in our own lives and before the nations of the world, and may others of our Father's children in sufficient numbers receive it before it is too late, that the world may be saved from destruction, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 77-82
My brethren and sisters, I humbly pray that the spirit which thus far has guided this conference, of which we have all partaken, may continue while I shall speak to you.
One gets so much in one of these general conferences not only from the direct instructions and observations which come, but also from the thought which these instructions and directions invoke, that it is a little difficult sometimes to collect one's thoughts along a particular line.
THE TREASURES OF LIFE
As we grow and enter the upper brackets of years, we reflect a great deal upon the things which are of lasting importance and we come clearly to see that many of the things which we thought were of value in our earlier lives are merely the dross and that the gold, the treasures of life, we may have overlooked.
I am grateful that while I still live and have opportunity to serve that I have come more or less to appreciate, I try fully so to do, the things that are worth while. I try to shear away the unimportant, and, when I do so, I find that worldly things have pretty largely disappeared, that the objects which ordinarily are the matters of ambition among men have gone, and life settles down to the problem of the future. I cease to look at time and get over as near as may be into eternity. I am grateful for the knowledge which the Lord has enabled me to get, which means he has given to me of the things of the spirit. I am grateful for the knowledge of the gospel, imperfect as is the knowledge which I have. I am grateful for my testimony which strengthens with the days and the years, and I am grateful that the blessings which I thus recount to myself are the blessings which belong and are enjoyed by all of you. I come to see that the things which men give in the way of honor and respect and office and position are really of little worth. They are not worth what sometimes we feel we have to give in order to obtain them. I come to know that worldly goods are of no consequence whatever, save I have enough to eat, and to drink and reasonably to wear, and that to attempt to leave wealth to my children will not only be a futile effort but that it may prove a curse.
I do not mean by this that we should cease to exert our efforts to become influential for good in our communities. I do not mean that we should forget that we are living here and have our lives to live. I do not forget that a reasonable provision for those who come after us is a wise thing. I am only saying that none of these things is worth the sacrifice of a principle. They are not worth the sacrifice of our integrity, of our honor, of our righteous living.
WORLD IN A MESS
It is a trite thing to say the world is in a mess. That we know, and out of a life of seventy-seven years I can say that so far as I can see, it has never been in the mess that it is in today. There have never before, in my life, been the powers of evil in such strength. Satan seems to have taken us over very largely, and we are more or less his tools. This is not the first time in our national history that we have been in trouble, and when I say "we," I mean the people. I am not talking of administrations. I am talking of us, we the people of the United States.
PROCLAMATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
I have always been impressed with a great proclamation that was issued by Abraham Lincoln. He issued it in one of the darkest hours of the Civil War, just before Vicksburg, the surrender of which opened up the Mississippi River, and just before Gettysburg, which stopped the threatened invasion of the North. The Senate had passed a resolution calling attention to the needs of the country and asked him to set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation. The nation was considered almost bankrupt from debt. The people were tax-ridden, almost beyond endurance; the army was unpaid, some of it for a period of six months, and it was daily dwindling by desertion. The president issued a proclamation, and I want to read two or three paragraphs therefrom.
"We," by which he meant the people,
... have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in number, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us.
It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. Now, therefore in compliance with the request and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do by this my proclamation designate and set apart Thursday the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite in their several places of public worship and be devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.
All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.
WE HAVING HAD PROPHETS
In some respects, too many, we stand in that same place today. Some time ago a pamphlet came across my desk which unfortunately I threw away. On the outside page it was stated, "We need a prophet," and as I read it then, and as I think of it now, I think how blind the world is. We have had a prophet, an American prophet, one who spoke our language, one who was imbued with Christian ideals, and that prophet gave us the great righteous principles, of which we know and of which the world partly knows; he gave them in our own language over a hundred years ago. These may all be read; we have been teaching them for a century. The trouble with the world is they do not want a prophet teaching righteousness. They want a prophet that will tell them that what they are doing is right, no matter how wrong it may be.
There is nothing new in this. Going back to the beginning, Noah taught the people. He was a prophet, and he told them what to do. He finally convinced his own family, and they were saved. So of Moses-while the children of Israel were in Egypt and he was promising them deliverance, they followed him, they did what he told them, but once out of Egypt and away from the bondman's lash they forgot, and he had rebellion after rebellion upon his hands from then until he died. The later prophets in Israel-Elijah vindicated by a miracle, that he was a prophet of God; yet Jezebel hunted him like a wild beast and would have killed him had not the Lord taken him by a miracle; and Isaiah and Jeremiah, these prophets spoke not only about righteous living and what Israel should do in their family life and in their religious worship, but those prophets spoke also of the relationship of nations and how Israel should bear herself toward those nations, but their warnings and prophecies went unheeded, and the calamities which they predicted came.
Now our Prophet, Joseph Smith, and the prophets since his time-and there has always been a prophet in this Church, and prophets, and you sustain the brethren here, conference after conference, as prophets, seers, and revelators the Prophet himself through the Lord by revelation, gave certain great principles that would save the world if the world would but listen. We do not lack a prophet; what we lack is a listening ear by the people and a determination to live as God has commanded. That is all we need.
The way has been made perfectly clear.
REVELATIONS GIVEN TO JOSEPH SMITH
In the earliest days of the Church the Prophet, through revelation, gave a plan we call it the United Order-which if lived, would have preserved individual initiative, what we have come to call the American way of life, and at the same time have cared for all who needed to be cared for. When we could not live that, the Lord then gave us, through a series of revelations, step by step for he always leads us gradually, we cannot always be led clear through to the end all at once he gave us revelations out of which we have developed the plan for caring for the poor, through the giving by those who have to those who have not. We now know it as the great welfare plan. There is nothing new in the welfare plan except a little machinery that we have added to carry it out.
The Lord gave us a great dietary law more than one hundred years ago. He called it a Word of Wisdom. If this law were lived, it would regenerate the human race, so far as their physical bodies are concerned; and because of the intimate relationship between our physical bodies and our spiritual welfare, we would, if we had lived it, by this time be well on our way spiritually toward that peace for which men today so earnestly and devoutly work and pray.
He taught us also the relationship between father and son, child and parent, a great principle, one of the saving principles of society, given first on Mount Sinai and repeated by the Savior to the questioning Pharisees. We have forgotten that. The prophecy is here. There is no difficulty about that. It is our ears that are at fault.
He gave us the true principle for righteous ruling in that great revelation which tells us how the priesthood' should rule, as already referred to by Brother Romney, I believe, who quoted some teachings from the Book of Mormon.
He gave us a great law of war telling us that we his people, should not go to war unless commanded by him and then telling what those who were attacked should do, how many times they should forgive, following along the lines of those quotations made by Brother Romney.
He declared also, this prophet of ours, that this was a promised land and should so remain so long as we worshiped the God of this land, Jesus Christ; but he warned us that when and if we became ripe in iniquity, he would destroy us, just as he had destroyed others before us.
The Prophet gave a great revelation involving fundamental principles of government, the relationship between the civil officers and the people, the relationship between the people and the laws commanded obedience to righteous laws -all sufficient in general principles to take us out of our present morass of pride, lawlessness, and crime.
He told us that the Constitution, under which we live, was an inspired document, that its principles were elemental to free human government and declared we should adhere to the Constitution and to the principles thereof. In that Constitution is the great Bill of Rights, guaranteeing to us freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom to assemble, and so on.
AMERICA NEEDS A LISTENING EAR
All this is in our gospel. It is all part of the work of our great prophet Joseph Smith, and those who have followed him. It is in the books and has been in print for a century. The American Prophet has spoken; American prophets are speaking. The great principles I have named, and almost countless others, have been proclaimed for a hundred years. No, America does not need a prophet; America needs a listening ear. And more than all, we who are here, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we need a listening ear.
May God give us that ear. May he give us a disposition to read what he has told us. May he give us a spirit, his spirit, to take into our souls the principles of the gospel which he has given to us. May he give us the will and power to live them, having taken them into our souls; and the blessings and the joy and the happiness of life that will come to us if we so live are beyond any powers of expression or suggestion that I possess.
May God give us, again I say, a listening ear to all that he has told us, in order that we may live as he would have us live and give us the spirit to which I have referred, and the power to live as he would have us live, and to us men the will and power to honor our priesthood, and give to all of us every blessing that would be for our good. I humbly pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder Albert E. Bowen
Albert E. Bowen, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 85-90
Constancy is a virtue of such high degree that James, in his epistle to the tribes of Israel, declared it to be one of the distinguishing characteristics of Deity. He wrote.
Every good gift and every perfect gift... cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
In like vein, Paul writing to the Hebrews, says of the Lord:
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
GOD UNCHANGEABLE
In the very nature of things, the Almighty must possess this steadfastness. To be worshiped he must command the implicit confidence of the worshiper. Unless there is an abiding faith in the integrity of Deity, there could be no trust. But there could be neither faith nor trust if he were inconstant, changeable, capricious, or unstable. One must know that he is to be counted on. His promises must be infallibly sure of performance, and the same approbation or condemnation must flow unerringly from the same acts regardless of by whom, or where, or in what age of the world committed, with due allowance for the knowledge and enlightenment available to the actors. The ultimate law by which man's conduct is to be judged must be the same law tomorrow as today and so on down through all the tomorrows. Such is our concept of the immutability of the course of God. There is something immensely solid about that concept. It speaks of perpetuity and gives a sense of something enduring to stand on.
THE SOUNDNESS OF PRINCIPLES
But it is not a popular idea in this day when principles and practices and institutions and beliefs, grown venerable with age, are cast aside with contemptuous abandon, often for no other reason than that they are old. We have even invented some names for those who refuse to throw overboard the principles by which they have lived and flourished. In the language of the day, no doubt, James and Paul would be called reactionaries, anti-liberals, non-progressives. It would be easily demonstrable that most of the supposedly new and progressive offerings of the hour are in fact age-old and have been tried and found delusive and been thrown into the discard in the far-distant past. Their advocates so far from pointing the way to progress, are the real reactionaries, leading back to discredited failures of long ago. I have a notion that the reactionary or progressive quality of a doctrine should be determined by the soundness or lack of soundness of the principles it embodies and not by its age. Take for instance the Ten Commandments.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
They are fairly old. But which one of them would you eliminate? In what degree have the principles they lay down found their place in the laws enacted by the legislative bodies of modern nations? Would any one in all the world be the worse off for observing them? Can they be violated without injurious consequences to the violator? These are fair tests of their eternal nature. It is safe to say that the observance of them never brought to the individual remorse, nor caused injury or suffering to another. On the contrary, remorse, self-accusation, sorrow, and injury to others are the inescapable consequences of the violation of most of them.
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" is particularly to be commended to our attention in these electioneering times. If all the falsity and calculated deception were squeezed out of many of the speeches we listen to, they could be reduced to about one minute's duration instead of thirty.
"Thou shalt not covet... any thing that is thy neighbour's". The observance of this law would rid the world of most of its strife. Out of a fairly long experience in dealing with the disputations of men, and the causes, I am persuaded that most of them arise out of a covetous desire to obtain some material thing or to reap some advantage to which the contender is not entitled. If everybody wanted to do what he knew was right-deal justly, man to man, and would be content to have what he justly could claim-there wouldn't be much litigation or strife. If applied to the conduct of nations, there would be no war. War results when one nation covets what another nation has or seeks dominion over it. The victim does not want to give up either its possession or its independence. The designing one says, "I am bigger than you," or "I have a bigger or better equipped army so I shall take what I want by force." The other resists, and we have war.
The tenth commandment has to be obeyed before war and contention can cease. It states a universal principle, true for all time; hence, it is subject neither to change nor compromise. The same may be said of all the commandments of God. I can think of none, the keeping of which is harmful to the observer or any one else. On the contrary, it brings inward peace. Great stability results to individuals and nations from steadfast adherence.
THE QUALITY OF STABILITY
John Ruskin, in that unique book, the Seven Lamps of Architecture, speaks of stability as an essential quality of the very buildings which we rear and which are the expression of our culture:
The greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, or in its gold.
Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness... it is in that golden stain of time, that we are to look for the real light, and color, and preciousness of architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the frame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than that of the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as these possess of language and of life.
Today, however, men are not building for durability either in their structures, their lives, their religious faiths, or their institutions. The result is a troubled world. Everywhere is anxiety and the dread arising from uncertainty which halts or stays all the normal processes of life. It all arises out of one cause-lack of fidelity to right principles-principles which are known and are not mysteriously hidden. Men have failed in allegiance to their religious principles and nations have not been true to their political principles. The two infidelities go together. When there is a breakdown of religious constancy, there inescapably follows deterioration in the political morality. Both have the same root cause, namely, the breaking away from or the compromising of sound principles. It amounts to a running away from reality and giving way to the urge for avoiding the hard and rigorous disciplines incident to meeting the issues of life, trying to reach goals without traveling the thorny road that leads to them. We want to avoid all the disagreeable things. We are trying to live under a pleasure economy in a pleasure world. So we live, really, in nothing: for no God, for no piety towards the past, for no pride of race or personality. Once we lived for freedom, pledging "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." The very expression implies sacrifice and suffering, discipline of the soul to meet reality. Now we want to be spared suffering of any kind-physical, emotional, or mental. We seek security, a six-hour day, a car, and a pension. But all the time life eludes us, peace of mind eludes us, and we have dissatisfaction, turmoil, uncertainty, and dread.
CONTINUITY NEEDED IN CHANGES
True, human institutions, bearing in themselves the imperfections incident to the limited wisdom and capacities of those who fashion and operate them, fall short of the permanence characteristic of things divine and may be subject to change with the progress of unfolding wisdom and experience. But change should be toward the ideal and should not run ahead of readiness to receive and assimilate it without violent disruptions lest mischief instead of betterment result. Change so brought about will be accomplished without destroying continuity, a factor vital to orderly progress.
Let me point this up with an illustration. When the American colonies revolted against the mother country, it was not out of a purpose to discard the principles by which they had lived. As Englishmen they merely claimed the recognized rights of Englishmen, which rights, they contended, they, as residents of the colonies, were being denied. If Britain had acceded to their requests, they would have been content to remain as subjects of the kingdom and there would have been no revolution. Britain did not yield to their demands. So they declared a political separation and fought a war to make their declaration good. Having achieved that, they had to set up a new framework of government to carry on. But they did not throw their old principles into the scrap heap. They perpetuated them under their new government. The principle they had contended for was freedom-the rights of free men. That continued to be the purpose of their new government and was the core of continuity binding the old to the new. They were still, as their English forebears had been, a God-fearing Christian nation standing on their right to be free. The government they fashioned was concerned primarily with making that ancient right secure. They tried by every art and device they knew to provide against another infringement of it. It took a little floundering, a period of travail, before they got their government going; but when they did, it constituted no rupture with the past, and that continuity imparted a wonderful stability to the new nation; it began life free of blood purges, reprisals and excesses. For one hundred sixty years now it has run its unbroken course. So begun and so perpetuated, the United States of America has achieved unparalleled transcendence among the nations. It stands today the last hope of free men, the one steadying support to this reeling world.
FURY OF FRENCH REVOLUTION
Contrast that with the story of the French Revolution which came along shortly after. This was inaugurated by a wild fury of murder, rapine, and blind vengeance, with monsters contending for supremacy and the victor sending the vanquished to the guillotine. Excesses spiraled, with frenzied zealots pushing ever to further extremes. At the bottom was the utter abandonment of principles. It was sought to wipe out the past. God was dethroned and mocked in derision; reason deified and a new cult proclaimed. With the thread of continuity completely severed, there could be no settling down to a stabilized order, and terror reigned until Napoleon trained on them his guns and established his personal rule. Since then, governments have risen and fallen in France, republic passing into totalitarian empire, and empire back into republic, and republic into republic with the very existence of the present one hanging in the balance. The attendant uncertainty and, confusion and lack of steadfastness is its plague.
SOCIALISTIC EXPERIMENTATION
And yet with this and multitudinous other examples of history before us, we have today in this land those who would destroy our solid foundations by importing here from the Old World what our forebears ran away from to come and plant deep in the virgin soil of this new land the roots of the tree of liberty. The news is leaking out that there is now forming, to be publicly launched as soon as the elections are over, a new party, spearheaded by men who, having enjoyed a brief hour of power, but now out of favor in the party that elevated them, are loath to see authority slipping out of their hands. Their purpose is to bring to pass here the socialistic experimentation that is destroying the strength of England and shaking that nation to its foundation. That experiment has been aptly described as "the half-way house on the road to totalitarianism.
The land is also fecund of pseudo religious cults spawning like pestilence. We have already lost some of our own stability and shall not recover it if the people surrender to the seductive lure of specious phantasms, religious or political, forswearing the solid principles on which we are foundationed and on which the Church and the nation have grown to greatness and power.
UNREST AND TURMOIL ABROAD
Look out over the world today and you see seething unrest, turmoil, confusion, dread, suspicion, envy, distrust, and preparation for devastating war. What has happened?
Britain and France went to war to guarantee the territorial integrity of Poland. We made that cause our cause. The principle was that no nation should be suffered to be trampled underfoot by a ruthless invader of its land. The enemy was subdued, but the principle of protection of a people against the incursions and oppression of a foreign tyrant, for which the war was ostensibly fought, was relinquished and a large part of the territory of Poland was suffered to be seized and its entire people brought under the dominion of a despot quite as ruthless and cruel as the first invader. The invasion of Finland was denounced as an act of wanton brutality and the perpetrator of the invasion as a despot as tyrannical as any in the world. Then by a turn of the wheel of fortune that despot got over on to our side, or more properly speaking, we got on to his and winked our eyes at his dismemberment of that unhappy land and his impositions upon its people of unconscionable indemnities.
Without so much as consulting our ancient friend, China, we gave consent to the seizure of a vast chunk of its territory and the control over its vital communications.
ONE TRUTH AND ONE MORALITY
The world is reaping the fruit of this abandonment of principles. There is only one truth and one morality. When discovered, it matters not whether they find application to religious observances or to political systems. They bear the hallmark of eternity and may not with impunity be abandoned or compromised.
Stability will come when men once more live by the promises they make and in their public morality as in their private conduct, in their religious as in their political life, they develop integrity of purpose and steadfastness to principle and adherence to known laws foundationed in the wisdom of the eternal.
As we struggle forward toward that goal, let us hold steadfastly before our eyes the shining beacon of Christ's perfect order as stated for us by Alma:
... he cannot walk in crooked paths; neither doth he vary from that which he hath said; neither hath he a shadow of turning from the fight to the left, or from that which is right to that which is wrong; therefore, his course is one eternal round.
May God grant us the wisdom and the strength to achieve this stability, I pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Elder Eldred G. Smith
Eldred G. Smith, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 90-93
While I stand before you, my brothers and sisters, I sense my weakness, and ask, with humility, for your faith and prayers in my behalf. I am indeed grateful to the Lord for his many blessings to me, the greatest, of course, being the gospel and the knowledge of its divinity. The most cherished blessing of the gospel is the opportunity it gives us to continue throughout all eternity the family ties made on earth. Can there be anything greater or more far-reaching? Is there any greater joy that can come than that which comes from unselfish love for others, the love of a good wife and husband, united together in holy matrimony, the love for our children? Is there anything which makes a man feel more like bursting his shirt buttons off in pride and happiness than the first time he picks up his own child; or brings the mother more sheer joy than when her first child is placed in her arms?
IMPORTANCE OF TEMPLE MARRIAGE
Yet too many of us are willing to give up all these joys of family ties when death comes, and come it will, to separate us. If we do not obey God's laws of celestial marriage, we cannot hope to continue as a family unit with father, mother, children, grandchildren, and so on down the line. Death is a sad enough separation at best, even when we know it is only for a short time, but to have no certainty of a future union, that would be darkness indeed.
God has been so kind to us he has given us the wonderful promise of eternal progression in our family units, if we will but obey his laws; yet it is constantly being brought to my attention that many members of the Church are not taking full advantage of their blessings.
Temple marriage is an ideal which should be upheld in our homes from earliest infancy. Don't think that a child is too young to understand. You would be surprised at his comprehension. A small seven-year-old boy was being teased at school one day; his friends were saying that a certain little girl was his sweetheart. The little boy's answer was, "Oh, she couldn't be my sweetheart; she isn't even a Mormon." Truly, train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
TRAINING IN THE HOME
We have had too many cases in the Church, where the parents have been active in Church Work and thought that as a result of their Church activities, the Lord would take care of their children for them. We too often forget that our children have to be taught the gospel, as well as anyone else. It is as much our responsibility, as parents, to teach the gospel to our children as it is to live it ourselves. We must not take it for granted that because they attend Sunday School, Primary, and M.I.A., our responsibility is ended. It isn't; it is only begun. It is in the home that the real training is given. From infancy on, we exert an influence which will direct our children's lives. We mustn't be too busy to answer questions or explain the principles of the gospel. When the child asks, is the time to answer, or promise a time when we will answer and then keep our promise.
I have fond memories of the home of my youth, where many times, many evenings, we have gathered together around the fireplace after dinner and studied the scriptures. We have taken turns reading to each other, and there we learned many of the principles of the gospel and doctrines which have helped us as a family; and I think my brothers and sisters can say the same, as their experiences, with mine, have helped us in our paths of life to stay true to the gospel, regardless of what may have come to us.
Our children are entitled to our missionary efforts more than anyone else in the world. They aren't born with a knowledge of the gospel, just because we are good Latter-day Saints. In section 68, verse 28, of the D&C; the Lord says:
And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.
Parents, this is your responsibility, not that of the Sunday School or the M.I.A. They are willing to help, but it is you who shall have to answer. I have had several young men say to me, "My parents never taught any of their children the laws of chastity," and their parents were members of the Church. As parents, would you like to have that to answer for? Scarcely a day passes that I do not have someone come to see me who is having family trouble. The situations vary, but they are all very real. They usually have one situation in common: they are not married in the temple, and they do not provide adequate teaching for the children. Perhaps the fault is not all theirs. Perhaps they in turn did not learn from their parents, but they are suffering for the need of the blessings of the Lord, and their children are suffering.
There are some Latter-day Saints who are successful in converting their companions after marriage. Don't expect this to happen to you. In most of these cases those concerned are married before they know or understand the laws of temple marriage. Teach your children that if they do not love enough to be married for eternity, they should not be married at all. After one is given the knowledge of temple marriage, so that he knows how the Lord intended marriage to be, and then in spite of that knowledge he deliberately does contrary, it is like closing the door in the Lord's face and saying, "I don't need your help; I'll get along without you." We can't afford to try to get along without the Lord's help.
No wonder the divorce rate is much lower for those who are married for time and eternity than for those who have only a civil or ordinary church wedding. The Lord will help them to overcome their differences, if they will let him. If we understood more fully the significance of celestial marriage, there would be no such thing as divorce among our people.
BLESSINGS OF CELESTIAL MARRIAGE
In the D&C;, the Lord makes the following promise:
And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, unto whom I have appointed this power and the keys of this priesthood; and it shall be said unto them-Ye shall come forth in the first resurrection; and if it be after the first resurrection, in the next resurrection; and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths-then shall it be written in the Lamb's Book of Life, that he shall commit no murder whereby to shed innocent blood, and if he abide in my covenant, and commit no murder whereby to shed innocent blood, it shall be done unto them in all things whatsoever my servant hath put upon them, in time, and through all eternity; and shall be of full force when they are out of the world; and they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.
Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.
Verily, verily I say unto you, except ye abide my law, ye cannot attain to this glory.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR EXALTATION
We often say, and you have heard the expression as it has already been referred to in this conference, that "as man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man may become." The only way man may become as God now is, is through fulfilling the laws of celestial marriage and the laws of the gospel, as I have just read to you the word of the Lord from the D&C.; Can we afford to overlook such opportunities for exaltation? Temple marriage is not just another form of church wedding; it is a divine covenant with the Lord that if we are faithful to the end, we may become as God now is.
Are you teaching your children to keep the Word of Wisdom only because it is a good health habit, or are you teaching them that by not keeping the Word of Wisdom they are not eligible to receive the knowledge and understanding to comprehend the laws of godliness, and so will be deprived of the opportunity to receive the power of the priesthood, and then not be permitted to enter the temple and thereby lose all the blessings of increase for all eternity? That is quite a price to pay, I would say. We are told they will become ministering angels, and in worlds without end shall have no increase.
Teach them to live the gospel by keeping all the laws and ordinances of the gospel, that they may have eternal life. No price is too high, no sacrifice too great.
May the Lord's blessings be with us. May we follow these teachings and counsels, that these blessings and promises that are given to us will be realized in due time, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Levi Edgar Young
Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 94-97
Like all great movements in history, the rise of Mormonism has been interpreted in various ways. When we think of its importance in the preparation of our modern habit of mind, we must class it with the greatest epochs of advancement in human history. Great epochs have always had a prime mover, a man with enlightened soul. So it is with Mormonism. Human society contains in itself the causes of development in everything except the higher religious and moral truths, and the real facts of our future life. To the divine help, the life of Joseph Smith was confined; to the bringing of that higher truth and moral light which could not be developed except by some divine message from heaven. He brought to light the nature of God, man's immortality, and the highest elements of moral character. The things which he taught are destined to be recognized as the most enlightened teachings for the world since Jesus Christ gave his gospel to mankind. The power of his teachings is gradually rising to shape the destiny of the human race. As a boy he bore witness to the nations of the earth of the need of a light which is not of man.
DIVISIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
Itinerant preachers of the frontier came to the parental cabin with tracts on the subject of religion. These preachers were the representatives of the denominations of America, particularly the Protestant faiths. The divisions of Christendom were the most conspicuous reproach and chief cause of the inefficiency of Christianity. "They presented a moral affront to the enterprise inaugurated by Jesus Christ and constituted the outstanding limitation of its progress in the world." Mr. Herbert L. Willett in a recent article in the magazine, Christendom, says:
As truly as war is an anachronism and a scandal to civilization the divided state of the Church is an affront to Christianity.
"Divide and conquer," was the counsel which Milton put into the mouth of Satan in the assembly of the rebel angels.
DISPENSATIONS OF THE GOSPEL
In the history of mankind down to the time of Christ, there have been dispensations of the gospel of Christ. Adam, the father of the human race, had the gospel. His descendants were knowing men, men with a knowledge of God. Between God and the earth was man, created in the image of God. The description is exalted. The greatness of man came by his knowledge that he was closely related to his Creator, and he felt the divine creative presence. He knew his Creator, he listened to him, he obeyed him, he loved him. In a phrase written long after by the Psalmist, man was made "a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour". From Adam's time to the present, we may know this truth: "No religion made by man can do for men that which must be done."
One modern writer, Maurice Masterlinck, writes in his book, The Great Secret: "What we read in the ancient archives of wisdom gives us only a faint idea of the sublime doctrines of the ancient teachers, and even so these are not in their original form. The more ancient the texts, the purer, the more awe-inspiring the doctrines which they reveal."
CONTRIBUTIONS OF JOSEPH SMITH
The facts of the Prophet's life are many. His teachings are reduced to writing in one of the marvelous books of the age in which we live: The D&C.; We may contrast this fact with the influence of other men upon the world, for there have been teachers whose influence never will die. Socrates became a moral force for mankind throughout the ages. Plato, his disciple, was second to none as a great teacher. He wrote copiously and elaborately. Possibly no one has ever surpassed him in the art of writing and thinking. Then came Aristotle, who wrote on science and philosophy. The force of the Greek mind of ages ago still lives. All of these masters were morally and intellectually great. Joseph Smith stands out as the revealer of God's eternal principles that show above all writers in this age the divinity of man; the doctrine of eternal progression; the true meaning of salvation; the divine love which man must have toward all other men; the purifying of the soul before God.
His teachings are not the result of mere intellectual attainments. It was not human genius that made him what he was. I It is not enough for man to think wisely and well. The power of his teachings has arisen from the words that God spoke to him. The secret of his power lay in the truth that man is a divine creation and can understand the divine word if one's life is tuned to the noblest feeling with his God. The men who accepted the revealed gospel, who were given the priesthood, helped to inaugurate a new period in the history of the human race.
RELIGION REQUIRES REVELATION
The supreme test of religion is revelation. No religion can be persuasive and convincing that does not rely upon and embody an authentic principle of revelation. Religion as a purely human product, valuable as it might be to human progress, has not the inner vigor to maintain a place of commanding power. Religion requites revelation. All truth is revealed not less so because it is discovered.
The most complete carrier of revelation can be no other or less than a chosen personality. This is the Christian doctrine and conception. Revelation requires development and the concept of the divinity of the spirit and mind of man. Such was in brief the teaching of Adam, of Abraham, of Moses, Isaiah, and all the prophets of the Old Testament. It constituted the pure idealism and faith of Jesus Christ, for he gave to his Father in heaven the dominant role in ordering the world for good. It gave in olden times, and must give now, the supreme lesson that God lives, that the spirit and the body are the soul of man, and the resurrection from the dead is the redemption of the soul. Therefore, it must needs be sanctified from all unrighteousness, that it may be prepared for the celestial glory. It gives to man the supreme principles of ethical and moral life. It becomes the supreme power whereby man knows life and knows it more abundantly,
For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth its own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things.
"The glory of God is intelligence... light and truth".
"To his own master each man will stand or fall; and he that judgeth us is the Lord." We will serve our church and country best as we perform day by day and hour by hour those humble and simple acts of self-dedication which make our lives a silent witness of him who brought light, and life and love into this sorrowful world.
THE FOUNDERS OF AMERICA
America must hold to the simple beginnings of our founders. They brought hither in their little ships not money, not merchandise, no array of armed force, but they came with deep religious feelings, learning, law, and the spirit of faith. When they stepped upon these shores a wild, frowning wilderness received them. Strong in their faith in God, they began their combat with danger and hardship. Sickness overcame them, but they fainted not. They feasted on roots with patient spirits. The first thing they did was to kneel and give thanks to God for his protective care. Then they built a meetinghouse where they might worship, then a house for themselves. They established education and stern principles of morality. Their old town government was the most democratic of all governments. They knew the meaning of the term democratic, meaning a government of the people, but back of it is the feeling that every person must have a due respect for the rights of all other people. Churches arose in the depths of the forests, industry was fostered, no easy work in those days; colleges were established, and their civic life soon grew into the majesty of states. Then came a mighty nation-a nation of law, art, industry, education, and an expansion into new territory never before equaled in the history of man. A government was brought into being with a background of civic and political idealism which was the blessing of Almighty God, and for this they gave thanks in solemn prayer.
CARRYING THE GOSPEL TO THE NATIONS
Today we are sending into all the world young men and women who are carrying the gospel to the nations. It is a holy duty! We are turning our thoughts forward, as was done when the Church was organized. The missionary idea cannot be lost and the expectations cherished by our fathers cannot be forgotten. Men and women of many nations have found in the faith that which they required. They have been the means of adding to the culture of our state. We must not overlook the benefits which these men confer. They are by no means confined to things unseen and eternal. They are students and teachers. Geography, ethnology, history, sociology, philology, and every department of knowledge is indebted to them. They represent their country, and with honor. What we term missionary work is not limited to personal effort. Nations are missionaries. Our mission today is to act. We must advance the cause of the restored gospel by our onward march to greater accomplishments. No one can measure the years to come. To be alive and increasing, to be young and awake, this is the order of the future. The heroes and divinities of the past have their own place. but we have our leaders today. There is perspective in prophecy. A prophet of old declared: "Your young men shall see visions. Your sons and daughters shall prophecy". Today it is superbly true. If there was ever a time that the world needs vision, it is today.
DUTIES OF SEVENTIES
Our Seventies have a great duty, a divine call. They are workers in the vineyard of God wherever they live. They must keep ever in mind that they have a fine ambition to teach and to live. In their everyday walks of life, they are committed to nothing but the truth. They have the ardor of youth with the discipline of study and prayer. The word Seventy signifies a divine calling to teach God's word. The gospel must prevail in all the world. We need energy, enterprise, to prove that the "now" is the most important time of all. It is an unmistakable idea that a man who gives himself to Christ and his Spirit, will become what has been termed "a new man." The gospel requires reverent and hopeful study. The gospel does more than teach duty. It provides the motive and desire to do it, and it gives the moral strength. The divine message is advancing, and the Spirit of the Lord moves before it, cloud by day and fire by night. The truth of Christ is to find men and to save them.
My brother Seventies, what the world needs first and to the end is God. Not God in the heavens and in the past alone. But God here, and known by "the man whom he hath ordained". The renewed gospel is young, and the currents of its life are strong. It keeps pace with knowledge, and intends to bring the world to the Lord. It is deep in the heart of man. The peoples of the world have made some preparation in the past. They are making preparation today. India will some day welcome missionaries. The walls of Egyptian sanctuaries long since destroyed will be rebuilt for Christ. The land of the Nile sheltered Christ when he was a child. It will shelter Christ again. All nations shall know his word.
Elder Ezra Taft Benson
Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 98-104
My beloved brethren and sisters: This is an inspiring but sobering experience. I pray for the inspiration of heaven and for your faith and prayers as I attempt to speak to you briefly this afternoon.
FAITH OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS
I never return from visiting one of the great missions of the Church, as I did this week, or return from visiting a stake of Zion, but what my heart is filled with gratitude as I note the devotion, the loyalty, and the faith of the Latter-day Saints. As I witness the growth of the work of the Lord in various parts of the world, my heart rejoices. With you, my brethren and sisters, I love this great latter-day work. I am wondering today if we fully appreciate what we have.
I have sometimes said to my wife, as I returned from visiting in the stakes, that I do not know exactly what heaven is going to be like, but I could ask nothing finer over there than to have the pleasure and joy of associating with the type of men and women I meet in the leadership of the stakes and wards of Zion and the missions of the earth. Truly we are richly blessed. President Smith continually calls our attention to the rich treasures of heaven that come to us as Latter-day Saints, members of the true church of Christ. It is about one of these blessings that I should like to speak briefly this afternoon.
The Prophet Joseph said many years ago that one of the greatest sins for which the Latter-day Saints are guilty is the sin of ingratitude. I wonder, my brethren and sisters, if we are fully grateful for all that we enjoy.
DISTINGUISHING FEATURE OF TRUE CHURCH
One of the distinguishing features, and a very important feature, of the true church of Christ is its priesthood, the authority of God. It is widely distributed among the male membership of the Church, boys and men, Fathers and sons, and its blessings are shared by our mothers, daughters and wives. Do we fully understand and appreciate what it means to us? What is it and what is its significance to those of us who have been blessed with it?
President Joseph F. Smith said:
is nothing more nor less than the power of God delegated to man by which man can act in the earth for the salvation of the human family, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and act legitimately; not assuming that authority, nor borrowing it from generations that are dead and gone, but authority that has been given in this day in which we live by ministering angels and spirits from above, direct from the presence of Almighty God....
President Taylor said:
is the power of God delegated to intelligences in the heavens and to men on the earth.
So priesthood transcends this mortal life. Its power and greatness has been referred to by prophets, modern and ancient. In my own heart I can conceive of nothing greater that man can possess than the priesthood of God, coupled with a burning testimony of the divinity of this work. The two should always be coupled together. Priesthood is the very heart of the Church. We may have the priesthood without the Church, but never the Church without the priesthood.
GIFT OF THE HOLY PRIESTHOOD
There are many gifts that we enjoy as members of the Church, but I can think of none greater than the gift of the Holy Priesthood, the authority to represent God in the earth. This priesthood is destined to build and exalt men as well as to assist the Lord in the promotion of his great work in saving and exalting the souls of men.
In recent weeks, in fact, within the last few days, there have come into this building two distinguished Americans, one of them the President of the United States. I was not able to attend the meeting at which he spoke, but as I sat here the other night and contemplated our blessings as we listened to the other distinguished visitor, I wondered how men of the priesthood regard their priesthood in comparison with the honors of men, political and otherwise. Is the wealth of the world or the honors of men to he compared with the priesthood of God
I realize it comes easy. Our boys twelve years of age, if worthy, receive the Holy Priesthood by the laying on of hands, and our young men are hardly more than boys when at nineteen they receive the holy Melchizedek Priesthood, the authority to officiate in the most sacred ordinances known to man. This priesthood will, if they are worthy, entitle them eventually to a place in the celestial kingdom of God. I have been amazed at the great number of men and boys in the Church who hold this great authority and who have in their hands this great blessing, if they will only take advantage of it.
I checked a few figures recently which indicate that we have approximately 280,140 men and boys in the Church who hold the priesthood. There are 146,330 who hold the Melchizedek Priesthood-elders in the Church-who are candidates for the celestial kingdom. "We have 133,810 boys who have been blessed with this great privilege of serving in the home of the Master.
OBLIGATION OF THE PRIESTHOOD BEARER
What is the obligation of the priesthood bearer? We have been referred to as the greatest body of men on the face of the earth. Of course the fact that we possess the priesthood, is no assurance of our exaltation. But certainly in terms of power, prerogative, and responsibility no group of men in all the world has been blessed with such obligations and opportunities as has the body of men and boys in the Church who hold the priesthood.
I have been impressed, too, my brethren and sisters, that probably nowhere in all the world can we find a group of men who give so unselfishly of their time, their means, and their talents to the promotion of good and righteousness in the world as does this body of men. I marvel as I witness the great voluntary service which is carried forward by this body of priesthood, and always in the back of my head, as I give encouragement to greater activity, is the assurance that this is a choice group of men. In the Church, there is truly a spirit of unselfish service.
SPIRIT OF SERVICE
There came to my office a few days ago a fine upstanding, sweet-spirited elderly man. He came in timidly and took a chair at the desk, and then he said: "Brother Benson, how old can a man be before he is too old to go on a mission?"
And I answered: "My good brother, I do not know that there is any upper age limit."
He said: "I have been on two missions, and I would like to go on one more before I pass away. I would like to go back to Oklahoma, where I served my second mission.
Do you think I am too old?"
"How old are you?"
"Eighty-six; but I would like to go once more before I die."
Now, there is much of that spirit among the priesthood of the Church. I thrill with it, my brethren, and I am grateful to be associated with men who carry that spirit. I have been impressed in reading the revelations, that there are at least four significant things pertaining to this priesthood which have been emphasized by the Lord to his prophets.
If I may, I would like to refer to those four items.
OATH AND COVENANT OF PRIESTHOOD
Back in 1832 when the missionaries had returned from their fields of labor to Kirtland, Ohio, and had evidenced concern about the priesthood which they had been blessed with, the Lord gave a revelation on priesthood, contained in the 84th section of the D&C.; In that revelation the Lord spoke of the "oath and covenant" of the priesthood, and the obligation of men who hold it to be true and faithful to that priesthood and to magnify their callings. The Lord said:
... whoso is faithful unto the obtaining these two priesthoods of which I have spoken, and the magnifying of their callings, are sanctified by the Spirit,.. ... the church and kingdom and the elect of God.
And then, even more significant, this great promise was made:... therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him", the priesthood bearer who is faithful and magnifies his calling.
... this," says the Lord, "is according to the oath and covenant which belongeth to the priesthood... those who receive the priesthood," the Lord indicates, "receive this oath and covenant of my Father, which he cannot break".
And this solemn warning:
But whoso breaketh this covenant after he hath received it, and altogether turneth therefrom, shall not have forgiveness of sins in this world nor in the world to come.
Now this covenant is between our Heavenly Father and those of us who bear the priesthood We promise when we receive it to be true and faithful, to honor the priesthood and magnify it.
The Lord promises in return the richest blessings of eternity.
"ANXIOUSLY ENGAGED IN A GOOD CAUSE"
The second significant thing spoken of in the revelations is found in the fifty-eighth section of the D&C; and was given to the elders 117 years ago. It is to the effect that men who hold the priesthood "should be anxiously engaged in a good cause". The Lord points out that it is not to be expected, it is not expedient, "it is not meet," he says, "that I should command in all things," for he that does not anything until he is commanded is a slothful servant. And then he says: "... men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause... and bring to pass much righteousness", of their own free will for the power is in them to be agents unto themselves
So it is not enough to receive the priesthood and then sit back passively and wait until someone prods us into activity When we receive the priesthood, we have the obligation of becoming actively and anxiously engaged in promoting the cause of righteousness in the earth, because the Lord says:
... he that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned.
PRIESTHOOD EXERCISED UPON RIGHTEOUSNESS
The third significant thing regarding the priesthood and the priesthood bearer is that it should be exercised "only upon principles of righteousness". Reference was made by President Clark this morning to that section of prayer and prophecies of the Prophet Joseph, section 121, in which it is pointed out that many are called but few are chosen. And the reason why they are not chosen is because men's hearts are so set upon the things of this world and aspire to the honors of men that they do not learn fundamental lessons. "That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven", and the priesthood can be exercised and controlled only upon the principles of righteousness. Yes, there is danger in receiving authority and power, if exercised unrighteously. And the Prophet makes it very clear that it seems to be the disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little power, to exercise unrighteous dominion over their fellows, and when that time comes, then there usually follows the spirit of apostasy, a spirit of criticism, a tendency to persecute the Saints and fight against the Church. "No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood," says this section, "only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned". And then great promises follow to the man who exercises his priesthood upon the principles of righteousness.
ACT IN ALL DILIGENCE
The fourth significant thing is found in that great revelation on the priesthood, given through the Prophet to the Council of the Twelve and the Church as the Twelve were about to depart on missions to various parts of the country. It is contained in the 107th section of the D&C.; The Lord closes that great revelation with these words:
Wherefore, now let every man learn his duty, and to act in the office in which he is appointed, in all diligence. He that is slothful shall not be counted worthy to stand, and he that learns not his duty and shows himself not approved shall not be counted worthy to stand.
There are two obligations in connection with that significance injunction; first, that we learn our duty, and secondly, that we act in the office in which we have been appointed in all diligence.
Now to help to make this priesthood more effective in our lives and in the lives of those we serve, the Lord has provided quorums of the priesthood-service units, classes, brotherhoods-through which we may operate and make our efforts more productive of good.
OBLIGATIONS OF PRIESTHOOD
There are really two great obligations resting upon the priesthood quorum, or brotherhood. First, is the obligation of looking after the welfare of our members. Anything pertaining to the social, economic, or spiritual welfare of members should be the concern of the quorum. In addition, it is the great obligation of quorums to assist in promoting the program of the Church which is three-fold:
first, the building up of the stakes and wards of Zion and keeping the people in the line of their duty; second, the carrying of the message of the restored gospel to those who have not yet heard it or accepted it; and third, the carrying forward of the great responsibility of temple work for the living and the dead in the houses of the Lord.
These obligations rest squarely upon the priesthood.
INACTIVE MEMBERS PRESENT CHALLENGE
Now, my brethren, we face a great challenge. At the present time we have wide participation and wide activity, and we are making progress as evidenced by the records that come in from all parts of the Church. Our progress is splendid. Our performance probably was never any better, if as good, as now, yet there is much to be done. As we have checked the records for last year, we find that approximately one-third of the total Melchizedek Priesthood membership is not engaged in any Church activity of any kind. In addition to this group we have approximately twenty thousand men over twenty-one who hold no priesthood; approximately fifty-six thousand adult members of the Aaronic Priesthood, and some four thousand boys twelve to twenty-one not yet ordained. This gives a total of eighty thousand for which the Lord will hold us in large measure responsible, to win them to activity and devotion, so that they may receive the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood and enjoy blessings which flow therefrom. This great number, plus inactive Melchizedek Priesthood members, present a great responsibility and challenge. In their veins flow some of the best blood of this dispensation.
We are expected, in very deed, to be our brother's keeper, and if we fail, we will, of course, be our own accusers. Now is the time to live the standards of the Church, to magnify our priesthood, to live worthy of the rich promises made to us as bearers of the priesthood. Let us, therefore, be anxiously engaged in a good cause. Let us be true to the oath and covenant of the priesthood. Let us exercise the priesthood upon the principles of righteousness. And let us all learn our duty and act in the office in which we have been appointed in all diligence.
I leave with you, my brethren and sisters, my testimony that no greater blessing can come to any man on this earth than to receive the priesthood of God and a testimony of the divinity of this work, if he honors that priesthood and lives according to the teachings and standards of the church.
This is the work of God. I know it as I know I live. May God help us as a body of men, clothed with power and authority, to help establish Zion and build up the kingdom, to go forward and accomplish the work which the Lord would have us do, without flinching and without hesitation, in all faithfulness, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Bishop LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 169-173
Brethren, I need not tell you that this is a great surprise. I had my turn at conference and last night I had an opportunity to talk to the Bishops and the day before to the Relief Society, but there is no one I would rather talk to than the boys of the Aaronic Priesthood, if there were not so many of the dads here and so many of the brethren sitting here on the stand. But I do appreciate the privilege of being here and being invited to say a few words in this Priesthood meeting for I cannot help but feel that if every man and every boy who is honored of the Lord to bear the Holy Priesthood could just realize the responsibility resting upon his shoulders in that respect, it would be marvelous thing.
"THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD"
I would like to preface what I say tonight by reading a few words from the 5th chapter of St. Matthew and I will commence with the 13th verse, for the Lord said:
Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
I cannot think of anyone in the Church who has a greater responsibility to let his light so shine before men that they seeing his good works may glorify our Father in Heaven than the brethren who hold the priesthood, both the Melchizedek and the Aaronic.
It was Peter of old, who in addressing the Saints of his day, made this declaration:
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD
Now, brethren, we are just as much a royal priesthood today as the priesthood was in the days of Peter. The Lord has called us out of the world that we might show forth the praises of him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvelous light and there is not a day of our lives, that we do not have an opportunity to show forth his praises because the world looks upon us, they expect more of us than from those who are not members of our Church, and we can hardly stoop to do the things that others do. To illustrate what I mean along this line: When I was attending a conference in San Diego during the war we had about 35 boys in uniform present. We called some of them to speak and one lieutenant made a statement something like this. He said: "When I first entered the service I went back East to attend an officers' training school" and he said, "one day when we were sitting in the reception room, the boys started telling dirty stories, and when my turn came I told one too. That night when I went to go to bed my companion, not a member of the Church, turned to me and said 'I didn't think you would do it.'" He kept that in his heart all day long since he had heard that companion of his tell the dirty story because he knew that he was a Mormon boy and no doubt this lieutenant had already told him something about the Church, therefore, he did not thing he would do it; and that lieutenant as he stood there in that stake conference said "That was the best sermon I have listened to for many a day and it just keeps ringing in my ears until the present, 'I did not think you would do it' and I'll tell you, I have not done it since that time."
EXEMPLARY SERVICEMAN
Illustrating another case. We have heard so many lovely things about our boys who have been away in the service and returned to us that have not hid their light under a bushel. The Lord has called us out of the world to be a light unto the world and in all man's sight we cannot afford to let our light go out. I received a letter, it was published in the Church Section of the Deseret News, so you may have read it, from a missionary in California. He said he and his wife were laboring in this particular town and he said the attitude of the people had literally changed toward the Mormons because there had been so many Mormon boys there in uniform and they had lived such fine lives they had attracted the attention of the people. Then he gave one specific illustration. He said one of the ladies clubs in the town was giving a luncheon at the hotel and the hostess had an extra plate placed at the table and when the guests came she said we will invite the first soldier who comes along to occupy this extra place at the table. It happened to be a Mormon boy, and thank the Lord he was a good one; the Lord had called him out of the world to be a light unto the world and he did not hide his light under a bushel, and when the women passed the coffee around he would not touch it. I do not think he thought of the harm a cup of coffee would do his body, just one cup, the bishop wasn't there to see what he was going to do, whether he took it or not, his mother and father were not there to see whether he would turn it away; neither was his best girl, but he knew that the all-seeing eye of God was upon him, he knew he bore the priesthood of God, he knew the Lord looked to him as the salt of the earth and if the salt has lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted, and he would not touch it. They offered him tea and he would not touch tea. They asked him where he was raised, and finally when they were through eating they passed the cigarettes around, imagine women doing this-shame on the women-but this but this boy would not touch the cigarettes, and one of these women said, "I resolved that if ever a Mormon elder called at my door I would let him in, I would like to know more about a people that could raise a boy like that young man who sat at our table." And when that letter was written that very woman was a very earnest investigator of the Church.
I told that story in the Assembly Hall sometime back and at the close of the meeting a young man walked up to me and said, "Bishop, I am that young man." I said, "No kidding?" He said, "No sir, I am that young man." I would not be surprised if he's in this audience tonight. I said, "Is the story correct?" He said, "Just exactly." I said, "What are you doing in the Church now?" "Why, I'm bishop of such-and-such ward."
That is the kind of men the Lord wants to do his work among the people, not the kind that go with the crowd and do what the crowd does, but the kind that have the courage to let their light shine before men, because the Lord has called us out of the world to be a light unto the world.
REPUTATION FOR HONESTY
I would like to say a word that comes out of my experience at a conference last week. I met a new convert to the Church. He had served in a branch presidency in the East before coming West, and I said, "How are you enjoying living among us?" He said, "Very much, but I have been disappointed." I said, "Why?" He said, "I have found that some of the brethren are not very careful what kind of financial deals they make and how well they treat friends that come within their midst." That made me feel bad because "ye are the salt of the earth and if the salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall the earth be salted?". Imagine how I felt to get that report as compared with the one I received down in Miami when I was president of the Southern States Mission. I was invited into the home of one of our brethren who stood high in financial and social circles. He said, "If you will stay over night I will invite my friends into my home and let you tell them why I am a member of the Church." Of course, I could not run away from an opportunity like that; so when the crowd was gathered, about 35 prominent business people of Miami, he stood up and said, "You all know I am a Mormon, but," he said, "you don't know why I am a Mormon. I have invited President Richards tonight to tell you why I am a Mormon and I want to tell you that my membership in the Mormon Church means more to me than anything else."
At the close of the meeting a man came up by the name of Knowlton and said, "My first experience with the Mormons was when I went out to Arizona. There," he said, "I worked in an implement house, a cash store that never gave time on anything. One day a man came in and wanted $200 credit for about 60 days, and I said, 'No, we don't do any credit business and the man said, would you mind asking the boss?' So I went to the owner of the store and the owner said, 'Who is this man?' When I gave him the name, 'Oh,' he said, 'he is a Mormon bishop, let him have anything he wants,' and he gave him the credit." He said: "After that whenever a Mormon came into the store and wanted anything I did not even bother the boss about it."
Wouldn't it be marvelous if every Latter-day Saint could be trusted like that?
You've heard President Grant's story about how the Consolidated Wagon & Machine Co. used to sell the paper of the Mormon farmers to a non-Mormon banker here in Salt Lake at 100 cents on the dollar because the farmers never defaulted, but somehow or other, there are those among us who think that if they can do a shrewd thing and outwit their neighbors and their friends with whom they do business, that it is good business, and they classify it as business. I want to tell you one more story:
THE EFFECT OF CONVERSION
When I was president of the Southern States Mission I was crossing the state of Florida one day with one of our brethren who went there from the West, a grand character. He said, "Brother Richards, there is a new convert living over here. He would be thrilled if we would visit him." I said, "Let us call on him." And we did. This was his story:
He said, "I used to be a fruit merchant in these parts. I bought up the entire product of these fruit farmers and sold it on the New York fruit market." He said, "When I heard of Mormonism and met the elders I joined the Church and began to think of all the shrewd deals I had made as a fruit merchant." He said, "One day I left my home and took my check book in my pocket, and when I returned" he said, "I had spent $3,000 just among my neighbors and friends, to try to even up some of the shrewd deals I had made." He said, "I felt like I could then look my neighbors in the face and tell them that I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
"Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that ye should show forth the praise of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light", and may your light never go out in the presence of your fellowmen no matter where you go, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 173-177
While listening to Bishop Richards I was reminded of an incident in the life of Superintendent Nelson, formerly Utah State Superintendent of Public Instruction. During the latter part of his life he was sorely afflicted, and went back East to have performed a very difficult, indeed dangerous, operation. His affliction was so serious that doctors hesitated about operating on him. While considering the matter they asked him several questions relating to his private life. They inquired whether he was addicted to the use of tobacco. He answered: "No." Whether he indulged in intoxicants. He said: "No." Then they touched more vitally upon his life and asked him whether he had had any venereal disease. Superintendent Nelson said, "Why no, doctor, I am a Mormon."
"Well," said the doctor, "what the hell does that matter?"
"Well, that means that we do not indulge in these things. It means that I never have used tobacco, that I never have indulged in whiskey, and that I have lived a virtuous life and have known only one woman and she is my wife."The doctor was surprised. He used the word astonished and said: "If you have lived that kind of life we are going to operate on you.
They did so, and Superintendent Nelson returned home and continued his service here as State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Tonight President Raymond, in his opening prayer, expressed two very important thoughts. One was an invocation that God would enable us to appreciate our responsibilities; and the other, an appeal that we may set proper examples, "that we might be a light to others." I hope the Lord will answer that invocation, and that we as men who hold the priesthood may realize its value.
THE VALUE OF THE PRIESTHOOD
I have told you before of a little incident that happened in front of the Japanese Emperor's palace in Tokyo. Three or four of us, Mormon missionaries, were there, and with us a Japanese convert, a carver of ivory, wearing the cloak of the ordinary working man. As we stood there, I noticed the obeisance this Japanese, though a member of the Church, paid the grounds and particularly the palace. I turned to him and said: "Do you know, Brother Watanabe, that you have something which is of more value than all the wealth you are looking at, and something which the Emperor cannot have unless he follows the same road that you have followed?"
The man looked up in surprise to think that he, a humble carver, would have something which was of more value than the Emperor's palace or all his possessions. And through the interpreter, Brother Stimpson, he said: "What is it?"
"Why," I said, "it is the priesthood of Almighty. You are an Elder in the Church of Christ and that is of more worth to you than all the wealth you are now looking at."
I pray that we may so sense the value of the priesthood, and that every deacon in this Church will realize that when he is given the Aaronic Priesthood he is set apart among his fellows, that he is different from others. He cannot with impunity swear as other boys may swear, he cannot participate in pranks in the neighborhood as other boys may participate, he stands apart. That is what it means to a twelve year old boy, and, bishops, that is just what you should explain to them when you choose them to be deacons. Do not just call them up and ordain them, but have a talk with them and let them realize what it means to be given the Aaronic Priesthood. In the boyhood area these boys so chosen and instructed should exert an influence for good.
OBLIGATION TO SET WORTHY EXAMPLES
The second part was example. It is our obligation when we accept the priesthood to set an example worthy of imitation by our fellows. It is not what we say that will influence them. It is what we do. It is what we are. One reputed to be the wisest American said: "What you are thunders so loud in my ears I cannot hear what you say," referring to the radiation of character from each of us.
As I have sat here, thrilled with this inspiring audience, and "thrilled" is the word, my mind wandered out to as many more in our wards, stakes, who never come here, and many who do not care to come. It is our duty to reach them, kindly, as neighbors, officially, as ward teachers, officially, as members of quorums and officers in quorums. That is our obligation.
REOPENING OF JAPANESE MISSION
But that is not the message which I have for you tonight. In giving it I am not going to occupy much time. I have just a few words to say regarding our missionary work. And may I report for your information and satisfaction, I am sure, that recently five native Japanese missionaries left Honolulu, properly set apart to go back to Japan and preach the gospel in their native tongue. We have come some distance, have we not, since that Japanese mission was opened? And in addition to the elders, two Japanese sisters have accepted their calls and are going over there to help President Clissold in that great work.
Let me say in passing that Brother Watanabe remained true all through the time that the Church was absent from there and he died holding his priesthood; and his daughter, I believe is over there now, active in the Church.
"GO YE THEREFORE AND TEACH ALL NATIONS"
You will be pleased to hear also that we recently received a cable from President Stover in Germany that we may have a few missionaries now in East Germany. The way is opening up in all the world and now, as perhaps never before, those who hold the priesthood may fulfill the injunction given by the Savior to his Twelve when he said: "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world".
It is most inspiring to see how eagerly our young men and young women are seeking the opportunity to fulfill that injunction, but brethren, in missionary work the power of example is most important. It is a glorious thing for a young man to be sent into the mission field. It is a great opportunity for him. At the dinner table today friends commented upon the number of our missionaries in different parts of the world. What a culture they bring into our community! One guest had two sons in Germany. He mentioned another in France, and another in one of the missions in the United States. Another guest mentioned two in Norway, one in France, one in Argentine, and so they are in different parts of the world.
WORTHINESS OF MISSIONARIES
What a wonderful thing it is; but, brethren, missionaries are called not for individual blessings. They are called to preach the gospel, to represent the Church. The blessings come inevitably as they do their duty, and it is most unfortunate if a young man leaves your ward to represent the Church who does so unworthily. It injures him, breaks his parents' hearts, reflects upon the ward, and it might blight some souls who otherwise would come into the Church.
And so, I am asked tonight to plead with you bishops and presidents of the stakes to be more careful in your inquiries into the worthiness of the missionaries whom you recommend. Will you, before calling them or interviewing them, just look over the missionary recommendation which you are going to sign? Do not just put it in the hand of the missionary and let him fill the blanks, but you note the significance of these questions. If he is married, please inquire into the condition of his family. Is he divorced or is she divorced? Please state why and see whether or not he or she is worthy to go out and preach the sacredness of the marriage covenant and the ideals of the Church in regard to homebuilding.
STANDARDS OF MORALITY
Under morality, answer sincerely before you put this in the hands of the member of the Council of the Twelve. Are you satisfied, after thorough investigation, that he or she conforms to Church standards, aye, in chastity. The world has difficulty in believing that young men in our Church grow to manhood as chaste and pure as virgins. I have had them say they did not believe it; they did not believe that any young men could do that. But I tell them such is the fact, and that it is the standard of the Church for young men as well as for young women to keep themselves unspotted from the world. In the Church there is but the single standard of morality and that applies to young men as well as to young women. See to it that prospective missionaries realize what this means, no matter what false teaching they have had in psychology or in other classes about "inhibitions" and so on. The standard of the Church is right; it is divine; it contributes to manhood and virtuous womanhood, happy homes, perpetuity of the nation.
Are you satisfied through investigation that he or she conforms to the Church in the observance of the Word of Wisdom? And note this, in integrity. Is there anybody in the ward who will say: "Well, he has cheated me. He is not worthy. If that is the kind of men they have to send out, well then, I am done with the Church."
These pointed questions are put in the recommend purposely, and they mean something, because those who go out to represent the Church are chosen. They are set apart. They are leaders. They are teachers. They are ambassadors of truth. Please, when you bring these young men and young women to the members of the Council of the Twelve and place in the hands of the Council of the Twelve this written recommendation with your signature, be sure that you have made a thorough investigation, because it is embarrassing, very embarrassing, to the young man to be rejected as a representative.
SELECTIVE SERVICE REQUIREMENTS
Another point. From questions received in person and in writing it is evident that there are some problems in the minds of bishops and the stake presidents as to whom they should recommend for missionary service in the light of the recent selective service. In answer to these inquiries we offer the following suggestions, without going into many details. Young men may continue to be recommended for missionary service as follows:
Those who have reached the age of twenty years, or approximately that age, or, young men under twenty years of age who have had either previous military service or two years of college.
If a young man receives his notice of induction from the selective service before he enters the missionary home, the Church will excuse him from missionary service. In other words, if the young man receives his call in November to enter the missionary home, let us say, in the following May, if he will register in his regular vocation as a mechanic, a student, a farmer, or whatever it may be, and if, during that interim, between the time of his call and his entrance into the home, he is selected in the draft, he is to respond. If, however, he enters the missionary home before he is drafted his status changes. He is then recognized as being an ordained minister and the government will excuse him. He will be deferred by the Selective board for military service for the duration of the term he is to serve as an ordained minister. Following his release, I believe it is within five days after he is home, he is to report to his local draft board.
For the present bishops and presidents of stakes will govern themselves accordingly.
REQUIREMENTS FOR YOUNG WOMEN MISSIONARIES
The age of young women is set at twenty-three. Young women under twenty-three years of age, preferably twenty-one, who are engaged to young men who are in the field, may be considered as prospective missionaries, provided they can go and serve a regular term mission and be home in time to meet their sweethearts. Some requests are made that they may go out and spend a few months, some a year. Now, it is evident, if you give that a thought, this cannot be done for the good of the service. Presidents of missions will make certain appointments, assignments. Those assignments will be broken up and it is not advantageous to send young missionaries out for less than the regular term missions.
Brethren, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature". We are heeding that call.
God bless the young men and the young women who are responding, and God bless the parents, the fathers and mothers, who in pride are sacrificing where necessary to pay the expenses of these choice young men and women.
That the blessings of the Lord may continue to be poured out upon the priesthood of this Church, that we may in every way be honorable representatives of the Master, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 178-180
This is an awe-inspiring view, this great body of priesthood again. As we sing in unison I can picture in my mind the scene before Jericho, when the priesthood of Aaron marched around the walls and blew the trumpets and the walls fell. God was with Israel and his priesthood.
CRUSADE OF PETER THE HERMIT
That incident reminds me that during the great crusade into the Holy Land, known as the Crusade of Peter the Hermit, when the crusaders finally reached the walls of Jerusalem, they tried to repeat the miracle of Jericho but failed. The crusaders had gone to the Holy Land with a plenary indulgence from the Pope of Rome, which promised every man who went into this crusade forgiveness, as it was popularly understood, for all the crimes he ever had committed and all that he ever might commit. Their criminal excesses astounded even the infidels.
The next day or two after the trial for the miracle, the walls of Jerusalem were stormed and the crusaders entered. The accounts say that as they went up those narrow streets toward Mount Zion, the blood running down from the men, women, and children who had been massacred, was up to the horses' knees. As the crusaders pushed into the city they took children by the heels and dashed out their brains against the walls. Some who were particularly dexterous, took children by the heels and tried to throw them over the walls.
Godfrey, the head of the crusaders, went into the temple and got down on his knees and thanked God for this day of achievement, and the representative of the Pope, the papal legate, was heard in the streets thanking God for what had happened. But God refused to give the priesthoodless Crusaders the approval he gave to Joshua and his priesthood in the ancient day at Jericho.
PRIESTHOOD AN EVERLASTING ENDOWMENT
This body of priesthood here tonight holds the priesthood of the Son of God; it is a holy priesthood.
We have had much said about the priesthood today and I endorse all of it. Brother Benson talked about it at length this afternoon. Bishop Richards referred to it tonight; President McKay also spoke of it. And I hope they will excuse me if I carry the matter just a little farther.
The priesthood is an everlasting endowment. Some, at least, who have come to the earth had it before they came here. The Prophet Joseph said: "Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of Heaven before the world was. I suppose," says he, "I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council." The priesthood of God is from everlasting to everlasting, and the thought that I would like to leave with you will be suggested by a number of semi-questions I shall ask.
PERTINENT QUESTIONS
Do you know of any way in which you can lay your priesthood aside? Do you suppose that after you get through with this conference you can go home and lay it off like a suit and go forward with your avocations without the priesthood? Do you suppose that you can lay your priesthood aside if you should wish to do a dishonest thing, and then pick it up again afterwards and put it on and go on as if nothing had happened? Can you lay your priesthood aside while you go into a saloon and take a drink, or when you take a smoke? Can you lay your priesthood aside if you begin an immoral act? Can you lay your priesthood aside if you undertake any crime or any transgression?
And to the young men who are here I would like particularly to ask them, do you think you can lay your priesthood aside if you shall undertake to make immoral advances to some girl that you had taken out, or could you lay it aside while you committed, completed the immoral act? The priesthood you hold is with you every second of your lives until it is taken from you.
But how about honoring it and how about so living that when you have occasion to use its powers they are at your command.
If a man had given you a commission to do something which required that you walk down the straight and narrow path, do you think you would be honoring that commission if you were to go off on detours, do things that you ought not to do outside of and contrary to your commission?
OBLIGATION TO HONOR PRIESTHOOD
Those of us who have been in the temple of course know of the obligations we take there. But there are obligations which are taken by every man who bears the priesthood, from the office of deacon up. Do not dishonor your priesthood, brethren, and do not any of you let your life so shape itself that you will lose the powers which the priesthood gives.
I return again to the theme that I have always mentioned in these priesthood meetings since I came into the Council, to the question of unity. Brethren, if we could act as united and in unison as we can sing and have sung in unison, there is no power that could withstand anything that we sought to do in righteousness.
May God give us the strength and the power and the will and the desire to honor our priesthood, to remember that we cannot lay it aside as a cloak; it is always with us to be dishonored and disgraced if we shall so act. May he give to us the will and the determination always so to honor our priesthood, that we may be indeed the agents of our Heavenly Father, to perform his will,-to the end that ultimately righteousness may rule the earth, as it will ultimately through the priesthood, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 180-190
I wonder sometimes if as fathers we take pains to explain to our boys the seriousness of the obligation assumed when a boy becomes a deacon. I wonder if when the boy is ordained a deacon the father lets him feel that he has something now that is eternally important.
CONTRASTING WARD SITUATIONS
I remember hearing upon one occasion of two wards, side by side, with about an equal population. One of the bishops made it a point to visit the homes of the members of his flock when a child was born, and when the time came for it to be blessed in the fast meeting he was on hand to encourage the parents that their child might receive a blessing. As the children grew a little older he taught both the girls and the boys that there would be a blessing come to them if they would go to Primary and to Sunday School.
He made them want to be baptized when they were eight years of age, both the boys and the girls. When the boys were nearly old enough to be ordained deacons he had talked with them and made them feel that they could be ordained deacons. He was another father. He followed all those families through life and it was said of the ward that every boy and every girl were married in the temple and many of them went on missions.
The ward that adjoined this one had another kind of bishop. He was busy. He did not have time to follow up. He let his counselors do that. It was proper that his counselors should do part of it but the difference was noted by the stake presidency, that in the one ward all of the young people, almost without exception, were faithful, took advantage of their opportunities, were prepared and taught beforehand the importance of what they were to receive, while in the other ward if the parents did not teach the children they were not taught except in a mediocre way, and the result was that the majority of those young people grew up, not particularly interested in the church.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF A BISHOP
Now, I mention this because a father of a ward, a bishop, has a great responsibility. I do not mean that the father of the child and the mother of the child do not have a responsibility. It is their duty and their responsibility, but what a wonderful addition to the life of these young people when they feel that the bishop recognizes them on the street, goes out of his way to encourage them to do what they ought to do. There is not anything that the children will not do for a bishop of that kind.
I remember, as if it were yesterday, when John Tingey placed his hands on my head and ordained me a deacon. I had the matter so presented to me and the importance of it, that I felt it was a great honor. The result was, it was a blessing to me, and then after awhile other ordinations came to me. But in each case the foundation was laid in my mind that here was an opportunity for another blessing, and I want to suggest to you fathers who are here tonight, there is no time that you can spend, no way in which you can utilize your time that will be of greater advantage than training your boys and your girls to be worthy of the blessings of our Heavenly Father.
FAILURE OF PARENTS
Only a few weeks ago a good woman came into my office, a daughter of one of the most prominent men that ever has been in the church. She said: "I cannot understand why my children do not have any interest in the church." She continued, "I have talked to them and explained to them what they ought to do."
I went back in my mind, and I was not unkind enough to say to her, "What did you do with them when they were younger?" I did not read to her that scripture, Section 68 of the D&C;, which says:
"Inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes, which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents".
I do not know all the facts in regard to that family but I do know that they spent considerable of their time unmindful of their growing children, and I am wondering if by now,, I am wondering now if she looked back and took into account what the father and mother did if it would not explain why these children now do not have much faith.
And so, brethren, as fathers, as brothers, as associates, as neighbors, why not lay up treasures in heaven by going out of our way and encouraging these young people to do what the Lord would have them do, so that as they grow up it will be natural for them to do the things that our Heavenly Father would like them to do.
HISTORY OF JERUSALEM
Reference has been made tonight to Jerusalem. I think the story of Jerusalem is one of the most pathetic of all the stories we hear. A city that had every advantage; a city that had within its walls those that the Lord himself claimed. They were his children and he still claims them. But a city that was so selfish, and the leadership of which was so careless, that the population of the city grew up in wickedness, not one group, but generation after generation, and the city was destroyed repeatedly although the Lord did everything he could by means of his prophets to train them that they could have been preserved.
There was one time when they were preserved. It showed how the power of the Lord could be made manifest. The city was surrounded and the plans were being made, and the Army outside made its threat, but a prophet went to the Lord and said, "These people need your help. They are repentant and will you not help them. They are helpless. They are surrounded by their enemy," and the next morning when daylight came a very large portion of the army outside was dead. The power of the Lord had been made manifest in that case and the city was preserved.
It is marvelous what the Lord has done in that regard, but I am thinking of Jerusalem today. After all these years and experience after experience, it is a battleground, and one of the most undesirable places to be living that you can think of in all the world. But there will come a change. Repentance will come and when that repentance comes and is accepted by the Lord, Jerusalem will be redeemed.
It was redeemed once, you will remember, after being in bondage seventy years. The Lord had told the prophet Jeremiah that Jerusalem would be destroyed and its people would be in bondage seventy years.
FREEDOM FROM BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY
One hundred years before Cyrus, the general who captured Babylon, was born, the Lord revealed to the Prophet Isaiah that Cyrus should be his servant and say unto Jerusalem that it should be rebuilt. Babylon at that time was the greatest city in all the world, and was thought to be impregnable. Cyrus was not a Jew. Cyrus did not understand the old Testament, nor did he know of the part he was to play in the freeing of the captive Jews and rebuilding Jerusalem.
While Cyrus was besieging the city of Babylon the great king, Belshazzar of Babylon and his associates were using the sacred vessels that had been taken from the house of the Lord in Jerusalem to drink from. It was a great debauch, and suddenly in the midst of it was seen a hand writing on the wall these words, "Me-ne, Me-ne, Tekel, U-phar-sin," and they could not read it.
The Queen said to the King, "There is a Hebrew prophet among us. He can tell you what it means."
And so they went out and brought Daniel in and when Daniel saw the handwriting on the wall he could read it. It was not difficult for him. He was the servant of the Lord. He had the priesthood and he had honored it in a most marvelous way all down through his life.
The king and others felt perfectly secure, feeling that with food and provisions, and a river of water running through the city, not anything could come in to disturb them, and yet on that wall were written the words which, when interpreted, read, "You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting, and your kingdom will be divided among the Medes and the Persians." At that very hour "my servant Cyrus" had diverted the river that went through the city from its channel and his army entered under the wall, which wall was so high that it could not be scaled or destroyed with any means or weapons that they had, and so wide that several chariots could ride abreast on the top.
When that gentile, if we may use that term, that alien to those that had had the priesthood and the blessings of the Lord, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, realized that the Lord had given him Babylon, he issued a proclamation freeing the Jewish captives and returning them to rebuild their city of Jerusalem. He not only took his own army and his own people but he gave them means to use in payment to the workers.
PRESENT CONDITION OF JEWS
I mention this because of the predicament Jerusalem is in tonight. Think of the condition the Jews find themselves in, wherever they are in all the world. I want to say to you that some of the best people that have ever lived were the Hebrew race and they were examples in many instances but they, in some cases, lost their faith and turned away. I want to say that some of the best men and women that we have had in Salt Lake City were Jews. I hope that the Latter-day Saints will not forget, will not fall into the habit that people have who hate the Jews because of their prosperity, and sometimes hate them for other reasons; that they will not fall into the habit of condemning a nation, condemning all those people, without remembering a circumstance that happened in the British Parliament.
DISRAELI'S ANSWER
There was an argument going on between a great Hebrew, Benjamin Disraeli, who was the Prime Minister of England, and a man who was a noted arguer in the House of Lords, and when he could no longer answer the Jew, then he began to taunt him with being a Jew. He said: "Yes, you are only a Jew anyhow."
And then Disraeli arose and said: "This man has taunted me with being a Jew. I am a Jew and I am proud of it. And when the forebears of this man were fighting like wild beasts for their mates, my people were laying the foundation for the literature of the world." That was his answer.
And then one more, and I hope we will all remember it. "When this man and those he loves bow in prayer, everything they ask for, they ask for in the name of Jesus Christ, a Jew."
I am stressing that tonight, although I did not expect to when I got on my feet because of the hatred that sometimes grows in men's hearts and we fail to see the virtues of others. Brethren, in the midst of these political campaigns such as we are having now, for goodness sake do not stoop to criticizing and finding fault unfairly and unjustly with those who do not believe the same as you do in politics. Let us be real Latter-day Saints,-not make believes-and see the virtues of the others. There is virtue in both camps.
Think of Jerusalem, tonight. Think of the predicament of that great people who have maintained their integrity as a nation, as individuals, as a race, as few others in the world have done. It has been marvelous to me, but see how pitiable their situation is now, and if all the people of the world were righteous and they were in transgression, there would be hope for them because our Heavenly Father has insisted, in his advice and counsel to the world, that "Jerusalem shall be redeemed".
BLESSINGS PREDICATED ON RIGHTEOUSNESS
We do not have to go so far away. What about America? I was in a meeting, not very long ago, where a group of Boy Scouts stood and sang, "God Bless America," and they sang it beautifully, and all the time they were singing I asked myself the question, "How can he bless America until America repents?" Every great blessing that we desire is promised us by our Heavenly Father on condition that we honor him and keep his commandments. Praying is not sufficient. Not only must we pray but we must live to be worthy of the blessing.
In the midst of the upheavals of the world-I almost hesitate to open the newspaper and see the headlines of all the articles because so many of them are in large type and so often they indicate that the danger of another war confronts us.
Brethren, why did the Lord gather us out from the nations of the earth? Why did he not leave us in all the other lands? Why did he call our forebears to leave the comforts of home and the opportunities and blessings of civilization, such as it was, to come way out here into the tops of these everlasting hills, to settle these sterile desert plains, in many cases? Why? He knew what we needed. He knew that his people would have to keep his commandments if they were to endure, and like the time when the crickets came and were about to devour the crops, and starvation stared our people in the face, there were those among them who knew there was a way out. They did not know what it was, but then they began to pray. They had done everything else to destroy the pests, but when they began to pray there came into the western sky big flocks of seagulls, and they came in and began to devour the crickets.
Do you suppose that would have happened if those people had been wicked, if they had been immoral, if they had been drunken, if they had been violators of the commandments of God? I cannot believe it would have occurred, but I believe that among those people were some of the finest men and women that have ever lived upon the earth, and for that reason the Lord preserved their crops.
FAITH REWARDED IN BEAR RIVER
Then there was a circumstance up here on the Bear River. For ten years the frost had taken their crops every year. People had to go out of the valley for their breadstuffs. They could raise hay and cattle but they could not mature their food crops. And the President of the Church and his brethren went up there to hold conference. And when they were coming, O how the people prayed that the President of the Church, the prophet of the Lord, would rebuke the curse that seemed to be upon that land, that they might raise their harvest.
There may be quite a number of people from that stake here tonight because there are a lot of fine people who live there now.
And their conference was held-two days of conference. And the brethren had all talked. Not a word was said about their distress; not anything was said to them to encourage them that conditions would be better. The benediction was pronounced and the people were going out, and all at once the President stood up and he said: "Call the people back. I have something to say to them."
They came back and took their seats, and he said: "Now, you people have been faithful. You have not run away from here. You stayed. You have tilled the ground. You have done your best and every year you have lost your harvest of grain. The Lord knows what you need, and I can say to you that from this time forth you shall raise your crop."
Imagine after ten years, but they have raised a crop in that valley ever since. These things are not accidents, my brethren. The authority of the priesthood, properly exercised, brings to our minds the fact that we are not very far from the Lord and he is all-powerful and he is all-merciful. If we repent of our foolishness and turn to him, he will hear and answer our prayers.
Brethren, bishops, I was sorry that I could not be with you last night. Bishop Richards, I think I owe an apology right from the stand here. I went home last night after the meeting and went to bed just as soon as I could get there after the afternoon meeting, because I wanted to come down to your meeting. But when the time came to dress and come down, I got up and I was so weak I did not dare to come. I did not dress. I went back to bed, and I missed your fine meeting. But I wanted to be there and I am sure you had a happy time.
OFFICE OF A BISHOP
I want to say this to the bishops. There is no position in the Church that will bring a greater blessing to any man than the office of a bishop, if he will honor that office and be a real father to the flock over whom he is called to preside. Do not forget that. He can go into the home, not to scold and find fault and criticize, but he can go like a loving grandfather, if I may use that term, and the family will pay attention, if he is wise, and he can gather them around him. And if he can only get his ward teachers to help him, there could be a great change in some of the wards of this church.
I am pleading with you, my brethren. Do not be satisfied with just going to the door and saying: "We want to know if everything is all right," and go your way. That is not the duty. That is not the way a ward teacher should operate, but every bishop should have under his direction men, young men, middle-aged men and old men, who will go into the homes, not apologizing for breaking into the house, but going as ward teachers.
WARD TEACHING
Rodney Badger was a teacher in my father's home for years, and a great man. Whenever he came the family met and he sat and asked us questions and told us the things that he thought we ought to understand. And I want to tell you that when he came into our home he brought the spirit of the Lord with him. And when he went out we felt we had had a visit from a servant of the Lord.
Let us try and see if we cannot improve our ward teaching, brethren. Surely, in some cases, it is pitiable, because the Lord has given us all the power and authority and the ability to go into the homes and draw his sons and daughters nearer to him. But we often feel that we are so busy with other things we cannot do it.
BLESSINGS PROMISED BISHOPS
I am not complaining. I know what a difficult thing it is to be a bishop. I have been in the homes of many bishops and I have ordained a good many, and I have followed them and seen what their experiences were; they have a very great responsibility, and it takes a lot of their time. But I want to say to you that there is no bishop, nor has there been a bishop in the Church, who has given the time, that the Lord expected him to give in looking after the flock and teaching his people and preparing them to do the work, that has not received one hundred percent of the blessings that he labored for, and they will extend to him throughout the ages of eternity.
He may not have had wealth, may not have had distinction. He may not have had the honor of presiding over clubs and things of that kind, but if he has done his duty as a bishop, he has been hand in hand with the Father of us all, and everything that he has done to bless his kind is laid up as a treasure in heaven and nobody can take the blessing from him.
Let us see if we cannot improve that, brethren.
As well as some of us have done, let us see if we cannot do better.
FALSE TEACHERS
There is one little item here that has been called to our attention. In some of our wards, in order to draw the congregations and bring more people out, our bishops, and in some cases, our auxiliary organization leaders, go out and find somebody to come and deliver a lecture in the Sunday night meeting. Sometimes men are invited they do not know anything about and sometimes those men say things that are not what should be said in the meeting.
There are two Indians that are working now among our people and they are being invited from ward to ward and they are going in and telling stories, and they dress up with their feathers and costumes that are attractive to young people, and we are informed that they teach things that are foreign to what we believe and what the Lord wants us to have our people believe.
Bishops, and leaders of organizations, protect your people from those who would teach them things that would be harmful to them. There are some of the finest people in the world that are Indians. Those men that I am talking about now may have many good traits of character, but right now they are going among our people and saying and doing things that will do harm and will all have to be set aside, because they are not telling that which is true. So, we would like you tonight to pass that on in your wards, and stakes, you stake presidents and the bishops that are here, and in whatever you do, protect your people in the ward from those that you do not know anything about and who will seek an opportunity to come in and talk to the people when they should not be permitted to do so, because they are not teaching that which would be helpful to the people.
HONOR THE SABBATH
Another thing, brethren, our bishops and our stake presidents can have a tremendous influence in bringing the people of their wards and stakes to feel that they must honor the Sabbath day. Honoring the Sabbath day and keeping it holy is a commandment of our Heavenly Father. Six days he has given us to do about as we please, as long as we do not do wrong, but on the seventh, he said, "The seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord Thy God". He has advised us to do no work, neither our animals, nor the stranger within our gates, and he has promised us blessings if we will do what we ought to do.
Brethren, it is not an insignificant thing to violate the Sabbath day. I want to say that you lose every time you violate the Sabbath day, you lose more than you can gain, no matter what you may think you are going to gain, but your boys and girls sometimes do not understand that. Teach it to them. Teach them that their homes may be the abiding place of prayer.
I remember when I was a child, living right across the street from here and the boys would come over to our place on Sunday after Sunday School, and I was like the boys, I thought it would be lots of fun to play ball and to play other games. But I had a wonderful mother. She did not say, "You cannot do it," but she did say: "Son, you will be happier if you do not do that. Let the boys go home and read a good book."
HOME TRAINING
I want to tell you I am grateful for that kind of training in the home, but there are places where the children are turned loose and they are not guarded and they are not protected and they are not trained, and the result is, not only do they lose the blessing that would be eternally advantageous to them, but they cross to the devil's side of the line, and the first thing you know they do things that they should not do.
I want to say that just as soon as we go into the devil's territory we are in his power, and our safety is on the Lord's side of the line, and the Lord's side of the line is on the side of the Ten Commandments and the other commandments that the Lord has given, and we can easily tell what they are.
PROTECTION OF YOUNG WOMEN
Quite a number of our young people are leaving home in the country settlements and coming here to Salt Lake City. Our young girls are coming, and when they come if they are not in homes that will protect them, not under the supervision of good women, they are in great danger. If I were living in some of the outlying settlements, knowing what I know, if I had a precious daughter I never would let her come to Salt Lake City without a guardian, no matter how good she was. If I let her come at all I would be sure that she was properly safeguarded and chaperoned and helped.
Brethren, pass that word around. It is such an attractive thing for these girls to come where the bright lights are, and the papers are always telling what is going on here, but their eternal happiness may be destroyed by falling into the hands of some wicked, careless boy or man. And when they are ruined it is too late then to begin to say, "I wish we had not done it." Safeguard them, please, as far as you can, and when they come to the city and you know they are coming, you bishops send word here. You can send word or find out what ward they go into and you can write the bishops direct. If there is no other way, write the Young Women's Mutual Improvement Association and give the addresses of these girls, and they will help to take care of them. They will do a wonderful job for you and help to save those that are more precious than gold.
WATCHCARE NEEDED
A great effort is being made right now to break into the ranks of this people. Others who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are building churches, building houses of amusement among us, and those who are skillful in attracting young people are gathering them in, and some of our young people have asked to have their names taken from the records of the church. They come out of good homes, but in some cases have not been taught properly and are easily misled by strangers.
Brethren, watch your people. You may have cattle and sheep on a thousand hills and all the hay and grain and potatoes and other things, you may own stocks and bonds and houses and banks and everything, but if you, by reason of your own carelessness and indifference, lose one of those young sons or daughters that God has given to you, you will be repenting of it a long time, and your repentance may not accomplish what you desire.
There is a lot I might say but there is not time. I have talked so long now.
It is lovely to be here with you. I am happy to be with a group of men like this, so many young men and boys here. Remember boys, every one of you, is a child of our Heavenly Father. Every one of you is living eternal life. Each of you boys and men, if you live properly, has a right to the priesthood of the living God. Do not lose that blessing and that privilege. And fathers, with your wives, teach your children the beauty of the things that the Lord has given to us as the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they will be happy and you will be happy, and your families will not be broken up by those who mislead them, many times wilfully and maliciously.
THE LORD'S HELP NEEDED
This is a day and age of the world when we need the Lord's help, every one of us. I am grateful that we have almost everywhere now, in our schools, in our congress, in our stakes in different parts of the world, good men and good women that are not only teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ but they are living it. Wonderful helps they are in the various places that they are in, and we need it all. All those who have faith and live to be worthy of the inspiration of the Lord will be guided and inspired and helped in times of distress. He is not so far away. He is our Father. He loves us and wants us to be worthy to be called his children. This great body of men here tonight, this marvelous group, every one of you is a son of our Heavenly Father. This great group of men, every one is living eternal life, and the gospel of Jesus Christ was given to our forbears and now to us, to prepare us to live with him eternally on this earth when it becomes the celestial kingdom. Can you think of anything more wonderful?
BLESSINGS AND TESTIMONY
May the Lord add his blessing. I pray that he will bless every one of you fine men, you teachers in the schools, you men in the wards and stakes, those of you who are working in companionship with men and boys and women in different parts of the world, I pray the Lord to bless you that you will not lose an opportunity to help uplift and develop and bring them to be what our Father would have them to be, and they will be your companions, then, throughout the ages of eternity.
God lives. Jesus is the Christ. Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Living God. The Lord gave to him the priesthood that we hold and it will continue to be passed on to our descendants as it came from our forbears, if we will do our part.
God bless you brethren, I am so grateful to be with you.
Think of what it means to be a royal priesthood, not a make-believe, but a royal priesthood, everyone having contact, if we will, with the power of our Heavenly Father, the great King of kings and Lord of lords.
This is his work and I bear my testimony to you that I know it as I know that I live, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Elder John A. Widtsoe
John A. Widtsoe, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 110-113
Friends of the Church of the Air:
Our generation of men has secured a tremendous command over surrounding things and forces. Matter and energy have become man's abject servants. His mastery of the physical universe has reached heights beyond the dreams of earlier days. Every thinkable material comfort and help, including the conquest of most diseases, seems within man's reach. Man has become a conquering giant. The utopias of the past, the dreams of ideal places, were trivial in material comforts compared with our present luxurious world.
HUNGER IN THE MIDST OF PLENTY
Yet, in the midst of such plenty there is hunger, a worldwide, gripping hunger-a hunger for simple happiness, culminating in peace. The nature of man is not satisfied with the multiplicity of inventions in our mechanical-scientific age. Fear and unhappiness are becoming the world's masters. The very discoveries that have made possible the world's physical comforts, have, in distorted use, produced unspeakably horrible instruments of destruction. Peace has been replaced by war, bloody and beastly; and, daily, war clouds rise in the horizon. As a result, fear, the chief torturing implement of evil stalks the halls of government, stands at household doors, and tears at every human heart. Tomorrow is no longer a hope; it has become a threat. The world is sick.
It requires neither sage nor "elder statesmen" in church or state-craft to tell us why this condition exists. The marvelous gifts of the day are material only. Such physical bounties do not produce happiness; they only contribute to our ease. Material gifts, used throughout the ages in the hope of satisfying man's hunger, have always been found wanting. If true happiness could be found in material things, humanity's joy should now exceed any ever known.
THE CURE FOR THE WORLD'S DILEMMA
To cure the world's present distemper, we must turn for help to the larger domain, of which the material is but a faint reflection. Out of the unseen world comes a body of laws, the so-called moral laws, among them the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. These laws are as real and comprehensible as any physical law. If a wire carrying an electric current is placed above a mariners compass, the needle swings sharply to one side, and remains there. Just so, obedience to any of the moral laws will determine and hold the actions of the man under that law. The acceptance or rejection of these moral or spiritual laws, higher laws of God, determine in fact the behavior and conduct of every human being. They determine the use a man makes of any gift. It is the misuse of physical laws, in defiance of higher laws, which has brought into being cannons, bombs, torpedoes, and other devices for the destruction of human life. The moral laws, if sincerely and properly used, give power to solve life's problems. Above all else, conformity to them gives men conquest over themselves. They then dare to do right. In short, conformity to the laws that flow from the unseen world where God dwells, their acceptance in spirit and in deed, is the cure for the world's dilemma. True, it is an ancient remedy, but is certain to cure the soul's anxiety.
But, as a nation, and as a world, we are largely ignoring these laws of well-being. We have wandered away from the practices that form the foundation of the happy life. We must not shy away from the knowledge of existing conditions.
HAPPINESS BEGINS WITH HEALTH
For example: Happiness begins with the health of the human body, fashioned in the image of God. Yet our bodies are held, today, perhaps often ignorantly, in utter disregard. Not only are the general laws of health in contempt; but at no other time in our country have nerve-whipping, destructive substances been used by the people so extensively and greatly. For this surrender to unnatural appetites we are paying a terrible price in illness of body and mind. It is not conceivable that whiskey and vodka are reasonable preparations for the wise consideration of matters of state-so urgently needed today.
A LIST OF OUR SINS
The marriage covenant, the basis of a sound society, is flagrantly forgotten. The mounting divorce rate has become a national disgrace. Thereby the very foundations of our nation are undermined. Immorality, with its unspeakable slime of degradation, is reaping its harvest.
The Sabbath day, ordained by God, has been the main and full day of pleasure. In the mad rush for wealth, the nation will not suffer a play-day to be established in the week. Consequently, not only are the churches empty, but men no longer take time to commune with God, an essential requirement of the happy life. We are fast growing into a godless nation.
Likewise, in our greedy love of gold, advantage is taken of our neighbor whenever legally possible. Our own advantage is our main concern. When we give, it is because it helps us. That is not the spirit of honesty. We stand on the verge of becoming a dishonest nation.
We have forgotten the practice of family and private prayer. We have become sufficient unto ourselves, and therefore have loosed the tie that binds us to God. Thereby we are allowing evil to range freely among men, and in horror. We have lost the divine protection and sweet peace and satisfactions that come to a family who engage in daily prayer.
The list of our sins is long-too long for this talk.
RETURN TO THE SPIRITUAL FOLD
We know that to correct these and other evils, to heal our sick world, and to bring happiness to hungry hearts, mankind must return to the spiritual fold, and become worthy citizens of the moral kingdom. But how is it to be done? Churches and other organizations that try to win men to the better way of life have had indifferent success. They have been able to reach only a few.
Can we not hopefully try an old type of missionary endeavor, one which, unfortunately, has fallen into disuse in matters of human welfare? We have tried other ways and failed. Why not try this one?
Let each follower of the moral law, the nation over, accept the duty of being his neighbor's keeper. Let him assume a personal responsibility in this matter of curing a sick world. Let him constitute himself a missionary to neighbors and friends, to teach by example and word of mouth the better way of life, to persuade them that it is the best way.
DETERMINED RIGHTEOUSNESS NEEDED
Under this call to world service, all men of good will-in business and professions, farmers and artisans, in and out of organizations-would set out with courage, emphasis, and steady faith to talk about and teach the eternal plan for human joy, and the stern necessity of victory over self, if the world's sickness is to be cured.
This could be made a mass movement of national and international scope. It would flow and grow from centers, such as the group listening in today. It would be doubly powerful coming out of the hearts of common men. It would be a help to church and other organizations for human good. It would be a mighty deterrent to evil, for Satan, an incarnate coward, flees before determined righteousness. And it would have divine backing.
True, such a campaign would need some sacrifice of time, strength, and money. But the cause is the greatest on earth. Lesser causes are fiercely vocal. Millions of dollars are spent annually to advertise a brand of whiskey or cigarettes. Why not shout the way to peace from the housetops? Publicity and repetition need not be confined to the material aspects of life. Our spiritual needs, always battling with evil, have greater rights. It could be made the greatest campaign for human happiness in the last two thousand years. It would beggar any movement for human good, of any time.
CONSIDERATION OF INDIVIDUAL MAN
Any campaign for righteousness must consider first the individual man. As he is, so the group is. He is the one who, noting current events, is either hopeful or hopeless, who either courageously tries to solve for himself the problems of the day, or thinking there is no escape from impending events, eats, drinks, and is merry. By happy individuals the happy nation is built, as bricks of a color and shape reveal the architect's dream. Mass conversions are like heaps of bricks.
Moreover, we must teach these hungry individuals in our Christian country the doctrines of Christ, as taught by him, and not as conceived and interpreted by men. Christ spoke as man to man, to common men, and they understood him. It often happens that men lose the spirit of a doctrine because they cannot agree on the meaning of well-known words. There is no saving grace in such hair-splitting, no cure of the soul's hunger. It only confuses the ordinary man. We must speak to one another as we offer Christ's words, his lucid teachings, to solve our present crisis, in simple, understandable language.
Besides, the individual man asks for specific directions. Generalizations serve little. When we talk of the moral law, he replies, which one? He asks what in the nation saps our strength? What shall I do, he asks, to be saved from the world's confusion? In answer to such questions we can begin with the issues of the day at home, such as those here mentioned. Acceptance of one law makes it easier to yield to others.
SOLUTION OF WORLDS TROUBLES
There are then two principles of action in solving the world's troubles: Every man must be his brother's keeper; and in his labor must consider individual needs first, group needs last.
We live in a land of plenty in material things. We revel in luxury. Meanwhile, the blood of our children is shed over the earth, for heaven only knows what. We live in a land of spiritual famine. We are hungry for the bread that feeds the spirit. Because of our waywardness, contention, warfare, and other evils rob us of the happiness the Lord would have us enjoy.
However, we must not be hopeless of the future. Repentance and forgiveness are eternal principles. But there is work to do. Each one of us must change his own life. Each one of us must be a converter of others.
May the Lord of heaven help us so to build that there will no longer be hunger in the land-in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 117-123
My brethren and sisters, as I approach this solemn duty, I sense fully the need of your united support, and particularly the sustaining influence of the Spirit of the Lord.
IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENT
It is my purpose this morning to say a few words about the effect of environment upon youth, and the responsibility of adults to make home and civic environment a contributing factor to their right living.
The following is pertinent to what I have in mind:
It is the age that forms the man, not the man that forms the age. Great minds do indeed react on the society which has made them what they are, but they only pay with interest what they have received.
So also is this ancient proverb applicable:
If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in society. And if there is order in society, there will be peace in the world.
From the pulpit and public press, even in homes and social circles, we hear discouraging comments on the delinquency of youth.
If there is concern about the recalcitrance of boys and girls, this generation is no exception to those which have preceded it. Our great-grandfathers and their great-grandfathers worded about the forwardness and recklessness of their children, and the bleakness of their future just as we do today.
CONFIDENCE IN YOUNG PEOPLE
Speaking generally, I have confidence in our young people. This confidence springs primarily from my intimate associations with hundreds of returned soldiers and others who have gone on missions, particularly during the last three years. While our young men were in the army, most of them conducted themselves creditably. They met as regularly as possible for sacred service. As an illustration: During the war in the Pacific when the conflict was at its height, a chaplain one day accosted a colonel, saying, "Are you going to conference tomorrow?" "What do you mean, conference?" answered the colonel. "The Mormon soldiers in New Britain are holding a conference tomorrow."
I heard that same colonel say, upon his return from the army, "Those soldiers are among the best missionaries that the Church has ever had." Many of these young men saved their money to pay the expenses of missions which they, are now filling in various parts of the world, some of them in lands where they fought as soldiers. One of these, as others of his comrades, sent his savings home, requesting his mother to keep them to pay the expenses of his anticipated mission after his discharge from the army. Then he added, "If I do not return, use my savings to send out some other comrade to preach the gospel." He did not return, but in keeping with his desire, his parents are now using this soldier's savings to support another youth who is fulfilling the dead soldier's request.
I tell you, so long as there is an indication of that spirit among our youth, I am going to uphold them and have confidence in them.
I know that it is hardly fair to judge the group by those especially selected as missionaries, but I have been in touch with other groups whose lives tip the scales against delinquency. Recently there was held in this city a convention of one of the national college fraternities. For dignity, temperance, brotherhood, and other commendable virtues, it was one of the choicest conventions if not the choicest convention ever held by such an organization, and that was said by one who had attended fifty of them. In nearly every detail, it was planned and carried out by our local youth.
A recent outing by that same group, one hundred twenty strong, was characterized by actions most creditable. That there is a threatening increase in delinquency in our communities, particularly among boys and girls of high-school age, is all too apparent to anyone who will open his eyes to see, and his ears to hear; and steps should be taken to curtail this delinquency.
DELINQUENCY OF ADULTS
It is with this purpose in mind that I refer not to the delinquency of youth, but to the delinquency of adults.
Youth is influenced by example and environment. Dominating groups exerting this influence are the home, the church, the school, social circles, and civic conditions.
There are too many delinquent fathers and mothers. Our homes are the centers that determine the type of our citizenry. To dignify home and parenthood is one of the noblest aims of human society. The greatest responsibility given to women is the divine gift to be a mother. She thus blessed, who has health and opportunity, and shirks the responsibility for social prestige and pleasure, is recreant to her duty as wife and mother. The father, particularly, if he be a member of the Church and holds the priesthood, who fails to set a proper example before his children is a delinquent, and is a contributor to child delinquency.
NEED OF PROPER HOME ENVIRONMENT
Upon the responsibility of parents to have proper home environment, modern revelation is most explicit:
And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.
For this shall be a law unto the inhabitants of Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized.
And their children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of the hands.
And they shall also teach their children to pray and to walk uprightly before the Lord.
Quarreling among parents and children, faultfinding, backbiting, smoking cigarettes, drinking intoxicating liquors, using profane language, make a home environment that contributes to delinquency. No parent can consistently teach faith in Christ who profanes the name of Deity. Profanity is never heard in the well-ordered home. Swearing is a vice that bespeaks a low standard of breeding. Blasphemous exclamations drive out all spirit of reverence. Irreverence is always a mark of delinquency.
Wrote General George Washington to his Continental soldiers:
The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.
Profanity is a vice all too prevalent in America, and though we say it with embarrassment, all too frequently used in the Church.
The great Chinese philosopher, as a minister of crime, is reported to have set free a son who had offended against the canon of filial behavior, on the ground that the father who had so ill-taught him was the one to blame. Said he:
When superiors fail in their duty, should inferiors die? This father never taught his son to be filial. To act upon this charge would be to kill the innocent.
But until the millennium there will be delinquent parents and delinquent homes, and as a result from out of these there will come children inclined to delinquency.
DUTIES OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL
It is the duty of the Church to render such assistance as is possible. First, to find these delinquents, and then to awaken higher ideals in daily living and to inspire faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But only a small percentage of children and youth ever come in contact with the church. In New York City alone, fifty thousand children are unaffiliated with any church. A potent factor, therefore, in character development is the public school.
To these democratic institutions come children from all kinds of homes, including the delinquent. All I can say this morning is that every teacher in church and in school should realize that he has the moral as well as the assigned responsibility to impress upon his students the true value of the highest and noblest things in life.
WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE REPORT
More concern, it is now apparent, should be given to the influences outside the home, the church, and the school. One of the most important conferences ever held in this country was the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection held during President Hoover's administration. Governor George Dern followed the matter up in Utah. As a result, hundreds of progressive people, forward-looking citizens, participated in the Utah State White House Conference, and considered influences that affect the child. From one of these reports I quote as follows:
The decadence of the old-type home with its wide physical arena of family life, its home with genius industry, its concern in the individual welfare and control over the child, yields to community influences which now have a larger part in the life of the child.
With the great masses of sensationalism and artificial stimulation to which the child of today is subjected in this age of mechanical wonders, it is of the gravest importance that society realize that it is only in the example of sincere living upon the part of the individual members of society that the child finds a dynamic impulse for his own wholesome development.
If we are sincere in our desire to reduce this delinquency among youth, let us look to ourselves as members of the community and as leaders and officials in civic circles. I continue to quote:
A nation that has conquered great material difficulties, and harnessed its physical powers must have some more effective means of combating the cynicism of its youth-the cynicism born of widely flaunted dishonesty of those in high places, insincerity of leadership, and gaudy pageantry of crime.
We have been termed the most lawless nation in the world. This is not merely that we have so many laws that any one enactment loses sanctity. This is not merely that the administration of criminal law has failed to keep pace with our urbanization. This is not merely that we feel that individual rights stand above the law. Deeper than all this lies a form of lawlessness that pervades our whole people, that infect our children-the tragic result of our unlimited natural resources, the facility of their wealth and the apparent omnipotence of our machinery-the heritage in our generation of the vicious belief that somehow more can be gotten out of life than one puts into it. This is truly in its deepest and most devastating sense a belief in lawlessness.
DELINQUENCY IN HOLLYWOOD
Recently a delinquent adult, a prominent movie actor, was caught with others in an illegal "dive." A few days later, a columnist published in the public press, the following:
I don't quite savvy all this sudden bleeding over the plight of a droopy-eyed young movie actor who seems to have been caught by the cops on a reefer binge with a couple of blondes. For one thing, it is not an unusual offense in Hollywood. Dragging the weed ranks roughly in the film colony with taking Benzedrine as a substitute for sleep and sobriety.
I ask you, I ask the American public, to consider, what effect such comment would have upon young people who are already inclined to yield to the urge of new experience. More shame to the adult delinquent than to the youth!
WHOLESOME COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENT
It is the duty of every law-abiding citizen to see to it that our children have a wholesome community environment in which to live during their tender and impressive years.
I commend those officers who recently broke up that gambling den out here in our county, where sixteen adults-well, more than that-when the sheriff and his deputy caught them because of the activity of some neighbors... sixteen adults who were guilty of gambling and cock-fighting. Eleven were caught, arrested, and fined fifty dollars each. The officers broke it up, but now the gamblers are active in another county, I am informed.
The secret, illegal selling of bawdy literature and obscene pictures the drinking of intoxicating liquors in public; the harboring of gambling devices, and particularly of "one-armed bandits." In "joints" throughout the state, and I speak advisedly, lure the youth into an atmosphere of criminality. Sale of liquor by the drink would only increase the danger and make more readily accessible to young people a demoralizing environment.
I am throwing out these two thoughts to emphasize the need of keeping our young people, as far as possible in a wholesome and not a demoralizing environment.
GRATITUDE FOR THE CHURCH
In conclusion, let me say:
Let us here and now express gratitude for the Church of Jesus Christ with quorums and auxiliaries specially organized to combat these evils. It was established by divine revelation of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. Its glorious mission is to proclaim the truth of the restored gospel; to uplift society that people may mingle more amicably one with another; to create in our communities a wholesome environment in which our children may find strength to resist temptation and encouragement to strive for cultural and spiritual attainment; to make ineffective the influence of designing men who would make profit out of their fellows who are fallen so low as to be slaves to their appetites and passions-and who would fill their purses through the weaknesses of addicts to gambling, and the pitiable courtesan outcasts. The gospel is a rational philosophy that teaches men how to get happiness in this life, and exaltation in the life to come.
The mission of the Church is to establish the kingdom of God upon the earth, which, in the words of Thomas Nixon Carver, is not a mystical but a real kingdom. It is a body of people dominated by ideals of productivity, which is mutual service. We do not strive for the things which satisfy but for the moment and then leave a bad taste. We strive for the things which build us up, and enable us and our children to be strong, to flourish, and to conquer. We strive to make ourselves worthy to receive the world by flitting ourselves to use the world more productively than others. We believe that obedience to God means obedience to the laws of nature, which are but the manifestations of his will; and we try by painstaking study to acquire the most complete and exact knowledge of that will, in order that we may conform ourselves to it.
We believe that reverence for God is respect for these laws, that meekness is teachableness and willingness to learn by observation and experience. By practicing this kind of meekness, or teachableness, we believe that we shall inherit the earth; whereas the unmeek, the unteachable, the pigheaded, who are dominated by pride of tradition, shall not.
We offer you hard work, frugal fare, severe discipline, but a share in the conquest of the world for the religion of the productive life.
God help us to discharge our responsibilities to our youth by making an environment in home, in school, in Church, and in our communities that will be uplifting, wholesome, faith-inspiring, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
Joseph L. Wirthlin, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 123-129
This great conference, my brethren and sisters, has been a most inspirational occasion for all of us. As I heard one good sister remark yesterday, "It is out of this world," and I say to you that all that we have listened to is out of this world. and all of those who spoke to us have been animated by that spirit which is out of this world. All of the counsel and advice that we have listened to during this great conference will go for the salvation of all of us and for the eventual salvation of this world. Then at some future date it will become the celestial kingdom.
This morning President David O. McKay has delivered a most inspired address with reference to youth and particularly with reference to those who are responsible for youth, and I, too, desire to express a few thoughts along the same line and in so doing I may cross the path of President David O. McKay, but I don't know of anyone's path that I would rather follow than a member of the First Presidency.
YOUTH PROGRAM OF THE CHURCH
This past week has been devoted by some of the great youth organizations to the problems of youth. Some of you have listened to the broadcasts that have come from youth organizations. All that I have listened to and all that I have read with reference to this youth movement has been inspiring and is worthy of commendation. But in thinking of youth organizations of the world, the question came to my mind, what about the youth program of the restored Church of the Lord Jesus Christ? As I pondered over that question, there, came to my mind the thought that the youth program of the Church of Jesus Christ is founded upon the priesthood of Almighty God. This program had its inception on May 15th, 1829, When two young men who were translating an ancient record ran across a statement that had to do with baptism. A question arose in their minds so they went out into the woods and upon the bank of a beautiful river, supplicated God that they might have the right interpretation of that ancient scripture. An answer was given in the form of a visitation by a resurrected being who introduced himself as John the Baptist, and in the following words conferred upon Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery the Aaronic Priesthood:
Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.
The cornerstone of the youth program of this Church is the priesthood of God, and along with it there have come into being other organizations, which have come into existence through the inspiration and revelation of the Lord to the leaders of Israel to organize the great Sunday School, the M.I.A. and the Primary organization. There has been brought into being the great system of religious education and also the Latter-day Saint girls' program. This program of youth, which has been and is being fostered by the Church, is one which comprehends all of the needs of youth and places into the hands of those who are responsible for them, instruments whereby this great program can be implemented in behalf of youth to guide and direct them along the paths of faith, virtue, and service to others.
BLESSINGS OF AARONIC PRIESTHOOD
When the priesthood of Aaron was first given to the tribe of Levi, it was entrusted to mature men, but in this day and age the Aaronic Priesthood has been given to young men because of the fact that the members of the tribe of Levi are not worthy to hold that priesthood, and hence the heirs of Ephraim are carrying on the work of the Aaronic Priesthood today. We have often been asked the question, "Why is it that the priesthood is bestowed upon boys at the age of twelve?" I don't know whether or not there is on record any definite instructions as to this, but I can say it was a master stroke of inspiration, and I am sure that when the leadership of this Church decided to ordain boys at the age of twelve it came at the direction of our Heavenly Father. I know of no time in the age of any young man when he begins to form impressions and habits more readily than he does at the age of twelve, and in this great program of youth we commence early. These boys at the age of twelve, when they receive the priesthood of God, must be sweet and clean in their bodies. They are taught the law of chastity. They are taught that there is but one standard of virtue in this Church, both for young men and for young women. They are taught to be prayerful, and they are taught that priesthood means service and that where there is no service, and a man or a boy holds the priesthood, it is of little value to, him and surely the Lord God will hold such an individual accountable when he fails to use this divine gift of authority in the service of the Master and for the benefit of the, Lord's children here upon the earth. Out of priesthood service he is taught to be dependable; he evaluates integrity and honestly highly. He is taught something about the Constitution of the United States. He is taught that the document came to us from the Lord through the instrumentality of great and wise men who were raised up for that very purpose. He is taught that in the Constitution of the United States there is found the great fundamental principle of the gospel, namely that of free agency. And so with these noble qualities of character and the assignments that come to him from time to time, he is taught in a practical way the principles and fundamentals of the gospel of salvation. For example, the deacon is assigned to go out and collect the contributions of the people to the end that those who are in distress might have assistance and relief. He is also taught that he should participate in the great welfare program, for out of these two assignments he is taught what pure and undefiled religion is, namely, to help those who are in need, the aged, the widows, and the orphans. I am sure that no young man participates in these assignments but what he sees the blessings that will come to him and to others because of his willingness to serve.
DUTIES OF DEACONS AND TEACHERS
The deacon has the privilege of assisting in the administration of the sacrament, and no young man could listen to the sacramental prayers and not have a deep and lasting impression of what the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ means and what his great sacrifice on the cross did for all of us. The office of the ordained teacher carries great responsibility. At the age of fifteen he is sent out with a member of the Melchizedek Priesthood to teach Israel the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. In other religious organizations there would be some question with reference to sending out a young man at the tender age of fifteen to teach adults and others the principles of the gospel. I bear personal testimony to you that some of the most impressive ward teaching that I have ever listened to has fallen from the lips of these young servants of God, and we must never forget that they have a promise, a promise that if they will do their duty, they will enjoy that spirit of testimony, namely the Holy Ghost, which will magnify them before the families that they are called upon to visit. These young men have other assignments, and out of all of them there comes a realization that they are engaged in the work of the Lord.
THE OFFICE OF PRIEST
What about the young man just budding into manhood who is called to the office of priest? He has the same authority and the same privilege that John the Baptist had, the forerunner of Christ, in that it is his high privilege and honor to perform the ordinance of baptism; and I would that every priest in this Church may have that opportunity and privilege, for out of it comes the assurance that he holds the priesthood of Almighty God.
When a priest steps into the waters of baptism and brings his arm to the square and repeats the baptismal prayer, it impresses; him that he is indeed a servant of God. These are the words he repeats: "Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen". A short prayer but a prayer wherein he declares without any reservations that he has been commissioned of Jesus Christ to perform the holy ordinance of baptism.
The priest has the right of administering the sacrament, of blessing the water and the bread; and no young man can repeat these blessings thoughtfully and prayerfully but what it strengthens his testimony that the lowly Nazarene who was crucified upon Calvary's Hill was the true and the Living Son of' God, and that the Redeemer appeared in the meridian of time to another young man, Joseph Smith, who gave to the world the sweetest story ever told, since the crucifixion, that He lives. There is no doubt but what these experiences in the priesthood affect the lives of these young men to the end that what they do, or think, or say, shall be wholly compatible with the priesthood which they hold. It is as Brigham Young said, if these boys have been guided and directed and taught as they should be, all the acts they perform should be governed by the guidance of the priesthood.
ACHIEVEMENTS OF AARONIC PRIESTHOOD
In 1947, fifty-four thousand members of the Aaronic Priesthood filled 1,403,461 assignments, twenty-six assignments, for everyone of these young men, which indicates that they would have a priesthood assignment every two weeks throughout the year. There are some of these young men who are not taking full advantage of their priesthood work which would indicate that some members of the Aaronic Priesthood filled in a year one hundred or one hundred and fifty of these assignments. Out of the filling of these assignments there comes a strengthening of their testimony; there comes that training which guides them into the paths of virtue, of being prayerful and dependable, and a building up of the spiritual side of their lives.
I could go on indefinitely pointing out to you the achievements of these young men. When we speak of the Aaronic Priesthood and this great youth program of the Church, we not only find emphasis on the priesthood, which should come first, but we find the great auxiliary-organizations providing a program that inspires them and builds them up in their faith and lays the foundation for a testimony. We are grateful to the great Primary organization for its work with boys under the age of twelve, and giving them instructions on the priesthood that they are about to receive. The Sunday School organization has the responsibility of teaching young men the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Y.M.M.I.A. organization provides for them a fine cultural and recreational program, and in addition to these two, it has fostered a great program for boys, namely, scouting.
The Church educational system affords daily religious education. The Latter-day Saint girls' program has in it all of the same factors and elements that we have for the young men, and it too is proving to be a great success.
FRUITS OF RELIGIOUS LIVING
As we think of these assignments and priesthood training and all that the auxiliary organizations offer to our young people, we wonder what the fruits of their lives will be. President McKay has indicated to you already what the fruits are in some instances. It is best illustrated in the words of the Savior found in Matthew:
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit....
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
What are the fruits of the priesthood? Some of them are service, testimony, virtue, honesty, prayerfulness, dependability, respect for authority, and selection of the proper kind of associates. As one of the General Authorities it has been my high privilege to interview many of these young people for missions. Some of these young men have spent several years in the armed forces of our country, and upon returning have expressed a desire to fill a mission. I have invariably asked them the question: "You have been away from home now for three or four years, and you mean to say that you are now anxious to go and spend two more years on a mission?" And without hesitating they have answered, "Yes, that's the thing I would like to do." They saved their money while in the armed forces, to the end that it might be used in preaching the word of God to the nations of the earth.
I learned something else about them. Some of them expressed a desire to return to the lands of the enemy whose guns they had faced. To me that manifested the true spirit of the Christ. That spirit, my brethren, that the Savior taught us to cultivate, to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves, to me is the spirit of the peacemaker.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
BLESSINGS OF PRIESTHOOD SERVICE
The other fruits of the youth program of the Church have been manifested in other ways. In the fields of business the young men, who have taken full advantage of all of their priesthood opportunities and all the privileges afforded by the youth program of the Church, have received responsible positions without any question and have been successful.
I know of one man whose life's desire was living the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He took advantage of the opportunities of priesthood service in his boyhood days, and not long ago a great company was searching for a very dependable man to take over one of its institutions, and they let it be known that no one should apply except a member of the Church. This young man applied and received the position at a salary of ten thousand dollars a year. Why was that company particularly anxious to have a member of this Church? They knew that, if they found the right kind of member of this Church, they would have a man with integrity and honesty, dependability, and one who would be an example to those who worked with him.
There are some of our young men who become indifferent for one reason or another, but I want to say that if we have done our part, if we have planted the seeds of faith in their hearts, they cannot get too far away from the Church.
LETTER TO BISHOP
I should like to read to you a few paragraphs of a letter written to one of our fine bishops by one of these boys who had all of the advantages of the youth program of the Church and then became indifferent.
The teachings a fellow receives in his youth have a great effect upon his life which I am just beginning to find out more and more each day. The teachings and blessings I received from my quorum while I was a teacher and a priest have paid off so numerously that I could not begin to quote all of them. Also the instructions I received in seminary have been of great value. The things my parents taught me from the time I could sit up in bed have also made me what I am today. Now, as I stop to look back upon all of the instruction, both large and small, that I received in my past twenty-one years, I have more in the wealth of the better things in life now than a lot of people have in a lifetime.
I want you to listen to this statement in particular.
I am a cross section of all the people that have had an influence on my life here so far. From here on out I am on my own, and it has taken me two years of married life to find it out. The responsibilities of an L.D.S. father are great, and I thank the Lord for the trust that he has put in me to carry out such responsibilities. When we were in our priesthood quorums I heard a lot about a person's being spiritually sick, and I always wondered what it was. The big wonder in my mind is now a reality. I don't wonder what it is now. I know. It has been said that experience is the best teacher, and my mother always said there would be a lot of things I would learn the hard way, and she is so right. To be spiritually sick is a lost feeling. You have your friends, but they seem to have no way of helping you no matter what they say or do. It is something that is lost from inside, and the only way you can get it back is from the inside. I have never really stepped inside an L.D.S. chapel for the past two years with an attitude of real worship of God, until the other night when I went to the nurses' graduation at the Idaho Falls L.D.S. Tabernacle. Elder Moyle spoke that night, and I realized then that I had lost a very valuable gift which I still had in my power to regain if I put my mind to it.
RESPONSIBILITY TO YOUTH
This young man took advantage of the youth program of the Church. For some reason he became indifferent, but as a result of the proper kind of teaching and the impression it made upon his life when he heard a servant of God preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, there was a ready response in his heart, and now that young man is trying to find his way back, I was particularly impressed with his thought, "I am a cross section of all the people that have had an influence upon my life here so far." I wonder if we who are responsible for the youth of Israel realize that they are a cross section of what we teach them, not only by precept but by example. After all, every man or woman, whether a parent, one of the lesser priesthood advisers, or a bishop, is wholly responsible for these young people. As one said, "We stand in the docket with every lost boy and girl. Have we a self that is worth putting into a boy?" That is the question, and should we not examine our inner selves to determine whether or not we have within us the qualities of character which should become a part of the character of every boy and girl to make them the kind of men and women that God wants them to be?
Out of youth there will come in thought and in deed the things that you and I have taught them over the years. If we sow the right kind of seed, it will logically follow that the right kind of fruit will come forth.
May God bless all of us who have this high and glorious privilege of laboring with youth, that out of our testimonies, out of our teachings, and above all, out of our examples, it will be as Brigham Young declared:
An individual who holds a share in the priesthood, and continues faithful to his calling, who delights himself continually in doing the things God requires at his hands, and continues through life in the performance of every duty will secure to himself not only the privilege of receiving, but the knowledge how to receive the things of God, that he may know the mind of God continually; and he will be enabled to discern between right and wrong, between the things of God and the things that are not of God. And the priesthood-the spirit that is within him, will continue to increase until it becomes like a fountain of living water; until it is like the tree of life; until it is one continued source of intelligence and instruction to that individual.
I humbly pray for all of these blessings in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Mark E. Petersen
Mark E. Petersen, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 133138
I am very grateful, my brothers and sisters, for the emphasis that has been placed, in this session and in this whole conference, upon the youth of the Church. With you I love the youth with all my soul, and I desire with all my heart that they may love the truth and live it that they may be saved here in the earth. There is nothing that I shall ask more of life than that my children shall love the gospel and serve the Lord, and I know that there is nothing more that you will ask in behalf of yourselves.
CONTRAST AT FUNERAL SERVICE
Yesterday as I listened to Elder Bowen in his masterful way deliver that great address on stability, my mind went to a funeral service I had attended just previously. In that service I saw a lovely Latter-day Saint family bowed down in grief. One of their members had been taken away. She had died in faith. The other members of the family, surrounding that casket, also were filled with faith and that blow of death which had struck in that home was greatly softened because of the faith that those people had the knowledge and the testimony concerning immortality and what the gospel does for us. I saw sitting in the audience a direct contrast to the scene around that casket, for there I saw two men who had once been faithful in the Church, men who had had the pearl of great price within their own hands, and then, because they loved worldliness more than they loved spirituality, they sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. They gave up their membership in the Church. They loved darkness more than they loved light, and there they sat looking at this faithful family. I thought, oh, what a contrast! Oh, what stability in their characters might have done for them! Oh, if they could have been in the position of those faithful, ones who, though mourning at the passing of a loved one, had remained true and faithful and stable in the faith. Had they really appreciated their membership in the Church?
Our main object in life is to be good Latter-day Saints. To be good Latter-day Saints means that we work out our salvation here in the earth, through the facilities of the Church, and teach our children to do likewise. In order to obtain that objective we must so plan our affairs that everything we do in life will bring us nearer that goal. We must choose from life those things which will so affect our thoughts and habits as to bring us nearer the Church into closer harmony with it and its program. It is by cooperating with the Church and its program, laboring in its organizations and sustaining its institutions that we work out our salvation here in the earth.
THE RIGHT OF CHOICE
As we choose those things which shall become a part of our daily lives, let us remember that there is an opposition in all things. We have our free agency, as Elder Moyle taught us. We have our right of choice. If we choose certain things in life, they will drag us down and tend to separate us from close affiliation with the Church. Such things become barriers between us and our life's great objective. On the other hand, if we choose those things which will bring us closer to the Church, we will live the gospel better, and we will be better Latter-day Saints. Every day we must make decisions affecting our lives. Some of those decisions may seem small, but nevertheless they affect our thinking and either bring us nearer to God or help to remove us farther away.
GOOD READING HABITS
One of the men who have influenced my life for good and to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude is one of my former bishops, John C. Duncan of the First Ward here in Salt Lake City. I love that man because of his great stability. He measures up to what Elder Bowen was talking about yesterday. I remember his teachings so well. He always has been, and still is, a great advocate of good reading habits. He has always told us that what we read helps to make us what we are. Naturally, what we read affects our thinking, and as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Bishop Duncan has always taught us that we should read the periodicals of the Church, because of the wholesome influence those periodicals have in our lives.
There are, I suppose, about a quarter of a million Latter-day Saint homes. Every one of those homes would be a better home if the people who live there would read and study and digest the messages that are carried in the periodicals of the Church. There would be in them a greater respect for virtue, better observance of the high standards of the Church; there would be greater love and brotherhood; there would be more spirituality.
Every one of you desires to know the mind of the leaders of the Church, the advice of the First Presidency. We do not often come into their presence. We do not often have the opportunity of hearing what they have to say. But every one of you may feel their influence and receive the messages they have to give if you will take the periodicals of the Church and read those messages.
THE IMPROVEMENT ERA
President Smith is widely loved. When he goes to speak in a meetinghouse, the building is overflowing with people. You love him because of his love for humanity. You love him for what he tells you and the spirit and the influence he carries with him. But you cannot be in his presence every day, nor every month. But President Smith is the editor of The Improvement Era, and every month there is an editorial from him in The Improvement Era, which would do you and your family much good if you would read it. I wouldn't for anything pass by that Era every month. I love it, and I love the messages it carries. I wouldn't for anything miss the editorials that appear there under the name of the President of this Church. I always get great stimulus out of it. I am a better man because I read what he says, because I love the influence he carries. Although I cannot be in his presence every day, I can read what he has said, and through it feel his influence.
President Smith is assisted in the editorship of The Improvement Era by Dr. John A. Widtsoe and President Richard L. Evans. These men are a great inspiration to the Church. You are in excellent company when you are in their presence, and if you want to have their influence about you and the children in your home, then take The Improvement Era.
I do not know what the exact circulation of The Improvement Era is, but I know that it is not what I would like to see it. I think that if we have a quarter of a million homes in this Church we ought to have nearly a quarter of a million circulation for The Improvement Era, because it ought to be in every home for the good it will do to you and to your children.
THE RELIEF SOCIETY MAGAZINE
I feel exactly the same way about the Relief Society Magazine. I do not know anywhere where you can find a magazine that will do you as much good, as a woman and as a mother, as does the Relief Society Magazine. It is published and edited by women of great faith and great spirituality as well as of great mentality. Every woman in this Church should have the Relief Society Magazine and read it. Wherever there is a Latter-day Saint home, there should be the Relief Society Magazine. Wherever there is a Latter-day Saint mother, there should be the Relief Society Magazine.
You will be a better Latter-day Saint, and you will be a better mother if you will take the Relief Society Magazine in your home. Your husband and your children likewise will be benefited by it because it does carry the spirit and the very essence of the gospel of Christ right into your home.
If you want better homes such as President McKay has been talking about here, then you bring into your home these magazines which help you so. I again say that I believe that the Relief Society Magazine should be in every home, and therefore that magazine also should have a circulation in excess of two hundred thousand.
THE CHILDREN'S FRIEND
And then, we are also interested in our little children. Don't you love your little ones and don't you fast and pray for them, and don't you hope that they will be converted to the gospel of Christ, and don't you hope that they will grow up to be stalwart members of this Church? Then place in their hands every facility that you can to help them to get this faith deep in their hearts and to establish habits and customs which will be in compliance with the teachings of the Church. Do you know one of the greatest and best helps you can get to place in the hands of your children? It is a magazine published by the Primary Association of this Church, and it is called The Children's Friend. It is the grandest, by all odds the best, child's magazine, that I have ever seen anywhere. It will do a great service for your children. The children of the Church love it. It provides wonderful things with which to build faith and character. It also gives them entertainment. It gives to the children of the Church that something which they love and which they need.
It is indeed a mistake to suppose that The Children's Friend is only to go into the homes of those people who happen to be workers in the Primary Association. Every child in this Church is entitled to the benefit that can come to him or her through the use of that wonderful magazine. If you love your children and if you desire to build faith in their hearts and to develop character, put in their hands this valuable child's magazine. Whether you yourself happen to be a Primary worker or not, your children need the increased faith and strength that can come to them through the use of that magazine. Take it. It is one of the helps that God has given to you to assist you in teaching and rearing your children.
Then there is another magazine, The Instructor which is provided by the Sunday School, primarily for teachers. It, too, is designed to build faith and character and stability here in the Church.
THE DESERET NEWS
There is another publication which I love with all my heart, and that is The Deseret News, a publication which is owned and operated entirely by the Church. As President McKay said the other night, The Deseret News is your newspaper. It belongs to you, and you should be interested in it. You should be interested in seeing it grow and develop.
One of the great merchandising experts in the United States is a man named Amos Parfish. I have always enjoyed reading his magazine. One of the things he teaches merchants is that they are to sell their products for what they will do for the people, and he tells the buyers to buy products for what those products will do for them, for the type of service they will render.
What does The Deseret News do for you?
In the first place, The Deseret News brings to you a fine high class news and feature coverage which is in keeping with the very highest traditions of American journalism. That newspaper has been very greatly improved in the recent past. It is a first-class newspaper, one of which you may well be proud, one which will serve you well in your home and one which will serve your children equally well.
What else does The Deseret News do for you? The Deseret News stands for Americanism. Whether you are a member of this Church or not, The Deseret News will help to make you a better American, and everybody needs to be better Americans today. So I commend to you that newspaper which builds patriotism, genuine Americanism in your hearts. It stands for the Constitution of the United States which has been referred to here today, and its editors believe with all their hearts that the Constitution was God-inspired. It promotes greater and finer communities, and better family life. You are all of you interested in cleaner communities, in higher standards of living. You would like to see reduced the vice that is so apparent in so many of our communities. I would like you to know that The Deseret News stands for the high standards of the Church. It stands for clean communities, clean government, and clean living. If you want to be a good citizen and enjoy clean community life, The Deseret News will help you to do so.
Much has been said here about the youth. I tell you that The Deseret News will serve your youth. You know and I know what faith-destroyers cigarettes are. You and I know that a cigarette will help to destroy the faith and, if it continues on, the very salvation of your children. You may place The Deseret News with confidence and safety in the hands of your children, because the pages of that newspaper will never tempt your children to take a smoke. Likewise it never will tempt your children to drink beer or hard liquor, because such advertisements are not there. The Deseret News is a clean newspaper, and it will help you and your children to live the gospel better if you have it in your homes.
You come here to these conferences and you want to know what the Authorities of the Church are thinking and talking about. The Deseret News brings to you almost daily the attitude of the leaders of this Church. I would not have you think that they read and study everything before it goes into the newspaper, because, of course, that could not be. But the general policy of The Deseret News is the reflection of the policy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and if you want to know what the general attitude of this Church is on most subjects, The Deseret News will bring it to you.
The Deseret News also will give you another great service in that it brings to you its Church Section which, in my opinion, is one of the very finest things this Church has ever produced in periodical form. Every Church worker will do his work better if he has that Church Section. Your homes will have more faith if you read that Church Section. Your children will love the gospel better if they read that Church Section. I commend it to you with all my heart and all my soul.
SUPPORT OF CHURCH PUBLICATIONS
There are many other things that I could say about this newspaper, but time is fast going on. My brethren and my sisters, some of you say, "We cannot afford to take all these Church publications." I ask you in all seriousness, how can you afford not to take them? An investment in the Church publications costs but very little, but it is an investment in good living. You cannot go to the corner store and buy a dollar's worth of character or a quarter's worth of faith. Yet these are the things above all else for which we strive in life. Are we going to count our dimes so carefully-dimes that so many times otherwise we throw away for far less valuable things-that we are going to keep from our children and our homes these faith-building, character-building influences? How can we afford not to take them?
I remember Paul once said that the eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of thee." The head cannot say to the foot, "I have no need of thee". Is there one of us knowing the dangers that surround our children in this day of lax morality, in this day of smoking, drinking, and carousing, is there one of us who will say that a single safeguard of the Church is unnecessary?
These publications are safeguards of the Church and I pray that we may have the vision to see them as such, and that we may not say to any one of them, "I have no need of thee," and for this I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
Joseph Fielding Smith, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 152-154
I seek the guidance of the Spirit of the Lord.
I am not going to give you anything new. Everything that pertains to the gospel is new, but I shall not present anything that has not already been considered, either at this conference or at some other time, and I may, in the course of my remarks, repeat and emphasize some things that have already been said.
LIGHT AND TRUTH
First, I shall read to you from section ninety-three of the D&C; where the Lord says, speaking of light and truth which is the Spirit of Christ:
Light and truth forsake that evil one.
Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.
And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers.
But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth.
I know we were all very deeply impressed with the remarks of President McKay this morning, and others of the brethren who have spoken, in relation to the care of our children in the home. I wish to continue, perhaps treating this matter from a little different viewpoint, but nevertheless calling the attention of the members of the Church, of fathers and mothers, to their responsibility in regard to the training of their children.
THE FAMILY UNIT
There is no substitute for a righteous home. That may not be so considered in the world, but it is and ought to be in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The family is the unit in the kingdom of God. That we believe, and if we are fortunate enough, through the keeping of the commandments of the Lord, to go back and re-enter the celestial kingdom to dwell with him, we will find that we are his sons and his daughters, that he is in very deed our Father. As Paul has stated it, we are his offspring, and through obedience to every principle of eternal truth we will go back to be his sons and his daughters.
Paul has said and prayed, speaking of the mission of Christ and his obedience to him:
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.
If we get back into that great kingdom after the earth is redeemed, we will find ourselves members of the great family of God, and he will be our Father.
He said, you know, to John:
He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I shall be his God, and he shall be my son.
We should remember, as Latter-day Saints, that outside of the celestial kingdom, there is no family organization. That organization is reserved for those who are willing to abide in every covenant and every obligation which we are called upon to receive while we sojourn here in this mortal life.
DUTIES OF PARENTS
Now, let me take up where these brethren left off. Of course there should be prayer and faith and love and obedience to God in the home. It is the duty of parents to teach their children these saving principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, so that they will know why they are to be baptized and that they may be impressed in their hearts with a desire to continue to keep the commandments of God after they are baptized, that they may come back into his presence. Do you, my good brethren and sisters, want your families, your children; do you want to be sealed to your fathers and your mothers before you, do you want to have this family unit perfect when you, if you are permitted, shall enter the celestial kingdom of God? If so, then you must begin by teaching at the cradle-side. You are to teach by example as well as precept. You are to kneel with your children in prayer. You are to teach them, in all humility, of the mission of our Savior, Jesus Christ. You have to show them the way, and the father who shows his son the way will not say to him:
"Son, go to Sunday School, or go to Mutual, or go to the priesthood meeting," but he will say: "Come and go with me." He will teach by example.
Family prayer will be in the home. In the morning when the family arises for the day, the father will gather his family, kneel in prayer, and thank the Lord for his blessings. At night he will have them assemble again, and in the family unit they will kneel again to pray. And all these things will be taught in the home, because we want to have that home intact. We do not want it destroyed when we cross to the other side.
FAMILY ORGANIZATION IN THE HEREAFTER
I have a great deal of pity in my heart for the world, this so-called Christian world, professing to believe in the mission of Jesus Christ, and in sincerity, many of them, I am sure. They think they are on the right course; but they have been misled by false teachers into thinking that the family comes to an end at death, that husband and wife are separated eternally, and that there is no more claim for them upon their children. And that is true for them, according to their belief. That is the condition that will prevail in the terrestrial kingdom and in the telestial kingdom, because there will be no marriage there, and there will be no family order there. Do you want that? I say I feel sorry for these people that have been misted into these false notions in regard to the hereafter and the family organization.
Why do we go into the temples to be sealed, husbands and wives, and children to parents, and why are we commanded to have this work done, not only for ourselves, but also to be sealed to our fathers and mothers, and their fathers and mothers before them, back as far as we can go? Because we want to belong to that great family of God which is in heaven, and, so far as the Church is concerned, on earth. That is why.
Eventually, when this work is perfected, and Christ delivers up to his Father the keys and makes his report, and death is destroyed, then that great family from the days of Adam down, of all the righteous, those who have kept the commandments of God, will find that they are one family, the family of God, entitled to all the blessings that pertain to the exaltation.
RESPONSIBILITY TO TEACH CHILDREN
Are you teaching your children these truths, my brothers, my sisters? Are you training them so that when they are married they will want to go to the house of the Lord? Are you teaching them so that they will want to receive the great endowment which the Lord has in store for them? Have you impressed upon them the fact that they can be sealed as husbands and wives and have bestowed upon them every gift and every blessing that pertains to the celestial kingdom, and thus they shall become the sons and the daughters of God, and have you impressed upon them that great truth that if they are not married for time and eternity that they will come forth in the resurrection of the dead separately and singly, to be servants for those who belong to the family of God. Have you done that? Are you doing that?
Time will not permit me to say anything more, but I want to leave this impression with you, in continuation of our responsibilities as parents to each other and to our children, and as the Patriarch declared yesterday, if we will do these things, keep these commandments and live as we ought to, there will be no divorce in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Lord bless you, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Matthew Cowley
Matthew Cowley, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 155-161
My brothers and sisters, it is good to be back from wandering to and fro in the earth. I have long needed the inspiration of a general conference, and I have not been disappointed.
When we sustained this day, as the custodians of the kingdom, the men and women whose names were read, I was convinced within my heart that as long as men and women such as these are the custodians of the kingdom, the ordinances will never be changed, and the everlasting covenants will never be broken.
It is my privilege to serve as a missionary in some of the far-flung areas of the earth and in the islands of the sea. I am reminded of the last commission which the Master gave to his disciples and said unto them:
Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned.
SIGNS TO FOLLOW BELIEVERS
And certain signs were to follow those who believed. Among those signs were these, that they should speak with new tongues, that they would lay their hands upon the sick, and they would be healed. About these two signs I would like to speak for just a moment while I visit with you.
On Friday evening I attended the reunion of the New Zealand missionary society, and as I stood before that group I could see more men who could speak the Maori language of New Zealand than there are among the million and a half white people residing in New Zealand who can speak the native language of their native people.
I attended the Tahitian missionary reunion, and I am sure that the same could be said of those men at that reunion. I believe there are here in this city more white men who can speak the Hawaiian language than there are in all the islands of Hawaii. I am sure that there are more white people here who speak the Samoan language than there are among the white residents of Samoa, and the same is true of the other islands of the Pacific.
They do speak with new languages, my brothers and sisters, when they accept the call to go into the world to preach the gospel to all creatures.
MISSIONARY LABORS IN NEW ZEALAND
I am reminded of President McKay's beautiful tribute to youth, the confidence he has in youth. I am personally grateful for the confidence this Church had in me in my extreme youth. I was just turning seventeen when I was called to go to New Zealand as a missionary. My first appointment there was to a little place called
Judea, a wonderful place to go, for a young missionary. At the first meeting I attended in Judea, I could not understand the words that were being said, and after the meeting a sister who could speak English said to me: "Do you know what they said in there, and what they did?" I said: "I could not understand a word."
She said: "Well, you were called and sustained as the secretary of the Relief Society of the Judea Branch."
I made up my mind right there and then that the Relief Society was not going to take any liberty with my time as a missionary, without my knowing something about it; and so I determined to get the gift of the Maori language, even if I had to work for it, and I did have to work for it.
GIFT OF TONGUES
I studied eleven hours every day for several weeks. I read the Book of Mormon in Maori, and my studies were punctuated with fasting and with prayer; and on my twelfth Sunday I delivered my first sermon in the Maori language. They do speak with new tongues, those who accept the call to the ministry of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I have seen young missionaries in Samoa and in Tonga and in New Zealand and in Hawaii who, within six months time, could deliver sermons in the languages of the people among whom they were laboring-young men and women who did not have much scholastic training before they were called into the mission fields, but these young men and women, placed in the hands of God, and molded like clay in the hands of the potter, received the gifts which they had been promised.
I had a shoemaker on one occasion down in New Zealand say to me. "Oh, you Mormon missionaries think you are smart. You come out here and learn to speak the Maori language in two or three years." He said: "I was only here six weeks, and I could say "Kaore au moriorio ki te korio Maori," which means absolutely nothing in the Maori language. What he was trying to say was that he did not know how to speak the Maori language, and he did not. I saw him three or four years later, and he was still trying to say he did not know how to speak the Maori language.
I have seen our young men in Hawaii, in the Central Pacific Mission, learn to teach the gospel in Japanese.
RESULTS OF ADMINISTRATION
Brothers and sisters, with the restoration of this gospel came the reiteration of Christ's commission: "... these signs shall follow them that believe". There is no question about it in my mind. "Lay your hands upon the sick, and they shall recover". In Tonga last year there came to the mission home a couple who had been married for twenty-seven years, and they had never been blessed with children. This couple wanted to have children, and so they requested us to lay our hands upon them and bless them that they might have children. And so President Huntsman and I laid our hands upon that couple, and we blessed them. They had the gift of being healed. They had the gift of receiving these blessings.
When my wife and I visited Tonga, I think it was last May, the child had been born.
Last year I went from Tonga to Samoa. Another couple who had been married for years and had had no children came to the mission home there to be blessed that they might have this greatest of all blessings. And incidentally, brothers and sisters, the greatest calamity that can come to the home of a Polynesian is not to have children. It is such a great calamity when they do not have children that they go out and borrow their neighbor's children and rear them.
Well, we blessed this young couple, and when my wife and I were there in May, they brought the child to me to be christened and blessed, and asked that it might be given the name of my wife.
A lady came to me in the mission home suffering from what the Samoans call mu mu-or elephantiasis-her legs swollen out of all proportion. She said: "Brother Cowley, bless me and remove from me this dread disease." A month ago in Samoa she came to the mission home and she said: "Do you remember me?" I said, "Yes. You are Sister Purcell who was suffering from mu mu when I was here before." She showed me her ankles, and they were entirely normal. Then she said: "Now, I want the cataracts to drop from my eyes. Bless me now that I may receive this blessing through the priesthood of God, from God who has all power to heal."
FAITH OF POLYNESIANS
Down in New Zealand during my last mission-and incidentally I have not reported my last mission to New Zealand when I was president there. I will wait six or seven years to do that and be in line with some of you other mission presidents. But I went to a place there one day. It was during the war years. A young man brought his child, an eight-month-old child to me, and he said: President Cowley, I want you to christen our baby." I said: "It looks like quite an old child to be blessed. Why have you not brought it before?"
"Oh," he said, "I just have not gotten around to it."
So I said, "All right, what is the name?" And he told me the name, and I was just about to bless the child and he said: "While you are giving it a name, please give it its vision. It was born blind."
Just like that-just as a matter of fact! "You have the authority to give this child a name and a blessing and you have the authority to give it its vision."
I was overwhelmed. I was doubtful, but I knew that within the being of that Polynesian there was the simple faith of a child, a faith not beclouded by psychology or any of the learning of men but a simple faith in God and the promises he had made through his Son Jesus Christ. I gave that child its name, and eventually I mustered up enough courage to bless it with its vision.
President Halversen knows the little boy. I saw it a few months ago. He is now six or seven years old, running all over the place, and he can see as well as I can see this day. "Lay your hands upon the sick, and they shall recover" .
STORY OF PEARL SHELL DIVER
I would like to add a story or two here to those which have been related by Bishop Richards. Down in Tahiti where I have recently visited-and I could tell some stories about traveling on ships down there-our people down there have a seasonal occupation of pearl shell diving, and our men are the best pearl shell divers in the islands of French Oceania. Why are they the best divers? Because they keep the Word of Wisdom, and they can stay under the water longer than the others who do not. They stay under the water at a depth of ninety feet for upwards of two minutes and forty seconds. They dive to that depth and bring up the pearl shell which gives them part of their means of support for the remainder of the year until the next season approaches.
This one young Latter-day Saint placed his pearl shell on the shore in two piles, one was a large one and one a rather small one, and when the trader came around with whom he had the contract to sell his pearl shell the trader asked him about the small pile.
He said: "Is that yours?" He said: "No, that is not mine." The trader said: Where did it come from?" He said: "Oh, I dove for it." "Well, why is it not yours?"
He said: "That is God's pearl shell." "Who has the right to sell it?" He said: "I can sell it." "Well then, I will buy it."
"Yes, you may buy it, but not at the contract price. You will have to pay the market price for God's pearl shell"; because the market price had gone up since he had signed the contract.
And so he sold God's pearl shell at the market price and his own at the price for which he had contracted. And when I inquired what he would have done had the price gone down instead of up, he said: "I would not have segregated God's pearl shell. I would have left it with mine. I would always see to it that God gets the top price for his pearl shell."
How would you like to have a partner like that, brothers and sisters? When you men are dividing up your pearl shell what consideration do you give to the price which should be paid for God's pearl shell? I have a sneaking idea that if the price had changed as it did in that instance that some of us would have tried in some way to have obtained the market price rather than the contract price for our own.
HONESTY IN TITHE-PAYING
I had a little mother, and I still have her down in New Zealand. I knew her on my first mission when I was just a young boy. In those days she called me her son. When I went back to preside, she called me her father. I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Now, on one occasion I called in as I always did when I visited that vicinity, to see this grand little woman, then in her eighties, and blind. She did not live in an organized branch, had no contact with the priesthood except as the missionaries visited there. We had no missionaries in those days. They were away at war.
I went in and greeted her in the Maori fashion. She was out in her back yard by her little fire. I reached forth my hand to shake hands with her, and I was going to rub noses with her and she said: "Do not shake hands with me, Father."
I said: "Oh, that is clean dirt on your hands. I am willing to shake hands with you. I am glad to. I want to."
She said: "Not yet." Then she got on her hands and knees and crawled over to her little house. At the corner of the house there was a spade. She lifted up that spade and crawled off in another direction, measuring the distance as she went. She finally arrived at a spot and started digging down into the soil with that spade. It finally struck something hard. She took out the soil with her hands and lifted out a fruit jar. She opened that fruit jar and reached down in it, took something out and handed it to me, and it turned out to be New Zealand money. In American money it would have been equivalent to one hundred dollars.
She said: "There is my tithing. Now I can shake hands with the priesthood of God."
I said: "You do not owe that much tithing."
She said: "I know it. I do not owe it now, but I am paying some in advance, for I do not know when the priesthood of God will get around this way again."
And then I leaned over and pressed my nose and forehead against hers, and the tears from my eyes ran down her cheeks, and as I left her, I asked God in my heart to bring down upon me a curse if from that day henceforth and forever I did not return to God his pearl shell, one-tenth of all that should ever come into my hands.
I love this work, my brothers and sisters. I thank God for my missionary companions. The traveling which I do is sometimes hazardous, but I love it; I feel the protection of the Almighty God.
DIVINE PROTECTION IN TRAVELS
We left New Zealand three or four weeks ago, and I was on one of those fine clippers of the air. Two hours out of New Zealand we struck a violent storm. The first thing I realized was that we had struck something. As a matter of fact, we had been struck by lightning. The lightning had penetrated the nose of the ship, and that lightning ball bounced around the plane. How it missed the propellers, I do not know. It destroyed one stabilizer on the plane. We continued on our way. I believe from that moment until we landed at Nandi, Fiji, God was the pilot of that plane, and I was his servant, praying that we might be landed safely at our destination.
I had no fear in my heart. I know that God looks after his own.
I was on a little ship in Tahiti, a little submarine chaser of about fifty tons, a converted submarine chaser. The way that thing acted I am sure it had not been converted; not properly so. Eight days I was on that submarine chaser, and there was never a calm moment. There were a hundred and ten live pigs on the deck space, and they were closed in by crates containing chickens. I think Tahiti is the only place in the world where roosters crow all night. And then just ahead in front of these porcine quadrupeds and the fowl, were thirty-eight seasick natives.
President Mitchell and I were in a tiny cabin. That ship tossed and rolled. We never had our clothes off for six days. I had to lie on my bunk and hang on to some pipes overhead to keep from being catapulted out into whatever space there was there, and I have never heard such a symphony in my life. I will never forget it. Pigs squealing, roosters crowing, sick natives retching, and me hanging on for dear life. But I was not seasick. Never have I been seasick or plane sick or car sick or train sick. I have been sick, but it has never been caused by vehicles of transportation.
GOD OPENS THE WAY
I left Tahiti in a freight ship. I was a member of the crew of that freight ship. It was the only way I could get on the ship. I had to go to the captain and ask him if he would take me on as a passenger, and he said: "No, we are not allowed to take passengers.
I said: "May I sign on as a member of the crew?" He said: "I think that can be arranged."
And so I signed on as a member of the crew, and I went from there to New Zealand. I never did find out what my duties were on that ship as a member of the crew. I thought for a time that I might be the chaplain, but we crossed the international date line Saturday night, and when I woke up it was Monday, so Sunday was scratched right out, and I could not even perform my duties as a chaplain.
When we arrived at Samoa, I was called to the bridge of the ship. The captain said to me: "Do you know where Apia, Samoa, is?"
I said: "Yes, you are just passing it."
He had passed our port of destination so we turned back and went into Apia. From there, we went on to New Zealand, and before they started doing the heavy work of unloading the ship, I signed off as a member of the crew.
God opens up the way, brothers and sisters, for his servants to accomplish their work.
LOVE ALL PEOPLE
I see sitting before me now one or two of our good Japanese members from the Central Pacific Mission. Some of the finest Saints we have in this Church are our Japanese Saints. I think sixty-five percent of them pay a full tithing. Most of them keep the Word of Wisdom, and so our erstwhile enemies are indeed among our best Saints. As President Kirkham said, let us love all people.
I love the people of my missions with all my heart. I love my missionary companions. They are doing a great work. They are the servants of God. Way down in far-off Australia, that great commonwealth, over in New Zealand and back up into the Polynesian Islands, your sons and your daughters are those who have gone into the world in answer to the commission of our Lord and Savior.
God bless you all. I leave my testimony with you that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, and these are men of God, endowed with the power from on high to be the leaders of God's children in the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. May we sustain them as such I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, October 1948, pp. 162-168
You have listened to Elder Matthew Cowley of the Quorum of the Twelve. I was not aware when Brother Cowley was called to preside over the missions of the South Seas that he couldn't be seasick. I think he is probably the only one of the brethren that could have gone through what he went through and come back reporting as well as he has.
We are nearing the close of a delightful conference, the end of the third day, and as I stand here for just a few moments, I crave an interest in your faith and prayers that I may be able to say something that will be helpful.
BLESSINGS OF CONFERENCE
I am sure if nothing more were said, this great congregation could go back to their homes and truthfully say, "We waited upon the Lord, and we were not disappointed." The influence in this house and in the adjoining properties where people are at worship at this hour is such that with all my heart I feel to express my gratitude to the Lord that he has heard and answered the prayers that have been offered and that he has fed us the bread of life.
This congregation is made up of members from many parts of the world. When conference adjourns, no doubt you will return to your homes. I would like to take this opportunity to caution you that if you are driving on the highways that you be as careful as possible, and if you are walking on the streets of Salt Lake City that you likewise be careful.
The Lord has blessed us thus far, and I trust that as we finish our conference and go to our various fields of labor, we may know that his preserving hand has been over us, and when we go to our homes, we may bow in thanksgiving and gratitude to him for his many blessings.
Do you realize, my brethren and sisters, that you are only a small speck in the great universe of the population of this world-so few in number that by comparison we are insignificant? However, you will find no other place in the world this day where there will be a congregation so large as this congregation, most of whom can testify that they know that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ, and that we are his children. That is a marvelous blessing when we contemplate the predicament that many countries are in at the present time while here we are at peace; here we are enjoying the companionship of one another, different nationalities and the descendants of those nationalities meeting here as sons and daughters of the Living God. Surely not anything else that we can think of in the way of a blessing would take the place of the assurance we enjoy.
THE GIFT OF LANGUAGE
It has been my privilege to travel in many parts of the world. I, too, was down in New Zealand where Elder Cowley filled his first mission, and I witnessed the affection those people have for him. I remember one experience. Elder Cowley had not been there for twenty years, and yet the first meeting that we attended at their huitau, he talked fluently to the people in their own language. There was present an educated Irishman who was the secretary of the Princess Tepueeta. When the meeting was over, he took me off to one side and said:
"How do you account for this? That man hasn't been down here for all these years. I've been here for three years trying to learn this language, and he stands there and talks better than the natives talk in their own tongue."
The Lord does bless us, and I am glad to have Elder Cowley call attention to the fact that many of our missionaries need to acquire the languages of the natives in the countries where they are called to labor. The native people prefer to hear the gospel in their own tongue. I hope we will not neglect our opportunities to become proficient in speaking the languages of the peoples among whom we do missionary work. I hope we will give the Lord a chance to help us learn to speak the tongue of the people to whom we have been sent as servants of the living God.
BLESSING OF ETERNAL LIFE
If you were to take from the world today the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Book of Mormon and the D&C; were wiped out, we would have a world without any hope of eternal life in the celestial kingdom. The people of the world wouldn't even know what it means. I don't say that disparagingly, but I am trying to say it so we will appreciate the blessings that the Lord has given to us. We not only have the Holy Bible, that great volume of scripture that the Lord has preserved all these centuries and handed down from generation to generation so that his children could know about him and his desires for us, but we also have these other great books. And yet the larger proportion of the population of this world do not now know the contents of the Bible. Most of those who have read it and are familiar more or less with its text do not know after all these years how to interpret it. The Lord has given to us the power to interpret it. He gave to the Prophet Joseph Smith the privilege of retranslating it, if I may use that term.
LATTER-DAY SCRIPTURES
I hold in my hand the American volume of scripture called the Book of Mormon, containing approximately five hundred pages translated from gold plates. We have all that the world has, the scripture that came from the old world, but we have the scripture of the new world which is the Book of Mormon added to that; and then, in addition, I hold in my hand another book of approximately three hundred pages containing the revelations of our Heavenly Father given in these latter-days. We also have the Pearl of Great Price containing other information that the Lord has revealed, including in it the Book of Abraham translated from papyri found buried with mummies in the catacombs of Egypt, and the Book of Moses, revealed by the power of God to the Prophet Joseph Smith. This also constitutes part of the scripture we possess. These latter scriptures assist the reader to understand the Holy Bible. There is the greatest library to be found in all the world. There isn't anything else like it. What does it contain? It contains what your Father and mine has thought of enough importance to preserve and give to the children of men and make accessible in many languages of the World. These scriptures are all important and should be understood by the Latter-day Saints. I am not going to ask you to hold up your hands to ascertain how many here assembled have ever read these books, but I desire to call your attention to the fact that these are precious truths, and they contain the revealed word of the Lord printed and published to the world for the purpose of preparing his children for a place in the celestial kingdom. That is why I say they are so valuable. Other books contain copies, extracts, from some of these books, but these are the originals as far as the Lord is concerned, and he has given them to us. How thankful we ought to be that we live in a day and age when we can read his advice and counsel and have things explained that otherwise might be obscure and uncertain to us.
IMPORTANCE OF REVEALED WORD OF GOD
I am not concerned whether or not you have the books of the great libraries of the world in your home, provided you do have these books. Think of the millions of volumes that there are in our own Congressional Library at Washington, in the British Library, and in the libraries of other countries, millions of volumes-and yet all that God has revealed and published to the children of men that is necessary to prepare them for a place in the celestial kingdom is contained within the covers of these sacred books. How many of us know what they contain? I frequently go into homes where I see all the latest magazines. I find the books that are advertised as best sellers on the bookshelves. If you were to throw them all away and retain only these sacred scriptures, you wouldn't lose what the Lord has caused to be written and made available for us all to enjoy. So, brethren and sisters, among our other blessings let us not forget that the Lord has made it possible for us to have, enjoy, and understand the scriptures and to have his word that has been given down through the ages for the salvation of his children.
Our missionaries are out in the world today trying to explain these things to the learned and other men of the world, and there are many learned men who have access to all of these books who do not believe in God, who do not know that we are living eternal lives, but have an idea that when we die that is the end of everything. Yet in the comparatively small organization known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there are thousands of men and women and some children who know that we are the children of our Heavenly Father, that we are here and now living eternal lives, that the gospel, the power of God unto salvation to all those who will believe and obey, is on the earth.
Surely we ought to be grateful for our blessings. Brethren and sisters, keep this library where you can find it, and where your children will find it, and then have enough interest in the eternal salvation of those boys and girls that are in your home that you will find ways and means to interest them in what these books contain, that they may know how precious they are in the sight of their Heavenly Father.
ASSURANCE OF ETERNAL LIFE
We have been taught during this conference, among other things, the importance of family prayers, of asking a blessing upon the food, of the importance and sacredness of eternal wedlock. We have been taught the necessity and desirability of honoring the Sabbath day to keep it holy, and so I might go on through the advice and counsel that the Lord has given. Today we are seated in a house that the Lord provided for us that we might come together and consider all these blessings under the influence of his spirit. I fear sometimes that we pay little attention to the seriousness of this life, and that we take it too much for granted until it is too late. I remember being on a train one day with a man who was born and reared in the Church. We were returning from California, and I made myself known to him. As we visited, I talked to him about the gospel of Jesus Christ. He told me that his people were members of the Church, but he didn't understand anything about it. And he said as we discussed the principles of the gospel, "These things interest me." We visited quite a long time, and when we finished, that good man, I believe he was a good man, said to me, "I would give all that I possess to have the assurance that you have of eternal life." I said, "My brother, you don't have to give all that you possess to have that assurance. All you have to do is to search the scriptures prayerfully. Go where they may be explained to you. Seek the truth, and the beauty of the truth will appeal to you, and perhaps without much of an effort on your part, and I am sure without giving away all your property, you can know as I know that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of the Living God, and that we are living eternal lives."
TEACHING OF GOSPEL PRINCIPLES
Don't let your children grow up without teaching them the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Don't wait to send them into the mission field to learn what the gospel means. I remember when I was in the South fifty-five or sixty years ago, a man who came from a large family said, "I don't know what to say. I don't know what to tell these people."
"Why," one of the brethren said, "teach them the Bible. Go and get your Bible and read Genesis." He said, "I don't know where Genesis is in the Bible," and yet he had gone from a Latter-day Saint community, and from a Latter-day Saint home to carry the message of life and salvation to those people in the South. However, it was not very long after that until his mind was changed. He had received a testimony of the truth through study and prayer, and he knew that the gospel was here, and he was able to stand on his feet and freely bear testimony that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the truth.
Now, fathers and mothers, appreciate your children. Don't turn them over to somebody else to train and educate in regard to matters of eternal life. That is your privilege, and it is a privilege. Teach them to pray and walk uprightly before the Lord, and then in time of need they can go to him, and he will answer their prayers. It will be astonishing to you the great happiness that will come into your home that you theretofore have not enjoyed, if you will follow this counsel.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation in the celestial kingdom to all those who will believe and obey it. There are some who seem to have the idea that if they believe it and their names are on the records that is sufficient, but that isn't sufficient. Don't let them go on in that blind thoughtlessness. Reach out after those who are in the Church and those who are out of it, and seek in every way to share the blessings of the gospel of our Lord with them, his children. That is what we are expected to do. Freely we have received, and freely we should give. When we return to our various places of abode, let our homes from now on be sanctified by prayer and with gratitude and thanksgiving, so that those who come there might feel the influence and the Spirit of the Lord and be prepared to bear testimony of the truth of he gospel of our Lord.
NAME OF THE CHURCH
This is our Father's Church. He gave it its name. Only today a good sister handed me a paper, something that she herself had prepared. Among the things that were written there was her testimony of the true name of this Church, the Church of Jesus Christ. She wanted to know why we don't pay attention to what the Lord has said about its name. We sometimes call ourselves Mormons, not members of the Church of Jesus Christ, and she wanted to know why. "Why," she says, "the Lord has made it just as plain as can be what his Church should be called. He called it by the name of his Son, Jesus Christ." In another place he said that if it was the church of some other man it would bear his name, the name of the other man. She wrote it out in her own thoughtful, simple way. And so, brethren and sisters, when you go away from here, you may be associating with various denominations of the world, but remember that there is only one Church in all the world that by divine command bears the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. I am sure we will show our appreciation of that great and wonderful name by respecting it, and not be found calling ourselves Mormons as the world nicknames us. The name Mormon to many people in the world means anything but the gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact they do not know what it means. I congratulate you as members of the Church, that you belong to the Church of Jesus Christ; live in the age when his Church has been organized and has been given his name. If we are faithful and devoted to the end of our lives, when we go to the other side we will find we shall not belong to some other Church such as the Church of St. John or St. Peter or St. Paul or Mormon, or that of any of the Apostles or great men who have lived upon the earth, but we will find that we belong to the Church of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Let us remember that, and let us respect it, brethren and sisters, and not be careless about it.
PRAYER AND BLESSING
Now, in conclusion, I pray that the blessings of our Heavenly Father may be in our lives, in our hearts, and in our homes, that each of us may go from here with a renewed determination that we will be worthy of the great honor that has come to us of being members of this great organization, grateful for all of our blessings, and for this wonderful house we worship in, this great choir that sings for us and has sung so many years for the world, and grateful for the privilege of associating together in our wards and branches in the Church under the influence of the spirit of the Lord.
I pray that the love of the gospel of our Lord will burn in our souls and enrich our lives, that it will cause husbands to be kinder to wives, and wives to be kinder to husbands, parents to children, and children to parents because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is a gospel of love and kindness. It will cause us, if we are living as we should, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and go out of our way, if possible, to help them understand better the purpose of life. These are some of our privileges.
Now, I pray that the blessings of the Lord may be with you, and as far as I have power and the authority of the priesthood I bless you, my brethren and sisters, that the power of the Lord may be and go with you, and that his peace and his love may abide with you, and that you will so live that you will be worthy of these blessings as long as you live upon the earth, and I do it in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Elder Ezra Taft Benson
Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 194-199
Americans, from the very inception of our nation, have been lovers of home. It has been our primary educational institution and the center of economic, social, and cultural interest. Our homes have been the bulwark of the nation and the most fundamental institution of society. What fond memories and emotions have surged up in our hearts at the mere mention of home, family, parents, children, brothers, and sisters! Some of the sweetest, most soul-satisfying impressions and experiences of life are associated with home and family ties.
THE AMERICAN HOME
But all is not well with this most basic institution, the American home. In fact, it is in grave danger, if not in deadly peril. There is convincing evidence that a creeping rot of moral disintegration is eating into the very vitals of this temple of American civilization. It gives cause for serious concern.
Marriage, the home, and family are sacred institutions. They are not man-made, but have been established by a kind Providence for the blessing of his children. In the record of that first marriage recorded in Genesis, the Lord makes four significant pronouncements: first, that it is not good for man to be alone; second, that woman was created to be a help meet for man; third, that they twain should be one flesh; and fourth, that man should leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife.
Later, as though to re-enforce the earlier statement, the Lord said:
... What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder;
also
Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else.
Children are likewise counseled in holy writ in their duty to parents. Paul the Apostle wrote:
Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
Honour thy father and mother;,
That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS
Regarding the divinely appointed responsibility of parents, the sobering counsel is given that
... they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord... And... inasmuch as parents... teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ, the Son of the living God... and the gift of the Holy Ghost... the sin be upon the heads of the parents.
These and other similar scriptures make crystal clear the divine origin of marriage, the home, and family, the heaven-imposed responsibilities resting upon the parents and the penalties imposed when laws governing these hallowed institutions are disregarded.
History reveals that the early pioneers of America recognized and honored these obligations. They were blessed in their homes and families for so doing. Does our record today merit like blessings? If we fail to accept these obligations and to keep the American home morally and spiritually sound, the very future of the nation will be in jeopardy The choice is ours as parents and citizens.
WEAKENING INFLUENCES
The facts are not reassuring as we soberly appraise them. Far-reaching changes, resulting from industrialization, concentration of populations, commercialization of recreation, and other activities once performed in the home, all tend to lead away from home associations.
Accompanying these changes, and in some measure resulting from them, has been a marked increase in pleasure seeking; the mad rush for money and other material things; the unwarranted indulgence of personal gratifications; the insidious inroads of tobacco, liquor, gambling, and many other tendencies in our complex modern civilization. All these have exerted a pulling power away from the home and have weakened its structure.
There seems to be a tendency for many married people to become soft and to seek a life filled with ease and the pleasures of the moment They invite the pleasure of conjugality but often refuse to shoulder the responsibility of parenthood. Reliable reports indicate that approximately forty percent of the married women have no children whatever or only one child.
DIVORCE RECORD
The divorce record continues upward at an alarming rate. Fifty years ago there was a ratio of one divorce to every sixteen marriages; by 1946, one to every three. In some American cities divorces nearly equal marriages. Reports show that two-thirds of those seeking divorces have no children.
Frequently in homes where no formal divorce has occurred, there is unhappiness due to infidelity and lack of harmony and filial affection. It is largely from such broken, bad, and neglected homes that our youthful delinquents come. According to J. Edgar Hoover, director of the F.B.I., "The actions of the majority of them were-and are-directly related to the conduct of their parents." Yes, crime begins at home.
In view of these and other well-known but distressing facts, what should be done? Can we safeguard the home and stabilize family life? Can the deterioration in home life be checked and corrected? If not, what is our future?
No nation can rise above its homes. The church, the school, and even the nation, stand helpless before a weakened and degraded home, in building character. The good home is the rock foundation-the cornerstone of civilization. If this, our nation, is to endure, the home must be safeguarded, strengthened, and restored to its rightful importance.
UNCHASTITY
To do so, we must start with youth-our boys and girls. They must know that the foundation of a happy home is laid during pre-marital days. Their relationships should be on a happy but high plane. There is grave danger in loose and promiscuous relations of young people. The harmful effects of unseemly familiarities are carried over into married life and tend to weaken the structure of the home. Unchastity is the most damning of all evils, while moral purity is one of the greatest bulwarks of successful homemaking. Happy and successful homes cannot be built on immorality.
May I, as a member of a large family of children and a grateful father of six, say to the young men and women of America, keep the fountains of life pure. Guard your virtue as you would your lives. Reserve for the marriage relationship the sweet and soul-satisfying intimacies of life. The God of heaven, who instituted the marriage covenant, so intended. He has commanded purity of life and a single standard for men and women. If you fail as young people properly to restrain yourselves, you will pay the penalty in heartache, disappointment, and loss of self-respect. Do not reach out too eagerly for the excitements and thrills of life or they will turn to ashes in your hands. They will come in their own due time in the sacred bonds of marriage. Youthful sweethearts, be true to God's holy laws. Remember, they cannot be broken with impunity. If you would be happy and successful in your early association, courtship, and homebuilding, conform your lives to the eternal laws of heaven. There is no other way.
IMPORTANCE OF EXAMPLE
As parents, what is our attitude regarding the sacred obligations of parenthood? One of the two major purposes of marriage is children. "Multiply and replenish the earth" was among the earliest commandments given of the Lord. Nations which refuse to accept this God-given obligation, sink into oblivion. Will our sons and daughters want children because of our attitude and example?
Marriage, designed to be an eternal covenant, is the most glorious and most exalting principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ. No ordinance is of more importance and none more sacred and more necessary to the eternal joy of man. Faithfulness to the marriage covenant brings the fullest joy here and glorious rewards hereafter. The abuse of this sacred ordinance despoils the lives of individuals, wrecks the basic institution of the home, and causes the downfall of nations.
The future homes of America will be fortified as parents uphold the Christian virtues before their children. If parents love and respect each other, and if in their sacred partnership there are full support and unquestioned fidelity, these essentials will be translated into the homes of tomorrow. Conversely, if there are bickering, quarreling, and lack of harmony at home, and participation in the dangerous practice of flirtations with others when away, then the homes of tomorrow will be weakened thereby.
Parenthood carries with it peculiar responsibilities. If these are accepted without quibbling, while enthroning motherhood as the highest calling of women, our children-the parents of tomorrow-will be properly impressed and encouraged in the establishment of like homes.
FAMILY PRAYER
The homes of America need also the blessings which come from daily communion with God. Devotion in the home, which has been such an anchor to youth and parents alike, has all but vanished. A few generations ago it was a common practice. Then families knelt together in prayer; the scriptures were read aloud; and households joined in the singing of church hymns. This practice, if revived, would contribute much to the strength of the home and the nation. The differences and irritations of the day melt away as families approach the throne of heaven together. Unity increases. The ties of love and affection are re-enforced and the peace of heaven enters.
In such homes secret prayers are said night and morning by members of the household. Individual and family problems are approached with confidence after invoking the favor of heaven. Young people participating in such a family devotional have hearts freed from evil intent as they leave for an evening of entertainment. These will be the restraining influence in the group when gilded temptations arise. Parents who surround their children with the refining influence of daily devotion are making their contribution to the safeguarding of the American home.
MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING
America's homes need, also, the stabilizing influence of a closer relationship between parents and children. Every boy and girl needs the safeguard which an intimate association with mother or father will provide. The failure of parents and children to understand each other weakens the framework of the home. This relationship must be built upon love and mutual confidence. Then when the problems of life arise, father and mother will be the first sought for counsel. Herein is safety.
Such an atmosphere can be created as parents plan for recreation and diversion together with their children. An evening at home in wholesome activity; a picnic in the mountains or nearby park; or a project for fathers and sons and mothers and daughters-these will all tend to increase filial affection and love in the home, and strengthen parent-children relations. Time thus spent yields big dividends. Love at home and obedience to parents increase as the bonds of home are made secure.
Parents in this close association have no difficulty teaching virtue, honesty, industry, the principles basic to our American way of life and the dangers of foreign philosophies and ideologies. Effective parental guidance-the greatest need of the home-is here provided to the profit of the individual, the home, the community, and the nation.
PRESERVATION OF HOMES
Herein, then, lies our path of safety. Our homes must become bulwarks of strength through enthroning righteousness and bringing into them the peace, unity, and unselfishness engendered by personal purity, unquestioned fidelity, and simple family devotion. Parents must accept marriage as a divine institution, and honor parenthood. Children must be inspired by precept and example in preparation for marriage, to guard against unchastity as against a loathsome disease, and to practice the other fundamental Christian virtues. Love and mutual confidence must be safeguarded to strengthen parent-children relationships. Home must become the abiding place of the Spirit of God because the pure in heart dwell therein.
Yes, America's homes, if this great nation is to endure, must be fortified and preserved. They must be morally and spiritually sound. There can be no satisfactory substitute for the home. Its foundation is as ancient as the world. Its mission has been God-ordained.
May God grant that the builders of American homes may have the courage and wisdom to fulfil faithfully their divine obligations, to inspire young people with a conviction of the importance of these God-ordained institutions of marriage, the home, and family, that the marriages of our boys and girls may be consummated under a spiritual influence in the presence of friends and loved ones, thereby laying a safe foundation for their homes of tomorrow.
And so today, in this the greatest of all nations, in this land choice above all others, we pay humble tribute to the home, for a modern prophet declares,
... that someday the divinely ordained home is to be the very foundation of the kingdom of God.
May a kind Providence bless the homes of America, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 6-10
You look mighty good to me. I wonder if any of you are as happy as I am, to be at this conference. I started praying about two and a half months ago that I might be here, and I am grateful to the Lord that he has heard not only my prayers, but also your prayers, and I take this occasion to thank every one of you for the interest you have had in me and for the kind words that have been written, and the prayers that have been offered.
GRATITUDE FOR RETURN
I would like at this time to thank all those who, out of the kindness of their hearts, have sent cards of greeting and letters of encouragement. It isn't possible for me to answer them all, but I am sure that those who have sent them will receive comfort because of what they have done.
I have just come back from California. We have a large congregation of people there and particularly in the place where I have just been, the Los Angeles area. It is remarkable how many kind people there are there, people who are not members of the Church, but who are interested in what we are seeking to do.
LOS ANGELES TEMPLE
My visit to California this time was in the interest of building another temple. There are many people down there who didn't know what it meant. They thought it was just another meetinghouse. They didn't realize that while a meetinghouse serves a small community, a temple serves a larger community for a different purpose. We were anxious to have everything adjusted so everybody would be happy.
May I say that we have received excellent cooperation from people who are down there. Our own brethren who live there have made such a fine record that, when they visited individuals in regard to the matter, they have been received with consideration and kindness, and I want to take this occasion to thank them, particularly, Brother Preston D. Richards, who spent so much of his time doing the thing that I went down to do and visiting those who would be of importance in helping us to make our adjustments.
The word comes from the missionary field that the Lord has opened our way in numerous places. It is marvelous what a change there has been in many cases. The magazines and newspapers of the world are going out of their way now to be complimentary to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They sometimes don't understand the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but they have discovered that we have some of the best basketball players in all the world. And that draws us a little nearer. The great Choir and Organ advertise us in the world, and it's a joy to many who are away to listen in to this great Choir.
MET TO WORSHIP
We are met here this morning not just to talk and visit. We have come together to worship in the most earnest manner. We are here in the Lord's house to wait upon him. Many of you have come thousands of miles just to be present. If each of us today is here to worship, if we have come for that purpose and will exercise our faith, the Lord will not fail us, and we will conclude this conference feeling that he has blessed us marvelously.
I wish that many more of our people could be present on an occasion of this kind. Our house is not large enough. Even now we have to begin to think of a larger place for our general conferences, but today we are thankful to him who gave us this house and these surroundings.
We are thankful to him who is the Author of our being, and grateful that he came down to earth and brought with him his Beloved Son to begin a new dispensation-the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. This is not the Church of Joseph Smith or of any other leader who followed him. This is the Church of Jesus Christ, and it was our Heavenly Father who gave it its name.
PRIVILEGE OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP
I wonder sometimes if we realize what an honor it is to have membership in this great organization. Even in our business affairs and in our social affairs we should carry with us the feeling, "I am a part of the work of the Lord, and I desire to be worthy of the blessings that have come to me." There has never been a time in the history of the world when the opportunity of disseminating the truth has been so great as now.
In our own land people are glad to hear our missionaries, pleased to learn something more of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some people have worshiped the sun; some have worshiped other luminaries; and some have worshiped mountains and other things, with the thought that it was worship. But the worship in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a devoted life, a desire to be worthy of him in whose image we have been created and who has given us all that the world has that is worthwhile-the gospel of Jesus Christ.
CONTRIBUTION OF SCHOOLS
When I think of the fine development that is being made in our schools, I am grateful. I refer particularly to the Church schools. There are many teachers in the public schools who have done their best to teach our sons and daughters concerning correct principles. But there are many people identified with the education of the youth of this great land who do not have any faith in God.
We are fortunate to have so many who not only have the education that comes from the universities, not only have the benefits that are derived from science, but in addition to that, also have a testimony that God lives and that we are his children. It hasn't been very long since I saw a letter written by an educated man who concluded his letter with a suggestion that all religion was a myth. All of it! And yet that man has a position teaching the children of the Latter-day Saints.
OBLIGATION OF PARENTS
Brothers and sisters, we must depend not only upon the institutions of learning, but also we must follow the admonition of our Heavenly Father when he says that it is our duty to teach our children when eight years of age, faith in God, repentance, and baptism.
He refers there to parents. He doesn't turn that over to school teachers. If parents in Zion or any of her stakes which are organized fail to teach their children these things when eight years of age-not waiting until they're grown-but when they are eight years of age, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.
And, my, how grateful I am, that there are so many of the members of this Church who believe that, and who prize the children who have come into their homes, and devote themselves to teaching them.
EXAMPLE OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
When I observe as I travel and as I mingle among the people at home and abroad, the character of the Latter-day Saints, the fine example that they set, the manner in which they live, I wonder sometimes if we appreciate that our boys and girls are among the greatest missionaries that this Church has-if they have been properly taught. They love to share the gospel with others when they understand it, and they desire to understand it. We have just had a great conference here of the Primary Association of this Church. I was unable to be present with them in this house, but I understand it was filled with those who work with the young people, as well as some of the young folk themselves. Nobody will ever realize the great worth of the Primary Association unless he familiarizes himself with what it has done in this Church through the fine leadership of God-fearing women.
These organizations add to what we should teach in our homes other things that our children should know and inspire in them a desire to do what the Lord would have them do.
Brethren and sisters, it is a joy to be here. I thank my Heavenly Father for this privilege. I am grateful for your companionship, and I would like to cooperate with you, from this time forth, realizing that we have special blessings from our Heavenly Father, and that if we will be unselfish with those blessings and share them with those who do not understand and who do not enjoy what we appreciate, great will be our joy.
MISSIONARY EFFORTS
This is the Church of Jesus Christ. Millions of our Father's children do not know anything about it, but they are his children just the same, and he expects us to do our very best. Since the close of the war, we have had as many as five thousand missionaries in the world. Many of them have done wonderful work. They have found the hearts of people softened and ready to hear the message.
Many of our missions have used the singers in their groups, and they have held concerts among the people where they could sing the gospel as well as teach it by other means. Many of you brethren and sisters are in charge of institutions of learning and are teachers of these young people. I pray that not only may you have the joy of feeling that your intellectual opportunities have been better than many, but also that you may draw near enough to the Lord that you will feel his presence and the inspiration of his spirit while you teach the most precious of all his gifts to man, the sons and daughters who come into our homes. I feel to bless these men and women who are giving their time in the mission field and in the schools and among the auxiliary organizations outside of their regular ordinary work of life. I feel like blessing them and asking God to bless them for their faithfulness. LOVE FOR NEIGHBOR
This is the Lord's house. We are his guests today. It is he who made it possible for us to be here, and now, while we are assembled together and while we are mingled during the conference, let us evidence by our conduct, by our gentleness, by our love, by our faith, that we do keep that great commandment that the Savior said was like unto the first great commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself".
I can say to you, my brethren and sisters, the happiest people in this world are those who love their neighbors as themselves and manifest their appreciation of God's blessings by their conduct in life. May the Lord add his blessing, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 10-17
Choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Sensing keenly, brethren and sisters, the responsibility of this moment, facing this vast audience, seen and unseen, I ask for your sympathetic attitude and for your prayers.
I was just thinking how quickly time has passed since we met six months ago under similar circumstances. We could very appropriately sing this morning that old hymn now eliminated from our hymn books "... how swift the months have passed away; 'tis conference again, and Zion's untold thousands come to sing the joyful strain."
PROGRESS OF THE CHURCH
With you I rejoice in the presence of President Smith at this conference. I am grateful with you for the progress of the Church. Its growth in the organized stakes and in the missions is most satisfactory. As President Smith has already indicated, among thinking men and women throughout the world, the purposes of the Church are now better understood with the resultant lessening of prejudice. Its means are more adequate for the promulgation throughout the world of the restored gospel of peace and love and universal brotherhood.
But the enemy is active also. He is cunning and wily and seeks every opportunity to undermine the foundations of this Church and strikes wherever it is possible to weaken or to destroy.
A WISE CHOICE
The scripture I read by way of introduction you will recognize as the avowed and unalterable resolution of Joshua whose nobility of character and outstanding leadership won for him the title "the servant of the Lord". Just before his death he called upon Israel "to put away the strange gods" that were among them, and to be faithful and obedient to the God of Israel. The people in Joshua's day evidently made a wise choice, for, we are told, that Israel
... served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua....
To every normal person God has given "the freedom of choice." Our moral and spiritual progress depends upon the use we make of that freedom.
THE REAL TEST
The real test of any church or religion is the kind of men it makes. I am very happy and deeply grateful for the high type of young manhood and womanhood being reared in the Church as indicated recently by a report of 6,556 prospective missionaries in their medical examination including serological tests preparatory to their going on missions.
In 1946 there were 2,263 so examined. In 1947, 2,134; likewise in 1948, 2,159, or a total, as I say, of 6,556, 6,554 showed negative tests; only one in 1946 and one in 1947 were positive-one in more than three thousand.
FALSE IDEALS
But as I said, there are other reports which are more disquieting-reports of the influence of false ideals. I think it is what Joshua had in mind, in a way, when he spoke about false gods. False ideals, if accepted, are even more destructive of spirituality than was the worship of the Amorite gods.
These reports pertain to wild parties held by young people in the Church, of objectionable, not to say lewd clubs, organized among a certain group; of actions of girls whose parents permit them to come to the city unchaperoned to attend sport contests. Such reports lead us to believe that not a few parents and some of our young people need to be warned against enticing evil practices, indulgences in which end only in disillusionment and sorrow.
There can be little doubt that war and materialistic science have had a deadening effect upon the moral sensibilities of too many of our youth. One critic goes so far as to say: "Self interest alone remains as a motive, and pleasure as the sole end of life."
I commend President Richard L. Evans in his excellent sermon over the air this morning about choosing the wrong way in seeking happiness.
It is the duty of parents and of the Church not only to teach but also to demonstrate to young people that living a life of truth and moral purity brings joy and happiness, while violations of moral and social laws result only in dissatisfaction, sorrow, and, when carried to extreme, in degradation.
AN OLD STORY
There is an old story, which I think many of you read in a recent magazine, which told of the experience of a great artist who was engaged to paint a mural for the cathedral in a Sicilian town. The subject was the life of Christ. For many years the artist labored diligently, and finally the painting was finished except for the two most important figures, the Christ Child and Judas Iscariot. He searched far and wide for models for those two figures.
One day while walking in an old part of the city he came upon some children playing in the street. Among them was a twelve year old boy whose face stirred the painter's heart. It was the face of an angel-a very dirty one, perhaps, but the face he needed.
The artist took the child home with him, and day after day the boy sat patiently until the face of the Christ Child was finished.
But the painter failed to find a model for Judas. For years, haunted by the fear that his masterpiece would remain unfinished, he continued his search.
One afternoon, in a tavern, the painter say a gaunt and tattered figure stagger across the threshold and fall to the floor, begging for a glass of wine. The painter lifted him up and looked into a face that startled him. It seemed to bear the marks of every sin of mankind.
"Come with me," the painter said, "I will give you wine, food, and clothing."
Here at last was his model for Judas. For many days and parts of many nights the painter worked feverishly to complete his masterpiece.
As the work went on, a change came over the model. A strange tension replaced the stuporous languor, and his bloodshot eyes were fixed with horror on the painted likeness of himself. One day, perceiving his subject's agitation, the painter paused in his work, saying, "My son, I'd like to help you. What troubles you so?"
The model sobbed and buried his face in his hands. After a long moment he lifted pleading eyes to the old painter's face.
"Do you not then remember me? Years ago I was your model for the Christ Child!"
Well, the story may be fact or fiction, but the lesson it teaches is true to life.
The dissipated man made a wrong choice in his youth, and in seeking gratification in indulgence sank ever lower and lower until he wallowed in the gutter.
Brothers and sisters, only recently I met this unfortunate man's counterpart-a man with bleary eyes and dissipated features whom I knew years ago as a brilliant, open-countenanced youth with a promising future.
DUAL NATURE OF MAN
Man has a dual nature; one, related to the earthly or animal life; the other, akin to the divine. Whether a man remains satisfied within what we designate the animal world, satisfied with what the animal world will give him, yielding without effort to the whim of his appetites and passions and slipping farther and farther into the realm of indulgence, or whether, through self-mastery, he rises toward intellectual, moral, and spiritual enjoyments depends upon the kind of choice he makes every day, nay, every hour of his life.
"Man has two creators," says William George Jordan, "his God and himself. This first creator furnishes him the raw material of his life-the laws in conformity with which he can make that life what he will. The second creator-himself-has marvelous powers he powers he rarely realizes. It is what a man makes of himself that counts."
THE STRAIT GATE
We need not shut our eyes to the fact that too many of our young folk respond to the call of the physical, because it seems the easy and natural thing to do. Too many are vainly seeking shortcuts to happiness. It should always be kept in mind that that which is most worthwhile in life requires strenuous effort.
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
As in the days of old, so there are today some who prefer to revel in what I have heard President George Albert Smith designate as "the devil's territory" rather than to strive for the higher and better things of life. Persons who condemn their will to the service of their appetites, suffer the penalties. In the words of Charles Wagner:
Let your needs rule you, pamper them-you will see them multiply like insects in the sun. The more you give them, the more they demand. He is senseless who seeks for happiness in material prosperity alone.
THE BASER SIDE
It is said that one Roman emperor offered a reward to anybody who would invent a new pleasure. Nero set Rome on fire for the mere pleasure of a new form of diversion. Rome fell because of extravagance, luxury, and dissipation. In personal, as in national life, these are unfailing signs of decline and decay. Truly,
... he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
In their yearning for a good time, young people are often tempted to indulge in the things which appeal only to the baser side of humanity, five of the most common of which are: First, vulgarity and obscenity; second, drinking and petting parties; third, unchastity; fourth, disloyalty; and fifth, irreverence.
VULGARITY
Vulgarity is often the first step down the road to indulgence. To be vulgar is to give offense to good taste or refined feelings. A young man who would tell a vulgar joke in the presence of ladies discloses a nature leaning towards that which is low and coarse. A girl who would encourage it and laugh at it is taking a step toward that which is crude and unrefined.
Most of you have read David Starr Jordan's denunciation of this vice. He concludes it by saying:
We find the corrosion of vulgarity everywhere, and its poison enters every home. The billboards of our cities are covered with its evidence; our newspapers are redolent with it; our story books reek with it; our schools are tainted by it; and we cannot keep it out of our homes, or our churches, or our colleges.
It is only a step from vulgarity to obscenity. The executive secretary of a committee appointed to curtail the distribution of obscene literature put on my desk only recently a most vile plaque, covertly cast reportedly here in our city, and sold to our young people at a nominal price. The best way to rid society of such baseness is for parents, businessmen, and especially every decent young person, to refuse to tolerate it and to report the vendors to the officers of the law.
DRINKING AND PETTING PARTIES
It is right, indeed essential, to the happiness of our young people that they meet in social parties, but it is an indication of low morals when for entertainment they must resort to physical stimulation and debasement. Such indulgence weakens your character; discredits your family name; robs your future wife or husband of a priceless treasure, and sows seed that may ripen into bitter fruit of marital suspicion, unhappiness, and divorce. A girl who sacrifices self-respect for social popularity debases true womanhood.
A spotless character, founded upon the ability to say no in the presence of those who mock and jeer, wins the respect and love of men and women whose opinion is most worthwhile. Drinking and petting parties form an environment in which the moral sense becomes dulled, and unbridled passion holds sway. It then becomes easy to take the final step downward in moral disgrace.
CHASTITY
The test of true womanhood comes when woman stands innocent at the court of chastity. All qualities are crowned by this most precious virtue of beautiful womanhood. It is the most vital part of the foundation of a happy married life. There is a general idea throughout the world that young men may sow their wild oats, but that young women should be chaperoned and guarded. But even in this matter of chaperonage, there is too much laxity on the part of parents, if recent reports are to be relied upon.
In the Church of Jesus Christ there is but one standard of morality. No young man has any more right to sow his wild oats in youth than has a young girl. He who comes to his bishop to ask for a recommend to take a pure girl to the altar is expected to give the same purity that he hopes to receive.
A woman crowned with virtue is the "highest, holiest, most precious gift to man," excepting only salvation offered in the gospel, and that forms part of it. But a woman who barters her virtue "is not one of the least of man's shames."
DISLOYALTY
When, instead of high moral principles, a life of immoral indulgence is chosen, and man or woman gets far down in the scale of degeneracy, disloyalty is an inevitable part of his or her nature. Loyalty to parents becomes quenched; obedience to their teachings and ideals abandoned; loyalty to wife and children smothered in base gratification; loyalty to Church impossible, and is often supplanted by sneers at its teachings, and that means the perpetrator is "left to himself to kick against the pricks and to fight against God".
At this stage, irreverence is an inevitable consequence, a pretty sure sign of moral weakness. No man will rise high who jeers at sacred things. It is said that when Mr. Melville D. Landon was preparing his volume on Kings of the Platform and Pulpit, he wrote to Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll for a copy of his most famous lecture. In a letter which accompanied the manuscript, Mr. Ingersoll said:
Whatever you do, do not put anything into the book against Christ. I may have said silly things about him when a boy in Peoria, Illinois, but I now regard him as the one Perfect Man.
IMPORTANCE OF SPIRITUALITY
I said in the beginning that man is a dual being-a physical and spiritual entity, but his spiritual side is the all-important part. The real tragedy of following false ideals is that by so doing we stifle and sometimes choke out spirituality completely. Rudolph Eucken truly asserts that without a consciousness of a spiritual relation to the Infinite-note this-that without a consciousness of a spiritual relation
No true civilization is possible. A civilization declining all contact with a supernatural life and refusing to establish those mysterious inner relations, gradually degenerates into a mere human civilization, and becomes a parody of civilization.
The body with its five or more senses, with its appetites and passions, is essential to life and happiness, but in the ultimate analysis it is only a means to a higher end. When man makes its gratification an end in itself, he frustrates the purpose and descends to sensuality. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve".
John P. Altgeld expresses more than mere imagination when he says:
Young man, life is before you. Two voices are calling you-one coming out from the swamps of selfishness and force, where success means death; and the other from the hilltops of justice and progress, where even failure brings glory.... Two ways lie open to you-one leading to an ever lower and lower plain, where are heard the cries of despair and the curses of the poor, where manhood shrivels and possession rots down the possessor; and the other leading to the highlands of the morning, where are heard the glad shouts of humanity and where honest effort is rewarded with immortality.
EXPANDING THE SOUL
Brethren and sisters, spirituality is the consciousness of victory over self, and of communion with the Infinite. Spirituality impels one to conquer difficulties and acquire more and more strength. To feel one's faculties unfolding and truth expanding the soul is one of life's sublimest experiences.
Being "honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men", are attributes which contribute to spirituality, the highest acquisition of the soul. It is "the divine in man, the supreme, crowning gift that makes him king of all created things, the one final quality that makes him tower above all other animals.
Divine is that admonition and promise given to the Prophet Joseph Smith:
"... let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly" -a wonderful statement-... then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.
The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.
God help us to keep that admonition and to follow the ideals of the Church of Jesus Christ established by direct revelation in this day, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Levi Edgar Young
Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 17-22
The young men and women in our schools and colleges are confronted with many conflicting ideas concerning religion and life. They become unsettled in their minds as they study our present-day problems. Attacks are made on their religious beliefs which have been held sacred by them ever since they were children in their homes. They often come to wonder about the teachings of the Holy Bible, particularly the belief in God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. They often become indifferent to what is right in their daily living. They have just cause to wonder! The fires of revolution are burning everywhere-I fear even at our very doors. In America, and of course in the whole world, we are in need of a spiritual awakening, an awakening that makes men respect old truths, the finer lessons of history, and the word of God; a realization that a man owes a lot more to his country, than his country owes him: a return to the old standards of character that makes it easy for a man to become indignant over corruption, and to hate sin and wrong. A study of the word of God, faith, and prayer will bring about a better feeling in the minds of the youth, and it is up to the fathers and mothers to be patient with their children, for they are living in a new age.
THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
Every household should keep in mind the two divinely appointed events in modern history around which must be centered our future lives as a people. The discovery of America was for a divine purpose, and the formation of this Republic was an event ordered of God for a glorious new day. The Prophet Nephi some six centuries before the birth of the Savior wrote:
And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.
And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters.
How deeply did Christopher Columbus feel that inspired directive purpose of God when he wrote of his discovery of America:
But these great and marvelous results are not to be attributed to any merit of mine, but to the holy Christian faith, for that which the unaided intellect of man could not compass, the Spirit of God has granted to human exertions. For God is wont to hear the prayers of his servants who live his precepts even to the performance of apparent impossibilities.... Let Christ rejoice on earth, as he rejoices in heaven in the prospect of the salvation of the souls of so many nations hitherto lost.
With what inspired knowledge did John Winthrop, one of the old Puritan fathers, write:
It will be a service to the Church of great consequence to carry the gospel into those parts of the world to help on the coming of the fulness of the Gentiles.
WASHINGTON'S ACKNOWLEDGMENT
In his first inaugural address, Washington said:
Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States.
The people whom Columbus found in America, and to whom Washington was the means of bringing a knowledge of an Old World, were a deeply religious people. In a recent visit to the Maricopa Stake, I was impressed with the group of Indians that was present. Noble-looking people, they were. Some of them were Navajos, some Zunis, and a few Apaches. In speaking to them, I recalled a visit, made to Boston many years ago, of some Zunis. We are told that they were taken down the harbor, that they might worship. Landing on an island, the Indians disappeared for a time, and on their return they walked into the sea, and, with deep solemnity, sang their mystic chant. They then threw out upon the air from their uplifted hands the grain they offered to the god of waters, and let it float away as a thanks offering. That was worship of the Great Spirit.
AMBASSADORS OF TRUTH
When Jesus sent forth the Twelve and Seventy as his ambassadors of the divine truths which he was teaching, he charged them to reproduce the miracles of his own personal ministry. Such an extension of his work was a part of his original project of evangelizing the country roundabout Palestine and eventually the world.
After these things, the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come.
Therefore said he unto them, the harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.
Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves.
And into whatever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house.
Some days afterward, we read in the gospel of St. Luke:
And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.
And he turned... unto his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see.
To Jesus it was a provocation of purest happiness that God had chosen these men, unlearned and simple men, in preference to intellectual and aristocratic leaders. Throughout his ministry, peasants and fishermen, the unlearned and landless were called and he rejoiced that their mission had been sealed by God: that through the faith of the Twelve and the Seventy they had been invested with mysterious gifts of his Spirit. Jesus lifted up the ideal of life in the kingdom of God to inspire his disciples to heightened aspirations and endeavor. He did not lay down a rigid legalism, but as one English writer, Dr. Church, in his Essays and Reviews has written:
He wooed his pupils by persuasive ideals. He transferred the source of happiness and the understanding of the gospel from external circumstances to the inward life of man. Goodness, morals, ideals depend upon one's attitude toward God. It was fundamental to the ethic of Jesus. For this reason the Beatitudes are conjoined with purity of heart. It denotes simplicity, a singleness of aim in allegiance to the divine teachings of the Master. The ethical and religious teachings pervading Christ's instructions to these first Christian missionaries has become the foundation of the inner light of the Seventies of today. Their lives exhale the aroma of complete consecration. They are the salt of the earth, the Light of the world.
GOD'S SERVANTS
God's first demands of his servants are pure hearts, upright lives, truthfulness, mercy, and honesty. Good manners were regarded as matters of religion and morality. Boasting, ostentation, conceit, were of old considered the patent evidence of vulgarity. These are condemned by the scriptures. The Seventies must always keep in mind the grandeur of the First Article of Faith, which is the greatest statement of Truth since the days of Christ our Redeemer. They must keep in mind the supreme test of religion, which is revelation. No religion can be persuasive unless it relies on the principle of revelation. All true men reveal God, but the completest carrier of revelation can be no other, or less than a chosen personality. This is the Christian conception. The nobler the person, the truer the revelation.
It will be a noble resolution for every Seventy to say to himself: "I shall read more diligently and more deeply the Holy Scriptures than ever before." The Holy Bible, Book of Mormon, D&C;, and Pearl of Great Price are not intended for the few. Their subject-matter constitutes truth, necessary for us all. Every quorum of seventy will from now on become a study group, where vital truths are discussed. It is within such a group that men are stimulated to think and to converse in preparation for the teaching of the gospel. At a time when so much of our world literature is strangely blind to the glory and excellence of human nature at best, we should dedicate ourselves again to the study of the truths and the beauties and holiness of the sacred word of God.
MISSION OF SEVENTIES
The Seventies, because of their calling, have a high mission set before them. They should resolve that they will develop their mental and spiritual powers toward maturity and learn to have communion with great souls through the reading of their messages of truth. The habit of reading must be formed as early in life as possible. A few minutes every day will soon be a great many hours. Do not miss the thoughts of men who have lived in former times. Broaden your understanding, enliven your sympathy for other peoples and their ways of living. Make your own lives richer and deeper by learning other ideas and visions of people. Read good books. Read them again and again until you have drawn the essence of thought and feeling from them. These are some of the reasons why the Prophet Joseph Smith wrote:
... seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.
Joy will be the characteristic of the quorums of Seventy so long as they are growing, expanding, and creating healthfully. When they cease to grow, they cease to live. God sent us into the world to create and to enrich our own personality in the process Yet we have to rely on God's help to make anything worth making. If we devote ourselves to God, we must see to it that we have ourselves to devote. "Self consecration is not a negative thing: it is a very positive thing," says a noted evangelist. This leads us to the knowledge that what we are is more important than what we do or say. If we are really wise in our concepts of God, then our thoughts lie deeply, though often misunderstood. It takes deep thoughts to understand the depths of the message of divine truth. For this reason the brethren can hear God speak, and those whose hearts God has touched can find their way easily to the hearts of others.
TRUE TO REVEALED WORD
In the difficult times that surround us today, the brethren holding the priesthood of God must, above all things, be true to the word of God as revealed by the Master and as revealed today. The words of truth are ever the same. Love, joy, peace, faith, humility: these are the characteristic Christian ideas. How beautiful are the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith when he said:
... O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind, and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.
And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.
Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.
Herein is the Prophet conveying the charm of his teachings and an heroic conception of the good in life. His concept of the Christian virtues and graces is noble and comprehensive. He exalted and glorified the principles of morals as given by the Savior of the world, and aroused the adoration of men for the gospel which is the only road to peace. It is the mission of the Seventies and all who hold the priesthood to stimulate healthy and majestic ideals through self-discipline and the knowledge that in "pure religion and undefiled", is life eternal.
A testimony, my brethren, of the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a sacred trust. It can come only to one who has opened his heart and mind to hallowed living with earnest prayer and deep faith in the Living God. It is the most divine gift of all. "For it is faith and not wisdom which carrieth the key to the kingdom of heaven," says Sholem Asch.
Sir Francis Drake in admonishing his men, said:
Men pass away, but people abide. See that ye hold fast the heritage we leave you, yea, and teach your children its value, that never in the coming centuries their hearts may fail them, or their hands grow weak. Hitherto we have been too much afraid. Henceforth, we will fear only God.
Elder Richard L. Evans
Richard L. Evans, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 22-24
As President McKay indicated in his opening remarks, at times these conferences seem to come rather close together, and this is one of those times. I earnestly hope and pray to be given utterance on this occasion. I feel at home within these walls, but the impact of this congregation is something for which I am never quite prepared. It has been my privilege for many years to frequent this building and these grounds, and I have a growing love of them and a growing feeling of peace and appreciation here. They speak of great things of the past and of great things of the future-and I have great faith in the future. I have great faith in the ultimate accomplishment of the purposes of Providence, in spite of the foolishness of men. It is a glorious world in spite of many man-made troubles.
ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES
One of the things that happens in this world every day of which I think we are not too well aware is the going and coming of tens of thousands of people-the arrivals of newcomers and the departures of those who have finished their sojourn here, for a time at least. It is an ever-startling fact to me that about one hundred fifty thousand people arrive in this world every day, and that more than eighty thousand leave this world every day, leaving a total increase in world population every day of some seventy thousand.*
President Smith has spoken this morning of the number of people we have in the southern California area. There are more than that who are added, to this scene every day, and more than three times that, maybe four times that, who are newcomers. Think what that means in terms of reaching and teaching some hundred and fifty thousand new arrivals every day!
I am reminded of another physical fact to which I invited the attention of some of my brethren a few weeks ago: Hendrick Van Loon has dramatized the fact that physically, in bulk at least, men don't amount to much. Mr. Van Loon invites our attention to the fact that if someone were to make a crate measuring one-half mile in all dimensions, in other words, a one-half mile hollow cube, all the human family now living could be put into it, and it could be dropped into the Grand Canyon and wouldn't be noticed very much.
If someone had actually done that, this world would have been saved a good deal of trouble: but we also would have been deprived of much glorious living and accomplishment and achievement in accordance with the plans and purposes of our Father in heaven. It is his declared purpose to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, and he has been patient with our imperfections, and long-suffering, and has given us the ever-present possibility of repentance. I hope we shall all be as patient and understanding with the imperfections of one another as our Father has been with us.
TIME IS THE ESSENCE
There is another physical fact that comes to mind, and that is that time is the essence of all our opportunities. It is the dimension in which we live. We can't speed it up, and we can't slow it down. We can't save it, and we can't hoard it. It is, in a sense, like manna from heaven. The Lord allots us a day's supply at a time; and in the ordinary course of life, allowing man his traditional scriptural three score and ten, we may calculate that each of us might expect on an average about twenty-five thousand days. I think when we reduce our lifespan and our opportunities here to twenty-five thousand days, we may think more seriously of some of the things to which we give our time. We can spend it doing one thing or doing another, reading some things or reading other things, with some people or with other people, and I earnestly hope that we may give the time test to all we do and to all we think and to all our goings and comings.
THE USE OF TRUTH
Another fact that I should like to speak of in passing is that there is no assurance of superiority so far as I know, to any person or to any people, except on the basis of a superior performance. I know of no assured blessings except on conditions of obedience, and I hope we shan't take undue pride in the mere possession of truth. Our pride should come, if indeed it should come at all, and our gratitude likewise, in the use of truth, and not merely in its possession.
I am reminded of a story that President Grant frequently told, quoting from old Bishop Hunter: "Don't get the bighead. The bighead has ruined more people in this Church than any one thing-except sin." There is no more virtue in the mere possession of truth than there is in the mere possession of food. Neither will save a man unless he uses it, and uses it wisely, and I earnestly pray that we may, as a people, with the knowledge that we have, demonstrate that we know what to do with it by living a superior way of life, individually and as a group.
I earnestly hope, in closing, that our young people may be encouraged as they go forth to live their lives. I repeat that I have great faith in the future and in the ultimate purposes of our Father in heaven and in the future accomplishments of our young people. As Thomas Carlyle wrote one time: "The crash of the whole solar and stellar systems could only kill you once"-but we certainly don't want to sit around waiting for it to happen!
I hope that our young people will go forth and prepare and plan and live their lives and make their homes and rear their families with faith in God and with faith in the future. No doubt men will make more trouble, but no doubt also, we will gain much always by living our lives, by building on a solid basis, and keeping our houses in order and preparing solidly for all future events; and whatever the eventualities are, we can accept them with faith and confidence in the promises and purposes of our Father in heaven.
May God help us so to do, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph F. Merrill
Joseph F. Merrill, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 24-29
Brethren, sisters, and radio listeners: It is unlikely that any of you listening to addresses made in this conference expect to hear any new doctrine announced at this time; yet we do teach that God "will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God" when it suits his purpose. We already have doctrines, principles, and policies enough to challenge the best and ablest among us to learn and live in harmony with them. But we need to be reminded of them frequently and encouraged to be more diligent in implementing them in our lives. The Lord well knew this need when he required us to attend sacrament meetings frequently and renew our covenants. I pray that the Lord will help me in an effort to stir us up to remembrance.
CHARACTERISTIC DOCTRINES
As is generally known, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is set off from all other churches-Christian and non-Christian alike-by many characteristic doctrines and doctrines and teachings. We: hold firmly to the doctrine that the Holy Trinity is made up of three separate and distinct personal Beings-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost-in whose image we ourselves are created, as declared in Genesis 1:27. Notwithstanding the vast majority of civilized people, including nearly all Christians, reject the teaching that God is a personal Being, the truth of the matter is not in the least affected by this rejection.
In the fifteenth century the world believed the earth was flat, Columbus, that it was round. Who was right? The claim that Joseph Smith, a fourteen year old boy actually saw and heard two glorious personal Beings-the Father and the Son, who appeared in answer to his humble prayer for wisdom -is a basic truth in Mormonism, the validity of which is not affected even though disbelieved by the vast majority of civilized men. Can any unbiased, intelligent mind, untouched in the matter by the teachings of others, reading the Bible from cover to cover, get any other idea of God than that he is a personal Being in the image of which we ourselves were created? Yet I quote the following from a book that aims to teach a worldwide accepted view:
God is spirit, or the creative energy which is the cause of all visible things. God as spirit is the invisible life and intelligence underlying all physical things.... God is not a being or person having life, intelligence, love, power. God is that invisible, intangible, something we call life.... Childlike, untrained minds say God is a personal being. The statement that God is principle chills them, and in terror they cry out, "They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him!" Broader and more learned minds are always cramped by the thought of God as a person, for personality limits to place and time. God is the name we give to that unchangeable, inexorable principle at the source of all existence.
NEW REVELATION GIVEN
Between this idea of God and that taught by Joseph Smith, there is the wide difference that exists between fancy and fact, between the false and the true. And because the modern world was engulfed in this stupefying fancy and falsehood. it was absolutely necessary that God should give a new revelation of himself that his children here in mortality might have a true and solid basis for their faith in him. But why did he not give this revelation through some world-renowned scholar instead of an obscure, worldly-ignorant fourteen year old boy-to one whom the world would accept rather than reject? Was there such a scholar who could qualify as to the statement of the Apostle James which says:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him?
However, there was a condition attached:
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
For let not that man think he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
The humble, unspoiled boy Joseph, could qualify. What renowned scholar could? The Lord said to Joseph:
... I raised you up, that I might show forth my wisdom through the weak things of the earth.
Yes, as I have formerly said in this pulpit, in answer to his humble prayer, Joseph Smith received, so far as the records indicate, the most glorious vision ever given to man in mortality. For, looking up in the pillar of light enveloping him, he both saw and heard the Father and the Son, two highly glorious Personages, in the very image in which we are created. This is a fact; this is the truth, the world to the contrary notwithstanding In great humility and extreme thankfulness we accept of these things and testify most sincerely of their reality.
KNOWLEDGE OF TRUTH
But how may we know? the doubter may ask. When in answer to the Master's question, Peter replied, "... Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," what did Jesus say?
... Blessed art thou Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
And Moroni wrote in the last chapter of the Book of Mormon:
And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
It is by the power of the Holy Ghost that great multitudes of Church members testify that they really know that God lives. And I am one of that number. Did not Jesus have this method of knowing in mind when he said:
... My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.
If any man will do his will, he shall now of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
SATAN THE DEVIL
Now there is another personality of which I desire to speak, one that the world calls by a name, but in whose reality as a personal Being it does not believe and that person is Satan, the Devil. But according to our understanding and teaching. Satan is a person with a spirit body, in form like that of all other men. He is a spirit brother of ours and of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Elder Brother in the spirit world. The earth was in course of development for the abode of man in mortality. A Redeemer was to be sent down and make it possible for the Father's children to return to him. Lucifer, a son of the morning, a bright and certainly very ambitious individual, said to the Father:
... here I am, send me... and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost...; wherefore give me time honor.
Lucifer's offer was rejected; it involved taking from man his God-given free agency which is granted to everyone born into mortality. Jesus said to the Father, send me,
... thy will be done and the glory be thine forever.
And Jesus became our Redeemer. Lucifer, his name was changed to Satan, the Devil, and his sympathizers rebelled and were cast out down to earth where they have been ever since.
Now, the means Lucifer proposed to use to get all the Father's children returned to him-force has been the means he has used ever since, whenever he has had the power. But of course he operates through those whom he can influence. An Omaha evening paper carried a lead editorial in its issue of the last Saturday in August, 1941, entitled "Hitler, the Devil Incarnate." Hitler, as all the world now know, taught and believed in the use of power whenever it was necessary to reach his objectives. Satan, through his agents, has always done and is doing the same thing today. We see it being done in many different places and in various ways-locally, nationally, and internationally. Struggles for power and staying in positions of power are everywhere in evidence. And when power is obtained it is commonly used to force obedience to unrighteous, if not positively wicked, demands. Needless to specify, for we see cases in evidence somewhere every day, in this country, as well as abroad. But wherever they exist they will generally be found on close examination to stem from sources where selfish, greedy, and unrighteous motives dominate-to sources, therefore, that are Satan inspired. And the agencies operating under this wicked influence are steadily growing more numerous and more powerful, making the future of America more dark and precarious. Unless this rapidly developing tendency changes for the better, the time is probably not far away when the America of the fathers, the America where free enterprise with all its associated blessings of personal freedom and liberty for its citizens, will have been relegated to the pages of history. And is it not strange, very strange, from the standpoint of reason and logic, that the means and the conditions by which and under which America has grown to be the greatest, the most powerful, and the most prosperous nation on earth have become odious to vast numbers of our people, who therefore are scheming, planning, working, hoping, even praying, for changes that would put an end to America as "the land of the free and the home of the brave"? Among all the unrighteous organized agencies now working in the world to further the cause of Satan, perhaps the largest and most wicked are those given to the cause of communism. Communism is organized wickedness and crime of the blackest type. Harsh terms, certainly! Its objectives are confiscation of property, robbery of those who have, slavery of its productive workers, and death to its opponents. Its beneficiaries are ne'er-do-wells, those who own nothing, but want everything, especially power and its emoluments.
SATAN'S PURPOSE
What is the explanation of all this? I think that it lies in the fact that Satan has more influence and power in the world today than ever before. And Satan's purpose is to overcome righteousness, to entice God's children into ways of sin, misery, and suffering, to handicap those who would do good, and to darken the minds of those who would like to know what is best in the great confusion of conflicting ideas. And so struggles and conflicts multiply with the result that men's hearts are failing them. Selfishness is growing. Demands are increasing for more and more for less and less-more pay, less work-for more privileges, but fewer responsibilities. Merit as a condition for reward is disappearing and Satan is riding high.
Now Latter-day Saints, what shall we do, conditions being what they are? Shall we compromise our principles and standards, give up the struggle against sin and evil and let life move on more smoothly in this sinful world? No, never. Our faith is immovably based upon truth and reality-a living, personal God, who through Joseph Smith and his associates, set up his Church, gave it principles, laws, standards, and his priesthood, thus qualifying it to work for him and his righteous ways for the good, benefit, and blessing of his children. But we need more faith in these realities, more devotion to the cause which we are privileged to represent, stronger wills to resist the allurements of evil, and more persistent, unselfish efforts to live righteously every day. I repeat, our religion is a very practical thing, for it must enter into every phase of our daily lives if we would live in harmony with its teachings and receive the rewards of obedience. And failing to do this, we more or less forfeit God's promise of blessings; for he has said:
I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.
MORAL STANDARDS
We must ever keep in mind the moral standards of the Church as expressed in articles eleven, twelve, and thirteen of our faith which require us to be tolerant, loyal to the country under the flag of which we live, to obey, honor, and sustain the law, and to be
... honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men.
Indeed the moral standards of the Church require us to set up the Golden Rule as an ideal which we should diligently try to live in all of our relations with our fellow men. These are not things of which we just talk on Sunday, but things we are required to implement in our daily lives.
Now I warn again that Satan, a personal being, is very alert and with a mighty host of his angels-spirit relatives of ours-in trying to overcome us and all others who would serve God and live righteously. As examples of yielding to evil influences, we have desecration of the Sabbath day, the use of harmful narcotics, failure to live sexual moral standards and indulgence in other wicked ways-all on the increase among us. Latter-day Saints may not go on Sunday to movies, to baseball, football, or basketball games, or to any other kind of commercial entertainments, or engage in avoidable commercial activities, or go hunting, fishing, golfing, or skiing on this day without violating the holiness of the Sabbath. Who said so? The First Presidency of the Church. They said so in an editorial published in The Deseret News, September 1, 1928. And when the First Presidency speak unitedly on any question of our religious doctrines, or how we should live in harmony with these doctrines, that is the voice of the Church, the voice of authority. To loyal Latter-day Saints, it is, in a sense, the voice of God; for he has said "if ye are not one ye are not mine".
Brethren and sisters, let us be honest with ourselves and with our God and strive with more determination and persistence to do his will that life may be more full and happy, with righteous living more in evidence. I pray that God will help us to do these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Thomas E. McKay
Thomas E. McKay, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 31-35
Such inspirational music as our wonderful choir always furnishes brings us near to our Father in heaven.
I was impressed also, as were you, with the opening prayer. I trust it may be answered, especially in my behalf I believe in prayer, the power of prayer; and I sincerely desire, my brethren and sisters, and would appreciate a silent prayer at this time by all of you in my behalf.
I am happy that the mission presidents and their wives are with us in this conference. The mission presidents depend so much upon their wives that I am sure they are all happy that their wives were also invited to come to this conference. The more I associate with you mission presidents and you stake presidencies, the more convinced I am that the leaders who are responsible for calling you are inspired of God.
MEXICAN MISSION
Sister McKay and I just recently returned from a tour of the Mexican Mission where President Arwell L. Pierce and his lovely wife are in charge. They have done and are doing a wonderful work. It was one delightful surprise after another to go through their mission with them. We were delighted to meet so many fine missionaries there-142 of them-and twenty of those 142 we were glad to find were native Mexicans, full-time missionaries, and doing a splendid work. With the experience that these young people are getting, I am sure they will be future leaders, not only of the Church but will also perhaps occupy state and federal positions.
We were delighted also to find several very fine meetinghouses with chapels not too large, commodious recreation halls, classrooms, baptismal font, Relief Society rooms with modern kitchens adjoining. The architecture is Spanish and with the red-tiled roofs and the white walls these meetinghouses stand out as monuments of good fellowship. The new chapel at Chautla dedicated last year by President McKay has now been parked with a hedge, shrubbery, trees, and lawn, under the direction of Brother Abegg, who has supervision of the buildings and grounds, and it is now referred to proudly by the citizens as the "House Beautiful." Splendid progress is being made especially by applying the program of the M.I.A. supervised recreation. The Spanish people love to sing and to dance. Their Gold and Green balls are outstanding, as are also their quartets, their choruses, and their athletics. Basketball has swept into the Mexican republic, and our missionaries are leading in that sport. They have played in two leagues and won the championship in both. The last one was in Mexico City. The final game of the series was being played. The score had been tied several times; and now with only four minutes to play, our team was behind. The captain, a sweet character, called time out. He said, "We got our heads together, Brother McKay, and we prayed." God bless him. They won the game by one point. They are making many friends also with their English classes. In Morelia, for example, a college town where they have been working less than a year, a meeting was arranged, and a program given by investigators. We have only two members there. They have an advanced English class and a beginner's class. There were sixty-two at that meeting so they are making fine progress.
The mission home is a credit to the Church, beautifully located in a new residential section. It is what I call an ideal mission home, not just a place for the mission president and his wife, but a place where the missionaries are made to feel at home. Sister Pierce in her quiet, generous way, looking after everybody, can always make room for one more. When missionaries are ailing, they are brought to the home and nursed back to health. They are made to feel welcome. Each morning at seven o'clock a class in Spanish is held for the office force and those who are there recuperating. At eight o'clock the gong sounds; they come to breakfast; they sing a song around the piano and stand in a circle, and each one repeats in Spanish a passage of scripture he must learn by heart, then they kneel in a circle in prayer. I think that prayer circle does more for these missionaries who are recuperating and probably a little discouraged and homesick, maybe lovesick, than almost anything else.
POWER IN PRAYER
Yes, there is power in prayer. I thought while participating in the fine spirit of those mission home prayers of an evil that has been referred to here already-the divorce evil. A menace to the very foundation of our government, of our civilization; it seems that the devil is using this weapon of divorce overtime, and I believe that if a survey were made, very few, if any, of those thousands of couples who are applying for divorce would be found praying together, or who are having family prayer. I think prayer is a remedy for divorce.
One writer, in speaking of prayer, puts it this way, and I like it:
The most unused resource in the world today is prayer. The greatest undeveloped resource is faith and the greatest unused resource is prayer.
I like that, referring to faith and prayer as resources. I hope, in our Church, that is not true, but that prayer as a resource is used, and I am sure it is. Quite a number of articles are being written in our leading magazines and even books on "Back to God," "The Need of Religion," etc. I think it is a wholesome indication. I received something the other day from one of my very dear friends, who calls on me occasionally and always brings me something worthwhile; he is ninety-two years old now. He said he has had ninety-two birthdays but is not nearly that old. He said, "I have here something, Brother McKay, that I think you will like on prayer." He said, "It is a clipping from one of our local papers." It is from Dr. Alexis Cartel, who is famed the world over after thirty-three years of biological research work in the famous Rockefeller Institute.
QUOTATIONS ON PRAYER
He says:
Prayer is not only worship, but it is also the most powerful form of energy that one can generate. The influence of prayer on the human mind and body is as demonstrable as that of secreting glands. Its results can be measured in terms of increased physical buoyancy, greater intellectual vigor, moral stamina, and a deeper understanding of the realities underlying human relations.
If you make a habit of sincere prayer your life will be very noticeably and profoundly altered. Prayer stamps with its indelible mark our actions and demeanor. A tranquility of bearing, a facial and bodily repose are observed in those whose inner lives are thus enriched. Within the depths of his consciousness a flame kindles, and man sees himself-his selfishness, his silly pride, his fear, his blunders. He develops a sense of moral obligation, intellectual humility. Thus begins a journey of the soul toward the realm of peace.
Prayer is a force as real as terrestrial gravity. As a physician I have seen men, after all other therapy had failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the serene effort of prayer.
Prayer is the effort of man to reach God, to commune with an invisible being, creator of all things, supreme wisdom, truth, beauty and strength, father and redeemer.
Today as never before, prayer is a binding necessity in the lives of men and nations. The lack of emphasis on the religious sense has brought the world to the edge of destruction. Our deepest sense of power and perfection has been left miserably undeveloped. Prayer, the basic exercise of the spirit, must be actively practiced in our lives. The neglected soul of man must be made strong enough to assert itself once more. For if the power of prayer is again released and used in the lives of common men and women, if the spirit declares its aims clearly and boldly, there is yet hope that our prayers for a better world may be answered.
That from a scientist, brothers and sisters.
This same dear friend of mine called my attention to an article, in the December number, I think, of the Arizona Highways on "Look to the Skies." It is a very well-written article, well worth reading, and in speaking of the skies, it reminded me of a poem that I read and used just at the close of the war. It is a poem that was found on the body of a dead soldier. He wrote it just before the zero hour. It refers to the skies and to the power of prayer in taking away fear.
... And God Was There
Look, God, I have never spoken to you. But now I want to say. "How do you do?" You see, God, they told me you didn't exist, And, like a fool, I believed all this.
Last night from the shell hole I saw your sky- I figured right then they had told me a lie. Had I taken time to see things you made, I'd have known they weren't calling a spade a spade.
I wonder, God, if you'd shake my hand. Somehow I feel that you will understand. Funny I had to come to this hellish place Before I had time to see your face.
Well, I guess there isn't much more to say. But I'm sure glad, God, I met you today I guess the "zero hour" will soon be here. But I'm not afraid since I know you're near.
The signal! Well, God, I'll have to go; I like you lots, this I want you to know. Look, now, this will be a horrible fight- Who knows, I may come to your house tonight.
Though I wasn't friendly to you before, I wonder, God, if you'd wait at your door. Look. I'm crying! Me! Shedding tears- I wish I had known you these many years
Well, I have to go now, God, good-bye! Strange, since I met you, I'm not afraid to die.
THE MASTER'S PRAYER
Our Master, just before his zero hour, spent the night in the garden in prayer. We are told that he shed drops of blood, but the concluding words of that prayer show that he received his strength.
"... not my will, but thine, be done" were his concluding words and then on the cross:
Father forgive them; for they know not what they do.
We are here today, brethren and sisters, because this great Church of ours has been organized-a wonderful organization-established for the last time, never to be taken away taken away from the earth or given to another people, and all in answer to a prayer, a prayer in a garden, the Sacred Grove. Yes, there is power in prayer, and I trust that we will look up brethren and sisters, look up to the skies, that from now on that statement that prayer is the most unused resource of the world will not, at least, apply to Latter-day Saints and also the saying that people use their prayers very much as a spare tire, only in times of emergency, when we are sick or have trouble. May that also not be true of us, but may we pray always and live, as we pray so that we, too, can say, "Not my will, O Lord, but thine be done," I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Marion G. Romney
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 35-41
In 1832, in what is designated a revelation on priesthood, the Lord spoke rather sharply, referring to the whole Church as being under condemnation because of their unbelief and because they had treated lightly the things they had received; and this condemnation he said,
... resteth upon the children of Zion, even all.
And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written.
GOSPEL FUNDAMENTALS
Brother Merrill's statement this morning that he was not going to teach anything new, recalled to my mind a conversation he and I had on the way home from a conference assignment a few weeks ago. I said, "Brother Merrill, have you a subject for me to discuss at the general conference?"
"Well, Brother Romney," he answered, "I can tell you this, that neither you nor I are under any responsibility to teach any new doctrine. I am going to talk about some fundamental principle of the gospel."
In thinking over the fundamentals of the gospel, the fundamentals of the restoration, I remembered that in point of time the first great fundamental received was the vision of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Following that vision came the Book of Mormon, given to the world as a revelation from God. I remembered, too, that six months ago President George Albert Smith, speaking to the General Authorities of the Church and mentioning some subjects that might be discussed at conference time, referred to the Book of Mormon. It is about the Book of Mormon I want to talk today. I do so with just one objective in mind: To get you to read it.
I have read it a little, I believe in it, and I love it. I recommend that every person within the sound of my voice read the Book of Mormon. I can testify, as did Nephi, that the things written therein persuadeth all men to do good. It will enrich the life of every person who will read it, unless he is in rebellion against the truth; and in that event it will advise him of his awful fate unless he changes his ways.
Very early in my life I became somewhat acquainted with the Book of Mormon. The other day while going through some old records, I found a notebook I had used while in high school in one of the Church academies. In it I had written a short outline of each chapter in the Book of Mormon. I appreciate that training.
THE BOOK OF MORMON
A few years ago as I began to practice law, members of my family were a little uneasy. They were afraid I would lose my faith. I wanted to practice law, but I had an even greater desire to keep my testimony, and so I decided upon a little procedure which I recommend to you. For thirty minutes each morning before I began the day's work I read from the Book of Mormon-I read also from all the other standard works of the Church, but I am talking now about the Book of Mormon-and in just a few minutes a day I read the Book of Mormon through, every year, for nine years. I know that it kept me in harmony, so far as I did keep in harmony, with the Spirit of the Lord.
Now I want to tell you a few reasons why I think you and I should read the Book of Mormon. I hope that while doing so, I shall enjoy the spirit of the Book of Mormon.
I do not know any single verse which impresses the spirit of the Book of Mormon on me more than the first verse of the last chapter of Second Nephi. As that great prophet approached the close of his record, he said:
And now I, Nephi, cannot write all the things which were taught among my people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking;
My, how I would have enjoyed hearing him speak! When I read his writings, they well-nigh overcome me. In the following words he gives the key to his powerful speaking:
... for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men.
I pray that while I speak I shall have the spirit of the Holy Ghost, and I pray that you will have the same spirit, that we may all be edified.
The first reason for reading the Book of Mormon which I want to mention is that it is approved by the highest authority in the universe, the Lord himself. He said to the Prophet Joseph Smith, "Behold, thou wast called and chosen to write the Book of Mormon". Later on, when the Prophet Joseph Smith received the record, the Lord said that he was given
... power to translate through the mercy of God, by the power of God, the Book of Mormon.
After the Prophet Joseph had translated that part of the record which he had been told to translate, the Lord said: "... and as your Lord and Your God liveth it is true", and
... contains the truth and the word of God".
Here are some more things the Lord said about it:
... a record of a fallen people, and the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles and to the Jews also.
And the Book of Mormon and the holy scriptures are given of me for your instruction.
... the elders, priests and teachers of this Church shall teach the principles of my gospel, which are in the Bible and the Book of Mormon.
WITNESS FOR BIBLE
Another reason I like the Book of Mormon and want you to read it is that it will sustain you against attacks being made by the modernists against that other great scripture, the Bible. The Book of Mormon is not only a new witness for God; it is also a witness to the truth of the Bible. If I had the time, I could give you many specific instances on that point. The Book of Mormon accepts the Bible unreservedly as the word of God. It accepts the five books of Moses as having been written by Moses. This the modernists deny. It accepts the great prophecies of Isaiah as the prophecies of the son of Amos. The resurrected Lord himself said, as recorded in the Book of Mormon, "Great are the words of Isaiah", and he advises us to read them. Further, this Book of Mormon, the doctrines in it will sustain you against many false doctrines that are current in the world today
MAN'S MORAL RESPONSIBILITY
About two weeks ago, I sat in a group where a learned man was directing a discussion. He presented the modern doctrine that there is no personal responsibility for wrongdoing. I have heard that doctrine pressed so far as to hold that if a man commits a crime-lies, steals, commits adultery, or even murders-he has no personal responsibility for his act, but that it is the responsibility of society. I compared that evil doctrine with the teachings Lehi gave to his sons as he was about to go down into his grave. I remember how he taught his sons that men were placed upon the earth between good and evil, that they were sufficiently taught to know the difference between them, that they were endowed by their Creator with power to act for themselves, and that they are held responsible for their decisions and actions. And as the Lord liveth, that doctrine is true. Lehi carefully instructed his sons on these important principles under which they were to live and under which all people on the earth are to live. He taught them that there was an opposition in all things, as Brother Merrill explained this morning, the power of evil and the power of good. He told them that they were
... free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life;... or to choose captivity and death.
This doctrine that man is not morally responsible for his own acts, which is gaining wide acceptance in the world today, is the doctrine of the evil one. If you will read the Book of Mormon, you will be convinced of that, and you will have a defense against it if you will accept the Book of Mormon.
GREAT AMERICAN BOOK
Now, I like the Book of Mormon, and you will like it, because it is a great American book. It was written in America, by Americans, for Americans. It has peculiar application to America It is not full of foreign ideologies and uninspired interpretations of men. I believe that I am within the mark when I say that between the pages of that great book there is more ultimate truth about the overall history of America than there is in any other book and, I will go so far as to say, more than in all the libraries of the world where there isn't a Book of Mormon.
In it the history of this great land of America is foretold Up until 420 A.D. the coming to pass of the history as it was foretold was faithfully recorded by the historians who witnessed it. We who are acquainted with the Book of Mormon know that the history of America from 421 A.D. to the present time is clearly foretold therein -the long withholding of the knowledge of the land from the Gentiles, the coming of Columbus as referred to by President Levi Edgar Young this morning, the coming of the Pilgrim fathers, the establishment of this great nation, the ushering in of this great last dispensation. All these things are there foretold as clearly as anyone can write them now after they have transpired. The coming to pass of these great prophecies of the Book of Mormon is an evidence of its divinity which the world cannot destroy.
Of the future of America the Book of Mormon gives some wonderful views. I have not time to go into them in detail, but I would to our Father in heaven that the people who have the management of this nation would become acquainted with them. The Book of Mormon advises us that Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, is the God of this land and that he has said some very definite things about the future of America. Our own nation has a great stake in that future. If we will live the laws that the God of this land teaches in the Book of Mormon, we can participate in the realization of the marvelous promises made for the future of America. Here the New Jerusalem shall arise, and Christ shall come and bring peace to the earth.
INSPIRATION OF TEACHING
Now, I like the Book of Mormon, and you will like it, too, for the courage and the strength it inspires in times of discouragement and stress. Consider as an example a few incidents from the life of Nephi, whom I love and whom you will love, too, I'm sure, if you become well acquainted with him.
You will recall how, when he came down from the mountain where he had been praying to the Lord, he found his elder brothers whining because the Lord had told them to go up to Jerusalem and get the brass plates. He did not join in their whining. When he learned of the commandment, he said unto his father:
... I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commanded them.
When they reached Jerusalem, Laman was chosen to go into the city and get the record from Laban. He did not get it, however, because he knew he could not get it. When Laban said to him, "You are a robber, and I will slay thee", he ran. Arriving outside the city walls, Laman, with Lemuel, wanted to go down into the wilderness to their father without the record, but Nephi said:
... As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father in the wilderness until we have accomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us.
Yielding to Nephi, they went to their former home and gathered up their precious possessions which they offered for the records. Pursued by Laban's guard, they abandoned their wealth and fled for their lives. Again the elder brothers desired to return to their father in the wilderness. They spoke harsh words to Nephi and so severely whipped him that an angel came and corrected them. After the angel had departed, Laman and Lemuel continued to murmur, saying:
... How is it possible that the Lord will deliver Laban into our hands? Behold, he is a mighty man, and he can command fifty, yea, even he can slay fifty; then why not us?
And it came to pass that I spake unto my brethren, saying: Let us go up again unto Jerusalem, and let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord; for behold he is mightier than all the earth, then why not mightier than Laban and his fifty, yea, or even than his tens of thousands.
Nephi finally went in alone and came back with the plates. He had faith; he had courage; and with the help of Almighty God he accomplished the thing which he had been sent to do.
One of the most outstanding faith-promoting statements of Nephi was made when they reached the border of the sea after they had been in the wilderness for eight years. The Lord told him to build a ship. He did not have any ore or tools or material with which to build the ship but, nothing daunting, he went into the mountain and dug out the required ore. From the skins of animals he made a bellows with which to blow the fire, which he started by striking two stones together. As he made preparations to build the ship, his brothers said of him:
... Our brother is a fool, for he thinketh that he can build a ship; yea, and he also thinketh that he can cross these great waters.
Mistaking his sorrowing over their misconduct for discouragement, they taunted him. He then stood up in the power of the spirit and said unto them:
... If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them. If he should command me that I should say unto this water, be thou earth, it should be earth; and if I should say it, it would be done.
Here is an example of faith and courage which, if we can emulate, will do much to help us through our doubting and discouragement, for we serve the same God that Nephi served, and He will sustain us even as he sustained Nephi if we will serve him even as Nephi served him.
READING ENJOINED
I urge you to get acquainted with this great book. Read it to your children; they are not too young to understand it. I remember reading it with one of my lads when he was very young. On one occasion I lay in the lower bunk and he in the upper bunk. We were each reading aloud alternate paragraphs of those last three marvelous chapters of Second Nephi. I heard his voice breaking and thought he had a cold, but we went on to the end of the three chapters. As we finished he said to me, "Daddy, do you ever cry when you read the Book of Mormon?"
"Yes, Son," I answered "Sometimes the Spirit of the Lord so witnesses to my soul that the Book of Mormon is true that I do cry."
"Well," he said, "that is what happened to me tonight."
I know not all of them will respond like that, but I know that some of them will, and I tell you this book was given to us of God to read and to live by, and it will hold us as close to the Spirit of the Lord as anything I know. Won't you please read it?
God bless you. Amen.
Elder Eldred G. Smith
Eldred G. Smith, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 41-44
I wish to acknowledge all that has been said so far in this conference and ask that I shall also have a portion of your faith and prayers in my behalf, as has been requested in the prayers of this conference.
I am sure there is no happier gathering than we have here today, for I don't think there are any happier people than those who are active, faithful members of the Church. Inasmuch as we have gathered here together to receive of more encouragement and help in performing our responsibilities in the work of the Lord, I am sure the Lord will answer that prayer for us.
I am happy in my testimony of the gospel, in the knowledge of the gospel with which the Lord has blessed me.
GOAL OF HAPPINESS
As has been said, happiness has been the goal of man since the beginning of time, for man is that he might have joy. When Moses reached the age of 120 and it was time for him to depart this life, he commanded that all the children of Israel be gathered together that he might speak to them. He said, "Come, therefore, let me suggest to you by what means you may be happy"
Moses had been an instrument in the hands of the Lord, to bring many blessings to the children of Israel. Through Moses they had been released from bondage and delivered from Egypt. He had traveled with them for forty years in the wilderness, teaching them the will of the Lord. He had gone through many trials and hardships with them and for them. Together they had suffered hunger, thirst, and had fled before their enemy. Now at the end of his life, when men are most serious, he called them together to give them instructions. Uppermost in his mind for the hosts of Israel was their happiness. He continued:
O children of Israel! There is but one source of happiness for all mankind, the favor of God; for he alone is able to give good things to those that deserve them, and to deprive those of them that sin against him; towards whom, if you behave yourselves according to his will, and according to what I, who well understand his mind, do exhort you to, you will both be esteemed blessed, and will be admired by all men; and will never come into misfortunes, nor cease to be happy...
OBEDIENCE INSURES HAPPINESS
After standing the test of thousands of years, it is still just as true today for all mankind; for true happiness and joy come from the favor of God. How can we obtain the favor of God in our everyday walks of life? The Lord has given us commandments, obedience to which will insure our happiness, if we will only heed them. First and foremost, "... love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might". If our hearts are filled with love for God, then they are also filled with love for our fellow men. We will be glad to lend a helping hand or give a cheering word to a neighbor. And right here let me say, that love, like charity, begins at home. If you are fortunate enough to have a home and a family, your chances for happiness are unlimited. But it takes love-plenty of love to make a home happy. The more we give in understanding, sympathy, and service to others, the happier we are. And love is kind it is ready to overlook failures and try again. If we could only keep our hearts filled with love, this earth would be a heaven of happiness. Do you remember the song in our hymn book-"Love at Home"? It is such a beautiful song. Next time you are tempted to let something other than love creep into your heart, sing it and see if it doesn't help. There is a sure method of keeping in the favor of the Lord. When we are in constant communication, we cannot go far astray. Each morning, throughout the day, and at night, we ask God to let his Spirit be with us to guide us in all that we do. It is like the beam that guides the pilot of an airplane. As long as he is on the beam, he knows that everything is all right, but he must not stray too far or he loses the beam, We have a conscience, each of us, that will tell us if we are not on the beam. There is no surer way to unhappiness than to carry a guilty conscience constantly for a companion. Don't do it. Get on the beam. There are many other things which contribute to our happiness, and God has given us instruction concerning these things. Our capacity for enjoying life is greater if our health is good. It is hard to be happy if we are always tired. The Lord told us how to keep from being weary and keep our minds invigorated. He said:
... retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated.
With every blessing, however, the Lord has put a price or a law upon which each blessing is predicated. For keeping the Word of Wisdom he promises:
And all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones;
And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures;
And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint. And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them.
The nineteenth verse is to me most important. They "shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures". Is there any greater happiness that can be given to man than the testimony of the divinity of this gospel and the plan of life and salvation? That knowledge comes only from the Holy Ghost. Again the Lord promises, "... prove me now herewith.... if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." For the price of this source of happiness, the Lord says:
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house....
THE PRICE OF PROSPERITY
The Book of Mormon records the promises of prosperity to those who live in this the promised land. The price for prosperity is keeping the commandments of the Lord. There were many times when Israel of old was not in the favor of the Lord. Then the Lord withdrew his blessings, and they became humbled again, and the blessings of the Lord were again given to the people. We find the same repetition among the descendants of Lehi on this continent. What about us? Can we profit by their experience?
The Lord also promised, "All that my Father hath shall be given... ". To whom? And why?
And also all they who receive this priesthood receive me, saith the Lord;
For he that receiveth my servants receiveth me; And he that receiveth me receiveth my Father;
And he that receiveth my Father, receiveth my Father's kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him.
The reward for keeping the commandments of the Lord is happiness.
Happiness certainly does not come from just idle goodness. The Savior said, "But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant". He could have said, "He that is happiest among you shall be your servant." Active service to others is serving God. That missionary is happiest who is truly seeking to serve his fellow man by declaring to him the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Active members of the Church everywhere experience the same happiness. Nor does happiness stop with this life. For those who keep the commandments of the Lord to the full, and enter into the new and everlasting covenant, and are sealed together as husband and wife for time and all eternity, shall enjoy the greatest degree of happiness.
Thus, as Moses declared: "The source of happiness for all mankind," in this life and the life to come throughout all eternity, "is the favour of God."
May the Lord help us to obtain it, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Harold B. Lee
Harold B. Lee, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 44-51
I would like to introduce the few remarks that I shall make by recalling a few scriptures, one of which has been repeated by two previous speakers today.
The Lord declared:
All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.
FREEDOM OF CHOICE
And the other, quoted by Elder Romney as one of the great teachings from the Book of Mormon, was Father Lehi's explanation of this same great principle to his son Jacob:
And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.
Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.
There were those who seemingly, as evidenced by their conduct, think of this principle of free agency as a matter of license to do what they please to do. But again Father Lehi explains this matter to his son:
Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things shall be given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great mediation of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
We must teach men everywhere that liberty and freedom are to be obtained only by yielding obedience to truth. We must teach Latter-day Saints the meaning of the words of the Savior:
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Anyone who looks about him and thinks about this matter will see great evidence of the power of evil enticing men to do evil. It must be understood by us as a Church that if we are to build a force that will nullify the power of evil, we must develop the God-given agencies placed in his Church to entice men to seek the paths that lead to eternal life.
GENERAL SERVICEMEN'S COMMITTEE
I have recalled these scriptures I have quoted many times during the last few years because of the feeling and weight of responsibility that has rested upon me in the assignment of the First Presidency as a member of the general servicemen's committee directing the work of the Church among our Latter-day Saint boys in military service and as a member of the general priesthood committee. It was with a prayer of relief that we thanked the Lord that we had come through the war with as few casualties, spiritually speaking, as we did, but it was with considerable anxiety that we again saw marshaled into the ranks of the military, our young, untrained boys, many of them without experience and with not too much faith developed, in a so-called peacetime draft. We came soon to see and learn, to our dismay, that the moral hazards in such a situation were even greater than during the fighting part of the war. Then there was something of a moral discipline that boys had when ahead of them there was the prospect of imminent death.
It is true today that the draft situation has eased somewhat, but we view with fear and anxiety the forces that are at work which would have a universal military draft of all able-bodied young men in this country, which will come except God in his mercy shall deliver us therefrom. It is because of that anxiety and that possibility and the fact that we still have many of our young men in service that have caused me to think of these matters which the Lord has called to our attention.
VIEWS OF CHAPLAIN
With respect to the matter of war and the processes of war, a chaplain who served in two wars and longer, writes this:
War makes for few conversions. War only makes people more strongly what they were when the struggle began. If they were intemperate when they went into uniform, they will usually have become much harder drinkers by the time they come back home. If they were careless in sex morality, they are almost sure to have become more slimy in that respect. If they were noisy braggarts, you may expect them to return intolerable boasters. If they were selfish, their selfishness will have increased. If they were honest, decent, modest men, the war will usually have improved those qualities. If they despised God, they will have come out more sure in scorn; if they loved God a little, they will have learned to love him a lot. But there will be no more conversions than in peacetime, rather less. All history shows it true that no religious revival ever began or was fostered by battle.
What is said here by this chaplain about those away from their homes in military service might in part be said about all who are away from their homes and away from the influence of the Church.
As we scan the priesthood reports from quarter to quarter, there is evidence that there are many of our priesthood members not in military service but likewise away from home and away from the ties and influences of the Church. There are also reports of many girls who are away from their homes at school and at work and, therefore, shorn of the influences that otherwise would tie them close to the influence of the Church.
PLACE OF REFUGE
When the Lord revealed the name by which his Church was to be called, he gave some other instructions as to what that Church was to do. He said:
And that the gathering together upon the land of Zion, and upon her stakes, may be for a defense, and for a refuge from the storm, and from wrath when it shall be poured out without mixture upon the whole earth.
As I have thought of that refuge which the Lord designed his organization to be, I have thought of those agencies within it, one of which Elder Benson spoke so eloquently about in his Church of the Air address this morning, the home. He quoted the scripture which we have had repeated time and time again as a quotation from the revelation of the Lord. After the Lord had declared it a sin upon the heads of the parents if they failed to teach the law of repentance and have their children baptized when eight years of age, he said:
And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.
And the inhabitants of Zion shall also observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
And the inhabitants of Zion also shall remember their labors, inasmuch as they are appointed to labor, in all faithfulness; for the idler shall be had in remembrance before the Lord.
PURPOSES OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION
The Apostle Paul has defined another one of the purposes of the Church organization in his writings to the Ephesians. He declared that the Lord gave this organization "... to edify the body of the church," "all come unto a unity of faith".
Clearly the Apostle Paul saw the importance of the teacher and those who would instruct our members in the doctrines of the Church as another of those divine agencies in the Church to entice against the power of evil. It would be well if all the teachers would understand what the Apostle Paul meant when he said to the Corinthians:
And I... came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
OBJECTIVE OF TEACHERS
That should be the only objective of instructors and teachers in this Church to teach "Jesus Christ, and him crucified." We need not the "excellency of speech nor of wisdom," but we need the testimony of God, as Paul said. And then this warning came in his later writings:
For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?.
President Joseph F. Smith, in commenting about this and decrying the fact that there were some apparently trying to confuse our people and lead them away by destroying faith rather than by building a testimony of God, said:
Among the Latter-day Saints the preaching of false doctrine disguised as truths of the gospel may be expected from people, of two classes and practically from these only; they are: First, the hopelessly ignorant, whose lack of intelligence is due to their indolence and sloth, who make but feeble effort, if indeed any at all, to better themselves, by reading and study; those who are afflicted with a dread disease that may develop into an incurable malady-laziness.
Second, the proud and self-vaunting ones, who read by the lamp of their own conceit; who interpret by rules of their own contriving; who have become a law unto themselves, and so pose as the sole judges of their own doings, more dangerously ignorant than the first.
Beware of the lazy and the proud; their infection in each case is contagious; better for them and for all when they are compelled to display the yellow flag of warning, that the clean and uninfected may be protected.
I wish that we could have in all our classes and meetings the spirit which characterized one of our missionary meetings down at Ventura, California, where I visited recently with President Oscar W. McConkie, of the California Mission, when a woman who had sat in one of our Latter-day Saint meetings for the first time in her life made this comment at the close of the meeting:
I have studied the scriptures all my life, but today the words of the scriptures have been made to live.
So can be all the instructions of inspired teachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
DUTIES OF THE PRIESTHOOD
And now there is a third agency in the Church to entice men away from evil.
The Lord has set up the priesthood, and to them he gave the injunction to elders, priests, teachers, deacons, that they were to "watch over the Church" -and in more detailed explanation to the teachers-"to see that there is no iniquity, no evil speaking, and that all Church members do their duty".
But, even after instructions have gone out from the General Authorities, concerning the servicemen, to our bishops and stake presidents as how the boys away from home may be contacted and directed; and after our instructions have gone out about the girls who likewise are away from home, and how we ought to shepherd them and keep in touch with them; and how the quorums should look after their absent members, we regret to say our reports indicate that sometimes quorum leaders take too lightly the exercise of those agencies which our Heavenly Father has caused to be set up here for the enticement to do good of those who otherwise are being enticed by evil.
At the beginning of the war there was an interesting newspaper account of a boy flying in from a training trip over the air field who suddenly shouted through his radio device to the man in the control tower below: "I can't see. I've lost my eyesight."
And the man in the control tower said: "Now, Son, you get a grip on yourself, and I will tell you what to do."
Quietly the man in the control tower guided him and had him circle the field many times, losing altitude by manipulating the controls, and finally the pilot rolled to a stop safely in front of the control tower on the ground.
It is that kind of calm wisdom and counsel that we need so much today. I would like to illustrate what I mean by bringing you parts of two letters from two of our boys who came through a period of spiritual "blindness" because of the steadying influence of wise counselors in the Church. One of these boys wrote a letter just recently and began his letter by saying:
EXPERIENCE OF SERVICEMAN
"My bishop is the best bishop in this Church." He then explained that when he became a priest, his bishop taught him, among the first things, that God answered prayer. So the bishop instructed him before he went away into military service, and he went away strengthened by these teachings, but when he got out there, he learned to his dismay that some of those who claim membership in the Church did not act as the servants of the Lord should. They were rowdy. There was irreverence. And he got to thinking, "Could it be the Church of Jesus Christ if they don't reverence his name and are irreverent in his house?" He went to visit other churches and found a spirit of worship that sometimes was not to be found in his own. In his own way he formed the conclusion that therefore the Church must be wrong. He wrote home to his bishop and said: "Bishop, I have decided to join another church. I feel that this must be wrong or our people would be more reverent in their meetings."
His bishop wrote back and said: "Well, my boy, do not act too hastily. You study about this matter, and think about it. You pray to your Heavenly Father, and everything will be all right." The boy then wrote this:
"On Thanksgiving night, I was very tired as I had just come off a watch at night, and when I had gone to bed, all I wanted to do was sleep. That night God answered my prayer. It was late, and what to me was a vision and to the common people would be a dream came to me. I saw a beautiful garden, and in the middle of this garden was a golden path. Coming down the path was my grandfather who had died in 1937. On the other side was my uncle who had died on a mission in 1939.
"Now I had gone to bed very tired, and I had never thought of my uncle or my grandfather as they had died when I was still under ten years of age.
"But that was not all. In the middle of them was Joseph Smith. They all talked to me, and the final thing that I can remember distinctly as being said was Joseph Smith telling me to stick to the truth, no matter what the other people said or did and to listen to the truth even though others did not listen to it.
"Then he said that there was still work to be done there as I had work to do here, and they faded away, and it seemed that I was in the garden alone until the garden began to fade, and I seemed to fall.
"When I awoke, it was still the middle of the night, and it was also cold, yet I had a feeling of warmth within me, and I knew that God had answered my prayers. I finished the night in restful sleep.
"Now you may think I was dreaming, too, but I still feel and know that I had an answer to my prayer.
I recalled that boy's letter when we heard a group of missionaries down in the California Mission say: "When we get discouraged and downcast and blue, we have made a practice to go away fasting into the mountains before daylight and stay there all day and return after dark at night, and we have never failed to come from that experience strengthened by the power of God."
WOUNDED MAN REMEMBERED
Another of our men coming back from combat service overseas was thrown into the middle of the ocean when his ship was torpedoed. He was seriously burned and was sent to a sanitarium, with his mind greatly disturbed and upset. He writes this testimony:
"While in the hospital, word came to me that my son had been gravely wounded in the South Pacific. I could not go to him. My world had collapsed. No, again, it is not the usual story. I did not remain steadfast in the faith. I became rebellious. I blamed my Heavenly Father for all of the misery and distress which was mine. I concluded that he had let me down. I turned away from him. I even got to the point where I could no longer pray. It seemed as if my line of communication had been broken, and I had lost all contact with God. That was the depth of human misery. Utter futility and resentment were mine. There is no destitution like that of being out of contact with our Heavenly Father. It is like receiving a busy signal when you call your doctor in an emergency.
"But then a miracle happened! My friends in the Church had not forgotten me! They prayed with faith for my recovery. My name was placed in the temples of our Lord where prayer was said in my behalf. My children continued to pray even as I had taught them to do. My parents prayed with an unwavering faith.
"The elders of the Church sought me out and gave me a blessing. I had little faith in them, but God had not forgotten me. He heard those prayers, and he turned not away. And health soon returned to my body."
I ask you members and leaders of the Church: Suppose that the bishop had been too busy to write to his boy who was disturbed by the irreverence of many who attended meetings where he had been. Suppose that he had not been taught as a priest the things which the bishop had taught him about prayer and how he could get an answer to his problems. Suppose that this other man's elders' quorum had failed, and they had forgotten to pray back home. I ask you to consider the seriousness of our responsibility in these matters.
DAY OF DECEPTION
Today is a day of clever deception, a day when the Master declared one of the signs of his coming should be that even the very elect, according to the covenant, would be deceived.
One of our boys now studying in a large university on the coast declared that the "thing that had kept him from losing faith in the Bible which the higher critics have decimated almost to a point of non-recognition," he said, "the thing that has kept my faith is that I know the Book of Mormon is true, and because of that testimony I know that what they are saying about the Bible is false and not the truth."
The Lord has given us a sure guide as to how we might discern truth from error. He said:
And that which doth not edify is not of God....
That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.
KEEP GOD'S COMMANDMENTS
I wish we could take a lesson from the testimony of a man in this city who conducts a business here, who wrote and told me about a little experience he had when during the so-called depression of the past years, he thought he was going to lose everything that he had, and so he fasted and prayed that the Lord would show him how to save his business, and he said: "One morning just as it was breaking daylight I felt the still small voice which said to me: 'If you will only but keep God's commandments, you will be given all the wisdom necessary to save your business.
Simple, but a great powerful truth-if we will only keep God's commandments, the wisdom sufficient to our needs will be given us!
In the words of one, may we not forget the great truth which he has put in these words:
Isn't it strange that princes and kings And clowns that caper in sawdust rings And just plain folks like you and me Are builders for eternity?
To each is given a bag of tools, A shapeless mass and a book of rules, And each must build ere life has flown, A stumbling-block or a steppingstone.
God grant us strength. May we rise to our responsibilities, to do our job, to entice the membership of this Church and the world to seek the things that bring eternal life and happiness here and in the world to come, I pray humbly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Bishop LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 52-56
I am very happy, brothers and sisters, to have the privilege of attending this conference with you. I am sure we have all rejoiced in the testimonies and the instructions of our brethren, and I thank the Lord for them and for my association with them, and I am very grateful, as you are, that he has permitted President Smith to be here with us today and to instruct us as he has done.
I humbly pray that, in the few moments that are mine, I may leave some thought with you that will help inspire you and help you feel compensated for the great work you are doing in the Church of our Father in heaven.
THE THINGS THAT MATTER
It has been said that there are two kinds of things in this world, the things that matter and then the other things, and I believe that if any people have learned to know the things that matter, it is the Latter-day Saints.
You will recall that a teacher among the Jews went to Jesus by night, the Great Teacher, to learn from him the things that matter, and when he met the Savior, he said:
... Rabbi, we know that thou are a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him.
Jesus did not reply with some great philosophy of men, but said to Nicodemus: "... Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
And of course Nicodemus did not understand, and said: "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?"
And Jesus replied: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God".
A great many people, as Jesus instructed the teacher of the Jews, have been born again. Take as an illustration the Apostle Paul.
There was a man who did not understand the truth. On the way to Damascus, our Savior appeared to him and informed him of the mistake he was making, and said: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
"... it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks".
PAUL AND PETER
And you know the life of Paul, from that time forward until he went to Rome and there appeared before Festus and King Agrippa. When he bore his testimony to them he told them how he had seen a light and heard the voice of the Savior speak unto him, but they just could not understand it. And Festus said with a loud voice: "... Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad".
To which Paul replied: "I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness".
And then Agrippa said: "Almost thou persuadeth me to be a Christian."
And while Paul stood before them in chains, he said: "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds".
Paul had found the thing that mattered in this world, and he was willing to give his life for it.
And Peter, that great exponent of truth, after he had received the gift of the Holy Ghost, was commanded that he should no longer preach Christ and him crucified in the streets of Jerusalem, but he replied: "Whom shall men obey, God or man?".
And he went on about his work as he had been commanded, because he had been born again and he knew the thing that was really worthwhile.
ALMA'S CONVERSION
Now consider Alma, the son of Alma, who went about persecuting the Saints, until the angel of the Lord appeared to him and told him of his error, and the earth trembled as the angel spake to him, but after that, when Alma went forth to preach the gospel, he just could not take unto himself the power that he would like in order that he might be able to cry repentance to all the world. And he said: "O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people", because he knew that when the angel spake to him it literally did shake the earth.
And so Alma found the thing that was really Worth while, the thing that mattered, and that was the thing to which he devoted his life; and so it was with the prophets of that day and this day.
JOSEPH SMITH'S TESTIMONY
When the Prophet Joseph wrote his own story he said that he marveled that a boy, obscure as he was, a farmer boy without education, should become the subject of such discussion and concern by the great men of his community, and he said:
I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and, while they were persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of evil against me falsely for so saying, I was led to say in my heart: "Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision; and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen?" For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it; at least I knew that by so doing I would offend God, and come under condemnation.
And so, being born again, as the Prophet was, and learning the thing that mattered and was really worth while, his whole life was devoted to his testimony, until he sealed his testimony with his blood.
BRIGHAM YOUNG
It took Brigham Young about two years to make up his mind to join the Church after he first heard the gospel, and then for the next ten years, we are told, he spent almost his entire time in the missionary service of the Lord. And when he went on his first mission he did not even have an overcoat, and he took a quilt from the trundle bed, and his wife made him a cap out of a pair of old pantaloons, and at the end of ten years, he said, all he had ever had as a reward of his service was the half of a small pig that the Prophet Joseph had received from one of the brethren and divided with him. And then, in this great Tabernacle later he said that he had studied the gospel as any student of science had studied any branch of science for thirty years as he traveled by day and by night, by land and by sea, and he had only reached the ABC's: his study lead him into the eternities.
That is what it does for a man when he finds the thing that matters and is really worth while in this life, and it marks the life of that man just as the lives of you, my brethren, have been marked because of the testimony that has come to you.
I like the statement that President Clark made from this stand, I think about a year ago, when he said that a testimony is the mortar that holds this Church together, and if we did not have a testimony we would not be doing the things we are doing today.
All of you, as you look back over the history of your own people and your own families, are no doubt proud of your forebears and the sacrifices they have made, and their integrity and devotion to the faith, and if you will pardon me for being a bit personal, I would like to refer to some of mine.
FAITH IN OWN FAMILY
My grandfather, Franklin D. Richards, recorded in his diary, after he had been a member of the Church for nine years, that he had come up in that time through the grades of the priesthood to the office of high priest, that he had received his endowments in the Nauvoo Temple, that he had filled five missions in the United States, and he was then serving as counselor in the Presidency of the British Mission with a membership of over sixteen thousand. Then he states:
Most of all things, this day, I desire the Holy Spirit, which giveth life, yea life more abundantly to both body and spirit.
He traded his home in Nauvoo, as many of the other brethren did, for a team of horses and a wagon; loaded on it all his possessions he could take with him; took his two wives and one little girl, and went to join the Saints at Winter Quarters. When he arrived there, the Prophet Brigham Young sent him back to England. And while he was there again in the mission field, one of his wives died, his little girl died, and his brother who was with the Mormon Battalion died. Previously he had lost a brother in the Haun's Mill Massacre, and he wrote in his journal something like this:
I hope that no matter what sacrifice may be required at my hands that God will give me the strength to stand so that when the battle is fought and the race is run I may come out not one whit behind my brethren.
You know, that is when we know the things that matter and the other things, when we have been born again with the spirit of this great latter-day work.
I would like also to refer to Grandfather Willard Richards, cousin Stephen L's grandfather. He was in jail in Carthage with the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum, and John Taylor. Grandfather Willard did not have to go there; there was no subpoena for him or warrant of arrest. The Prophet Joseph turned to him and said: "If we go into the cell, will you go with us?"
Dr. Richards replied: "Brother Joseph, you did not ask me to cross the river with you: you did not ask me to come to Carthage with you; you did not ask me to come to jail with you. Do you think I would forsake you now? I will tell you what I will do. If you are condemned to be hanged for treason, I will be hanged in your stead, and you shall go free."
The Prophet replied: "You cannot do that." Dr. Richards replied: "But I will."
That is the kind of faith and testimony that has built this kingdom of God, because they have known the things that matter, and the other things have been of little consequence to them.
I would like to be pardoned for referring to my own father who is deprived of the privilege of being here today because of illness. President George F. Richards of the Council of the Twelve. A few weeks ago I sat by his side when he was in great pain and distress and I sympathized with him and he said: "My son, it does not matter what happens to me as long as the kingdom of God can go forward."
And I felt grateful for a father with that kind of faith.
To these testimonies, many of you brethren can add experiences of your own and your forebears. I remember when I was a boy I said to my father: "Father, how is a person to know when he gets a testimony?"
"Well," he said, "my boy, you just keep going the way you have been; you will not need to worry about that."
There is not time today to relate my own experiences but I want to tell you that a testimony of the divinity of this work is the most treasured gift of my life, and I would rather have it burn in the hearts and souls of my children and my grandchildren than any other thing in all the world.
TESTIMONY OF INDIAN SISTER
Could I be excused for reading a testimony of an Indian sister, that appeared in the Church section of The Deseret News, a few weeks ago, to show you that the Lord gives to the poor and the humble of the earth just as well as he does to any others:
I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I have never had any doubt in my heart but that I have joined the fight Church. Before I joined the Latter-day Saint Church, everything that was pure and sweet seemed so far away, as if there were a deep gap, and I could never get the edges together. But when the elders came and I heard the real truth, everything seemed so clear and beautiful. I wanted to be sure, and I would pray nights for God to guide me and show me the right thing to do. He showed me the right way, and I just cannot explain the wonderful feeling I had. I was at peace with the world. I keep thanking God for the privilege of being able to be a member of the true Church. I want to bear my testimony in the name of Jesus Christ.
I had the privilege of meeting that dear sister not long ago, and she was just like an angel from heaven to me. I learned that she had taken the beads and little trinkets that her mother bequeathed to her, amounting in value to a few hundred dollars, and sold them in order that she might erect a room in which the elders could hold meetings in the vicinity where she lives.
In closing, I would like to read the words of Nephi:
And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?
And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable of all things.
And he spake unto me saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul.
I bear you my testimony, my brethren and sisters, that there is nothing in this world to compare with the love of God and the testimony of the truth that comes through being born again and knowing the things that matter and are worthwhile, and then you will not need to worry about the other things.
God bless you all, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Henry D. Moyle
Henry D. Moyle, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 60-65
My brethren and sisters, I wish it were possible this morning for me to express to my Heavenly Father the gratitude there is in my heart for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in these latter days. I am sure that if we serve all the days of our life and render to this work the utmost of our ability in furthering its progress, that we will not have shown fully the appreciation which I know we all hold. It is glorious for me to contemplate the possibilities that the gospel gives to us in life, the blessings that it has bestowed upon us thus far in our lives. I marvel as I go through the Church and receive of your kindness and your hospitality and your faith and prayers in my ministry, at the growth and the development which I, in turn, see in you, who are faithful to the offices and callings which you fill and who are rendering the service that you do render to the children of our Heavenly Father. I am certain that I can never do enough in my life to compensate my Heavenly Father for the testimony that he has given me of the divinity of the work in which we are engaged. More priceless than all else is the knowledge that I have that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and that he called upon the boy Joseph Smith to be his prophet in these latter days and to restore to this earth his gospel for the salvation, and, through our obedience, the exaltation of mankind.
ADVERSARY AT WORK
We may sometimes feel that this work is purely spiritual but there is no phase of life that we can afford to overlook in fulfilling our obligations to our Heavenly Father and to the priesthood which we hold. We must be conscious of the fact that the adversary is at work, utilizing every agency of which he can conceive. I am sure we are all agreed that his imagination is almost limitless, to bring about the downfall of the work of truth and righteousness here upon this earth. Where he finds us to be vulnerable either in our thinking or in our lives, there is where he is going to get in his work most effectively. He is causing us in our thinking to be led to adopt the philosophies of the world. We are easily led. I am sure that flattery is one of the greatest implements or tools that the adversary has at his command. You and I, today, must fortify ourselves against unrighteous flattery, in fact, I feel to say, any kind of flattery at all, to keep our feet on the ground and our thinking clear and to see to it that we devote our spare time to studying the principles of the gospel, that no philosophies of men will have any room in our thinking, nor shall we have time to devote to the reading of such.
RIGHTS OF CITIZENSHIP
We are called upon in our daily lives, in this great country in which we live, to exercise our rights of citizenship. I wonder sometimes if all of us are conscious of the power that we possess in this respect. We have had a great deal said at this conference, to which I can very happily say amen, concerning the family. I wish we could all take to heart every word that Elder Ezra Taft Benson said in his address on the "Church of the Air." I rejoice in his courage to tell the people of the world that which is destroying the home. To point out to them the way in which the home can be built up and strengthened. What I want to emphasize today, if I may, is the fact that the home in which we live and in which we rear our children is located in a community or vicinity, or city. We cannot keep out of our home the influences which we find in these centers in which we live. We need to call upon our Heavenly Father to give us the inspiration and the foresight, first of all, to know what to do and then the courage to accomplish it.
STATE LEGISLATURE
I want to say a commendatory word to those who sat in our last state legislature. May the Lord bless them for their efforts to make of our state and of our communities a better place in which to live and a better place in which to rear our families. I owe a debt of gratitude beyond measure to my parents, to my brethren and sisters who lived in this state when I was a boy for the fact that they kept the town in which I was reared as clean as it was kept. It is now our duty to keep the youth of Zion from as many temptations as possible and to give them the same opportunity that many of us have had to develop faith and to grow in righteousness and to overcome the weakness of the flesh in an atmosphere peculiarly adapted to such purposes. I feel to commend all of the Latter-day Saints today for the efforts that they have extended to make of their communities, in a civic sense, a proper place to live. But I am certain that you will all agree with me that we still have a great work to perform in this connection, and we cannot delay nor overlook the slightest opportunity.
COMMUNITY LIFE
We sometimes permit ourselves, around election time, to become concerned with politics. We should always be active. Now is the time to prepare for the next election. It is upon politics we must rely in large measure for the kind of government that we have. In turn we must rely upon that government for the protection of our rights, for the enforcement of our laws, and for the protection of our principles. Now these things go to the very root of life itself and of our growth and development in the gospel. We cannot afford to neglect to do our duty as citizens of this great United States and as citizens of the state in which we live. Those of you, my brethren and sisters, who come from the countries outside the United States, so far as the laws of those countries permit, should exercise the same influence there as we undertake to exercise here under our laws. We have the power, we have the leadership and the strength in this Church to make our views known. Even though we may be a minority, in some places, we have the power to convert every person who thinks right and who desires the right, to our cause. I have the abiding conviction within me that there are none of us living in any communities anywhere but what the great majority of the people-our friends, our neighbors, our associates-even though they be they be not of our faith, nevertheless they, the majority, desire righteousness rather than evil to predominate in the communities in which they live. And so it is up to you and me, where we are minorities, to make ourselves majorities by converting those who need converting to these specific programs, programs which we have in mind to bring about the kind of suitable conditions under which we can establish our homes and rear our children. Our efforts should not be confined to the times of political elections. We should be on duty always.
I want to say again, I commend the legislature from the bottom of my heart. Our fine stalwart brethren stood in this last state legislature and raised their voices under the inspiration of their priesthood to uphold and sustain righteousness in the enactment of laws. We had a conflict, in our own legislature here last time, which I want to mention for a moment, on two or three issues, specifically which came before them. We should have them in mind as we go back to our homes and begin to devise ways and means by which we can accomplish our righteous purposes. I might say at the outset that what we undertake to do for ourselves is not with any selfish purpose in mind. It is not to obtain any power or dominion over others. It is to bring to them, in effect, the same blessings that we seek for ourselves, those God-given rights secured to us by the laws of this great nation. And so we can go forward. If any of us have any doubts as to our rights in this matter, we need only to read the 134th section of the D&C; to find all of the instruction and inspiration that any righteous man needs to go forth and do his duty. We must all strengthen the community in which we live, from a civic and political as well as a religious standpoint. I tell you, my brethren and sisters, that when we exercise this kind of faith and courage in behalf of our neighbors as well as our own members we will accomplish a great missionary work in this world. There will be men and women brought to investigate the principles of the gospel because they will see the kind of fruits in us which this gospel has borne. Their doors will be opened to us through our civic activities to preach the gospel of the restored kingdom and to bring the same joy and happiness into the hearts of our neighbors with which the Lord has blessed us all our lives.
OBSERVANCE OF SABBATH
We had a conflict up there in the legislature about the Sabbath day. I would like to go into some of the things that have been said about the Sabbath day from the time of Adam on. So far as I know the Lord has never changed the law of the Sabbath. In the days of early Israel with all of Israel's faults they kept the Sabbath day holy, and they did the Lord's work on the Sabbath day. They literally closed the gates of Jerusalem. They did not permit vendors to bring their wares to the gates to be sold on the Sabbath day. We have had the gospel of the Sabbath day proclaimed to us through all generations of time. Should there be any doubt in our minds as to what course the Latter-day Saints should take with reference to the Sabbath day? Are we to open our stores, are we to carry on our commercial transactions on the Sabbath day the same as we do on a weekday, or are we to close our establishments? Well, the answer is obvious. Now, why isn't any law which has for its purpose the maintaining of the Sabbath day sacred, a law which we should uphold and sustain and support and vote for on every occasion that we have a legal right so to do? To hold otherwise would be to tell us that we have not the right to use our own free agency so far as the affairs of government are concerned.
LIQUOR LAW
We've had another law on our books with reference to liquor, and there was an effort made to expand the present liquor law to the detriment of the people. Nobody had to ask anybody any questions as to where the right and the wrong were to be found. If there are any Latter-day Saints today who think that the old open saloon is uplifting or would help us build a better community, it must be because they are not old enough to remember the days when we had those institutions in our midst and saw from actual experience the results and the evils, the deterioration that set in, the sorrow and the hardships, that such places of vice brought. So I feel again to commend those in our state legislature who saw fit to vote against any act which had for its purpose the bringing back of the open saloon. They do not call it that now, but that is what it would have been had we had sale of liquor by the drink, and do not let any of us forget that. Let us raise our voices whenever we have the opportunity, and create the opportunity, my brothers and sisters. Let us elect men to office who will be opposed to the institution in our midst of such places of vice as the open saloon. It is bad enough to have to traffic in liquor at all. We certainly should not go farther than we have. If it is necessary, in order to fight this evil, to meet the opposition on the other side, why, then I say to you from the bottom of my heart, let us start fighting for prohibition, for after all, that is what we ought to have to maintain the kind of communities our Heavenly Father would have us maintain in this world, and on this continent, and in this land of his. We cannot hope to receive the blessings of our Heavenly Father here, in as rich abundance as he is willing to give them to us if we do not exercise every power that we have to make this a land choice above all others. Prohibition would help to make it that, and the open saloon would make it the contrary.
HORSE RACING BILL
We had one other bill that I would like to speak about in conclusion and that is the horse racing bill. I suppose there is no harm in horse racing, but there is no more insidious vice on earth than gambling. It is destructive of the morals. The man does not live who is strong enough in the faith, I do not care what his past record has been, to start in gambling and continue therein and keep the faith. If there are any people in this state who desire horse racing and the gambling that is incident thereto, we invite them to leave and to go to places where those things can be had. We do not have to have them in our midst. I feel to say that no man can maintain his full standing in this Church and keep his faith and at the same time have anything to do with horse racing and gambling.
Now, brethren, let us take this seriously. In those communities, in this state, where horse racing and gambling have become more or less of an institution, let us use our faith and our courage to eradicate them as such and to elect men to the legislature who will not open the doors to the element that follows horse racing with all the vice and corruption that would come into this state.
Well, now, my brethren and sisters, I hope that you will accept this admonition in the spirit in which it has been given. I love the Latter-day Saints; I am indebted to all of you for your faith and prayers and the support that you have given me as I have gone through the Church attending your quarterly conferences. I have learned to love you. I look forward with the greatest of pleasure every week of my life to coming into your stakes and into your homes and enjoying your spirit. I want our communities, in which we live, to be maintained in keeping with the spirit which we have here in these conferences and in our quarterly conferences and the spirit that we can have in our homes if we will say our prayers daily. May the Lord bless us to this end, I humbly pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Milton R. Hunter
Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 65-72
It is indeed a sobering experience, my brethren and sisters, to occupy this position and to look into the faces of this vast multitude of Latter-day Saints who have come here to worship the Lord. I humbly trust and pray that the Spirit of the Lord will attend me in what I say this morning.
I, like the other brethren who have spoken, have a testimony of this great work. I appreciate the privilege I have of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. It is my one great desire in life to serve the Lord to the best of my ability and always to do what he wants me to do.
IMMORTALITY OF MAN
Deep in the heart of practically every person who has lived in this world, God has implanted a hope-yes, more than that-even a strong desire, that he will live on after death. The immortality of man is an unusual concept. The study of ancient religions reveals the fact that any religion that was popular with its devotees and became a religion of prominence attained that popularity and prominence as a result of assuring its members that following their sojourn on this earth they would experience a happy, glorious, and blessed immortality. The same fact holds true today.
When Father Adam and Eve were upon this earth, through his Only Begotten Son, God revealed to them the gospel of Jesus Christ; and as one of the most important doctrines in that gospel he gave them the assurance that if they and their posterity would live in accordance with all the teachings, doctrine, and ordinances revealed to them that some day they would be able to come back into his presence. There they would not only experience immortality but they would also enjoy the great blessing of eternal life.
Throughout the various ages when God has revealed gospel principles to his holy prophets, he has always given them that one great idea that men will live on throughout the eternities.
A little over a hundred years ago when the gospel plan of salvation was being restored to the Prophet Joseph Smith in our dispensation, the various Christian denominations held the concept that men would live on after death, and yet their understanding of the unseen world was very hazy and vague. They had little, if any, information regarding our pre-mortal life, and their post-mortal life concepts were very erroneous in many respects. It became necessary, therefore, for our Father in heaven to reveal again to earth an abundance of knowledge relative to the immortality of man and point out the pathway to follow in order to gain eternal life. As a result of God's concern over his children, the Prophet Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. It contains much doctrine pertaining especially to post-mortal life. He also received the wonderful revelations recorded in the D&C.; Section seventy-six is the greatest revelation regarding post-mortal life to be found recorded in any book in the world. Joseph received the Pearl of Great Price in which we find much information on the council of the gods and our pre-mortal existence.
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST
We not only have the teachings of the prophets and revelation regarding the immortality of man, but we have a lot of absolute evidence. The greatest of all evidence that you and I are immortal, that we will live on after we leave this life, is the fact that Jesus Christ, following his crucifixion, rose from the grave. He appeared to many people in and around Jerusalem, thereby establishing the fact that he was immortal and extending the promise to humanity that as he had risen from the grave so would all men.
We read in the book of Matthew that at the time of the Savior's resurrection the graves of saints who had lived godly lives while in mortality were opened, and they appeared to many people in and around Jerusalem. These saints could have been such characters as Father Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Noah, and the other holy prophets and their wives who belonged to "the Church of the Firstborn".
Following his resurrection, Jesus Christ also appeared to the Nephites who lived in this land. On one of those occasions he told them to bring their records to him. As he read that record, he asked them if Samuel the Lamanite had not prophesied that when Christ was resurrected the graves of the ancient saints would be opened and that they would appear to these Nephite people. He was informed that such had been the prophecies and that those prophecies have been fulfilled. Thereupon he instructed the Nephite historian to write that great prophecy and its fulfillment in their records in order that you and I in the latter days might know for a surety that we would live on after death; that we are immortal beings as well as mortal.
LATTER-DAY TESTIMONY
Over one hundred years ago Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith on several occasions. Christ was a resurrected, glorified celestialized God when he made those appearances. Interspersed among those visitations, other beings who had lived upon this earth in ancient days appeared to the Prophet Joseph. Such persons as the Angel Moroni, Peter, James, and John, John the Baptist, Moses, Elias, Elijah, Michael, Raphael, and others visited Joseph Smith. Each appearance, of course, added testimony upon testimony regarding the immortality of man and the eternal life that the righteous ones who live upon this earth will eventually attain.
In the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we have a rather comprehensive understanding of our pre-mortal life. We are taught that you and I are brothers and sisters; in fact, all the men, women, and children who have ever come into this world are brothers and sisters, and they were all sons and daughters of God the Eternal Father and our Eternal Mother in that celestial spirit realm before we came into mortality. We are taught that we were born into that spirit realm as babies, and that we grew to maturity there, undergoing the various experiences which were there for us prior to our coming to mortality. Also through revelation we have learned that the gods held a council preparatory to the peopling of this earth in which the plans for mortality were discussed and proclaimed.
OUR DESTINATION
Probably of all the human beings who have lived upon this earth, at least a vast majority of them have asked this question of themselves: "Where do we go when we die?" I would say to all Latter-day Saints on this occasion that the place to which you and I go when we die will be determined, to a great extent, upon how we live while we are here-I mean our ultimate destination, the goal that we are striving for. We have the true plan of salvation, the gospel of Jesus Christ, with all the ordinances of the gospel, all the teachings, including the Holy Priesthood after the Order of the Son of God. All of these things which are necessary to bring us back into the presence of God and exalt us in celestial glory are ours. We know, therefore, what will be our destination as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints if we will live by every word that comes from the mouth of God. On the other hand, with all the power, priesthood, ordinances, doctrines, opportunities, and blessings that are ours, we also know that if we sin sufficiently, we have the power to condemn ourselves to the greatest of depths, even to cast our souls down to hell. The prophets have proclaimed that where much is given much is required at our hands.
To the Latter-day Saints death is not such a serious thing. It doesn't make a lot of difference how long we live in this world. The thing which is of vital importance, however, to you and me is how we live. Are we prepared to meet the. Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son? If death should come upon us any minute, are we prepared to go into the other world and eventually come into the celestial kingdom of God? That should be your goal and that should be my goal. We should live such a clean and pure life each day, rendering obedience to all the principles and ordinances of the gospel to such an extent that we would be ready to die whenever death comes upon us.
SPIRIT WORLD
Every person who dies will go into a world known as the spirit world. Those who have lived righteous lives here in mortality will find there a paradise, a heaven, a place of peace, of joy, of opportunities, of progression. On the other hand, those who have lived wicked lives will find themselves in the spirit world somewhat as if they were in prison. In fact, the prophets speak of that world as a prison. We read in Second Peter that at the time the Savior's body lay in the tomb, his spirit went to the spirit world and opened the doors of the gospel to those who were drowned in the flood at Noah's time. Those people had been detained from hearing the gospel, being in prison during that long period of time of more than two thousand years.
Some people that I have talked to have the concept that when they die that suddenly, their sins will all be washed away, and they will become white and glorious, pure and clean, in somewhat of an automatic or miraculous way. Such is not the case. According to the ancient prophets, especially the Book of Mormon, sustained by modern revelation, when we die, if we are filthy, we are filthy still. The fact that we die doesn't change us one iota. You and I are dual personages, possessing a spirit body which dwells in a physical body. Death is the separation of that spiritual body from the physical body. All of our good deeds, our bad deeds; the knowledge we have attained; our habits, our evil and good inclinations, are resident in the spirit. The spirit personage contains the personality, or, in other words, the spirit is the real individual. Having an understanding of this doctrine, therefore, we know that when we die we take with us to the other world exactly what we have made of ourselves while living in mortality. There is only one way that I know whereby you and I can purify ourselves, and that one way is through repentance. The things that we should repent of here in mortality will probably be easier to repent of now instead of putting them off until we go to the other world and have to overcome those handicaps at that time; and so I would say, "today is the day to prepare to meet God. Permit me to quote the words of an ancient Nephite prophet on that subject:
For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men, to perform their labors.
... if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.
A PROBATIONARY STATE
Every person after he or she leaves this life will stay in the spirit world a certain length of time in order to continue to prepare himself to come into the presence of God. In that spirit world there is a lot of activity. The gospel of Jesus Christ is being taught to those who have not received the plan of salvation here in mortality, and especially to those who previously have not had opportunity. When those people in the spirit world have received the gospel, the temple work that mortals do for them consummates the work for their acceptance of Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation there in the spirit world. The spirit world, then, is another probationary state in order that the sons and daughters of God who will, might prepare themselves to meet him.
UNIVERSAL RESURRECTION
Following our sojourn in the spirit world comes the resurrection. There will be a universal resurrection of every man, woman, and child. Just as we all die, so must we all rise from the grave. Amulek declared:
... I say unto you that this mortal body is raised to an immortal body, that is from death, even from the first death unto life, that they can die no more; their spirits uniting with their bodies, never to be divided; thus the whole becoming spiritual and immortal, that they can no more see corruption.
Jesus Christ came into the world and died for the sins of the world. He broke the bands of death and was resurrected, being the first fruits of the resurrection. He set into operation the law of resurrection and thereby gave as a free gift to every man, woman, and child, resurrection, or, in other words, immortality. Thus we will all, the wicked as well as the righteous, enjoy immortality.
THE GREAT JUDGMENT
Following the resurrection comes the great judgment. Every person who has lived and shall live in this world-every man, woman, and child-shall stand before the judgment seat judgment seat of God to answer for the life he or she lived here in mortality, and also to answer for the life lived in the spirit world.
Alma, that great Nephite prophet, was preaching this doctrine one day to his people. He explained to them that every man, woman, and child, "both bond and free... both the wicked and the righteous", would be resurrected and required to stand before the judgment seat of God. There they would be held accountable for the lives they lived while in mortality, for every act they committed, yea for every word they spoke, and for every thought that they thought. You and I are responsible beings, accountable for the things that we think. To quote:
For our words will condemn us, yea, all our works will condemn us; we shall not be found spotless; and our thoughts will condemn us.
Alma also explained on that occasion that God would divide the people into two groups. He would look upon the members of one group and smile. They are the righteous. He would proclaim to them that they could enter into his presence. Great would be their joy. And then he would look upon those who composed the other group, and they should be so ashamed because of the lives they had lived in mortality that they would cry to the mountains to come down and hide them from the presence of God. But such would not be the case. They would have to stay in his presence while being judged, and every knee would bow and every tongue would confess that he was the Christ; that his judgments were true and just. And then they would hear the voice of God tell them to depart from him because of the sinful lives that they had lived. This is the group spoken of in the scripture, declaring that they would weep and wail and gnash their teeth because they had lost the great blessing of celestial and eternal life.
THREE DEGREES OF GLORY
Following the judgment, according to modern revelation, a vast majority of the inhabitants of this earth will be assigned to one or another of three kingdoms, worlds, or degrees of glory. These are termed the telestial, the terrestrial, and the celestial. The law by which we are quickened at the time of resurrection will determine the world to which we shall be assigned. Let us hear the word of the Lord on that subject:
For notwithstanding they die, they also shall rise again, a spiritual body.
They who are of a celestial spirit shall receive the same body which was a natural body; even ye shall receive your bodies, and your glory shall be that glory by which your bodies are quickened.
Ye who are quickened by a portion of the celestial glory shall then receive of the same, even a fulness.
And they who are quickened by a portion of the terrestrial glory shall then receive of the same, even a fulness.
And also they who are quickened by a portion of the telestial glory shall then receive of the same, even a fulness.
And they who remain shall also be quickened; nevertheless, they shall return again to their own place, to enjoy that which they are willing to receive, because they were not willing to enjoy that which they might have received.
CELESTIAL GLORY
To the Latter-day Saints our interests lie in the celestial glory. In fact, we don't have much interest in the other two degrees because we are assured through revelation that those who go to the celestial degree of glory and receive exaltation are members of the Church of the Firstborn who have lived by every word that has come from the mouth of God, being humble, and faithful in all of their activities here in life. We are heirs, therefore, of celestial glory. The gateway into celestial glory is faith, repentance, baptism, and confirmation; and then, of course, as the Saints enter the kingdom of God by compliance with the foregoing requirements, they make their calling and election sure by rendering obedience to all the ordinances and doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ from day to day throughout the entire course of this mortal life. These are they who shall dwell in the presence of God.
EXALTATION
In the celestial degree of glory there are three kingdoms or three degrees. The highest of these constitutes those who receive exaltation or eternal life. They are they who live the law of the priesthood or the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, known as celestial marriage. The Latter-day Saints, as well as the people throughout the various ages of the world who have belonged to the true Church of Jesus Christ, who have been married by the power of the priesthood and have obeyed all the priesthood covenants that they have entered into, having lived in accordance with all the teachings of the gospel, these are they who shall be exalted in the celestial realm. The Lord has given his law on this doctrine as follows:
... verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, unto whom I have appointed this power and the keys of this priesthood;;... they shall pass by the angels and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.
Then shall they be gods.
The Prophet Joseph Smith explained that this continuation of "the seeds" forever and ever, meant the power of procreation; in other words, the power to beget spirit children on the same principle as we were born to our Heavenly Parents, God the Eternal Father and our Eternal Mother. Therefore, a man cannot receive the highest exaltation without a woman, his wife, nor can a woman be exalted without her husband. That is the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the plan of salvation. Eternal life is the greatest gift that God has in store for those who love him and keep his commandments, and you and I know how it can be attained.
In the celestial degree of glory there are two other divisions. They are occupied by angels of God. These angels are the ones who did not abide by the law of celestial marriage; however; they accepted Christ and lived good lives, but they did not accept all the gospel ordinances. This is the word of the Lord on that subject:
For these angels did not abide my law; therefore, they cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity; and from henceforth are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever.
ETERNAL LIFE
My brethren and sisters, where do we go when we die? As Latter-day Saints we hope someday to go not only to the celestial degree of glory but also to receive exaltation in his kingdom, i.e., to receive eternal life. If we accept all the ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ and obey all of the teachings of the gospel; if we abide by the law of celestial marriage; if we pay our tithes and offerings to the Lord; if we are clean and pure in thought and habit, thereby keeping our bodies as temples of God, clean and pure as he wants us to do; if we live virtuously and in every way serve him, then at the great judgment day we will hear the voice of God say to us, words to this effect: "Well done, my beloved servants. You were faithful in the few, small things that I gave you to do in mortality, you may, therefore, now come into my presence." And to continue to paraphrase the D&C;, "Then shall they pass by the angels and gods who are stationed there to their exaltation, and they shall become priests and kings to the Most High God. They shall become as he is." In other words, they shall have eternal life. Then shall the oath and covenant of the priesthood be brought into effect which you and I have made, each of us who holds the Melchizedek Priesthood. All that God has will be ours. He will share with us.
May this be the lot of the Latter-day Saints, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Antoine R. Ivins
Antoine R. Ivins, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 76-79
I will need your faith and prayers, my brethren and sisters, if I am able to say anything that will be helpful to any of us today. I realize, I believe, the responsibility under which I labor at present in taking your time as you have come here, so many of you, to give of your spirit and to receive of ours.
A DAILY PROGRAM
We all belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I presume. We all hold dear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some of us apply it rather narrowly in our lives but it is a broad, general plan for the development of mankind in the earth. The thing I like about it most is that I am able to, or should be able to apply its principles in every activity of my life. It is not a thing to be practiced once a week, but it is a daily program for the development and upbuilding of men. It is a positive thing in its actions and in its results. There are some prohibitions and some negations to it, it is true, but every prohibition has come about because men have not seen fit to follow its positive admonitions.
There has been reference made to the fact that there is good and evil in the world, and that is true. It is much like it is with this body of ours. Every muscle in the body has an opposing one, but I call to your attention the fact that every bit of work that the body does is the result of a positively acting muscle, and no work whatever is ever done by a relaxing one. We should be that way in our lives. We should interpret the gospel into daily activities. I believe I have told you before of a remark that was made by a friend of mine and a friend of my father's, who was a very wonderful man, not of our faith, however, and who was a banker. He said, "You know, Antoine, your father came as nearly applying his religion in his business, combining the two, as anybody I have known." He said, "You know, I can't do that, because I am a banker and I have to be hard-boiled."
Now, if my religion doesn't come to my aid and tell me how to be a banker, then I don't want to be one.
POSITIVE TEACHINGS
I believe that there are in the positive teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ all the principles that are necessary for the proper conduct of a banking business, and likewise I believe that there are those things, positive instructions for the proper guidance of my relationship as a landlord with my tenants. I believe, furthermore, that there are in the gospel those things which should govern me as a police officer in enforcing the laws of the land and the city in which I live. In other words, I believe that there are positive instructions in the gospel of Jesus Christ which will enable us, if we look for them and find them, and apply them in our lives, to meet every daily emergency that may present itself to us. I believe that those of us who have the responsibility to teach will have better success if we emphasize the advantages of the positive side of the gospel over the negative side. It is my belief also that when we come to teach the various principles of the gospel as we understand them, if we search, we will find sufficient and valid reasons for every principle that we advocate.
PRODUCTIVE SERVICE
We come here, as President Hunter has said, to gain experience, and in order to gain experience we must work. The Lord said when he cast Adam out of the Garden of Eden, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread", and that is a positive command, that man shall work. God knew what he meant and what he said when he gave that commandment, for I think that no man ever grew in power and strength, virtue and leadership in absolute idleness. We should work every day of our lives at some productive effort in order to make the maximum progress that we are entitled to.
It is true that out of every day we have to sleep a certain time to recover, but nonetheless our waking hours should be productive hours. We should never allow ourselves, if we can help it, to become a burden on society. I grant you that there are conditions which develop in the lives of some people which prevent their using their faculties with which they were originally endowed for their own sustenance, and when people fall into that unhappy situation it is the burden and obligation of the rest of society to take care of them, but I feel that it is my duty as long as I am able to, in order that I may gain the maximum from my experience in life, that I should be busily and actively engaged in some productive service.
The Church is an active, vigorous Church. The Prophet said the first great principle of the Church is faith in God our Eternal Father. Let us not limit that principle of faith as some might think they should in that statement, for faith is an active, vigorous, productive power. Faith without works is dead. The reason that was said is that there is no faith where there is no action. Faith is the underlying principle of all our activities. It is the thing that makes life go. Of course in its sublimest and highest sense, it is faith in God our Heavenly Father, but we must also have faith in ourselves and faith in each other or we can do nothing of value.
ETERNAL PROGRESS
Then we believe in the principle of progress, eternal progress, if you will, and that means that as I find better ways of doing the things my faith teaches me to do, that I will give up the poor ways and use the better, and that again presents positive reaction to the exigencies of life. If we are going to get the most out of our experience here we will be constantly looking for improved and better ways of doing the things that we have to do in our daily conduct of life. We will try to find better ways of meeting our fellows in our business transactions, ways which will better recognize their rights as well as ours. We will strive for better ways of handling the boys and girls that God gives into our care, so that we may bring them closer to him and make them better servants of him. Think what a grave responsibility it is to father a son or a daughter, for that son may be the head of a family eventually, if he is fortunate and then from him there may stem forth a progeny that will fan out in a period of time until it includes thousands and thousands of people. Think what a responsibility it is for you, the father, to start that son out on an evil path, for he may pass that on to his progeny, and it may go on indefinitely; and it affects so many people. And think what a wonderful beneficiary you may be to future generations of people if you start that son out with a full faith in God, our Heavenly Father, with an active understanding of the positive side of his duty, if you have trained him in the good things that he should do, steered him away from the bad ones so that he will pass those good traits on to his posterity. What a blessing you will have been to those unborn generations that are yet to come.
POSITIVE VALUES
I believe that every waiting spirit has the right to expect those opportunities, has the right to expect a body when he comes into the world that will be free from disturbing elements that would prevent his full realization and development. I believe that in teaching the law of chastity to our boys and girls, we should teach them the positive values of it, for they are there, and it is our duty to search them out and understand them so that we can pass them on to our boys and girls and they in turn to theirs. Those values are there.
That law of chastity is not a negative proposition, but it is a positive one, because in its observance there are spiritual values that far outweigh the physical dangers that we often emphasize to the neglect of the others. I believe the chances are that our children will respond to the positive attitude quicker and more thoroughly than they do to the negative. Let's show them the values that there are in that law. Let's show them the values there are in the law of the Word of Wisdom. Let's show them the values there are in the law of tithing and all those laws which we hold up as standards of the Church. They have their positive side. They are not negative in their nature, and neither is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a thing that today and tomorrow and the next day, this week and next week and next month, the months of April, May, and June and on through the years, we should apply in our lives constantly and daily, not sit idly by and choose to do the things we ought not to do, but to be active, not in those forbidden things, but active and vigorous in building up the kingdom of God; in blessing and benefiting our fellow men.
"... inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me". That is a positive command, and we must be constantly and busily engaged in an effort to serve our fellows and teach them the positive side of the gospel of Jesus Christ to be most effective, I believe, as teachers in Israel. There are many men under my voice today who have that responsibility either in schools or in wards or in stakes or in quorums, and it is our duty to be positive in our teachings. I call to your attention the fact that our teaching will have far greater effect if we are positive in applying those teachings in our lives so that men who listen to us can see the effect of those principles when they are lived by a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or any other, for that matter. Let us, as teachers, let us as leaders, be positive, militantly positive, in teaching these things and living them, and God will bless our efforts, and may he bless you and me and those who are near and dear to us who are not here today, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 83-87
Seventy-nine years ago today, a baby boy came to earth across the street from where I stand. There was snow on the ground. The boy's parents were living in very humble circumstances. I was that boy, and here in your presence today, I praise my Maker and thank him with all my heart for sending me into a home of real Latter-day Saints.
EARLY LIFE
I grew up in this community. When eight years of age, I was baptized in City Creek just a block from here. I was confirmed a member of the Church in fast meeting in the Seventeenth Ward, and with the encouragement of one of my dear aunts, Lucy M. Smith, I stood up and bore my testimony. I told that audience that I was glad to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ, for I believed it was the true Church, and I wanted to be worthy of my membership in it.
Many things have happened since then. I wish I could give you a picture of what has passed before my eyes and through my mind since I began life here on earth. I was privileged to go to school. I attended the Sunday School and the Mutual Improvement Association in the Seventeenth Ward. I attended fast meeting and used to come to this building on Sunday to hear sermons delivered by the great leaders of the Church. I was permitted to go to Provo and attend Brigham Young Academy under Superintendent Karl G. Maeser for one year; and the influence of that good man on my life was so great that I am sure it will endure for eternity.
I was ordained a deacon and was president of my quorum. When I was about fourteen years of age, I read the fortieth chapter of Alma in the Book of Mormon in our Sunday School class. It made an impression on my mind that has been helpful when death has taken loved ones away. I will not take time now to read it, but it is one place in the scriptures that tells us where our spirits go when they leave this body, and I have wanted to go to that place called paradise ever since.
MISSION IN SOUTHERN STATES
I was called on a mission to the Southern States in the days when great bitterness motivated some of the people who lived there. The most of them were good men and women, but there were a few who objected to the gospel of Jesus Christ being taught as the Lord desires us to teach it. Some of our missionaries were brutally whipped. During the period of time before I went there, several were killed. I had the experience myself of lying in bed while the bullets whistled overhead. A mob surrounded the building where we were sleeping and fired into the four corners. Splinters fell over us, but nobody was hurt. I labored under the direction of Elder J. Golden Kimball. He was a great mission president. I came home and continued my life work, having been benefited by the experience of my missionary career.
There were saloons and gambling houses in Salt Lake City in my youth-not very many-but some, but I never had occasion to go into them. I always felt it would not please my father and mother if I did, and I was happy to do the things that they wanted me to do.
FURTHER ACTIVITIES
After my mission to the Southern States, I was called to work in the auxiliary organizations at home, in both the Sunday School and the Mutual Improvement Association, and later became one of the stake superintendents of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association. I was also a ward teacher and stake home missionary. I also served as a member of the general board of M.I.A.
The President of the United States, William McKinley, sent word to me by Governor Arthur L. Thomas that he felt that a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was entitled to a federal appointment. We had not had one up to that time, and he offered me the position in the Land Office of Receiver of Public Monies and Special Disbursing Agent. Before that I had worked for the Grant-Odell Company in the yard putting up wagons and other equipment, and when I was offered the position of Receiver in the United States Land Office. I was working for Z.C.M.I. My first appointment came from President William McKinley, and the next one came from President Theodore Roosevelt.
I attended the general conferences that were held semi-annually in this building. I used to edge my way in and sit down on the stairs at the left. The house would be full, and there weren't seats for everybody. On the particular occasion to which I refer, I came in, as usual, and worked my way through the crowd and finally got a seat down near the bottom of the stairs. Presiding Bishop Charles W. Nibley, who was my neighbor, touched me on the shoulder and said, "Come and sit by me." "I said, "There is plenty of room here." Again he said, "Come and sit by me. It is more comfortable here." If I had known what was going to happen during that conference, you could not have pried me into that seat.
CALL TO APOSTLESHIP
That was on Sunday. I had to be at my work in the land office because people were there from all over, and I could not go to the meetings except on Sunday. The following Tuesday, I came home from the land office to take my children down to the fair at four o'clock, and Sister Nellie Colebrook Taylor came across the street and said, "Oh, Brother Smith, I congratulate you."
I said, "What are you congratulating me about?" She said, "Don't you know?"
I replied, "I don't know what you are talking about."
"Why," she said, "you have just been sustained as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve." And I talked her out of it.
She apologized and said, "I am sorry. I hope you will forgive me." Knowing what my father's experiences had been, and having such a nice position at the land office, I was not looking for a place such as father had. It took all his time and kept him away from home so much.
I turned to my wife and said, "I'll take the children now and go down to the fair." But before I could get to the buggy, back came Sister Taylor, and she rushed up to me and said, "It was you! It was you! Everybody heard it."
I will never forget how I felt. I turned to my wife, and she was in tears. That is the way I received my notice that I had been sustained as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve.
These are some of the experiences of a short life; and I want to say to you brethren and sisters, it is a good deal better to be seventy-nine years young than it is to be fifty years old.
SHARING THE GOSPEL
I came into my place as humble as a man could be. It took me about three weeks before I could feel comfortable, and that would be another interesting story if I had the time to tell it. During the period of time I have held the priesthood, I have traveled more than a million miles in the world, seeking to share the gospel of Jesus Christ that is so precious to me. It has never been difficult for me to tell men about the fine things that we have. Sometimes when men belonging to other churches have said, "We have this and this," I have said, "Keep all the truth that you have, and then let me explain to you some of the things that you do not possess that have made my life rich, and I am sure would make you happy."
I was secretary of the Southern States Mission, and I presided over the European Mission for a term, and I have been associated with you, my brethren and sisters, and many of your fathers and mothers who have passed to the other side, in this marvelous gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord. I would like to say there has never been one hour in my life that I can remember that I have had any doubt about this being the work of our Heavenly Father. It has been a joy to me. People have been kind to me wherever I have been-almost everyone. I cannot imagine that I could have lived a richer life if I had planned what I wanted to do during these seventy-nine years.
I take this occasion now to thank the General Authorities of the Church, the stake authorities, ward authorities, members of the Church, to thank you for your kindness, your love, your help, and willingness to enable me to do my work, especially at times when it has been somewhat difficult.
BLESSINGS TO BE EARNED
We have a great responsibility resting upon us in the various positions we occupy, I say to you men who are in this audience, who are elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and who have no official position, the Lord expects just as much from you, If you expect your blessings in the hereafter, you will have to earn them in the same way that the men who are ward and stake and General authorities are earning theirs.
It is a wonderful thing to look into the faces of a group like this, I do not know how soon the time may come that I will be called from this sphere of action, but when that time comes, I hope that I will have earned the right to continue my associations with just such men and women as are here today, and those who are scattered throughout the world who are living the gospel of Jesus Christ,
To this marvelous choir of young people, from Ricks College of Rexburg, Idaho, I say: Keep the commandments of the Lord. There isn't any happiness worthy the name if you fail to do that. All happiness is on the Lord's side of the line. We thank you for coming here to sing to us. We hope that wherever you go you will keep in mind that our Heavenly Father loves you and has offered you and continues to offer you opportunity to develop, to be such men and women as will be entitled to a place in the celestial kingdom to have the association with those whom you love throughout the ages of eternity.
GRATITUDE FOR PRESERVATION
I had no idea when I came this morning that I was going to talk to you like this. I am grateful for the preservation of my life. Many times when I have been apparently ready to go to the other side. I have been kept for some other work to be done. I want every one of you to know that I do not have an enemy, that is, there is no one in the world that I have any enmity towards. All men and all women are my Father's children, and I have sought during my life to observe the wise direction of the Redeemer of mankind, to love my neighbor as myself. I have had much happiness in life, so much that I would not exchange with anybody who has ever lived, and I do not say that boastfully but gratefully. All the happiness that has come to me and mine has been the result of trying to keep the commandments of God and of living to be worthy of the blessings that he has promised those who honor him and keep his commandments.
THE LORD'S SIDE
God bless you, my brethren and sisters. Do not make any mistake in these days of uncertainty. Stay on the Lord's side of the line. All righteousness, all happiness is on his side of the line.
In conclusion, I pray that we may all so adjust ourselves as we pass through life's experiences that we can reach out and feel that we hold our Father's hand. This is God's work. This is his Church. It is the way that our Heavenly Father has provided to prepare us for eternal happiness. I pray that we may all be worthy of it.
I would not feel right if I failed now to express to my father's family, my brothers and sisters, my own family who have been so close to me all these years, my gratitude to them for their helpfulness. They have never put anything in the way of my doing my duty. And I take this occasion to say to my brethren, the counselors in the Presidency of the Church, and these other men who are here on this stand: You will never know how much I love you. I have not words to express it. And I want to feel that way toward every son and every daughter of my Heavenly Father, and I can feel that way if I observe his laws and commandments and follow his advice.
That the Lord may enable us all so to adjust ourselves that when the time comes for us to go hence we may find our names enrolled in the Lamb's book of life entitling us to a place in the celestial kingdom in the companionship of the best people that have lived upon the earth, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie
Bruce R. McConkie, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 89-94
Yesterday I had the privilege of standing as a representative of the Lord in the baptism of my eldest son. After I had acted pursuant to the authority that I had, he and I came forth out of the water. Then my father, one of God's high priests, laid his hands upon my son's head and confirmed him a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and gave him the gift of the Holy Ghost. This gift of the Holy Ghost is the right to the constant companionship of that member of the Godhead, based on righteousness.
THE PRIESTHOOD
My father and I each acted in the authority of the priesthood, and pursuant to authorization given by those who hold the keys of the priesthood. Priesthood is one thing; keys another. Priesthood is the power and authority of God delegated to man on earth to act in all things for the salvation of men. Keys are the directing power, the right to preside and govern in the priesthood and in the Church.
These two things, the authority of the priesthood and the directing power that goes with the keys of the priesthood, distinguish us from the world. The power and authority of God are found in the Church of Jesus Christ; they are not found in the churches which are not of Jesus Christ. The churches of the world have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. It is in and through the authority of the priesthood that the power of godliness is manifest. And we are the only people on earth who have that priesthood, that power to act in the Lord's name and have our acts approved and acknowledged both on earth and in heaven.
This is a restored Church In it is found today, in all essential respects, exactly and precisely what the ancients had. Just as Christ gave Peter and the Apostles of old both the authority of the priesthood and the keys of the kingdom of heaven, or in other words the keys of the kingdom of God on earth, which is the Church, so has he given these things to us in our day. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in the most real and actual sense the kingdom of God on earth, and it is designed to prepare and qualify men to go to the kingdom of God in heaven which is the celestial kingdom of heaven.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
The Prophet Joseph Smith preached a glorious sermon in which he defined the kingdom of God. From it I read these sentences:
Where there is a priest of God-a minister who has power and authority from God to administer in the ordinances of the gospel and officiate in the priesthood of God, there is the kingdom of God.... Where there is no kingdom of God there is no salvation. What constitutes the kingdom of God? Where there is a prophet, a priest, or a righteous man unto whom God gives his oracles, there is the kingdom of God; and where the oracles of God are not, there the kingdom of God is not.
... If we do not get revelations, we do not have the oracles of God; and if they have not the oracles of God, they are not the people of God.
... Jesus in his teachings says, "Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it". What rock? Revelation....
Whenever men can find out the will of God and find an administrator legally authorized from God, there is the kingdom of God; but where these are not, the kingdom of God is not.
RESTORATION OF GOSPEL
By the grace of God, and through his mercy, we have had restored to us in this day the fulness of the everlasting gospel: all of the laws, ordinances, and principles by obedience to which we can be both saved and exalted in our Father's kingdom. No other peoples have had so much of the light and truths of heaven poured out upon them as we have.
To us has come the Book of Mormon-a record of God's dealings with a people who had the fulness of the everlasting gospel-and it contains, in plain and simple form, the truths of salvation. We have many of the truths of heaven, and if we will accept them and then live them, we can gain the greatest rewards that are available in eternity. But it is not enough to have the truth alone. The mere possession of truth will not save a man. It is not enough to read the doctrines of the kingdom and know what they are. The devils also believe and tremble. It is not enough to take the Book of Mormon and read it and believe it. We must do all these things. But thereafter we must accept the truth by covenant under the hands of a legal administrator, someone who can bind on earth and in heaven.
COVENANT OF BAPTISM
The Prophet Joseph Smith wrote these words in his journal referring to a discussion he had with the Twelve Apostles:
I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding its precepts, than by any other book.
I agree with every word that Brother Marion G. Romney said yesterday. As he has done, I have read the Book of Mormon, prayerfully and carefully, more times than I have fingers; I believe it, sincerely and wholeheartedly. I know that it is a true witness of Christ and an accurate revealer of the Doctrines of Christ.
But after we have found the truth, after we have learned that the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God and is verily true, after we have obtained the testimony of Christ that comes by hearing the word of God taught by one having authority-and taught in righteousness and with the power of the Spirit-we must then accept that truth by covenant of baptism; and we must do it under the hands of a legal administrator.
Baptism is the gateway to the kingdom of God both on earth and in heaven. And the kind of baptism that you and I want is one which will be recognized both on earth and in heaven. It is one thing to set up a system that will be recognized by men; it is quite another thing to have a system which God will recognize. The Lord said to Peter:
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be hound in heaven....
We want a baptism, that will be binding on earth and in heaven, that will be recognized by the Lord both here and hereafter.
DIVINE AUTHORITY
Now, this sentence from the Prophet's sermon:
All the ordinances, systems, and administrations on the earth are of no use to the children of men, unless they are ordained and authorized of God; for nothing will save a man but a legal administrator; for none others will be acknowledged by God or angels.
Speaking of the new and everlasting covenant, which is the gospel, the Lord said to the Prophet:
... All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections associations or expectations that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed. both as well for time and for all eternity and that too most holy, by revelation and commandment through the medium of mine anointed,
whom I have appointed on the earth to hold this power... are of no efficacy, virtue or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead.
Then the Lord propounds a question to all those who have set up systems of religion on assumed authority, authority claimed from generations dead and gone. It is: "... will I receive at your hands that which I have not appointed?". Certainly not. His house is a house of order, and not a house of confusion. No man can come unto him or unto his Father except it be by his word which is his law.
And finally, in language so broad and comprehensive as to cover all principles, doctrines, ordinances, and systems, the Lord says:
And everything that is in the world, whether it be ordained of men, by thrones, or principalities, or powers, or things of name, whatsoever they may be, that are not by me or by my word, saith the Lord, shall be thrown down, and shall not remain after men are dead, neither in nor after the resurrection, saith the Lord your God.
For whatsoever things remain are by me; and whatsoever things are not by me shall be shaken and destroyed.
Thus there are only two ways in which anything in this world can be so ordained as to remain with full force and validity in the spirit world and in the resurrection. Either God himself must ordain it or an agent of God, acting under and in accordance with proper authorization from him, must do it. Then and then only will the act be recognized in eternity. There is no other way.
Baptism is the gate to the celestial kingdom of heaven, provided it is performed by a legal administrator, one whose administrations will be recognized by God, and provided also that the candidate has made himself worthy and that the ordinance is sealed upon him by the Holy Ghost.
The same principle applies to all ordinances. The Lord said of the sacrament:
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
But in order to obtain that blessing we must participate in the ordinance worthily, with the ratifying approval of the Holy Ghost, and as it is performed by a legal administrator.
It is the same with marriage. Men can ordain any system of marriage that suits their pleasure. They can make a man and a woman husband and wife in this life; but when men are dead, that ends the marriage. In order for a man and a woman to be husband and wife in the spirit world and in the resurrection, for the family unit to continue after death, the sealing must be done by God personally or by an authorized agent holding authority from him so to act; and it must be sealed and approved by the Holy Ghost, a condition that is fulfilled only if the participants are worthy.
RESTORATION OF PRIESTHOOD
Now we have received the same power and authority that the ancients had. In May of 1829, John the Baptist came and gave to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery both the Aaronic Priesthood and the keys of that priesthood. Shortly thereafter Peter, James, and John came and gave to those same worthies the Melchizedek Priesthood and the keys of the kingdom of God. Then in 1835, when the first quorum of Apostles was called in this dispensation, those Apostles were given the keys of the kingdom of God on earth.
Thereafter additional keys were given. Elijah came on April the third in 1836. He gave the keys of the sealing power, or in other words, he authorized the use of the priesthood to seal on earth and bind in heaven. Moses came and gave the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north. Elias came and gave the keys of the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham. The Prophet says that divers angels from Michael or Adam on down to the present time all came, declaring their dispensations, their rights, their keys, their honors, their majesty and glory, and the power of their priesthood, until we had in this dispensation, which is the one of the Fulness of Times, all of the power and authority that God had ever given in any dispensation that went before.
KEYS OF THE KINGDOM
Then just a few weeks before Joseph and Hyrum went to Carthage Jail to seal their testimony with their blood, the Prophet, in the Nauvoo Temple, conferred upon the Apostles all of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. After the bestowal of these powers and keys he said:
I have sealed upon your heads all the keys of the kingdom of God. I have sealed upon you every key, power, principle that the God of heaven has revealed to me. Now, no matter where I may go or what I may do, the kingdom rests with you....
...ye apostles of the Lamb of God, my brethren, upon your shoulders this kingdom rests; now you have got to round up your shoulders and bear off the kingdom.
From that moment to the present time, every man who has been ordained to the holy apostleship has been given the keys of the kingdom of God on earth, or in other words the directive right to preside over this Church and this kingdom. And so, at this time, we have legal administrators, brethren holding both priesthood and keys. We have the truths of heaven to teach; we have the power to seal men up, conditioned on their faithfulness, unto eternal life. Nowhere else in all the world is this found.
This morning, President Smith expressed a sentiment which he has expressed over and over again. In this sermon of the Prophet Joseph Smith from which I have been quoting is the same thought. The sentiment shows the measure, the great capacity, the love that prevails in the hearts of the two men. The Prophet said:
I thank God for preserving me from my enemies; I have no enemies but for the truth's sake. I have no desire but to do all men good. I feel to pray for all men. We don't ask any people to throw away any good they have got; we only ask them to come and get more. What if all the world should embrace this gospel? They would see eye to eye, and the blessings of God would be poured out upon the people, which is the desire of my whole soul.
As the Prophet prayed, so pray I in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Dilworth Young
S. Dilworth Young, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 94-99
I think it would be wise for me to report to you a geographical change which has taken place in the New England Mission, so that it will be on the record of this conference.
WORK IN NEWFOUNDLAND
Last summer the First Presidency assigned to our mission the Island of Newfoundland, a large island lying off the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the Atlantic Ocean. Newfoundland is a province of England and has been on its own, so far as government is concerned, for a long time. Until now, it has had its ruling power in the hands of three commissioners. Three weeks ago, the British House of Lords voted affirmatively, and as soon as the King signs the bill, Newfoundland will be a province of Canada. Then all of the rules applying to goods and men entering into the provinces of Canada, will apply to Newfoundland. This is not all, however, of Newfoundland. Included in the province is Labrador, the strip of coast on the northeastern part of the continent. So the boundary of the New England Mission now starts at the lower part of Connecticut, about twenty miles out of New York City, and extends nearly a thousand, five hundred miles to just opposite Greenland. We can give your sons now any type of climate they can endure.
The first two elders to open that land, so far as I know in the history of the Church are Elders Arza C. Page of Payson and John Major Scowcroft of Ogden. They went over to the island last fall and began their work. They do not as yet have converts, and Elder Scowcroft has since come back to the mainland, but they are making progress. There are now four elders there. I should like it in the record, so that twenty-five years from now if somebody wants to know who started the work in Newfoundland, those two young men may have the credit.
EXCELLENT MISSIONARIES
I enjoy very much being associated with the young men and the young women who are in the New England Mission. I don't have a great number-about two percent of all the missionaries of the Church are in our mission, but I think they are a good cross-section of all the others, and so I feel as though I know the remainder. They are very much alike, and they are fine boys and girls. They become excellent missionaries.
When I was a missionary in the Central States, I remember President Samuel O. Bennion said that a good many of the boys who came out at that time could just as well have stayed at home for all the good he thought they did. A number of boys loafed away their missions. I think I would be safe in saying that of the 125 missionaries in New England today not more than two could be classed as among those who are not making the most of the effort. I believe this generation of young folk is the finest and the cleanest, the most intelligent, and the best educated group we have had for as long as I know anything about the missionary service. They have their moments. A few days ago one of the elders in one of our cities in Massachusetts walked up to a door with his companion, knocked on the door, and to a maid who came to the door, he said, "Is the lady of the house in?" And she answered, "No, she isn't, she's gone to heaven." He said, "Would you mind giving her this tract when she comes back?"
GAINING A TESTIMONY
If I might have the Spirit of the Lord with me, I should like to talk for a moment about these young missionaries from the viewpoint of you, their parents, who sit in this audience. You send them to us, and the First Presidency gives us instructions concerning them. In their hands lies the awesome responsibility of preaching and teaching to the people of the world the gospel of Jesus Christ and also, too, of warning them, for this is a day of warning. But I am sure that you want these young men and women to get something from their experience besides that. If I detect anything from the letters I received from parents, it is that they have a very great hope that the boys and the girls will come home with sure and abiding testimonies of the truth of the gospel. I have never yet seen parents too poor but what the money they spent to keep their boys and girls in the field is well spent and ungrudgingly spent if the child comes home and looks his folks straight in the eye and tells them that he does have a testimony and knows that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that the happiest days of his life have been when he has been able to tell people about the gospel.
Those things don't come by chance, my friends. The business of getting a testimony is a growth which must be taken step by step, and it comes rapidly or slowly according to how the person who takes those steps, moves. In the mission field, it is necessary that missionaries take them quite rapidly. They must have their testimony early if they expect to get much done. I don't blame the young folk for saying before they leave for the field that they aren't quite sure; because they don't yet know that a testimony is a relative thing and never can quite be measured; that only as a man feels in his heart and gives service to his Church does that whispering become more and more sure until the final assurance, for which we all hope, comes. They don't know that yet. They come into the field, and we send them out. I believe I know a little about what our Lord and Savior must have felt on that great day when he called seventy to him and told them to go forth, giving them authority to do the things that they had seen him do. I believe that the man side of his nature made him worry about them. He was hopeful they would all measure up to what he told them; and, while I know he had the prophetic view and could see ahead, I like to think that he worried about it, too. When they came back and said those immortal words that even the devils were subject to them because of his name, he must have experienced a thrill of satisfaction. I have had something of that kind of sensation when, after I send these young people out, they send me letters and say, "The houses have been opened to us; we have been fed and we have been clothed, and the way has opened for us to preach the gospel far beyond our strength and ability." Then I feel like saying, "Yes, even the devils are subject to you through His name."
LOSING THEIR LIVES
These boys have some rights in this business; and I would like to say that these are as much a bill of rights for a boy going into the mission field as is the one in our Constitution for the people. Every young man in this Church who goes on a mission-and I hope they'll all want to go-has a right to feel and have the sensations which come to him, when he first learns what it means to lose his life for the sake of the gospel. You remember, the Savior said that those who lay down their lives or lose their lives for the gospel's sake shall in no wise lose their reward.
Now, I don't mean these boys are going to face bloodshed in losing their lives. I mean it in a sense that a boy who goes into the mission field will be no missionary until he learns that he himself is as nothing; that he is the mouthpiece of him who dwells on high, and unless he finds a way to put himself in tune with the Spirit of the Holy Ghost which is within him, he will fail just as surely as he walks. But he learns it very rapidly, and before long there is no amount of fatigue but what he will face it. I smile now as I remember one of the boys, who said to me one day, "Brother Young, there is a family of Saints down the road which hasn't been visited for a long time." Said I, "How far away do they live?" "Oh," he said, "fourteen miles." I said, "Well, that's good. How do you expect to get there to visit them?" "Oh, there isn't any way that I know of." "Isn't there a bus?" " No." I said, "Well, the walking isn't crowded, is it?" He looked at me peculiarly and said, "Well, I hadn't thought of that." And he walked with his companion. In the walking he learned that he didn't count for much. And in the walking, my brethren and sisters, they do learn that they do not count for much except as God gives them guidance. When boys begin to write into me and say, "Brother Young, we came to a fork in the road and didn't know which way to go, so we knelt down on our knees, and when we arose we felt impressed to go to the left," and then they would say, "and we came to a house where they were willing to hear the gospel." Then, say I, they are learning to know what it means to lose their lives. If they keep that sort of thing up for the two years they are in the mission field and then keep it up after they come home, when the bishop calls them to work they'll remember that they don't count, that the work counts. If they say, "Yes, bishop," then you have a member of the Church who will stand by you till he dies, and be a credit to you. That right every boy has. So does each girl, even though the girls don't quite do it in the same way. They catch the same spirit if they work.
REALIZATION OF GOD'S PROMISE
The second thing which is their right is to learn the truth of some words which appear in the eighty-fourth section of the D&C.; I am sure it's a right. I think it's my right. I'm very happy that I was allowed by my mission president to find it out for myself. I would have been disappointed on my mission if I hadn't been able to prove the truth of these words. I don't believe there is a boy in the Church today who has ever heard a story about his forefathers or about anybody who ever went on a mission and did the job well, who doesn't want to have something happen to him in such a way that he'll know also that verily they are true. And these are the words: "And any man"-and that means you and me, since it hasn't been revoked yet,
And any man that shall go and preach this gospel of the kingdom, and fail not to continue faithful in all things, shall not be weary in mind, neither darkened, neither in body, limb, nor joint; and a hair of his head shall not fall to the ground unnoticed. And they shall not go hungry neither athirst.
Therefore, take ye no thought for the morrow, for what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed....
For your Father, who is in heaven, knoweth that you have need of all these things.
Therefore, let the morrow take thought for the things of itself. Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man.
I am a proud mission president, my brothers and sisters, when a boy can walk to a cottage meeting with his mind full of the subjects on which he has studied long and hard in the privacy of his room, but who has not made up his mind what he will say at that meeting until, having prayed before he leaves his room that he may be given the words to say, and arriving at the meeting, opens his mind and says to the Lord and to the people, "I pray I may be inspired to say what I should say to you," and then proceeds to say what the Lord puts in his mind. That, to my way of thinking, is one of the finest gifts which can come to a missionary. He has a right to have that experience. I pray to the Lord God of Hosts that all of the missionaries, the four thousand and six hundred fine boys and girls whom President McKay mentioned yesterday, may have had that before they come home.
A TESTIMONY OF JESUS
The third and final right, of course, is the great thing, a testimony of Jesus. I need not say anything about that, because if missionaries have done the first two things I have mentioned, it is as sure as night follows day that the testimony will be theirs. The fervency of it will thrill you when they come home as it thrills me and my colleagues in the United States and in the other nations of the earth, wherever our boys and girls go in the spirit of their calling.
May the Lord bless these great men who are prophets and seers and revelators, who send us forth to do the bidding of God as we are inspired by the Lord through his Holy Spirit. May President Smith's hand be upheld until he lives as long as he cares to with full health and strength. He is loved everywhere. Wherever he goes, men speak Of President George Albert Smith with love in their hearts, reciprocative for his great feeling of love for them; men outside the Church, I speak of I pray that he may be upheld and sustained by the hand of our Father and given that strength which he so much desires to have to continue on his great work. I so pray for all those who preside with him.
My testimony is that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ, and the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored in these last days is true. I bear it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Thorpe B. Isaacson
Thorpe B. Isaacson, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 99-103
President Smith, President Clark, President McKay, and my other beloved brethren of the General Authorities, and my brothers and sisters: I can assure you that this is indeed a strain and certainly a shock whenever one's name is called who is to speak. President Joel Richards just handed me a note, as my name was called, and I hope you'll all say the same thing silently, and if you'll pardon me, I'll read his note: "Thorpe," he says, "I'm praying for you, and I know God will bless you."
It is always a worry when one is called upon to occupy this position: it is to me, at least. Sometimes, I know I shouldn't envy, but sometimes I do envy my brethren who can come up here and appear so composed and so comfortable, and I only pray that the Lord will help me during the next few moments that I stand here.
I do believe in prayer, and I realize that without the help of the Lord we can do very little. The first time that I was called up here the experience was such that I didn't know how I ever got up those steps. I thought it would get a little easier as experiences came, but it doesn't get any easier for me.
PURPOSES OF CONFERENCE
We are assembled in this great house of the Lord so that we can partake of his Spirit, so that we can be made to feel more humble and more charitable, so that we can truly worship God, our Eternal Father. We are here to bear testimony to the goodness of our Father in heaven to us. We are here to receive inspiration and counsel. We are here to be advised and taught. Surely "the Spirit of God like a fire is burning" here-it has been at every session of this conference. Words of inspiration and words of revelation have been spoken and will be spoken. We are here so that our faith in God our Eternal Father may be increased. There is great inspiration and revelation in the Church today, and I would like to quote from the D&C; just a few words regarding the messages that we have received yesterday and today and that we will receive Wednesday, and every time when we meet in the name of the Lord:
And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation.
I am sure that as Latter-day Saints when we sustain these prophets, seers, and revelators, we know they are speaking under the inspiration of the Almighty. May our faith be so strong that we will accept this.
IMPORTANCE OF FAITH
Sometimes we are inclined to question whether it is revelation or inspiration, but that's because sometimes our faith may waver. Nothing in the world can take the place of faith. Yes, good, sincere, simple faith. Talent will not-nothing is more common in our world than many unsuccessful men who have great talent. Genius will not-unrewarded genius by the score is almost a proverb. Education will not-the world is full of so-called educated men and even educated derelicts. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the mission of his Son is all-powerful. Carlyle has said:
The chief aim of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
We can enjoy the Spirit of the Lord by the gift of the Holy Ghost that we have heard of, just a moment ago, by President McConkie, if we will only draw near unto him and live the commandments of our Father in heaven, and if in our thinking, and we must watch our thinking, and in our study and in our work we can understand the love of our Father in heaven, to that degree only can we partake of that sweet spirit. The Lord has said to us, "If you will seek after me, you shall surely find me", and if we desire to partake of the blessings of the Lord, we can find the Lord. Spirituality is as essential to a man's soul as vitamins are to a man's body.
THE SEARCH FOR GOD
Recently I received a letter from an inactive member of the Church, and, oh, I love those men. I know they have become dilatory and inactive, but if they are given a chance, by the help of God they can be magnified in their calling. Recently a man sent a letter to me, and I would like to read one paragraph:
My activities and ambitions have been directed to the things of the more material nature, but now, as a result, a restlessness disturbs my peace of mind.
Oh, that those men could become active in the Church and do away with that restlessness that disturbs their peace of mind!
For centuries a philosophy has been gnawing at the soul of man, eating into his spiritual fiber, a philosophy that proposes to build a society in which man is sufficient in himself, but a great educator has recently written, and I quote:
The search for God is on. One sees it everywhere, and it is growing.
We are coming to know that modern life lacks something. A man may have a bank full of money and a library full of books, but he cannot be happy without the Spirit of God. Man is coming to know that he cannot depend altogether on science. Man has learned at last that science has its limitations and that only God, our Father in heaven, is unlimited. At the point beyond which science cannot go, God stands unchangeable, now and forever.
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
I am quoting from an eminent scientist who when he was recently asked: "In what line of research do you expect to see the greatest development in the next fifty years?" answered:
I think the greatest discoveries will be made along spiritual lines. Someday people will learn that material things do not bring happiness and that they are of little use in making men and women creative and powerful. Then the scientists of the world will turn their laboratories over to the study of God and prayer, and the spiritual forces which, as yet, have been hardly scratched. When that day comes, the world will see greater advancement in one generation than it has seen in the last four generations.
Men will come to accept spirituality as part of their soul and part of their living. As President Clark once stated: "God has placed in every man's heart a divine spark which never wholly goes out." Many times it may be dimmed. I am speaking now to some of the good inactive men in the Church. Oh, I would plead with them that they overcome some of the little things that are keeping them out of the Church, and that they will not feel that we who are perhaps spending a lot of our time in the Church are so critical of them that they can't join us in our different functions and activities in the Church. I like to think of Matthew, and to those men who have become inactive, the Lord has said in Matthew:
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
That is the rest and that is the love and that is the spirit that those men will find when they come back into the Church, and that spirit is waiting for them just as soon as they can realize that they should not absent themselves further from activity.
ACTIVITY IN THE CHURCH
Now, I would like to say just a word to the young people, the young married people, not the adolescent people of the Church, but those that are about to be married. You should be careful in your social life today; yes, even in your business circles, that you will not adopt practices which will make you feel as though you cannot become active in the Church. It is so easy for you to absent yourselves from the Church activities when you do little things that you know are contrary to the teachings. My experience with men has been that when they are not active, they are more likely to do things that they wouldn't do if they were active in the Church.
So, to those good men, may I plead with them to seek activity in the Church and the help of the Lord, and the combination of the two will make it possible for them to overcome their shortcomings.
Recently, a man said to me, talking of tithing, "I can't afford to pay tithing under my heavy tax structure to the government and under my heavy expenses," and I wondered if people are beginning to say and to think and to wonder whether or not we can afford to serve the Lord. We cannot afford not to serve the Lord. I have never known a man in my life that paid an honest tithing or that kept the commandments of the Lord that said he was sorry for it. I hope when our young men are thinking of a mission we will not wonder whether or not we can afford to send them on a mission. We cannot afford not to pay our tithing, we cannot afford not to send these young men on missions, we cannot afford not to keep the commandments; and if we will try to become humble and prayerful, the Lord will help us overcome our shortcomings. May each of us be thoughtful and tolerant with the man sitting next to us or to the neighbor or to the man who is inactive in the Church, that we can touch his heart so that he can share some of the blessings that we are privileged to enjoy.
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
Family relationships-we have heard so many beautiful remarks about the family. I would like to say a word about our wives.
I am very grateful to my wife. I don't know what my life would have been if I did not have a wife and a companion that has stood with me even when I have been discouraged, even when I felt I had no confidence. I am grateful to her. I cannot express to her how much I love her and how much I think of her. A man asked me recently: "Do you love your wife?" I said: "Yes, I love my wife." And he said: "When did you tell your wife you loved her?" Well, it made me think. It was quite a while ago when I told her in all sincerity that I loved her, and I am wondering if we are too busy in this world, and if we leave in the mornings without saying good-bye to our wives, I wonder if we leave without kissing them good-bye, and I wonder if we come home at night and never say a word. I am fearful that we are inclined to be living too fast to pay attention to those beautiful things; and then to the wives, I wonder when you last told your husband that you loved him. Maybe if you would do that a little oftener, it would be a little easier for us to say: "Well, so do I."
WORK IN PRESIDING BISHOPRIC
I am very grateful for the blessing that has come to me in my work with men that I love and honor and respect. My life has been enriched in my association with two of the greatest men that I have ever known. It is a pleasure to partake of their spirit. I couldn't ask for more encouragement than I have received from Bishop Richards and Bishop Wirthlin. Many times I have known they have seen my follies. Many times I have known they have seen my shortcomings, but they have given me a slap on the back, and that made me want to try just a little bit harder, and all the brethren of the General Authorities are great and good men.
I hope that you people will have the faith to accept what they tell you as the word of the Lord, because they are prophets, seers, and revelators, and servants of God the Eternal Father. If our faith ever wavers to the point where we cannot accept their teachings as the word of the Lord, then we should go and humble ourselves and pray to God the Eternal Father to take that kind of feeling away from us.
I want to bear you my testimony that I know God is my Father; I know that Jesus Christ was his Son, our eldest brother; I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God; I know there is inspiration in the Church today stronger than perhaps we realize. That inspiration and revelation may be unrecorded, but nevertheless it has been spoken by the prophets of the Lord, and sometimes I wonder if we have the faith and the true spirit to recognize it as inspiration and revelation from our Father in heaven.
May the Lord bless each of you that you may be mindful of those who have not been blessed as you have. I am referring particularly to those who have become inactive in the Church for some reason or another. They, too, are waiting for the blessings that you and I have been privileged to enjoy.
I am grateful for the bishops of this Church. I hope our people can draw near to them. I do not believe there is a bishop in the Church that will give anybody unsound advice. I do not believe there is any bishop in the Church that will steer anybody wrong, and I hope that our people and our inactive men in the Church may get to know our bishops and love them for what they are.
May the Lord bless you this day and during the coming sessions of this conference, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 103-113
I would be most ungrateful if I did not acknowledge the prayers of the Saints of the Church in my behalf and thank my Heavenly Father for the restoration of my health. It was a great disappointment to be unable to attend all the sessions at the last conference, and I am grateful to be here today.
"WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?"
May I preface my remarks today by referring to the account in Luke of the story told by the Savior to a certain young lawyer who wanted to know what to do "to inherit eternal life."
He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.
And he said unto him, Thou has answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him. Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him.
Then said Jesus unto him, go, and do thou likewise.
A DESPOILED PEOPLE
May I now speak of a people who went down from Jerusalem to America, and who after many days fell among thieves which stripped them of their raiment and wounded them and left them half dead a people who were victimized by men considered by them to be gods, stripped of their gold and precious things, dispossessed of their cities, their homes, their soil; robbed of their liberty, enslaved, and branded as cattle-a people who fought their way down the bloody path of civil war into degradations filth, idleness, idolatry, cannibalism-a people who were stripped of their homeland, their forests, their grazing lands, their game, and their fish, pushed by the invaders into ever-decreasing territory until they were imprisoned in reservations and exploited.
I speak of the children of God, the children of the prophets, the seed of Joseph, the remnant of Israel, the children of the covenant, a branch of the tree of Israel-wanderers, lost in a strange land the American Indians, the Mexicans, and other mixed bloods whom we generally call Lamanites.
I hope that the eloquent appeal of Brother Romney in this conference will be heeded and that a new fire of enthusiasm for the Book of Mormon has been kindled in each of your hearts. And I hope that you will develop an increased sympathy and affection and brotherhood for these people whom the prophecies concern. Elder Thomas E. McKay spoke of the Lamanites whom he had recently visited in Mexico. There are scores of millions of pure Indians and other scores of millions of mixed bloods in these Americas. We are doing good work in practically every mission in the Americas with the children of the covenant, and now a new program is being introduced in the stakes of Zion.
RACE PREJUDICE
But we still find race prejudice and intolerance on the part of many non-Indians concerning the Lamanites. Often they are excluded from cafes, hotels, schools, and are made to feel unwelcome in church gatherings.
You have read of their weaknesses and sins and crimes. You have seen them languishing under their curse. They have suffered much and endlessly. But have you recalled their virtues, their strengths, and the promises and covenants made to them?
Have they not eaten husks long enough? Has not their day of restoration come? Can we not forgive their trespasses that we might in turn be forgiven?
Intolerant people reproachfully indict these red men saying: But they are illiterate! Yes. They are mostly illiterate, but when the conquerors fulfil solemn treaty obligations and give to the children of the conquered an education equal to that received by the children of the conquerors, illiteracy will be eliminated.
Prejudiced people who enjoy limitless luxuries say: But the Indian is economically a failure. Yes. His economic status is deplorable, but when his education and opportunity parallel our own, he will be independent and self-supporting.
A people surrounded by wealth, hospitals, doctors, and nurses say: But the red man is not sanitary-he lives in filth and disease! Yes. The solitary places given him in exchange for his rich and fertile America, are barren, dry, and not conducive to good living. But give him accredited schooling in our own incomparable educational system, so that he may buy medical service, enjoy modern utilities, live in good homes, and he will not be diseased nor unclean.
People who have inherited the good things of an invaded land say of the victims: They are inferior! Yes. They do suffer from an inferiority complex that is well-nigh annihilating. Prisoners of war, slaves, and downtrodden people usually develop such a complex. But give them comparable education and opportunity with their non-Indian brother, acceptance and brotherly love by him, and they will emerge a rejuvenated people, the equal of the white man.
May I say that if we as a nation and as a people can ever justify our invasions of these Americas, and our conquest of his promised land and the subjugation of the Indian, certainly it will not be by passing by on the other side, as did the superior priest, or the passing by on the other side as did the self-righteous Levitt, but by going to the limit as did the good Samaritan, in binding up his wounds, pouring in "oil and wine" setting him on our own beasts, taking him to an inn, paying for his care and revisiting him. The Lord said, "Go and do thou likewise".
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LAMANITES
Again we are asked: "Will the Indian revert even if we do give him education? Yes, he will revert to his former condition if only a few are trained, but let the Indian be given universal and accredited training and opportunity and he will not revert.
The chasm between what he is and what he will be is opportunity. It is ours to give.
Basically the Indian is intelligent, affectionate, responsive, honest, stable, and is of believing blood. There is every reason to be assured that the red man will remain loyal and true to the gospel and the Church, once he is brought into the fold. We have heard of his traditions and superstitions, of his ferocity and wildness, of his degradation and uncleanness, but let us consider his potential, as revealed by a review of his ancestors.
The Lamanites have believing blood, as evidenced by these words from the sixth chapter of Helaman:
And thus we see that the Lord began to pour out his Spirit upon the Lamanites, because of their easiness and willingness to believe in his words.
The Lamanites are firm and steady-note the testimony of the prophets concerning them.
... the Lamanites had become, the more part of them, a righteous people insomuch that their righteousness did exceed that of the Nephites, because of their firmness and their steadiness in the faith.
... in the thirtieth year the church was broken up in all the land save it were among a few of the Lamanites who were converted unto the true faith; and they would not depart from it, for they were firm, and steadfast, and immovable, willing with all diligence to keep the commandments of the Lord.
Jesus said to his disciples:
... So great faith have I never seen among all the Jews: wherefore I could not show them so unto so great miracles, because of their unbelief.
Verily I say unto you, there are none of them that have seen so great things as ye have seen; neither have they heard so great things as ye have heard .
After about three-quarters of a century the Lamanites converted by Alma and Ammon and their brethren, were still firm and true, as indicated by the Prophet Samuel who said:
... the more part of them are in the path of their duty, and they do walk circumspectly before God.
... and they are striving with unwearied diligence that they may bring the remainder of their brethren to the knowledge of the truth;...
Therefore, as many as have come to this, ye know of yourselves are firm and steadfast in the faith.
As many as were converted of the Lamanites by Ammon and his brethren never did fall away".
It should be noted that the Lamanites were often absorbed by, and were called, Nephites, when they were righteous, and it is true also that the Nephites when they rebelled and became wicked, were ofttimes called Lamanites, and there was undoubtedly a considerable mixture among them.
CHILDREN OF PROMISE
These children of promise were great preachers of righteousness. Under their teaching on numerous occasions, a nation was born in a day. They were so convincing in their proselyting that "... insomuch that they have become extinct..." from among the Nephites.
Upon one occasion Nephi, who had given up his judgeship, and his brother Lehi, who was a great general, preached with such eloquence and so convincingly that eight thousand converts came into the Church. These men were so righteous and full of faith that though they were encircled by fire they could not be burned. While their mission was yet unfinished and while in this trying ordeal their faces shone like that of Moses when he was speaking to the Lord, and caused that their persecutors should ask, "Who is it with whom these men do converse?" and Aminadab replied, "They do converse with the angels of God".
A nation was born in a day when Ammon and his brethren converted the Lamanite king, Lamoni, and also his father, the chief king, whose entire house was converted and "thousands were brought unto the knowledge of the Lord". Whole cities and lands bowed to the Lord and joined the Church, and in the year 36 A.D. it is stated that all the Lamanites and Nephites in the land were converted.
These children of the prophets, both Lamanites and Nephites, were recognized of God. Great manifestations came to them as an evidence of the love their Father in heaven had for them. The Lamanite king, Lamoni, saw his Redeemer, so near to perfection did his life become after his conversion.
Abinadi was a great prophet and like Moses on Sinai his face shone with radiant luster as he stood before his persecutors and boldly defied them saying:
I will not recall....
... I will suffer even until death, and I will not recall my words, and they shall stand as a testimony against you....
and with such fortitude he died, burning at the stake. This was one of the loyal Israelites.
MIGHTY PROPHETS
The first prophet Nephi was great like Moses and Brigham Young. His vision of the immeasurable future was comparable to the one received by Moses, Enoch, and Joseph Smith. lie saw the promised land, the population of Lehi's seed as numerous as the sands of the sea. He saw war, slaughter, cities destroyed. In his vision he saw the birth, life, and ministry of the Christ, his coming to the Western Hemisphere and organizing his Church here. He saw three generations of righteousness and then centuries of unrighteousness, with battles culminating in the destruction of millions, followed by centuries of degradation, scattering, persecution, and suffering. He saw nations grow out of the Eastern empires, and the kingdoms of the Gentiles arise. He saw Columbus and other explorers cross the deep, and the puritans and pilgrims settle a new country. He envisioned the Revolutionary War, the total subjugation of the descendants of Lehi, the coming of the Bible, the restoration of the gospel, the organization of the Church, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon-and the balance of his vision was not written.
With undaunted faith he had preserved the brass plates; with the vision and courage of a Noah he builded ships; and with the leadership of the great he led his people to the promised land.
Another of these children of God was Aminadi, who, like Daniel of old, was so in tune with his Lord that he interpreted the writings on the wall of the temple which were written there by the anger of God.
Alma, the American Saul of Tarsus, had manifestations that were awesome. Like Paul, he was transformed from a destructionist to one of the great preachers of all time. An idolater, tearing down the Church with his eloquence, he was stricken and a voice from the clouds said to him:
Alma, arise and stand forth, for why persecutest thou the church of God?... This is my church and nothing shall overthrow it.
Behold the Lord hath heard the prayers of his people, and also the prayers of his servant Alma, who is thy father; for he has prayed with much faith concerning thee...
And I am sent from God-seek to destroy the church no more....
After two days and nights of dumbness and helplessness he was healed, and devoted the balance of his life as did Paul, to righteousness and service, taking the gospel to the despised and unclean Lamanites.
Another of the spiritual giants who came from this now persecuted people was General Moroni, who was stalwart like his brethren: Alma, Helaman, and Ammon. "He was a strong and a mighty man; he was a man of a perfect understanding... yea,... if all man had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever...".
Has the world ever seen a more classic example of indomitable will, of faith and courage than that displayed by Samuel the Prophet: "One of the Lamanites who did observe strictly to keep the commandments of God". Visualize, if you can, this despised Lamanite standing on the walls of Zarahemla and while arrows and stones were shot at him, crying out to his white accusers that the sword of justice hung over them. So righteous was he that God sent an angel to visit him. His predictions were fulfilled in due time relating to the early coming of Christ, his ministry, death and resurrection, and the eventual destruction of these Nephite people. So great faith had he that the multitudes could not harm him until his message was delivered and so important was his message that subsequently the Savior required a revision of the records to include his prophecies concerning the resurrection of the Saints.
Few groups of children of all time have been so honored and blessed as were those Lamanite and Nephite little ones who were taken into the arms of our Redeemer and blessed by him. What a privilege! They were encircled by fire and angels ministered to them, but the greatest of all was the actual embrace by the Son of God while their exultant parents watched and prayed and bore record.
CHANGES THROUGH CONVERSION
If you would look for valor, stamina, and steadfastness, recall the experiences of the converts of Ammon and his brethren. Here were red men degenerated, untrained, and primitive who accepted the gospel and quickly changed to sober, industrious, God-fearing people. The transition was soon made from skins and loin cloths to clothes of linen; from hunting and fishing, to agricultural work; from war and bloodshed, to peaceful pursuits; from paganism and idolatry to the worship of the Living God. They were called the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, and were so devout and sincere in their professions that they buried their weapons and declared unalterably against war. They said: "... and if our brethren destroy us behold we shall go to our God, and shall be saved". War continued and they were attacked but they prostrated themselves before their enemies "praising God in the very act of perishing". One thousand five of them were slain, but they went to their death
... vouching and covenanting with God, that rather than shed the blood of their brethren, they would give up the own lives; and rather than take away from a brother they would give unto him; and rather than spend their days in idleness they would labor abundantly with their hands.
And thus we see that, when the Lamanites were brought to believe and to know the truth, they were firm, and would suffer even unto death rather than commit sin....
HELAMAN'S SONS
These dark-skinned folk could teach us much. Their faith and strength was transmitted to their children. These Lamanite women spent little of their time in social life and worldliness, but devoted themselves to their families, teaching them to pray and "walk uprightly before the Lord". When their young boys who had taken no oath were forced to protect their families, and came to battle as "Helaman's sons" they were unconquerable. Their mothers had promised them that "If they did not doubt, God would deliver them". These red men striplings went into battle as Joseph went into the grove, with unwavering faith, and they emerged from many bloody battles and "... not one soul of them did perish". One thousand Nephites fighting side by side with them were slain, all the 2,060 were wounded, and two hundred fainted from loss of blood, but their faith was justified and they all lived to return to their sweet Lamanite mothers who praised God for the miracle. The teaching in these God-fearing homes was "That there was a just God and whosoever did not doubt that they should be preserved by his marvelous power".
These faithful braves declared as they met the onslaught of the enemy: "We do not doubt... our mothers knew it". In all history is there a parallel? Can any be found since Adam, with such faith and fortitude as these forerunners of the deprived Indian of today?
Again recall the three disciples whose bodies were changed, who could not taste of death -of pain or sorrow. Like John the Revelator, a degree of perfection was reached which brought to them these incomparable blessings. Still ministering to men on earth they will remain until the consummation of the program of God, having supernatural powers to enable them to better serve. "So great faith have I never seen among all the Jews" declared the Master, "Wherefore I could not show unto them so great miracles".
RACE CONSCIOUSNESS
Our redskin brothers are today called unclean and common, but formerly it was we, the Gentile nations, who were the outcasts. Yesterday it was:
... an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of another nation.
Today we revile the Jew and his brother-Israelite, the Indian. "What fools we mortals be!"
Yesterday the super-race consciousness was so solidly rooted that it was necessary for the Lord to send a vision to his chiefest Apostle before the gospel could go to the Gentile nations. Peter "saw heaven opened and a certain vessel descending unto him." He saw it filled with "all manner of four-footed beasts and filled with creeping things and Jowls of the air." And he heard a voice saying: "Rise Peter; kill and eat." "Not so, Lord," he said, "for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean." Though Peter was very hungry, he could not overcome his lifelong prejudice until the command came the third time: "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common".
And also through a vision Cornelius came to Peter, seeking salvation, and the great Church leader declared: "God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean".
Even after Simon was convinced he had a difficult task to change the thinking of his colleagues, and to them he testified:
Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?.
There were superior peoples in the days of these Lehites who were intolerant, and Jacob called them to repentance with boldness:
Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember your own filthiness, and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers.
Again he warned:
... I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought before the throne of God.
Mormon knew the weakness of men when he wrote:
... behold who can stand against the works of the Lord?... Who will despise the children of Christ....
... wo unto him that shall deny the revelations of the Lord.
Yea, and ye need not any longer hiss nor spurn, nor make game of the Jews, nor any remnant of the house of Israel; for behold the Lord remembereth his covenant unto them....
And Moroni warns against judging:
For behold, the same that judgeth rashly shall be judged rashly again: for according to his works shall his wages be; therefore he that smiteth shall be smitten again, of the Lord.
VIRTUES ENUMERATED
Among these children of God were many prophets, and fires would not burn them; stones and arrows could not hit them; prisons could not hold them; pits could not be dug deep enough to imprison them. Among these, the children of the covenant, their lame walked; their blind ones saw; their deaf heard; their dumb spoke; the dead lived again. Among these, the remnant of Jacob, the rich were humble; the poor were provided for; the oppressed were rescued; justice reigned; and freedom was a reality. Among these, the branch of the tree of Israel, the Holy Ghost whispered to them; angels ministered to them; the Creator and Master visited them.
Among us today we find many who abandon their faith and Church position to go into politics. We found children of the Covenant who gave up judgeships, resigned from the high army posts, and even refused to be king over the nation that they might serve on missions and convert souls to righteousness. We find many today who permit wealth to wedge them from things spiritual. We found Lamanites who sacrificed their wealth to become lowly teachers.
See what God hath wrought! He has blessed, honored, and preserved his race. He has predicted and warned through their prophets; angels have ministered to them; miracles have been countless among them; two centuries of continuous righteousness was lived by them; supreme faith was manifested by them; martyrs burned and bled among them; the flesh and the world were overcome by them. Peace of long duration was enjoyed by them and the Son of Man visited them.
A BRIGHTER DAY
Yesterday we of the Gentile nations were the "common and unclean"-today we so call the Indian.
Yesterday we were the persecuted; today we are the persecutors.
Yesterday we were they who went from Jerusalem to Jericho; today we are the priest and the Levite who passed "by on the other side".
But to these children of the prophets, God has made lavish promises. Today is the brighter day-the day of the Lamanite, and we must be the Good Samaritan, and through us with our love, service and providence, must come the rejuvenation of the Indians.
They shall become fair, clean, and worthy. They shall become physically sound, mentally alert, economically secure. They shall plant and harvest and build and inhabit. They shall take their rightful place as peers with us in industry, in business and professions. They shall know their history and believe the truth; they shall know and worship the true and living God.
For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on until all his promises shall be fulfilled.
May God help us to recognize our duty toward these our brothers and sisters and help us show our love for him by our devotion to the work of bringing all blessings which we enjoy to these our kinsmen.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 176-183
"And I give unto you a commandment that you shall teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom. Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand".
And then, in the next paragraph he tells us to comprehend all phases of instruction pertaining to the earth, the heavens, to the end,
"That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you. Behold I sent you out to testify and warn the people, and it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor. Therefore, they are left without excuse...".
There are two things which the Lord here asks us to do, that we are to teach and to warn, testify of the truths of the Gospel and to warn the people of the evils in the world.
There are two great phases, departments, of our Church in which the priesthood exercises the right of teaching, one is in the organized stakes; the other, in the mission field. I should like to say a few words about the latter phase of this great modern work. First, regarding some items which pertain to the calling of missionaries.
CALLING OF MISSIONARIES
About a year ago, or so, we suggested that young couples should not be called into the mission field, for reasons given. Just by way of reminding you, we thought it best for the young couples not to go into the mission fields because, in the first place, in the natural course of events, the responsibilities of motherhood would interfere with the work of the sisters, and if anything were done to postpone that responsibility, the Church would become a party to birth control, and the Church will have nothing to do with that evil.
But at that time it was suggested it might be permissible for a young girl to go out and join her husband during the last six months of his mission. Now that was given particularly because some of our young, many of our young men had been out in the war, been on the battlefields, been away from home two, three, four, five years, and now going out into the mission field. Naturally, they wanted to get married when they came home, and so that permission was given. Tonight, we should like to say that it has not worked out very satisfactorily, brethren, and the conditions that justified the giving of such permission have become practically non-existent. We suggest, therefore, that you discontinue encouraging these young girls or giving the thought to them that they might go out and join their husband if they marry just before he leaves, to join him the last six months.
Mission presidents feel that it is not in the best interests of the work. And only by special permission, by special request of some mission president will that be granted; and to you bishops and presidents of stakes we suggest that the thought be discouraged.
It is suggested, secondly, that more care be taken in recommending missionaries. Now you have heard that repeated time and time again. Missionary work is strenuous, the change of climate, often the worry that takes possession of some of our young men at first, sometimes homesickness, discouragement. Unless they are physically strong they break under it, and it is surprising how many during the last six months have so broken. That, too, hinders the work in the mission field. That applies also to those who are past middle age, to elderly couples that would like to go out. They seem strong, capable to do work here at home, but when they get out in the field under different circumstances, not a small number of them fail to meet the vicissitudes and the responsibilities of the mission. So now, before your elderly couple will be sent out to the field the mission president will be communicated with; and if he can use them, all right; if not, we will ask that they remain in the home fields, in the organized stakes.
Now we recognize, bishops, that you are going to have difficulty in satisfying some of these young men who feel that they can go out, who may be physically handicapped. Physicians may declare a weakness in the eyes, probably in the heart. The young men will say, "Well, we can work hard and we should like to go," and sympathetically you say, "All right." They feel as though they will be deprived of a privilege, and no doubt they will in a sense, but let us emphasize the importance of the work here at home. It is just as important, the home missionary work, and they can be here under their normal surroundings, and be near any help, medically, which they might need. So let us try to impress them with the fact that they can serve the Lord here at home to the extent of their physical, intellectual and spiritual ability, and probably better than going out into the world under conditions which might be too strenuous for them.
I am pleased to report to you that the Chinese mission is about to be reopened. The mission presidency, two of them at least, have already been chosen, as you have undoubtedly noticed in the papers, and within the next few months we hope papers will be in such shape that the brethren, under the direction of President Cowley will go over there and establish a headquarters and preach the gospel again to that mighty nation.
SUCCESS IN JAPANESE MISSION
You will be delighted, too, to hear of the success attending our missionaries in Japan. I thought you would be interested in this message from President Clissold:
With a nucleus of several old members who had been meeting with Nisei saints from Hawaii, here in the service. A Sunday School was fully organized at Ogikubo, Tokyo in April 1948, and now has an average attendance of over two hundred. Other Sunday Schools organized in Tokyo are at Shimokitazawa, Denenchofu, and Takanaway. Cottage meetings, Primaries, and study classes are being held in several other areas, making in all 21 weekly meetings in Tokyo, with an average attendance of over eleven hundred people.
One of the faithful members of the former mission and a man of considerable influence in Takasaki, a city ninety miles north of Tokyo, has been of great assistance to the missionaries assigned to that district. He helps them with a large Sunday School and several weekly meetings, including an M.I.A. gathering of over four hundred young people.
All of the organizations, with one exception, are presided over by missionaries. Since January, however, there have been twelve ordinations to the priesthood, and it is expected that local people will be called to positions of responsibility in the near future.
Including the mission president and his wife, there are seventeen missionaries in the field. Eight of them are Niseis, six from Hawaii, one from the mainland, United States, and one from Canada. They are without exception capable and earnest young people. As the Caucasian missionaries are in the process of learning the language, the burden of the work thus far, with one notable exception, has been borne by the Nisei missionaries. They are a great credit to the wards and branches from which they come.
About fifty members of the former mission have been found. These faithful saints are the nuclei around which the present organizations are being built. They are practically all people of high standing and influence in the communities in which they live, and are excellent examples of the efficacy of the Latter-day Saint way of life. These humble members, in their steadfastness through almost a quarter of a century of isolation, have demonstrated a loyalty and faith that is unexcelled in the Church. If there has ever been any thought that the first mission in Japan was not successful, the faith and the works of these stalwart members should dispel it forever. To associate with them as they labor to assist the missionaries would fill with deep satisfaction the hearts of the former missionaries who struggled against great odds to glean just a handful of converts out of over twenty years of missionary effort.
We have good word from the Saints in Germany, and encouraging word even from Czechoslovakia, although government officials refused to let seven of our missionaries enter Czechoslovakia a month or so ago. But those who are there are encouraged and people are hungering for the truth.
Other missions report progress. It is just inspiring to receive the letters of encouragement from the mission presidents and from elders, missionaries and the sisters, and also to hear the reports of the returned elders from the various missionary fields. Truly the harvest is great, and these mission presidents would tell you that the laborers are few. Though five thousand missionaries, a few under that now-many have come home-are in the field, field, each mission president is asking for many more than these he has in his missionary corps.
TEACHING AND WARNING
Teaching, warning, testifying of the restoration of the gospel, warning the people, and it "becometh every man also to warn his neighbor". Within the last twenty-four hours there have been gathered here in connection with this conference, I suppose, twenty thousand teachers, probably eight thousand here tonight, an equal number last night in this building and in the Assembly Hall. Within twenty-four hours approximately twenty thousand teachers, and I am speaking to teachers tonight, for the priesthood means teaching, the authority to represent the Lord in teaching the Gospel, the Gospel of the Kingdom.
I thought that one of the most effective means of teaching is proclaiming the glories of the gospel as we heard today, but equally effective in this old world, is that which warns of the dangers. You remember what Paul says in his epistle to the Galatians, about the works of the flesh being manifest, such as adultery, fornication, lying, and he listed all the evils, and he concludes after doing that by saying that "they who do these things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God."
And then in contrast he says: "Now the fruits of the spirit are these, love, joy, peace..." and so on, and the blessings that will follow. There are two things always that we should keep in mind: one, the beauty of a righteous life; the other, the warning against indulgence in the evil life, and you cannot get away from that.
INFLUENCES UPON LIFE
As I recall the influences upon my young life, I believe the greatest was the memorizing of that important saying: "My spirit will not dwell in an unclean tabernacle".
Then there were three others, and they were all in the form of warnings. The first came to me as a boy as I sat on a spring seat by the side of my father as we drove into Ogden. Just before we crossed the bridge across the Ogden River, a man came out from a saloon, which was just on the northern bank of the river. I recognized him. I liked him because I had seen him on the local stage. But on that occasion he was under the influence of liquor, and had been for, I suppose, several days.
I did not know it, did not know he drank, but as he broke down and cried and asked father for fifty cents to go back into the saloon, I saw him stagger away. As we drove across the bridge my father said: "David, he and I used to go ward teaching together."
That was all he said, but it was a warning to me that I have never forgotten, about the effect of dissipation.
A little later, a teacher gave us to read a story about a group of young people sailing down the St. Lawrence River. If any of you can find it I wish you would give it to me. I cannot give you the author, I cannot give you the title, but I can give you the memory that has stayed with me, about those young folks who were drinking and carousing and having a good time in the boat sailing down that noted river. But a man on the shore, recognizing, realizing the dangers ahead of them, cried: "Hello, there, the rapids are below you."
But they ignored his warning, defied him. "We are all right," and continued in their jocularity and their indulgences. And again he cried out: "The rapids are below you," and again they gave no heed to his warning.
Suddenly they found themselves in the rapids. Then they immediately began to row for the shore, but it was too late. I do not remember but just the words of the last paragraph, but cursing, yelling, over the rapids. over the falls they went.
Negative? Yes, but I will tell you there are many in the stream of life who are rowing just that way. I have never forgotten the story. I hope I shall find it again.
And the third was a warning of the danger of unchastity. It was not my father who gave me that, but it was a teacher who spoke to a group of us boys about the danger of impurity, of sexual impurity, getting disease, sexual disease, getting it into the blood and transmitting that disease to innocent offspring.
Later the thought was expressed by one of our American poets in that poem in which a boy says, among other things, he is going to have his fling:
"And I said religion is rot, And the laws of the world are nil- The bad man is he who is caught And cannot foot the bill.
For I saw men everywhere Hot-footing the road to vice, And women and preachers smiled on them So long as they paid the price.
So I had my joy of life, And I went the pace of the town; And then I took me a wife, And started to settle down.
I had gold enough and to spare For all of the simple joys That go with a house and a home, And a brood of girls and boys.
I married a girl with health, And virtue, and spotless fame; I gave in exchange my wealth, And a proud old family name.
And I gave her the love of a heart Grown sick and sated with sin. My deal with the devil was up And the last bill handed in."
So he thought.
"We were going to be blessed with a child, And when in anguish she cried, With love and fear I was wild But now I wish he had died.
For the son she bore me was blind, And crippled and weak and sore, And the mother was left a wreck- Aye it was so, she had settled my score.
I said I would have my fling, And they knew the paths I would go, Yet no one told me a thing Of what I needed to know.
Folks talk too much of a soul From heavenly joys debarred, But not enough of the souls unborn By the sins of their fathers scarred."
WARN YOUTH OF DANGERS
Modern science has made youth a little more daring, but I will tell you the danger is just as great. Warn, warn youth of the dangers of the flesh, the works of the flesh.
Never have I been more thankful in my life for noble parents. It is great to be well born. Not much preaching but just a hint here and a hint there about pure living, and the saying: "When you start out with girls, you treat that young girl, now, David, as you would have any other boy treat your sister."
The training of the teachers, the teachings they receive, rough boys, seemingly not much attention paid to what they say, but those teachings and warnings remain all through life. "Testify," says the Lord through Joseph Smith "and warn." And when you are warned, warn your neighbor.
TESTIMONY
Brethren, I know as I know I am looking into your faces that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true, and that He is my Saviour, as real as He was when Thomas said, with bowed head, "My Lord and my God!".
I know that if our young people will only accept the teachings and live the standards that they will be the happiest, most joyous persons in all the world, and I know if they do not, that they will bring sorrow upon themselves and upon their wives and children in the future.
I know that the gospel was restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, by the Father and the Son, who are as real today in connection with the other world as my loved ones and yours. And as teachers here, we are to let the people know it, and warn these men-and this is not imagination-who, after having lived with their wives and brought into this world four and five and six children, get tired of their wives and seek a divorce, that they are on the road to hell. It is unfair to a woman to leave her that way, just because the man happens to fall in love with some younger woman and feels that the wife is not so beautiful or attractive as she used to be.
Only the other day such an incident came before us. Warn him! Nothing but unhappiness for him and injustice to those children.
Well, brethren, God bless you. God bless the work, the missionaries abroad; protect them from evil. They are in the midst of it. God bless these mission presidents, that they may have influence with the young boys who are getting discouraged, some of them, and bless you parents at home who are sacrificing to send them, and you men of the priesthood and the quorums, that you may gather around those who are seemingly indifferent and win them into quorum activity.
I bear you the testimony that this is God's work, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 183-187
President Smith has requested that I speak next. I rather feel that perhaps, if we were to adjourn now, after the powerful and inspired utterances of President McKay, we would be better off than perhaps to have me try to say something, but obedient to the request of the President I shall do the best I can.
I do pray that the Lord will bless me and that you will be good enough to ask him in my behalf that he will grant the blessing, in order that you may be edified, strengthened, and built up.
Over the last year I have been doing considerable reading of a more intensive kind than I have before done, on the matters I have been reading about, and I have been impressed with certain historical facts to which I wish briefly to allude.
EARLY CHRISTIAN HISTORY
For some reason, which is not clear, either from history or from scriptures, it does not appear that Peter, James and John, who were left as the First Presidency of the primitive church, ever appointed any successors to themselves. The result was what might have been expected. There grew up certain great centers, Alexandria, Rome, Carthage, Caesarea, and so on. As time went on, each of these was presided over by a bishop. They had no central guiding hand, and the result was they began to dispute about doctrine, and about rites and ceremonies. Cults grew up, one cult here, another there. These various units, headed by bishops, drifted off into contrary or divergent directions. They called councils from time to time to settle their disputes. The great council of Nicaea about 325 after Christ was the first great ecumenical council. There they tried to settle certain matters of doctrine.
There was no unity in the church; there was no unifying direction. They were as lost sheep.
The church moved fairly well while the apostles still lived. Then followed a secondary period when, the apostles having died, there still lived those who had known the apostles, and who had received from them instructions. This kept the church from wandering too far and too fast. Then the third church generation came, and not having the anchorage that was given by the apostles first, and next, by those who had known the apostles, they drifted and drifted rapidly, until by the middle of the third century, they had lost the priesthood, indeed they no longer pretended actually to confer it. Their ordinals merely prayed that the Lord would give the powers, the priesthood powers which Christ had conferred upon his apostles and which they, in turn, had, according to the sacred record, conferred upon a very few individuals.
IMPORTANCE OF UNITY
I have never permitted an opportunity of this kind to go by without speaking on this question of unity. I have said to you brethren, over and over again, and I repeat it tonight, that if we were really united, if we really saw eye to eye, and then would move in unison, there is nothing in the world, in righteousness, that we might not do in accordance with the will of the Lord and not to defeat his purposes. But there comes to us as we get farther-flung in the world, there comes constantly back to the First Presidency, signs that if we did not have the priesthood, if it had been lost to us as it was lost to the primitive church, we would be marching along the same roads that they marched to complete apostasy.
Now brethren, there is only one way to be united, and that is to be united. The Lord has set up amongst us, with our priesthood and with our auxiliaries, as nearly a perfect organization as we mortals, in our present condition, can carry on. Just so soon as we undertake, by ourselves and of our own thought and volition, of our own wisdom, to set up other organizations than those set up by the Presidency of the Church, under the direction of the President of the Church, the presiding High Priest of the Church, just so soon as we undertake to do that then we are on a detour. We are no longer going down the middle of the road. We are on a road that could lead to apostasy.
I think perhaps that even now there are evidences that those in the outlying areas farthest away from the central organization of the Church, are feeling, perhaps, the absence of controls a little more keenly than they who are nearer in; and yet I would like to say here that my observation is that among those who are farther away from us, who do not see us every day, there is a higher regard for the General Authorities than there is among those who are around here. Yet there is that seemingly inevitable drawing away tendency in the remoter areas, to this time in details that leave us still strong. But we must be always alert.
The Lord gave us our free agency, as you know, and we may think and we may talk as we wish, but we may not teach false doctrine for that is no part of free agency. In the spiritual domain false doctrine is the equivalent of libel, and slander in the civil domain. Those things we may not do.
PLANS OF MEN
This is an age, a period, when everybody has a new idea as to what to do to cure the ills of society. There are almost as many plans as there are people, plans usually developed by men of no experience no training, no thought, and the plans gain currency among those who are equally untrained, inexperienced and ill taught.
Amongst us, it is quite a common thing for us to look about and see something that needs to be corrected, and so we start a movement to correct it. We see something that should be done, some opportunity we think we see that has not been embraced, and so we form a plan to meet that opportunity as we see it. I think perhaps I might say that not always have our auxiliary organizations brought themselves under restraint, the restraint of the discipline of doing primarily the things that they were set up to do. But whether that be true or not, it is certainly true that here and there somebody gets an idea of what he ought to do and so starts out to do it.
There was handed to us tonight a plan to satisfy all the needs of the members of a proposed group, from an economic, social, physical, spiritual and educational standpoint. Well, that is quite a program, just to start out with right from scratch. They have several hundred members they say. THE LORD'S PLAN
Now brethren, the Lord has set up, as I said to begin with, an organization that is as nearly perfect as we mortals can live, and the only safety we shall have will be in following that plan and that program.
I sometimes think that maybe we take to our souls a little more unction than we should over the thought that the Lord has set up his work never more to be thrown down or taken away and given to another people. I believe that as I believe I am looking at you, as I know I am looking at you. But that does not say that all of us are going to be among those who stand firm by the plan which the Lord has given. Let us be sure that we do not get away from the Lord's plan.
You Elders quorum men, Seventies, High Priests, all of you brethren of the Aaronic priesthood, cling by what the Lord has given to you. There is opportunity for all of the activity that you can possibly participate in and as it is under a divine plan there will be nothing in it that is not profitable for you. Do not go off and try to reform the Church. Let us reform ourselves, and the Church will take care of itself.
DIRECTION OF HOLY GHOST
Sometimes people get to preaching, preaching false doctrines. Sometimes the Elders get to telling their own ideas about what the Gospel is, making their own explanations. The Prophet records that on one occasion a man came to him and was very much surprised when the Prophet told him that a prophet was not always a prophet. He was a prophet only when he spoke with the spirit of prophecy.
On two occasions today that passage of the scripture has been quoted and referred to, which was really directed to Orson Hyde, but it is applicable to all of us, that whatever the servants of the Lord say shall be scripture, the mind of the Lord, the will of the Lord, the voice of the Lord, the power of God unto salvation. Sometimes we overlook the beginning, "what ye say under the direction of the Holy Ghost".
You remember that Paul and Barnabas had a little trouble in their time. One of them at that particular occasion did not have the direction of the Holy Ghost, the inspiration of it. Peter and Paul had their troubles. They were not then both being moved by the Holy Ghost.
The Prophet tells-you will find it in his works-that some of the brethren in the early days early days got very much interested in the book of revelation, a pregnant source of speculation, and he rebuked them for it.
I would like to urge you brethren to read the scriptures yourselves. We have had some wonderful talks today about reading the Book of Mormon. I subscribe to all of it. And the other books were mentioned at the same time, the Bible, the D&C; and the Pearl of Great Price. But read the scriptures and get your own ideas about them.
In speaking about Brother Hezekiah Brown the Prophet Joseph said he was so happy that men could read and think and speculate; we were not cramped like the sectarians were, but he cautioned the brethren that they should be careful about what they taught. There is only one source on the earth that has any right to change or modify or extend any revelation of the Lord, and that is the President of the Church, the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, the presiding High Priest. He alone, through the inspiration and revelation of the Lord, can change the revelations already given. All the rest of us can think about them, talk about them, speculate about them, but we cannot change them, and until he speaks the revelations stand as is. We ought not, therefore, to get discouraged because somebody sees a revelation in a different light from the way in which we see it. We are entitled to our opinion; the other man is entitled to his opinion, but the revelation stands until God changes it in the regular way.
APPEAL FOR UNITY
Brethren, I return again to this question of unity. Can we not forget our little troubles, our little disagreements? Can we not unify on the words of the Lord, even as He spoke them; and having unified in our belief, can we not unify ourselves in our observance? I am talking, I know, to brethren who are the stalwarts of the Church, the brethren to whom the Lord looks, and President Smith as the Lord's representative looks, to carry on the work of the Church. You must do it. President Smith cannot be everywhere. And you have done a great job. But we are in perilous times, economic, political and spiritual, and if you will just harken to what the Prophet of the Lord says and be guided by the revelations which God has given through his prophets in ancient times and modern times, all will be well.
I pledge you that I will try, with all my mind and soul and heart, to do the things which our leader wishes us to do. I wish that you brethren, each and all of you would follow me in that pledge, and if we shall do that, we shall be nearer heaven, this great priesthood body of the Church, we shall be nearer heaven than we have yet been in this dispensation.
I bear my testimony that I know that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ and the firstfruits of the resurrection. I know that the gospel and the Priesthood were restored through the Prophet Joseph. I have the testimony of the Spirit to that and the testimony of the Spirit seems to me far greater than the testimony of the senses.
May God be with all of us, at all times, and may we so live that he can be with us under all circumstances, which means that we live pure lives, that we keep away from sin and the places of sin, and that we go to no place where we might not ask our Heavenly Father to go with us, may we so live that we may be saved and exalted in his presence, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus, Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 188-193
I hope that tonight we have all taken into our souls the instructions that have been given.
We have met here in the name of the Lord, as representatives of the Lord, holding his priesthood. We have been entitled, because of so meeting, to divine guidance. Sometimes there are occasions, and I imagine most of us have had them, when we may feel that there is a better way to do things than the way they are being done, but if we will keep the commandments of the Lord-and when I say the commandments of the Lord I refer to the Ten Commandments, and the other revelations that he has given to the children of men through the prophets-if we will observe those teachings we will not go astray. It is when we fail to keep the commandments of God that we fall into darkness.
I am grateful to be here with you. I was doubtful as to whether I should come out tonight, because I am not as strong as I would like to be. I felt however, that I could not miss being here with this body of men, and as a result I have been edified and delighted.
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES
I would like to re-emphasize, if it needs emphasis, the suggestion that has already been made: Read the scriptures. That is the advice of the Lord. Are you taking it? It was the Savior who said: "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me".
It does not just say, "Read the scriptures-but, search the scriptures." What does that mean to you? To me, it means prayerfully to investigate what the Lord has said, and in that way, if we are humble we will be entitled to his guidance, and we will not be misled.
Within the last few days I received a letter from a man who was excommunicated from the Church, not because he did what the Lord wanted him to do but because he did what he wanted to do, and then he put the responsibility on some of the other brethren, saying that they had advised him what to do. He had forgotten that before he got into the trouble that caused him to be severed from the Church, one of the General Authorities of the Church advised him not to do the thing that he seemed intent on doing, and just as soon as he did that he was in the dark.
Keep the commandments of the Lord, brethren, and you will not wander away into darkness. There is not any time that you may not kneel down, and if you can honestly say, "Heavenly Father, I have done what you have asked me to do, and what you have directed me to do; what shall I do now?" You will get the answer, and you will not be mistaken. But if you do the things that ought not to be done and get your suggestions from the adversary of all righteousness, you will find yourself wandering in darkness and you may lose the pearl of great price.
RIGHTS OF WIVES
I would like to emphasize tonight something that has been referred to before and that is that men, who have been married to women and have agreed before witnesses that they will keep the commandments of God and live as they should, sometimes are so selfish, so willful, that they forget that their wives have some rights. I want to say that the priesthood does not give any man a right to abuse his wife. The priesthood does give him a right to be kind, to be faithful, to be honorable, to teach the truth and to teach his children the truth, and when he does that he will not fall away into sin. There never has been a time in the history of the world when we have needed divine guidance more than now.
Reference has been made quite plainly tonight to the fact that the Presidency of the Church, three men, have been called to perform certain duties, and, associated with them, other men have been called to assist in carrying out the program of the Church. When these three men and the others who have been called to the Quorum of the Twelve, and those who have been called into the other presiding positions among the General Authorities, are united, we need not be worried about what will happen to the Church. All men and all women have a right to inquire of their bishop, of their stake presidency and high council with regard to matters in the Church. They have a right to inquire and if they are not satisfied they have the privilege then of going beyond these men, but not very often would that be necessary if the man who is asking were in the line of his duty. So let us not forget, brethren, that we have had conferred upon us a wonderful gift, divine authority, that comes from our Heavenly Father. That is a priceless gift bestowed by the Lord. It is not like a recommendation from any other organization. It means that if we are living as we should when that authority of the priesthood is conferred upon us, we are entitled to the inspiration of the Almighty, and we will have it if we keep his commandments. So let us have our homes in order, have family prayers and ask a blessing upon the food. Let us try to learn what the Lord would have us do, not what we would like to do or somebody else would like to have us do.
ACCEPTANCE OF COUNSEL
As I stand here now I can think of a number of men that have gone to the leadership of the Church for advice and if they had taken it they would be in the Church now, but they are out. Those to whom they went had no ulterior motives; those who gave the advice when it was asked had only the desire to bless the one who asked for it, but it was contrary to the ambition and desire of the individual, and because he was already in sin, he could not understand the counsel of the good man who unselfishly advised him what he should do.
This world is in a pitiable condition. There are hundreds of thousands of people who do not even believe in God, that is, in the God of this world, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Father of Jesus Christ, our Lord. They are in the dark. We cannot expect them to find the way of happiness until they obtain the light, and it devolves upon this great body of priesthood and those who are associated in the various stakes and wards and missions of the Church, holding the priesthood, to let our light so shine that others seeing that we are indeed servants of the Lord will be constrained to accept the Gospel and conform their lives to the truth.
Again let me plead with you, my brethren, be patient with your children. Remember that one of the greatest gifts that comes to you in life is the family that you may enjoy if you have a right to the priesthood and have received it.
INFLUENCE OF PRAYER
We will not always see alike; men will not always reason as their wives do and vice versa, but if you will pray together, with a real desire to be united, I can say to you, you will agree on all important matters.
I noticed a number of months ago up on South Temple Street this legend on a billboard: "The family that prays together stays together." I do not know who placed it there, but I want to say that if you will think about it for a moment you will know that it is true. I admonish you to pray together to the Lord, and I do not mean by that to just say prayers, I do not mean to be a phonograph and repeat something over and over again, but open your souls to the Lord as husbands and fathers in your home, and have your wives and your children join you. Have them participate. There then comes into the home an influence that you can feel when you go there. It has been a great blessing to me to be permitted to travel throughout this Church and enter the humble homes of those who dwell in them, who keep the commandments of the Lord, and to partake of the influences that I find there.
We are not any of us becoming any younger. A good many of us have passed the meridian of life. If we are going to make any corrections, any adjustments, and most of us need to make adjustments, the time to do it is now, not put it off for the future.
GRATITUDE FOR BISHOPS
I would like to urge that we go to our bishops and thank them for their faithfulness and their devotion to us. I live in a ward where we have three of the finest men in the world in the bishopric, wonderful, humble, prayerful men. They do not have any desire to do anything in that ward except to bless the people, and I suppose you will find that in all the wards of the Church, with few exceptions.
When we receive the priesthood, when we receive ordinations, when we are set apart to perform certain duties in the Church, by the authority of our Heavenly Father, we should realize that it is a great and wonderful blessing, and that it carries with it a tremendous responsibility. We should not treat it lightly.
We have been together two days. We have had a happy time. Other meetings will be held in this conference before it is concluded, and if we will attend those meetings with a prayer in our heart to have the Spirit of the Lord, to be guided, inspired by him in our thinking, not only in teaching but in being taught, when the conference closes we may go to our homes and take with us the inspiration of the Almighty. We can set our homes in order and we can help to keep our wards and stakes in order-but it will take work. It will take prayerful, thoughtful work.
REPENTANCE NEEDED
There are conditions in the Church that need to be repented of. Reference has been made in this conference to the fact that the sale of liquor is being legalized. Years ago the President of the Church stood in this pulpit and in a general conference and plead with the people not to abandon the Volstead Act. Legislation had been enacted making it illegal to sell liquor or to buy liquor. The Lord has advised us not to use strong drinks, and every Latter-day Saint should pay attention to the advice of our Heavenly Father in regard to that matter. Let me plead with you, search the Word of Wisdom prayerfully. Do not just read it; search it prayerfully. Discover what our Heavenly Father gave it for. He gave it to us with a promise of longer life and happiness, not if we fail to observe it, but if we observe it. Read the Word of Wisdom in the presence of your families and set the example. If we will do that Zion will continue to grow. If we will do that the Church of the Lamb of God will continue to become a power for good in the world.
It is amazing to me how many great and influential men there are in our own country who do not belong to the Church-I do not know whether they belong to any church or not-but who in their correspondence with the headquarters of the Church indicate how pleased they are at what we stand for, and we stand, I hope, always, for what the Lord would have us stand.
BLESSINGS OF THE PRIESTHOOD
Brethren, it is a favor from the Lord to receive the priesthood; it is a great privilege to represent our Heavenly Father. It is a blessing that, if we are faithful, will open the doors of the celestial kingdom and give us a place there to live throughout the ages of eternity. Do not trifle with this priceless blessing.
Bishops, let me plead with you, when you ordain young men deacons, teachers, or priests, see to it that they have it made plain to them that with that gift that comes from our Heavenly Father, there is a responsibility. If you will do that, they will grow up to be the protectors of the weaker sex, and there will be less sorrow and distress because of looseness of habits among the sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father in the communities in which we live.
The Lord wants us to be happy. That is why he gave us the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is why he conferred the priesthood upon us. He wants us to have joy. That is why he organized this Church and set in it the various offices, and all these things are in order. As has been referred to tonight, by the other brethren, if you will follow the leadership of the Lord, and those whom the Lord sustains, you will not fall away into darkness, lose the light, transgress the laws of God, and forfeit your privileges that he is so anxious that all of us should enjoy.
That is my feeling tonight, brethren. I am grateful to be here. I am thankful when I have the privilege of shaking your hands, looking into your faces, and I am happy when I see you walking as the Lord would have you walk, following his advice and counsel. We will all be happy if we do that, and the world will be enriched, and the missions that have already been opened will continue to function until the people have been warned and the countries that have not yet been warned may have an opportunity yet to be taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. Among those that have not been warned are the most populous nations in the world today. But it is our responsibility to find ways and means to carry the message of life and salvation to every nation.
Thank you, brethren, for your love and for your fellowship, for your kindness and helpfulness to me and my associates who are here upon this stand. We love you. We are grateful to you and for you, and I pray that every one of us will so live that when the time comes for us to go hence and the record is opened of our lives, it will disclose the fact that we have desired with all our hearts to be what God would have us be, and we have been guided by him in paths of peace and happiness and righteousness, and when the time comes that this earth shall be cleansed and purified by fire and it becomes the celestial kingdom-that is what it will be, brethren-when that time comes I pray that we will all will all have so lived that we will find our names recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life, entitling us to membership here forever in the companionship of our wives and our children, and all that are dear to us, not one missing, and I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 119-120
I thought I would like to stand in the presence of this great audience this morning and congratulate you that you are here in the house of the Lord on the birthday of the Church, the 119th anniversary. And I also hope that the more than a million souls now living that belong to the Church are remembering that this was a wonderful event.
As I saw the blue sky this morning and the glorious sunshine, I thought of Parley P. Pratt's wonderful hymn, "The morning breaks, the shadows flee; Lo! Zion's standard is unfurled, The dawning of a brighter day, Majestic rises on the world." And if this group of people, and those who are associated with the Church who have covenanted with the Lord to do so, will undertake to fulfill that portion of his prayer where he says: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven", the coming of that great day will be hastened. It remains for us to bring that about, brothers and sisters.
The years pass so swiftly! Sixty-six years ago I was attending the same school that these young men and women are now, then called the Brigham Young Academy. Sixty-six years ago! When I think of what a wonderful record that school has made and the blessing it has been to the Church and to the people, I am grateful that their representatives are here this morning to sing for us and to warm our hearts by their presence.
I don't want to take more time, my brethren and sisters, but I just felt I wanted to greet you this morning and say to everyone of you: God bless you; and let us see that every time we hear or read the prayer offered by the Savior as a pattern for all of us to pray, that we keep in mind that it is our privilege to be a part of that program when this earth shall be even as heaven.
The Lord bless you. Amen.
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
Joseph Fielding Smith, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 134-137
And great multitudes followed him; and he healed them there.
The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female. And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder".
MARRIAGE FOR ETERNITY
I wish to call attention, first, to the fact that the Lord has declared that when a man and a woman are united in marriage, according to the Lord's plan and by his sanction, they become one, one flesh; and there is nothing in this commandment that indicates in the least that that means until death separates them. Here the Lord is teaching marriage for eternity, for he says, "... they are no more twain, but one flesh". We ought to keep that in mind.
I wish to read now more of this instruction he gave to these Pharisees:
They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?
He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your heats suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
Now I want to call your attention to the covenants a man and a woman make when they are married by the Lord, or by a servant of the Lord, acting by his authority. The Lord has revealed this to us, and you will find it recorded in the Scriptures, and I shall read from section seventy-six of the D&C;, verses 54-60.
For the Lord says of those who keep his covenants and are faithful and true and are sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise: They are they who are the church of the Firstborn.
They are they into whose hands the Father has given all things-
They are they who are priests and kings, who have received of his fulness, and of his glory;
And are priests of the Most High, after the order of Melchizedek, which was after the order of Enoch, which was after the order of the Only Begotten Son.
Wherefore, as it is written, they are gods, even the sons of God-
Wherefore, all things are theirs, whether life or death, or things present, or things to come, all are theirs and they are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
And they shall overcome all things.
That is the doctrine the Lord taught to these critical Pharisees. It is the doctrine that was taught by his servants, the prophets. And Paul says, writing to the Roman Saints:
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
BLESSINGS OF TEMPLE MARRIAGE
Now I want to impress upon all my good brethren and sisters who have been married in the temple that they should never forget the great blessings which were bestowed upon them: That the Lord has given unto them, through their faithfulness, the right to become his sons and his daughters, joint heirs with Jesus Christ, possessing, as stated here, all that the Father has.
And yet, there are members of the Church who fail to comprehend this and after they are married for time and all eternity, become members of the Church of the Firstborn, receiving the promise of the fulness of the Father's kingdom, they permit things to come into their lives that bring friction and separate them. And they forget that they have made a covenant for time and all eternity with each other; and not only that, but they have made a covenant with their Father in heaven; and I want to say to you, my brethren and sisters, it isn't an easy thing to break a covenant that we make with our Father in heaven. And that is what they do.
Now this is impressed upon my mind at this particular time because I have had so many cases come before me. I haven't time to go into the details in regard to these matters, but I want to call attention to two cases that have come before me recently.
BROKEN HOMES
At the close of a stake conference one time, a brother came up to me for counsel, which he did not follow when he got it. It wasn't counsel he wanted; it was confirmation. He said he and his wife had tired of each other. She was a good woman. She was living her religion. He claimed to be a good man. And the president of his stake, afterwards, when I spoke to him, said he was a good man. How could they be good and want to separate and throw into the discard all these glorious blessings that would bring to them the glory of godhood, as set forth in the revelations which I have read to you? How could they be good?
I want to say to you, my brethren and sisters, there never could be a divorce in this Church if the husband and wife were keeping the commandments of God.
And within the week, my attention was called to another case similar to this, where a man and a woman married in the temple for time and all eternity have tired of each other. They have raised a family. Now he wants to go his way, and she wants to go her way. But they want to be friends. There are no hard feelings between them. They have just got tired. They want a change. Do they have the spirit of the gospel in their hearts? I say to you, no, or they would not be tired of each other. That could not follow. They got tired of living the principles of eternal truth. A man would not get tired of his wife if he had the love of God in his heart. A woman would not get tired of her husband if she had in her heart the love of God, that first of all commandments. They could not do it! And then think of the children. Here you have a broken home. These people get a divorce, and then they want to get a cancelation, perhaps, of their sealing. They want to marry somebody else. And there you have a broken home. What is going to become of the parents? What is going to become of the children? Haven't the children any rights? The parents become separated. Each goes a different way, but they want to be friends. And then they expect to marry again for time and all eternity and enter into the celestial kingdom of God to receive all the blessings of exaltation! Are they entitled to do it? Not as I read these Scriptures-they are not entitled to do it. Of course, we have worse cases than that. We have cases, perhaps, where a woman is justified in seeking relief, to be separated from a brutal husband who lives after the flesh, whose incontinency is such that he makes her life miserable; and they are not keeping the commandments that were given to them when they were married in the temple for time and all eternity, where he is supposed to love and respect and care for his wife with all the humility, in all the faith, and the understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the gospel of Jesus Christ is not carnal.
BRIGHAM YOUNG'S STATEMENT
I have a statement here, from President Brigham Young that I want to read:
I know that you good women get annoyed and provoked and out of patience many times with your husbands, and at times justly. They are not always as considerate of you as they ought to be; but if they provide for you and they are kind to you and otherwise treat you right, stay with them.
That is what President Young has to say. He said:
I think it has been taught by some that as we lay down our bodies they will so rise in the resurrection with all the impediments and imperfections that they have here; and that if a wife does not love her husband in this estate, she cannot love him in the next. This is not so. Those who attain to the blessings of the first or celestial resurrection will be pure and holy, and perfect in body. Every man and woman that reaches to this unspeakable attainment will be as beautiful as the angels that surround the throne of God. If you can, by faithfulness in this life attain the right to come up in the morning of the resurrection, you need entertain no fears that the wife will be dissatisfied with her husband or the husband with the wife, for those of the first resurrection will be free from sin and from the consequences and power of sin. This body is "sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. And as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly".
God has done his part towards putting us in possession of celestial glory and happiness, by providing the means whereby we may attain to it; and if we ever possess it, we must do so by conforming to the means provided. God has given the children of men dominion over the earth and over all things that pertain to it and has commanded them to subdue it, and sanctify themselves before him, and also sanctify and beautify the earth by their industry and by their wisdom and skill which cometh from God.... To receive the gospel and believe and enjoy it in the spirit is the simplest part of the work the Latter-day Saints have to learn and perform.
God has made man Lord over all things here below, and it is the labor of man to bring all things unto subjection to God by first subjecting himself to the will of God, and then subjecting all things over which he has control in their time and order. The will of God is eternal life to his people, and to all they control.
The Lord bless you, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Stephen L Richards
Stephen L Richards, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 137-144
My dear brethren and sisters:
I recall an occasion in the life of President Heber J. Grant which brings to me some thoughts for this conference. It was shortly before he became ill and near the close of his administration. He came to the temple one Thursday to meet with the brethren of the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve in the regular weekly meeting. In a thoughtful and reflective mood, he said, in substance:
PRESIDENT GRANT'S CONCLUSION
Brethren, in the natural course of events my administration is nearing its close. I have been wondering what I might do in the time that remains to best promote the welfare of the Church and the people.
For a moment I thought he had some new project to announce, but this was quickly dispelled when he continued by saying that he had reached a very simple conclusion. He said the conclusion he had reached was that he could do nothing that would be of more value and lasting good to the cause of our Father and his people than to devote the remainder of his life and effort to getting the people to keep the commandments. I am sure that all the brethren who heard him were in agreement and deeply impressed by the farseeing wisdom of his utterance. I was, and I have recalled the incident on many occasions.
We live in a world of sensationalism. "What's new?" is the inquiry on everyone's lips. It often constitutes a form of friendly salutation. There is an insatiable demand for news, and the news to be arresting and intriguing, must be far out of the ordinary, often shocking and tragic, and the "scoops" which usually win the plaudits of the people in the great majority of cases arise out of the perpetration of high crimes, catastrophes, disasters, scandals-public and private-and the doings and antics of notorious people.
KEEPING THE COMMANDMENTS
Keeping the commandments, as President Grant used the phrase, is not news in the modern sense. It is seldom dramatic. It doesn't often arrest attention, and very infrequently wins a place in the headlines for a man or woman, and there are those who look with a measure of contempt and belittlement upon persons who order their "humdrum" lives in strict conformity with all the commandments.
In spite of the prosaic and commonplace aspect of this subject, I have long been convinced, my brethren and sisters, that the most challenging, dramatic, and vital thing in our lives is this "keeping the commandments." It tests every fiber of our beings. It is at once a demonstration of our intelligence, our knowledge, our character, and our wisdom. I will try to show that this is true.
INTELLIGENCE REQUIRED
It takes intelligence, and a high order of intelligence, to worship God truly and understand his commandments and their far-reaching significance. Some of these sophisticates who call the good "dumb" give a very convincing demonstration of their own intellectual limitations. I observe, too, that there are some of our scholars who disparage the intellectual effort put forth in the acquisition of religious and spiritual truth and the science of theology. Out of my own limited exposure to education and my observation of learned men I do not hesitate to assert that it takes just as high an order of intelligence to comprehend and assimilate spiritual truth and divine law as it does to master the equations and formulas in the field of secular education. The great body of divine scripture, although contained in few books, has been, through the centuries. and will continue to be, a challenge to the most profound scholarship and the greatest minds which the world has produced, and it would be well for the cynics and agnostics and sophisticates of the present day to remember that many of the most outstanding institutions of learning had their inception under religious auspices; that churches and church people have been the foster fathers of education and that the Holy Bible has inspired more goodness, high idealism, lofty sentiment, freedom of thought, justice, mercy, and quest for learning than any other book and perhaps all other books ever produced in all the history of the world. Let no man disdain the intellectuality of spiritual learning.
How glorious and satisfying to the inquisitive nature of man is spiritual and religious knowledge and understanding. The intelligence and purpose of God made manifest in the orderly organization of the universe, the place of man in the great design furnish a concept, not only more lofty and idealistic than anything in all literature but one that is also more practical in application to the problems of man and society than any other which has ever been tried and tested.
IGNORANCE OF DIVINE TRUTH
From every quarter of the world we have evidences of a dearth of the knowledge of God and his ways. I think it safe to say that the greater part of all the opposition and enmity to social progress, to liberty, justice, and peace is attributable to lack of understanding, a woeful ignorance of divine concepts and truth. I cannot see how the rank and file of the people who are classed as atheistic communists could accept the godless totalitarianism of Marx and Lenin if they really had a comprehension and knowledge of the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the eternal plans of the Father for the well-being and exaltation of his children. I can understand how their leaders, lustful for power and domination, and beset by the constant fear of losing their unrighteous dominion will subordinate every decent, honorable, and virtuous principle to the gaining of their ends, but I cannot believe that even their own people would support these avaricious leaders if they had the truth.
REACTIONS OF RUSSIANS
A few years ago I was in San Francisco looking for a publishing house that would print some of our literature in the Russian language. By mistake I went into a printing establishment which I afterwards learned to be communistic. You should have seen the stony stare, and curt dismissal I received, when I asked if they printed religious literature. Afterwards I found a place where I was received by an intelligent Russian man who was sympathetic with my errand. I told him that it was our purpose to make some preparation for missionary work among his people. We discussed the situation for some time, and he made the significant remark: "Only God can save Russia." He published a Russian newspaper, non-communist, with subscribers all across the nation. He gave me the information that there are approximately 15,000 Russian-speaking people around the San Francisco bay area and two million in the United States. He said there are approximately 900,000 displaced Russians in Europe, and he thought our missionaries could begin work among some of these Russians, looking forward to the time when through them there might be an introduction of the gospel into Russia itself. He knew something of our principles and our people and professed admiration for them. I felt that there was some evidence of his sincerity, when, after automatically offering me a cigarette, he immediately withdrew it and said, "Oh, I forgot, your people don't smoke and drink." Well, Russia is not the subject of my remarks, but I think that the present plight of that nation is a pertinent and persuasive illustration of the need of knowledge, spiritual and theological knowledge, as a basis for righteousness and peace.
APPRECIATION FOR KNOWLEDGE
At this point, I wish to voice appreciation for the great body of knowledge which has come to us in the revelations of this dispensation. When I think of the light which the Prophet Joseph Smith has thrown upon the knowledge of his day and our day, his interpretations of Holy Writ for centuries obscure in meaning to the learned of the earth, his enlargement of the vision of man, his incomparable contributions to the understanding of the vital relationships in life, home, family, community, government; his expositions of heaven and earth, salvation, exaltation, and eternity-all stamping him with the unmistakable marks of mighty faith and prophetic vision and understanding, I feel to exclaim with the author of our beloved hymn:
Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah, Jesus anointed that Prophet and Seer.
He was "blessed to open the last dispensation" and "kings shall extol him" and "nations shall revere him" when the knowledge which he brought is disseminated through the earth to the understanding of the people thereof.
REASON BEHIND EVERY COMMANDMENT
So, my brethren and sisters, we need knowledge-knowledge of the things of the Lord. Our Father said in the very beginning of his work, "let every man learn his duty". It may be that there are a few of the commandments, the reasons for which are not very apparent to us. We accept some on faith as did the prophets of old, but in the main there is a sound discernible reason behind every commandment. A knowledge of the gospel reveals that reason, and gives additional encouragement and strength in keeping it.
For example the man who looks upon tithing as nothing more than a method of gathering money does not understand the law; but he who recognizes in it a great principle of true worship and spiritual growth will find infinitely more satisfaction in complying with its requirements. He will understand that the true test of devotion is the giving of one's sell and that when a man parts with the proceeds of his labors, giving that which represents the expenditure of his brain power, his muscular strength, and his energy, he not only demonstrates his loyalty to the Lord and his work, but he adds to his own faith and his spiritual resources, his contentment, and his happiness. He builds up loyalty. He attains power to control rebellious and critical thoughts and tendencies. His conscience is clear. He can sleep comfortably with himself. Truly he grows in spiritual power.
Every commandment of God is spiritual in nature. There are no carnal commandments. We have learned this from modern revelation. While the commandments have effect upon the body and temporal things they are all in essence spiritual. The Word of Wisdom is spiritual. It is true that it enjoins the use of deleterious substances and makes provision for the health of the body. But the largest measure of good derived from its observance is in increased faith and the development of more spiritual power and wisdom. Likewise, the most regrettable and damaging effects of its infractions are spiritual, also. Injury to the body may be comparatively trivial to the damage to the soul in the destruction of faith and the retardation of spiritual growth. So I say, every commandment involves a spiritual growth. So I say, every commandment involves a spiritual principle.
COURAGE TO SAY "NO"
I mentioned character in connection with keeping the commandments. When I come to think of it, keeping the commandments is about the only yardstick I know in measuring and appraising character, particularly with reference to those who have the knowledge our people have. We commonly refer to character as strong or weak, gentle or harsh, honest or deceitful, charitable or "tight," and so on all down through the long list of attributes. Perhaps, the classification dreaded most by red-blooded people is that of weakling. That designation seems to be resented more than them almost any other, excluding criminal appellations, and, most unfortunately, among these are some who are boastful of sinful records and reputations. Weaklings are those lacking in the necessary stamina, strength, and courage to sustain a position. A person can be helpless physically and still not be a weakling, if he or she has the disposition and inner strength and courage to fight bravely on. It is the moral cowards and the ignorant who corrupt the world. I am aware that none of us has all the strength, resistance, and courage he would like to have, but I am afraid that there are many among us who have permitted their moral strength to be tapped and drained until there may not be much solid character remaining. They wouldn't like to be called weaklings or cowards, but if they will examine themselves thoughtfully and frankly some may well admit that their strength is gone. I think I can tell you how many have come to this misfortune. They have been trying to ape the ways of the world. Many have forgotten that they have been called out of the world and enjoined to keep themselves unspotted from its sins. I suppose some haven't even known what that meant and they have yielded to the sophistry and the sophistication and the practices of wordly-minded institutions and groups. Teddy Roosevelt used to say that it often took more courage to say "no" than it did to face a bear with a pistol. We've had a lot of men and women who unfortunately didn't have the courage to say "no" and who unfortunately also did not have the pride of their great heritage in the Church and kingdom of God. It's a great pity that it has been so. Think of the immeasurable good these men and women might have done if they hadn't been so weak. If they had had the strength of character to stand for the right as they knew it. Think of the admiration they could have commanded for themselves and for their Church by simply declining the cigarette and the glass of beer and participation in indecent stories and tolerance for cheap jokes and witticisms directed at sacred things in their religion. I think of the strength they might have developed in themselves and in the youth who look to them if they had resisted the slot-machine, petty gambling on a golf game, a horse race or cards, and the allurement of the Sunday movie.
RELIGION AND CONDUCT
I understand that there are organized forces in our communities telling young people that these and other infractions of our moral code have no religious significance and urging them to be free from such restraint. They would disassociate conduct from religion. Well, they can't do it any more than they can separate living from life.
Do you think that weak abandonment of well-recognized standards has commanded even the respect and admiration of new-found friends of the world? What a tragic mistake it is for any man to reach false conclusion that in order to get business or political preferment or social prestige he must compromise the truth. I wish that a hundred or a thousand men of this Church, if there be that many, would withdraw themselves from lodges and secret orders which they were counseled never to join. It is my opinion that most of our men allied with these secret orders had to show some weakness before they were invited. It is my observation that invitations come only to those who do not give wholehearted loyal support to the Church and its standards. The Church needs the undivided allegiance of these men, and they need the Church, as do their families also. Just so sure as they divide their allegiance the world will claim them. I make an earnest appeal to all my brethren who have joined these secret orders to leave them and renew their associations in the quorums of priesthood and the organizations and activities of the Church. I know that every single one who responds will be blessed in so doing.
MAINTENANCE OF STANDARDS
I have a further word to say to my brethren who are members of service clubs, chambers of commerce, and other non-secret business, professional and social organizations. Brethren, you don't need to abandon any principle, any standard or approved practice of the Church to which we have the honor to belong to maintain good standing in these organizations. If you do, you had better get out. Our men can and do win the respect of all if they have the courage of their convictions. There is little respect on the part of any for the weakling. I have found it a great honor to represent this mighty Church of the Lord in many capacities. I have not always felt worthy of the honor, but I trust that the pride of membership in the Church and kingdom of God will never leave me. The Apostle Paul must have looked down through the ages of men and foreseen their weaknesses, when, and giving that famous definition of the gospel, he said:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation....
It is too bad when men and women become ashamed of the gospel. When they do, they succumb to their weakness, the world soon gets them and they lose the richest things of life. If therefore, my brethren and sisters, and my other friends who may listen, if you would develop great character, the strength of constant purpose, resistance to evil, nobility in thought and purpose, if you would know the richness of life and experience contentment and its deepest satisfactions, keep the commandments.
NEED OF WISDOM
Just another thought, and I am done. We all prize wisdom. It is said to be the greatest of gifts. It is really the power to apply beneficent knowledge in all the decisions and vicissitudes of life. How we need wisdom in the composition of the troubles and difficulties of the world. How we need wisdom in our own affairs, with our families, our business, and our associations. Almost every day is a day of decision. What to do. What choice to make. I don't know of a better way to secure the wisdom that we need than by keeping the commandments. We are enjoined by the commandments to study, to pray, to work and to serve, and be humble and contrite of spirit. The great promises are to the meek who shall inherit the earth. Wisdom is not to be found among the arrogant, the haughty and self-sufficient, nor among the sinful and the anti-Christs of the world. Wisdom is a gift to the prayerful student, to the faithful and the obedient, to those who repose their trust in the counsels of the spirit and the priesthood of God.
There was great import in those inspiring, simple words of President Grant's uttered in the Holy Temple. They embodied the message that has come down to us through all the presidents of the Church. I know it is the message of our present President and his associates. It has been voiced a thousand times in the words of every true leader. It is not news, but it will never grow old. It is the eternal message for the government of man-keep the commandments. Oh God, grant us the intelligence, the knowledge, the character, and the wisdom to obey, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Mark E. Petersen
Mark E. Petersen, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 144-146
Five years ago, I stood at this pulpit trembling from head to foot, when I accepted a call to the Council of the Twelve. I have lived now these five years, in close association with the men you sustained today as the leaders of this Church. I have come to know them well. I knew most of them well before I came to this position, but not nearly so well as I now know them.
GREAT MEN
I have discovered that these men are great men-great in the sense of true greatness. I know that in the Presidency of the Church are men who are great in the same sense in which Lincoln was great. I know they are prophets of God in the same sense in which Moses and Jeremiah and Elijah, Peter and Paul were prophets of God. I have discovered that these men do not have any selfish motives, that they are giving of their time and their talents, of their physical and mental and spiritual strength, giving all they have for the upbuilding of the kingdom of God. I have discovered that they are honest and true; that they are faithful and devoted; that they love the Lord their God with all their hearts, and with all their souls. I know that they are men of God in the real sense of the word.
And so I was thrilled as you voted here today on these men, thrilled to see this vast ocean of hands come up in a sustaining vote for these men whom you accept as your prophets, seers, and revelators. As I saw those hands, and raised mine with yours, I couldn't help thinking of some of the insulting letters that come to these brethren from men and women who think that these men would lead you astray-letters from men and women who do have selfish motives-letters from people who would trip up the prophets of God if they only could.
GUIDED BY HOLY GHOST
I want to bear you my testimony, and I do it with God as my witness, that these men who lead your Church are honest, true, great men of God; that they do receive the revelation and the inspiration of the Almighty; that they are guided by the Holy Ghost: that this is God's Church; and that if you desire to have guidance from heaven, then you follow the guidance of these men whom you sustain as the prophets of God. They are prophets. They are prophets just as Jeremiah and Moses were prophets. They are Apostles in the same sense in which Peter, James, and John were Apostles, because those three gave the powers of the apostleship to modern men, and those powers have been handed down to the men who stand and sit before you today.
I think it is a very serious thing when anybody raises his hand against the prophets of God. Have you read carefully the story, of Jeremiah in the Old Testament and seen there how men and women raised their hands and their voices and their heels against the prophet? I want you to know that it is just as serious for us who live today to raise our hands against these modern prophets as it was for ancient Israel to raise their hands against Jeremiah whom they put in a dungeon and whom they would have been glad to see die.
A GREAT CHURCH
This is a great Church. It is indeed the kingdom of God. We have a great man at the head of the Church. He is the revelator, the seer, and the prophet of God in this day. It is a reality that we walk in the presence of a living prophet of God. Let us be willing to accept him as such. And these others who uphold his hands and sustain him, likewise are the prophets of the Lord.
I am grateful for the experience of the past five years. I have learned a better appreciation of this, the great restored Church, of its principles, of the men who lead it. I humbly submit to you my solemn testimony that Mormonism is true, that the restored Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is God's own Church, and that through it we find salvation.
May we have the courage to live the gospel. May we have the courage to keep the commandments. May we have the loyalty to stand by and follow the leaders, whom God has placed in the earth in these last days is my humble prayer, and I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder John A. Widtsoe
John A. Widtsoe, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 147-152
My dear brethren and sisters, it is very customary in the Church to pray for the least and the last in the kingdom of God. I have always felt myself among the least, and this afternoon, I am certain I am very nearly among the last. However that may be, I need your prayers and invite them, so that while I speak to you I may be an instrument in the hands of God to offer something of value to us all.
PROPHECY BEING FULFILLED
This forenoon when the statistics of the Church were read I felt as I always feel on occasions of this kind, that prophecy is being fulfilled. Before the Church was organized the Lord spoke to the Prophet Joseph and said to him that a marvelous work was about to come forth among the children of men. The six young men who sat around the table on April 6, 1830, and under divine instruction organized the Church, believed it to be true that they were setting out, and putting into operation, a marvelous work of the latter days. No prophecy has been more completely fulfilled than that. From six men in an obscure home near a remote village in New York state has grown this great institution. The statistical condition of the Church as outlined to us today is almost beyond the dreams of men.
I bear my testimony to the reality of this great work, that it is of God, that God instituted it, that he spoke to Joseph Smith, and has spoken to his Church ever since, and that we are engaged in the great work of redeeming the human race.
It is good to be with you, good to meet together, knowing our destiny, the work we have to do, and the great reward that the Lord will offer us, in course of time, if, as was said this forenoon, we keep close to the commandments of the Lord.
Those of us who expect to be called upon at these great conferences always have to cast about for some suitable theme to speak upon, some subject of special importance to the people of the Church at the time. I did so myself and finally hit upon a subject that I thought represented a problem of the day of sufficient importance to occupy a part of the time at this great conference. My thoughts were pretty well organized, and I was ready to deliver the message as best I could until last Sunday forenoon when President Smith dropped a remark in his introductory speech, which President McKay also mentioned. One or two other speakers touched upon it also. I was so impressed that I had to change my subject, not because they covered the ground I intended to cover, but because I was impressed to say something in the field that they had mentioned.
EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS
President Smith spoke of education among the Latter-day Saints. With proper humility he spoke of our great achievements in the educational field. It is a pardonable pride that we have in our educational achievements. We have the right to feel glad that we have achieved great things educationally. We have always known that we cannot get very far in any worthy endeavor without education. "The glory of God is intelligence", which means knowledge, plus the proper use of knowledge, has been a beacon light of the Church. We have talked about education, we have tried to secure it ever since the beginning of the Church to these days. We do have a remarkable educational history. You see, I spent a good part of my life in the profession of teaching, and whenever the subject is mentioned, I respond much as the old, retired, fire-engine horse responds when the fire bell rings.
The Church had scarcely been organized when our people began to talk about education. They wanted to provide schools and books for schools. In the difficult times of the earliest days, the Prophet wrote a letter to the Church and said that not only were the people to secure schools and schoolbooks, but also if such means were not available, then the fathers and the mothers should act as instructors to the youth in their homes. The Church began its work on the foundation of moral, mental, and spiritual education.
SCHOOL OF THE PROPHETS
Later on, when the Church was still young, hard-handed toilers on the farm and in the shop, who had been made converts to the Church, entered the school of the prophets which had been founded for the mature. It is thrilling to look back over our history to the time of the Kirtland Temple. The men left their farms, fields, and shops in the evenings and climbed to the top story, the attic story of the Kirtland Temple, there, in provided classrooms, to study various subjects, languages, mathematics, history, geography, and a variety of subjects. Really our people began there what we call today adult education. It was thought that an older man could not learn; only young people could learn. Since that time the world has come to quite a different conclusion. Today a man is never too old to learn. A woman is never too old to learn. The power to assimilate knowledge remains with us to the last day. Somehow these forebears of ours in the Church understood that.
UNIVERSITIES ESTABLISHED
Then a little later they came to Nauvoo and organized a university. I am not certain for I have not looked it up, but I suspect that the University of the City of Nauvoo was one of the first city tax-supported universities in America. The Church made educational history there.
In time we came here, to Utah, to a barren wilderness. There was work to be done here. Roads, irrigation ditches were to be made; crops were to be raised. A living was to he won from the desert. It was a difficult time. Yet one of the first acts of our territorial legislature was to found a great university, the University of Deseret, making it the first university founded west of the Missouri River.
The Church has a noble educational history. We all know that. What I want to say is something about education itself. It will not take me long. Education may or may not be a good thing. It depends on what we learn. Education is really the accumulated knowledge of mankind, passed on from generation to generation. Each teacher passes on to his pupils that which the world knows. In that way we all benefit from that knowledge and we preserve that knowledge for those who come after us. This accumulated knowledge of mankind, the knowledge of the world, falls into several distinct parts. Two of the major parts I would like to mention.
FACTUAL KNOWLEDGE
All knowledge falls first into a part or division or group that we call factual. Sometimes we call it truth, which amounts to the same thing. Facts of observation, that which we hear with our ears, see with our eyes, that we recognize through the various senses that the Lord has bestowed upon us make up the first and most important part of knowledge. That kind of knowledge is everlasting, unchanging. Under the same conditions a fact will appear the same throughout the countless coming ages.
HUMAN INTERPRETATIONS
The other division of human knowledge, speaking of the major divisions only, is made up of the human interpretations, explanations, and inferences of the observed facts, the truths in our possession. These inferences, explanations, and theories, interpretations of truth, may or may not be correct. They usually change as more knowledge is acquired by humanity. If education consists chiefly of learning what men have said or thought about the facts of nature and existence, it may mislead students, may lead them into difficult places, often into places of untruth. It is only when education confines itself primarily as to truth, to facts, as observed, it becomes worthwhile. That is not saying anything against the interpretations of truth. We have the scriptures as an example. We have the right to interpret them as we see fit, but we have no right to teach them as we see fit. We must teach truth as it is given us, whether it be in the domain of revelation or of science or any other field of human activity.
OBLIGATION OF TEACHERS
Therein lies a tremendous danger to our young people and the coming generations. An honest teacher, unless he is ignorant, will place before his students-I speak both of students in the Church schools and in state schools, I draw no distinctions-the truth as discovered by many, or revealed by God, and when interpretations are taught, he will label them as such, and say, "This is an interpretation by man of existing truth." That should be done in our priesthood quorums, in auxiliary organizations and in all schools of learning attended by our young people. This is important, of the greatest importance, in the building of happy lives, in a world of peace. President Smith said something last Sunday that pointed in that direction, and it has clung to my mind until I had to speak of it this afternoon.
We have also the field of speculation, very closely related to the field of interpreting truth. If one wants to see how absolutely confusing and useless and untruthful the field of speculation is, let him go to the philosophers of the ages. Begin with the old philosophers and go down to the philosophers of today. Everyone has tried to explain or describe God. Not one has failed to try his hand at it. Everyone has set up his own explanation and presented his own kind of God. As you read after them, you find yourself in a state of confusion. Great minds, great thinkers, have tried throughout the ages to solve the same problem and have failed utterly to agree. That is because they have not begun with truth. Therein we are strong. Joseph Smith, on his knees in the grove, saw God and spoke to him. There is no question about the beginnings of this work. God does live, a personal being. We are made in his image. We are carrying out his purposes.
The distinction between a fact and an inference is, or should be, pretty generally understood. I bear you my testimony here this afternoon that in all of our teachings we must discriminate, distinguish between the facts of human knowledge and the interpretation of the facts. Interpretations change from day to day. Once in a great while an interpretation of a great truth becomes a truth itself, but very seldom. Usually there is too much of the humanity of us, mixed in with explained truth. So that we cannot well trust our interpretations.
RIGHTS OF CITIZENS
I do not like to have my taxes spent, or my tithing spent, for that matter, in the support of a teacher who does not understand the difference here discussed and who will not be honest enough as he stands before classes to say, "This is a fact, as far as we understand it, and this is but an attempted inference of the fact which may or may not be right." I have no objection to a man who is an atheist, teaching outside of the Church. His faith is his concern, not mine. I would like to convert him to a knowledge of God. But, when he stands before his classes and talks about God and his own atheism, he is going beyond his rights. He is not employed for that purpose. As a citizen, I have rights. It is my money and your money used to support the schools whether in our out of the Church.
This may be a schoolroom talk this afternoon, but if so, blame it on President Smith and President McKay. It was their remarks Sunday that started my mind thinking about this very important subject. We have truth. We are not concerned much with interpretation of truth. The sorrows of the world may be traced back, now or in the past to false interpretations of eternal truth. I hope you will also think about the applications of knowledge to daily life, but that is another subject.
My time is up. I am very happy, may I say again, to be in this conference. Not the words alone have made this a great conference, but the spirit which has been present and which has touched our hearts. I do not remember all that has been said; I shall read the sermons when they are printed; but I have felt the spirit of the Church and its people who are building the kingdom of God, and in so doing are moving on toward the completion of the great plan of salvation laid out by the Father himself in the pre-existent state.
God bless us, keep us faithful and true, helpful in this great work, and may we be given the blessings of health and strength, the things we need to carry on this work, I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
Joseph L. Wirthlin, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 155-161
I sincerely trust, my brethren and sisters, that I might enjoy an interest in your faith and prayers.
This great conference has been a most impressive one. As I listened to the addresses of our beloved President George Albert Smith, President Clark, and President McKay, members of the Council of the Twelve, and all who have addressed us, and listened to the most inspiring music, the thought came into my mind, "Count your many blessings, count them one by one, and see what the Lord has done."
A BLESSED PEOPLE
We are a blessed people. We have the blessing of membership in the restored Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We enjoy a divinely authorized leadership who receive the mind and will of our Heavenly Father. We have the privilege of enjoying citizenship in a great republic. We have the privilege of associating with one another as brethren and sisters in the true sense of the term. We have our families. We have so many blessings that time does not permit to enumerate them all.
But have we ever stopped to think that all of these blessings have come to us because of someone else's faith, someone else's work, someone else's prayers? I never think of this Church and its organization but what there comes to my mind the story of a boy who was confused as to which church he should join. And in studying the scriptures, he came upon that memorable admonition found in James, wherein the Lord said this:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
This fourteen year old boy took this admonition to heart, and going out into the woods, he supplicated God with a faith that was implicit; and in answer to that prayer, God the Eternal Father and his Son appeared to him -that same God that Adam knew, the God of Moses, and Abraham, and Jacob, and all of the other ancient servants of the Lord-that same God who spoke from the heavens when his Son, Jesus Christ, was being baptized in the River Jordan, and the voice of God was heard saying:
Behold, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
And so, out of the supplication, and the prayers, and the works of a humble boy, used as the instrument in the hands of God, the Church of Jesus Christ was restored to the earth, and the gospel in its fulness and simplicity was returned for the salvation and exaltation of the Lord's children.
And along with the restoration, there came the priesthood of God whereby we might enjoy leadership inspired by revelation; men who are humble and men who have but one desire, and that is to serve God in such a way that they might do the most good for his people and for the world.
FAITH OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
When I think of the founders of this great republic, I think of George Washington. There is no question but what he was an instrument of God in the founding of a nation where the Church might be restored and where the gospel might be returned to mankind, because this nation is founded upon the great cornerstone of the gospel, namely that of free agency. But, unfortunately, there are those among us who would have us believe that George Washington was an unbeliever; but I want to tell you that if a man ever had the help of Almighty God, that man was the Father of our country. I think of him at Valley Forge, standing at the head of a hungry, ragged, cold army-discouraged, many of them returning to their homes. George Washington had to work with a Continental Congress that was unable to supply him with the sinews of war. I am sure that George Washington, in that hour, realized that in and of himself he could never gain victory; and being a God-fearing man, there is no question but what he sought wisdom from on high, and he received it, because thereafter, this same ragged army defeated the haughty Cornwallis at Yorktown and made it possible to open up the way whereby this great republic in which you and I enjoy citizenship was founded.
And I think of those who framed the Constitution of the United States. They were prayerful men; for the Lord made it known to the Prophet Joseph that he permitted the Constitution to be established by good and wise men. It is true that when the members of that assembly came together there was some dissension, some differences of opinion, but one day there arose among them an old patriot who made the suggestion that as the assembly open each day they supplicate God for his help to the end that they might have wisdom. And God was supplicated, and as the great Gladstone said:
The Constitution of the United States is the greatest document ever stricken off by the hand of man in a given period of time.
PRAYERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
And there was another man who sought wisdom from God. That great leader who preserved the Union, namely, Abraham Lincoln, a man who was scorned and held in disdain even by those who were closely associated with him. And when the day of the battle of Gettysburg came, he was composed, he was calm. After the battle was over and the victory had been won, General Sickles asked him the question: "How was it that you seemed to be so calm and composed when the rest of us were worried?" And here is the answer of that great man to the general. Said he:
In the pinch of your campaign up there, when everybody seemed panic-stricken and nobody could tell what was going to happen, oppressed by the gravity of our affairs, I went to my room one day and locked the door and got down upon my knees before Almighty God and prayed to him mightily for victory at Gettysburg. I told him that this war was his, and our cause his cause, that we could not stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. Then and there I made a solemn vow to Almighty God that if he would stand by our boys at Gettysburg, I would stand by him, and he did stand by you boys, and I will stand by him. And after that, I don't know how it was, and I cannot explain it, soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul. The feeling came that God had taken the whole business into his own hands, and that things would go right at Gettysburg, and that was why I had no fears about you.
This great man followed the admonition of James, too, and sought wisdom from on high; and as a result of his faith and his prayers, the army at Gettysburg was able to achieve the final victory.
And then, too, I think of the pioneers, as they made the great trek across the plains and through the rugged defiles of these mighty mountains. It is said in the diaries of some of them at the close of each day, "Brigham Young and his associates went to the highest hill and there supplicated God for direction." It seemed that they liked to pray on the heights, on the mountains, and the hills. I have sometimes thought that the reason for that was that they not only wanted to get close to God spiritually, but they also wanted to get near to him physically. And so out of their prayers and seeking divine wisdom from on high, it was possible for them to find this place in the West that God had reserved for them; and out of their work, prayers, and divine wisdom you and I today are living in one of the grandest places upon the whole earth.
DIVINE GUIDANCE NEEDED
We are now facing another day with more problems. We have now come to the time when this nation stands at the crossroads. A road, which, if we continue to follow it without question will take us down the path of socialism and communism. Let me say to you that once we are in the shackles of either one of these, we will lose our free agency and merely become the pawns of lustful, godless leaders. This is the day and time when the leaders of this nation and all of us as citizens of this great country should follow the admonition of James, seek wisdom from on high, divine guidance that we may be able to solve our national problems and preserve for unborn generations the same blessings of citizenship and freedom that you and I have enjoyed.
I was thrilled some few years ago when I heard a United States senator say that every morning he and a few of his companions went into a small room in the Capitol Building, and there they supplicated God for direction. I would that every one of our representatives in the national assembly would supplicate God every day. Just as surely as they would do that, there would come to them that wisdom, that divine direction, which would preserve this nation as a great republic and also the principles for which it stands.
RESPONSIBILITY, TO BE PRAYERFUL
Now, you and I have some definite responsibilities too-the responsibility of being prayerful, that we will remember in our prayers those who guide and direct the destiny of this nation to the end that God will touch their hearts and out of it all we will be able to follow that path laid down by George Washington, and the path of Abraham Lincoln, to the end that we may follow it for our own happiness and joy and for those who shall follow after us.
Of all the people in the world, we should be the most prayerful; we should follow the admonition of James and seek God continually for wisdom from on high. For the Lord has said to us through his Prophet:
Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.
And there is no reason why every Latter-day Saint home should not be a house of God; for, in most instances, there stands at the head of every Latter-day Saint home a servant of Almighty God holding the priesthood and having the right to call upon God and supplicate him for the benefit and the blessings and the good of those who reside within his household.
The Lord has made it plain to us that if we are not a prayerful people, if we fail to remember the king of this land, Jesus Christ, we can lose all of these blessings. We should harken to the words of Amulek when he said to his people:
Yea, I say unto you that if it were not for the prayers of the righteous, who are now in the land that ye would even now be visited with utter destruction; yet it would not be by flood, as were the people in the days of Noah, but it would be by famine, and by pestilence, and the sword.
But it is by the prayers of the righteous that ye are spared; now therefore, if ye will cast out the righteous from among you then will not the Lord stay his hand; but in his fierce anger he will come out against you; then ye shall be smitten by famine, and by pestilence, and by the sword; and the time is soon at hand except ye repent.
And so it seems to me that what we need in this fair land of ours is a shining example of prayerfulness and the Latter-day Saints are the people who are chosen to exemplify to the world the power of prayer. Every Latter-day Saint home should be a house of God, where the altar of prayer is ever in use and where the proper example is set to our children in supplicating God for divine guidance in all of our endeavors. For the Lord has again said to us:
And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord...
And a commandment I give unto them-that he that observeth not his prayers before the Lord in the season thereof, let him be had in remembrance before the judge of my people.
PRAYER IN THE HOME
Only a short time ago I was in a home in which an aged grandmother said to me: "I am most unhappy. In this home we have nothing but the spirit of disunity. We do not seem to be able to agree upon anything. There is a negative spirit here, and I can tell you why we have that spirit. We have it because we cannot get together and pray and ask the Lord for his direction in solving our problems."
On the other hand, I have a remembrance of a home where the children were taught to pray. That little mother taught them how they should pray-giving them the proper concept of God. She told them the story of the appearance of God, the Father, and his Son to Joseph Smith. That gave the children the proper concept of God. They knew that they were praying to a God with body, parts, and passions. He was real to them. He was a God of love; he was a God who could hear and answer prayers. In later years this little mother became very ill. Her children stood outside of the house beside her bedroom window, and they heard her screams. Finally, one said to the other: "Let us pray for Mother." They couldn't go into the house because the house was filled with older people who were trying to help, and the only place left was the coal shed. These two youngsters, one eleven and the other thirteen, went into the coal shed, and kneeling down among the lumps of coal, supplicated God to the end that their mother would be restored. And before night came on, that little mother was restored. She was healed. What does all of this mean? It means that because of the fact that a mother had taught her children to pray, in the hour of her extremity, with full faith in God, her children called upon him to bless their mother and preserve her, and God heard that prayer, and it was answered.
PRAYER A PRIVILEGE
We should teach our children that prayer is a privilege and not a duty. We should teach them to pray from their hearts and not from their lips and not to pray by rote. We should teach them to utter prayers of gratitude to God for all the blessings that we enjoy-prayers of generosity, not thinking so much about the things we want or need, but praying for those who are in distress. Prayers need not be long; they should be rather short and to the point and well thought out.
If we will establish houses of prayer, there is no question that they will become houses of faith; houses of glory; houses of God; because his holy Spirit will come and abide in such homes in rich abundance. And in these homes we will find the spirit of unity, the spirit of cooperation, the spirit of sympathy, the spirit of kindness, and the spirit of love.
Brethren and sisters, in these dark hours, I am sure if we supplicate God as James indicated centuries ago, in full faith, we can be instrumental in preserving all of the rights and privileges given to us in this great government of ours. We can further the cause of the Master. We can teach the gospel of peace, and help Almighty God to consummate his plans before the coming of the King of kings.
I pray we will follow the advice of the Lord given to us again through the Prophet Joseph, wherein he said:
Pray always, that you may come off conqueror; yea, that you may conquer Satan, and that you may escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work.
May God bless us that we will be prayerful. May God bless us that we will establish houses of prayer, houses of glory, houses of faith, and houses of God, I humbly ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 161-165
My brethren and sisters, I ask that you be good enough to help me with your prayers that what I may say today may be in accordance with the mind and the will of the Lord, and then it will be of benefit and blessing to all of us.
I should like to refer to the fine instructions given us last night by President McKay, in which he told us that the duty of the elder is to teach and to warn, and if the Lord leads me along the line that I have thought I might talk about, I want to say something by way of warning.
I want to follow along the thought that was expressed and the situation that was referred to by Elder Stephen L Richards this morning, when he called attention to certain influences that are at work amongst us.
FREEDOM OF WORSHIP
One of our Articles of Faith says:
We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.
That is the expression of a great principle, a principle that has been operative among the children of God from the earliest period of which we have any record. It was pursuant to that principle, and in the exercise of the rights guaranteed thereby, that a third of the hosts of heaven revolted, in an effort to overcome the plan which God adopted.
Personally, I would not in any way, and in the lightest or slightest degree, hamper anyone's free agency. Literally, I feel and believe that men should worship how, where, or what they may. That is the spirit of the priesthood, the priesthood which we hold. The priesthood never compels. God himself does not compel the intellect, nor does he attempt to overthrow it.
If I might be specific, I would like to say how different is that principle from the principle of a great church which says, or has its presiding officers say in the oaths that they take, that they will attack and follow up all heretics, and over the centuries they have made good that oath.
TWO CHURCHES
The Lord has told us in the scriptures that in the last days there will be two churches. John the Revelator spoke of the great church with worldly power that had under its dominion and leadership the kings of the earth-he spoke of it as Babylon, the Mother of Harlots; and Nephi spoke of it as the great and abominable church. I am not going to say what that church is, though I have a very definite and clear idea. But I want to say that those scriptures also tell us that the other church is a weak church, a church to whose assistance God has to come in order to preserve it. We certainly are not the great church, for no kings are tied to the chariot wheels of our Church. We are the other church.
SCRIPTURAL WARNINGS
Now, our enemies are seeking to attack and are attacking our Church. Time does not permit me to read all the scriptures that I have here, telling of the things that are to come in the last days. But I might call your attention to the fact that the Savior in the Sermon on the Mount said,
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
To the people on this hemisphere he made the selfsame statement.
I also call your attention to the words of Paul in his farewell to the elders of Ephesus. He said,
For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
I would like to read what Paul said to Timothy, but time forbids. But I will read what Moroni said to Mormon. I might read just one paragraph of the latter. It is the thirty-second verse in the eighth chapter of Mormon:
Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins.
The ravening wolves are amongst us, from our own membership, and they, more than any others, are clothed in sheep's clothing, because they wear the habiliments of the priesthood; they are they to whom Brother Widtsoe referred, as distorting the truth. We should be careful of them, and I endorse every word that Brother Widtsoe said, as to the obligations of those who instruct the youth.
EFFORTS TO LEAD ASTRAY
Now, I want to say just a word or two about the church and secular organizations that are amongst us, and that are doing all they can to lead our young people astray. I say there are both church organizations and secular organizations. Their method of approach -or approaches-becomes rather clear.
They begin by making friends with our young people and also with members of that body of priesthood, as to which we have so much concern, the adult Aaronic Priesthood. They cultivate the friendship of these members of ours, then they invite them to their homes, then they take them to their socials, then to their classes of instruction, and before the members knew it, before we know it, this priesthood membership and the youth are gone from us.
What do they say? What I am about to say is not mere supposition. I am quoting or telling of actual incidents. They say, "Do you not find when you go into your church, that you are embarrassed sometimes because you smoke, or because you drink beer?" "Oh, yes," the man says. "Well, in our church, that makes no difference. Those things have nothing to do with religion. Come and join us."
So they take into their socials our members; our members drink a little and smoke as much as they wish. Finally the Rubicon is crossed, and the members are lost to us. These propaganda organizations are building, in some places, halls of amusement. In one of our mission fields, they have built next door to one of our own churches, where they carry on these amusements, not in accordance with our standards, at the same time that we are holding services. That is an extreme case, but there is such a situation and there are many other places where they are providing amusement under the same conditions and to the same import.
PRINCIPLES ATTACKED
They tell our people that the Word of Wisdom has nothing to do with real religion-nothing at all. Then they tell them that if you sin, you come and confess and pay some penance, the sin is forgiven.
They attack, among other things, baptism for the dead, and are finally bringing themselves around to the position of atheistic scholars who have said that that wonderful passage in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all?" was addressed to pagans, and not to the early Saints; that the practice referred to was a pagan practice.
Well, read how the epistle to the Corinthians is introduced, and read how the fifteenth chapter is introduced, then you will have no doubts that the epistle was addressed to the Saints, and that the early Saints baptized for the dead.
TOO HARD TO LIVE
On the principle that the wish may be the father to the thought, they say that our religion cannot last because it is too hard for the individual to live, and therefore our religion will fade away and become extinct. Of course, their present feverish activity belies that thought. But as I think of that statement, it seems to me that among the many answers that might be given to it, one of them is that our Church has been set up never to be thrown down, and that this gospel is never to be given to another people. Another is that the restored gospel is more than what they mean by religion. When they talk of religion, they speak merely of a relationship between God and man; all questions of the relationship of man to man have passed out of their religion. But our plan is a plan of life and salvation, including, not only the relationship of man to God, but also as I have said, the relationship of man to man, throughout the eternities, and the divine destiny God has planned for his righteous children.
HERESY AMONGST US
There is a heresy which is amongst us now in some degree and which has existed since the early Christian days, which declares that the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New, that the Old Testament God has disappeared. I have never quite been able to see how the proponents of this idea could square it with the statement which the Savior made repeatedly, that he did only what he had seen the Father do, and he taught only what the Father had taught him. Thus those who would drive out the God of the Old Testament must deny the Christ in order to do it. These other churches seem to regard God as a God of vengeance, seeking to destroy his children. We know that our God is a God of love, because he was the Father, and as I have said, Jesus said he taught what his Father had taught, and he did what he had seen his Father do.
OBLIGATION TO PRESERVE TRUTH
My brothers and sisters, if there ever was a time in our history when we must be on guard against the insidious influences and propaganda of the churches of the world and the atheists of the world, at time is today. We must not be asleep. We have the truth; we must preserve it and ourselves in it.
After Jesus had returned from the wilderness following his baptism, he came to the River Jordan where John was still baptizing. As John stood there, seeing the Savior, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God", and apparently replying to somebody who wanted to flatter him and tell him how great he was, he added, "... whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose".
The next day Jesus came again to the group on the banks where John was baptizing, and again John said, "Behold the Lamb of God". Andrew and some others who were the disciples of John, followed Jesus, who took them to his room and there taught them. Then Andrew went out and found Peter, and declared with joy, "We have found the Messias," the Christ.
We of the Church have found the Messiah, the Christ. He authorized and directed the building of this Church. We must not let the error and the evil which knock at our doors, cross the threshold and enter therein to rob us of the greatest things that God has to give us-our children.
May we be as wise as serpents, and as harmless as doves. May we protect our youth and those of ours who do not see as clearly as they should these dangers which threaten them, and against which I am warning you, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report, April 1949, pp. 165-171
This is a solemn occasion. We are met in the concluding session of a great conference. Representatives are here from many parts of the world. We have been privileged to listen to the counsel and admonition and encouragement of those who have been called to direct in Israel.
I am sure everyone who has attended these sessions has been edified, and our minds have been directed to him who is the Author of our being. I have rejoiced in the delightful music we have had, and take this occasion to thank this splendid chorus that comes from, what to me, is the greatest university in all the world. I know you will pardon me for referring to it that way, because it was where I went to school. I hope these young people, members of the chorus from Brigham Young University, have rejoiced in meeting with us as much as we have in listening to them.
PERILOUS TIMES
We are living in perilous times. We are approaching the evening of the sixth day. All the world is in confusion, and unfortunately, as has been the case before, the majority of the men and women who live upon the earth are in darkness, because they do not have the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of light.
I trust that the few moments I occupy I may have the benefit of your faith and prayers, that I may be led to say that which will be a source of encouragement and blessing to us all.
We live in a wonderful land, choice above all other lands, blessed as no other nation is blessed, and yet we are in danger. Our Heavenly Father has told us that there is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven from before the foundation of this world upon which every blessing is predicated. If we observe the law, we will obtain the blessing. If we fail to observe the law, we have no promise.
LOSS OF BLESSINGS
As my mind goes back to the beginning as recorded in Genesis, and follows down through the centuries that have since elapsed, I realize that many people have lost the truth and turned to falsehood, thereby losing their blessings.
The Lord has been mindful of his children all the time. He has never punished them, but he has taught them so that they might not be punished by their own conduct. Those who would not listen to God's representatives were destroyed. On one occasion the whole population of the world was wiped out with the exception of a few who listened to Noah, a servant of God, who for more than a hundred years had called the people to repentance. Only those who were in the ark were preserved.
SODOM AND GOMORRAH
We have the instance of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham learned that the cities of the plains were to be destroyed because of the wickedness of the people. He pleaded for those who were righteous, saying to the Lord, "Surely, you are not going to destroy all of them. There must be some people who are worthy to live." The reply to him was, "If there are fifty righteous people in those cities, they will all be preserved from destruction."
Then Abraham asked, "Well, what if there are forty?" "Yes, if there are forty," was the answer. "Then if thirty?" "Yes, if thirty." "If twenty? If ten?" "Yes," ten would be sufficient to hold off the destruction of the cities, but there were not ten people in those two great cities who were worthy to live. Lot and the members of his own family fled, then the whole community was consumed by fire.
Prophets of the Old Testament warned the various communities from time to time. They were fully warned before destruction came, but notwithstanding that warning, Jerusalem, one of the great cities of the world, was repeatedly destroyed. Babylon, the greatest of all nations at one time, had been warned of its wickedness, but the people would not do what the Lord wanted them to, and they were destroyed.
SONS OF HELAMAN
In our own country when the Nephites and the Lamanites were warring among themselves, they were given certain promises if they would keep the commandments of God, told that if they did not, destruction would follow. Then we have that marvelous record of 2,060 Lamanite boys-just boys-who joined the army of the Nephites in order to help preserve themselves and their families, and who faced certain death-from any natural standpoint-because they were opposing skilled warriors. But they had been taught by their mothers that God would protect them if they would do their duty.
These 2,060 boys, part of the army of the Nephites, went into battle repeatedly. The last struggle was so terrible that we are told all were wounded; two hundred of them fainted from the loss of blood. When Helaman, their commander, saw their enemies driven away, anxious for his young charges he went through the battlefield and gathered the living. He found the 2,060 alive, although many had fainted from the loss of blood.
Helaman, who was amazed at their miraculous preservation, questioned them. Their response was one of the greatest compliments to motherhood to be found anywhere: "We knew our mothers knew".
They believed what their mothers taught them. They had faith in God. They were preserved, and they helped save their homes and families from destruction.
PREPARATION FOR RESTORATION
During the great struggle for independence in the country under the leadership of George Washington, our Heavenly Father was preparing the way for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in its purity.
He gave to certain individuals the inspiration to frame the Constitution of the United States that has been referred to in this conference, the greatest palladium of human rights that we know anything about. Under such a Constitution the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored to the earth one hundred nineteen years ago.
These facts are part of the history of the world, including many more that time will not permit mentioning.
The hand of our Heavenly Father has always been extended in love to his children through his prophets who pleaded with them to repent of their wrongdoing and keep his commandments. When they did, they were blessed, and when they failed, they lost their blessings.
THE STANDARD WORKS
We have here on this stand the Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testament, as well as the Book of Mormon which is the history of the ancestry of the American Indian. We also have the D&C;, containing the revelations of God to the Prophet Joseph Smith, all available to the children of God. We have also the Pearl of Great Price containing other scripture.
We look upon these four volumes as the teachings of our Heavenly Father, and accept them. There is no teaching in them that any individual in the world belonging to any church or no church can find fault with. In every case the admonition is to make men and women better wherever they may be.
These scriptures are available to all. You have been told that there are thousands of your sons and daughters in the world now, seeking to share with our Father's other children the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ before it is too late. We are coming dangerously near to a time when our Heavenly Father will withdraw his spirit from the world because the people of the world will not accept it.
We have been told today that there are now a million and forty thousand members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I say to you, not boastfully, but seeking to explain the truth, that this Church has received in this latter-day a new witness: God the Father and the Son did appear in the woods of Palmyra. A boy received a witness that enabled him to endure all kinds of persecution, and finally, as he was taken by his enemies, he said:
I am going like a lamb to the slaughter...I have a conscience void of offense toward God, and toward all men... and it shall yet be said of me-"he was murdered in cold blood".
PROGRESS UNDER CONSTITUTION
Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and his brother Hyrum died as martyrs at the hands of a wicked mob. They were sacrificed not for any wrong they had done but because they had sought to teach the truth and call the people of the world to repent before it was too late. The work has gone on and under the Constitution of the United States we have been permitted to carry on in this great land. We have been permitted to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our missionaries of course have gone all over the world, but I am speaking now of the United States of America. However, there are many people, many men and women in this land, some of whom may be friends or relatives who are misguided by the idea that the Constitution of the United States isn't as fine a system of government as they have in Russia or Germany or Italy or some other part of the world, notwithstanding the fact that the Lord himself said that he raised up the very men who framed the Constitution of the United States and directed that the membership of this Church should pray for and sustain those who represented the Constitution of this land. I hold in my hand the Bible and can read the Ten Commandments that were given to Moses for the guidance of the people wherein the Lord told Moses what the people should live for and do. If those Ten Commandments had been lived up to by the people of the world down to the present time, this earth could long ago have been celestialized. But the people refused.
OBEDIENCE TO COMMANDMENTS
You know, and I know, that the Ten Commandments contain the will of our Heavenly Father, and I am grateful, not only for the civil laws but also for the laws God has given to us. I feel bound to conform my life to the teachings of the Ten Commandments. I feel equally bound to sustain the Constitution of the United States which came from the same source as the Ten Commandments. Unless the people of this great nation can realize these things and repent, they may forfeit the liberty that they now enjoy, and the blessings that are so multiplied among us. I do hope and pray that they will discover before it is too late that God has spoken again. Your responsibility and mine is to let our light so shine that others seeing our good works will be constrained to glorify him who is the Author of our being.
These books contain the advice of the Father of us all, the Father of the Jews, the Gentiles, the Christians, the pagans. God is the father of our spirits, and down through the ages he has tried to encourage people to do the thing that would bring them happiness rather than unhappiness. Yet today we find this world in such a condition that there is uncertainty upon every hand. It is our duty not only to obey the commandments of our Heavenly Father but also to pray for those who represent the constitutional law of our land. It is our duty to pray for those who hold high positions in the states, and in the nation. Why? Because if they can be influenced by the Spirit of the Lord, and there have been many cases where they have been, the people will receive the blessing they need.
BLESSINGS OF CONFERENCE
Brothers and sisters, we are coming to the time when we will return to our homes, and I ask you: Where in all the world could we have spent the last five days under sweeter influences than we have enjoyed here in this great Tabernacle? We have been blessed beyond our ability to appreciate our blessings, I think. And now as we go to our homes, will we take to them the influence that we have found here-the blessing that we enjoy here-will it be carried out to encourage those who are not doing what they should? If we do, then this conference will have been to us an added blessing, because inasmuch as we endeavor to bless the children of our Heavenly Father, we receive a blessing ourselves. In other words, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren," the Master said, "ye have done it unto me". We are living in perilous times. Brethren and sisters, set your houses in order. Gather your families around you, have your prayers, ask the blessing upon your food, give of your substance to those who are in need.
When I heard the reading of that marvelous record of the funds that have been utilized by this little Church and think of what has been given, and the millions that have been expended by this group of people, I marveled, and I stand here to say that not one of you who has contributed will be one dollar poorer than you were before.
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
We have this great chorus here today representing Brigham Young University. There isn't any good that could come to that school that would not please me. The leaders of that school are struggling, working, planning, but I am afraid there is a limit to what may be accomplished in a financial way in the immediate future. There are wealthy people among us. There are those who are well-to-do who may feel disposed and happy to help this institution grow. I want to say that it is one of the finest places for our young people to go to school that can be found anywhere. I hope that these young people here will feel a blessing; I hope they will go back to the school and take with them the spirit that is enjoyed here, grateful for the blessings of our Heavenly Father. They are always close to those who honor him and keep his commandments. And I now advise these young men, protect the virtue of these girls as you would protect your lives, and to these young women, I say, protect the virtue of these boys as you would protect your lives. You are all the children of God, and he loves you, but the adversary will do everything he can to tear down and destroy your opportunities for happiness. That same admonition in regard to these students of the university I give to all the sons and daughters in the Church wherever they may be, and if we will honor God and keep his commandments and live as we should, no matter where the storms may strike, the winds may blow, and the lightnings may flash, we will be as the children of God always have been when they have kept his commandments: we will be under the protecting hand of him who is all-powerful.
We will continue to go forward and grow and develop in life, and in the end we shall find a reward as inheritors in the celestial kingdom of our God right here upon this earth and enjoy the companionship of those we love forever.
OUR FATHER'S WORK
May the Lord bless you, my brethren and sisters, for your faithfulness. And I bless you as he gives me power to do so, that you may continue not only to do as well as you have done in the past but that you may also strive harder than ever to save the world by teaching the people in it who are worthy to live the gospel of Jesus Christ, until it shall have been proclaimed to all, and the opportunity be given to them to understand the truth, because this is our Father's work. This is not the Church of any man. It is the Church of Jesus Christ, and the only Church of Jesus Christ that is on the earth which is entitled to that name by his appointment. Do you appreciate it?
Men, do you appreciate your wives? Wives, do you love and appreciate your husbands? Parents, do you appreciate your children? Children, do you love and appreciate your parents? If we do, then we will love one another, and there will be peace and happiness in our lives and in our communities, and our homes will be the abiding place of the Spirit of God.
I pray that this may be the case and that we may now go from here renewed in our determination to support the Constitution of the United States of America, to maintain the standards of the Ten Commandments, and to observe the advice and counsel of our Heavenly Father, as given by his servants from time to time. When the time comes that this earth shall be cleansed and purified by fire, and the celestial kingdom shall be set up here, may we find our names recorded in the Lamb's book of life entitling us to a place in that kingdom, that there will not be one missing but that every one of us and those we love may be there. This I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 4-9
The use of the radio has made it desirable to make some announcements that we did not need to make when everybody who came into the building could see and hear. Not only is this building now filled to capacity, but there are also thousands of people listening in on the outside. Many are witnessing what you are this morning by television.
A WONDERFUL AGE
We live in a wonderful age. I wonder if we appreciate what it is to live today with all the advantages gained in the nearly six thousand years since our first parents came into the world. Here we are in the tops of these everlasting hills, in this building today that was erected when the people were very poor and in distress. The building itself yet unsurpassed in all the world as a house of worship where one's voice may be heard by so many people.
During the last few weeks we have had many visitors here, some of them of national prominence, some of international prominence. They have come into this structure that our forbears prepared; they have looked around; and they have said, "This is unlike anything I have seen."
Some of them have remarked, "There is an influence here that is different." So there should be. This house is the Lord's house. It was dedicated to him by the people after they had struggled to prepare it. It was presented to him after it had been fully paid for, and since that time all people who have come into this house have come here as the guests of our Heavenly Father.
I say all people. Sometimes I have had individuals interrogate me in regard to whether those who are not members of the Church would be permitted to come here. I have been pleased to answer them, "All of our Father's children are welcome in his house."
Today, we are met not just as a matter of curiosity. We have not met just because it is customary. I hope we have come here with the spirit of worship, with a desire that whatever is said here may be inspired by our Heavenly Father.
"COME AND SEE"
Our sisters have sung beautifully for us this morning. The great organ has been their accompaniment. We who have come to worship must now think seriously of the purpose of life because this world is in a pitiable condition. Notwithstanding the fact that our Heavenly Father down through the ages has been counseling and advising his children through men that he raised up for that purpose, prophets of God, yet there has been controversy. Even in the days of the Savior, among his own associates, there was controversy. People have been suspicious of one another. They have not believed what they have heard, and they have not been willing to do as Philip, one of the disciples of the Savior, recommended to Nathanael who was visiting with him. Philip said, "The Lord has come."
And he described him and Nathanael asked, "Where did he come from?"
And Philip answered, "Why, he came from Nazareth." And then the good man said, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Philip said, "Come and see".
Nathanael had been taught to believe that no good could come from Nazareth, and yet he was the man whom the Savior later referred to as an Israelite without guile -a good man, but deceived because of the stories that he had heard.
But when he once learned, when he had accepted the invitation of the disciples to "Come and see," he came to see.
We have had great joy under the influence of His Spirit. We would like everybody to enjoy that blessing, and so when they have asked, "What kind of people are these here?" our answer has been, "Come and see." This morning we are here as children of our Heavenly Father-members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others, all welcome to his house, all guests of the Lord. And we ought to have a good time.
Just think of our privileges and our blessings. Think down through the ages of the multitudes of wars and destructions that have wiped people out in many parts of the world and entirely obliterated nations, and yet for some reason or another there are many good people who, like Nathanael, cannot believe the truth.
Someone has said of the people of the world that they would rather believe a lie and be damned than accept the truth. That is rather a severe statement, but I think perhaps it will bear acceptance as fact. There is nothing in the world more deleterious or harmful to the human family than hatred, prejudice, suspicion, and the attitude that some people have toward their fellows, of unkindness.
TWO INFLUENCES
The spirit of the adversary is the spirit of destruction. There are two influences in the world. The one is the influence of our Heavenly Father and the other is the influence of Satan. We can take our choice which territory we want to live in, that of our Heavenly Father or that of Satan.
I have many times repeated what my grandfather said. He, too, talked from this stand, and it was he who gave me his name. In advising his family he said, "There is a line of demarcation, well defined. On one side of the line is the Lord's territory. On the other side of the line is the devil's territory." And he said, "If you will stay on the Lord's side of the line, you are perfectly safe, because the adversary of all righteousness cannot cross that line."
What does that mean? It means to me that those who are living righteous lives, keeping all of the commandments of our Heavenly Father are perfectly safe, but not those who trifle with his advice and counsel.
TEN COMMANDMENTS
The Ten Commandments are just as necessary for us to observe today as they were by Israel when they were given to Moses in the wilderness. If the people of this world were keeping the Ten Commandments, honoring them, there would be no war. There would be no sorrows and distresses such as afflict mankind, but because there are so many who cannot put themselves in a frame of mind to live righteous lives, they are in confusion and they are in distress.
This building, as I say, was dedicated to the Lord. Some people have criticized in their minds that it has been open to other faiths, to other churches, to people with other beliefs who had a message, as they felt, for us. I am sure that if you had lived in the days of Jesus of Nazareth and followed him, as many people did, through the fields and through the country, you would have found many of them, a majority of them, were not believers in his mission until they were touched by his spirit, and then they became disciples.
They were welcome, and so I say all our Father's children are welcome here, and we hope that when they come they will do so with a receptive mind, and with a prayer in their hearts such as was offered this morning by our brother from Canada.
A SICK WORLD
We are living in a sick world, in a time when, as we read in the scriptures, the wisdom of the wise shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. That is the condition of the world today. The leaders of the nations-many of them-desire to do the thing that will benefit their nation or the group they belong to, but selfishness in many cases characterizes their conduct, and the result is that instead of peace we have sorrow and distress.
There is only one way. We can legislate until doomsday but that will not make men righteous. It will be necessary for people who are in the dark to repent of their sins, correct their lives, and live in such a righteous way that they can enjoy the spirit of our Heavenly Father.
Think of the beautiful prayer that was offered by Jesus of Nazareth, who gave his life for us, who represented a great race of people who were despised by other races, and who came into the world to bring a blessing. When he was asked, "Teach us to pray," what a beautiful simple prayer he gave. Anybody could repeat it, and if they repeat it with their hearts in tune with the Spirit of the Lord, they can feel the influence that comes from it.
It was not very long after that until he was cruelly murdered, as have been the prophets of God almost from the beginning. The fact remains that all this time our Heavenly Father has had upon the earth men and women who are righteous, who are seeking to do his will and keep his commandments.
GOSPEL MESSAGE
Many of you here today are either from foreign lands or the descendants of those who came from foreign lands. Many of you or your forebears have heard the gospel as it has been taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during a little over a hundred years. Sometimes you have heard it on the street where there was a humble missionary, teaching what the Lord had called him to teach.
There was something that touched the hearts of those who heard. I have had experiences in the mission field. I have seen groups of people stand and listen to a humble missionary explain the purpose of life and talk to the people and encourage them to repent of their sins, and I have sometimes heard people say, "I have never before felt an influence like I feel while I hear that man talk."
I take this occasion to express my appreciation for the opportunity of being here, for the privilege of associating with such men and women as are present this morning. I am grateful for the privilege that came to me of being reared in this part of the world under a government that God himself said was prepared by men that he raised up for that very purpose. I refer to the Constitution of the United States.
I am grateful for my blessings-all of them-and thank you, my brethren and sisters, who from day to day and from year to year as I have gone through life, have encouraged me to go on and represent, as I might, the desires of our Heavenly Father in my own life, that I might receive many blessings.
There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven from before the foundation of this world upon which every blessing is predicated, and unless we observe that law, we cannot enjoy the blessing. The Lord has told us that. If people disagree with us, if our Father's other children do not believe the gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in this latter day to the Prophet Joseph Smith, that ought not to incur our displeasure. It ought to enlist our sympathy, because if we know, as Philip knew when he testified of the man who came from Nazareth, we could invite our friends to come and see. If we are just as sure as that, we will let our light so shine that others, seeing our good works, will be constrained to glorify our Father in heaven.
ACCEPTANCE OF TRUTH
I have traveled much in the world, approximately a million miles, advocating the gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in this latter day. I have found good people everywhere, wonderful people, kind and friendly, but until they received an understanding of the truth and conformed their lives to the teachings of our Heavenly Father, they were not taking advantage of all their opportunities, and when that time came and they accepted the truth, they added to what they possessed before.
When we go into the world and talk to our Father's other children, we do not ask them to give up any truth that they have. We do not ask them to surrender what they have believed, if it is true.
At the present time we have approximately five thousand missionaries traveling among the nations of the earth who are saying to our Father's other children, "Come and see. Keep all the good that you have. Let us sit down with you and add to what you already possess for your own happiness and for your own good, and without money and without price"
That is the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I assure you I am grateful for the knowledge that I have that it is the truth. It has given me comfort and satisfaction, and I praise his name who is the Author of our being, that we are permitted to be his guests in his house today.
BLESSINGS OF GOSPEL
This morning there is peace and quiet all around us, and yet in many parts of the world there are distress and anguish, and threat of war-disturbances of all kinds. Many people have come out of the world for the gospel's sake and come to the valleys of these mountains in response to the promise,
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
I bear witness to you that that has been realized by the faithful men and women who have come into this part of the world for the gospel's sake.
I pray that during this conference we may rejoice together, that we may feel the influence that makes us happy when we possess it. And when the conference meetings have been finished, and we go to our various homes, I pray that we will have felt that we have been fed the bread of life, that we may live as our Heavenly Father has desired us to live, and devote our time as he has expected us to do, and then as real Christians, as real sons and daughters of the Living God, let us reach out and try to touch those who have not yet received the blessings that we have received, and offer them an opportunity to enjoy what we appreciate.
TESTIMONY
This is the work of the Lord. This is the Church of Jesus Christ, which name was given to it by our Heavenly Father. I do not say that boastfully. I hope no one here this morning will feel that I am arrogant because of my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have no such feeling, but I have a feeling of humility, of gratitude, of thanksgiving for the companionship of such men and women as are here, and men and women in the world whom I have traveled with and associated with during these many years, many of whom have not been able to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope for their sakes and for the sake of those they love that they will eventually receive that blessing, and it will have to come, if it ever does, from the Author of our being through the inspiration of his Spirit.
Again I say, this is our Father's work. This is the Church of the Lamb of God. We who know that have a responsibility that no other people in the world have, and if we will be righteous in our lives, having our own homes and our own lives in order, the spirit of our Heavenly Father will be with us always. People will rejoice in our companionship, and when we go to the other side, we will find our names enrolled in the Lamb's Book of Life, and that will entitle us to an eternal inheritance in the celestial kingdom, and this earth will be that kingdom. I bear you witness of it in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Elder Eldred G. Smith
Eldred G. Smith, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 9-12
There is one advantage in being called on early. I can assure you I will enjoy this conference more than any I have enjoyed before, and I hope that I will have your faith and prayers with me while I stand before you because I assure you I need them.
It is a very inspiring sight to look over this audience, and it is also a frightening feeling not only to see all these people and have them watching me and sensing that responsibility, and using your time, but also adding to it all the people who are listening, as President Smith has announced, through the broadcasting systems, and through television. No one knows how many thousands there are there-I assure you I sense the responsibility of the time I use here and hope I have your faith and prayers in my behalf in helping me to say those things which will be of benefit.
GOAL OF PERFECTION
It has been the goal of all who are striving to do the will of the Lord to accomplish the request of the Savior in his Sermon on the Mount:
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
This is rather a large order, is it not? It would seem almost impossible to attain. We are only human. And certainly, to err is human. The conflicting forces of good and evil in the world, and our free agency to choose what course we will, make it very hard to do what is right all the time.
LAW OF REPENTANCE
God has given us commandments and instructions and shown us the way, and it is for us to follow. He knows we will step aside at times, so he has given us the law of repentance. Repentance is not only sorrow for our sins, but also turning aside and exerting ourselves to the utmost to make retribution.
There are four kinds of people in the world. There is the kind that does not know when things are wrong, and the kind that knows when things are wrong but does not care. There is the kind that knows when things are wrong and does care, but does not care enough to make them right. And there is the fourth kind that knows when things are wrong and strives intelligently to make them right and to keep them right. Those are the people who know how to progress.
We must be aware of our sins and repent every day of our lives if we would strive for perfection. Repentance is not only for some big sin or for our past sins before we are baptized-it is also regretting every slip we make and honestly striving to do better.
The Lord in his wisdom has divided our time into daylight and darkness. With the dawning of each new day comes a new chance to improve upon the mistakes of yesterday. Let us call upon the Lord for help. Every morning and throughout the day we should pray for strength to do his will. We need it, for it is the little, trivial daily trials that are the hardest to bear serenely. It is the seeming little sins which we scarcely recognize that are the hardest to overcome. Pray for strength, then, constantly, to be kind, honest, charitable; and each night let us pray for forgiveness of the sins we have committed, repent and try harder the next day to do better.
OVERCOMING EVIL
There is an old saying, "There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self." Without opposition there would be no progress, for it is only as we overcome that we develop strength.
As the steel which is heated and quenched becomes much stronger and more valuable, as a result of that tempering, so do we become stronger and more valuable as we overcome our sins, be they great or small. Each one has his trials to go through, and they all seem to be different. In the process of this tempering of the soul of man, we learn one great principle among many others: the need for repentance. It is this spirit of repentance the Lord requests as a prerequisite to baptism, that through the act of repentance man may start on the road to perfection and receive baptism and the Holy Ghost. But repentance does not stop there. That is the beginning of progress; and as soon as repentance stops, progress stops.
If we are to become perfect, we must constantly overcome the powers of evil. We find the powers of evil on every hand, every day. We learn to combat them in earliest childhood. We are taught by our parents to do good and avoid evil. We are taught to distinguish to some degree between good and evil. We are taught the law of repentance by correcting things that are wrong. Those teachings by mother and father are most enduring, and many great men accredit their success to those early teachings.
Parents, there is the challenge to us. Can we give our children the right start in life? There is also the challenge to the rest of us. Can we so live to be true and faithful to the teachings in righteousness given to us by our parents? Can we be more like the "lonesome pine" seen so often on the uppermost levels of these beautiful mountains of ours-this pine which stands alone, bending and swaying in the wind? These gallant timbers are known to naturalists as "limber pine," so named because of their resiliency, which enables them to ride through the heavy storms that rage around them on occasions. You can tie their branches in knots without breaking the bark. When untied, the branches snap back into their original position.
RESILIENCY NEEDED
We see, in their survival, not strength alone, but victory in their ability to spring erect again, after bending to the gale's fury. Resiliency is an important factor in the goal of perfection. The winds of life may bend us, but if we have resiliency of spirit, they cannot break us. To straighten again courageously after our heads have been bowed in defeat, disappointment, and suffering, is the supreme test of character. Such people live on the mountaintops of life and are on the road to perfection.
There are many who have bowed to disappointment or criticism or for some other such reason have stopped their progress in the priesthood, and have lacked the resiliency to rise to the occasion and, in spite of opposition, continue to progress. Can you acknowledge your mistakes and intelligently try to correct them? Can you also make allowances for others' weaknesses and give them the opportunity to make retribution?
PROCRASTINATION
There is one important thing to remember. As the time of repentance is procrastinated, the ability to repent grows weaker. Neglect of opportunity in holy things brings a forfeit of the chance.
From the Book of Mormon in the Book of Alma we read:
Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.
For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seat you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked
TEACHINGS OF CONFERENCE
May the Lord bless us to be able always to keep his commandments to the best of our ability. And I bless you, my brothers and sisters, with a strength of memory sufficient to take home with you the spirit and teachings of this conference that you may not be forgetful of the kernels of truth and light, and that you may not be so burdened with the numerous teachings of this conference, that you will lose sight of the important things, and that you will remember them and put them into practice and teach them to the many hundreds of our members who are not able to attend this conference.
I bless you, my brethren and sisters, that you may be saints in very deed, through your faithfulness and your devotion to the teachings which are given in this conference, and may God be with us all, that we may ever honor and glorify him. May God be ever honored and glorified for his manifold mercies unto us, his children. I pray through Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Levi Edgar Young
Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 12-18
I wish I might say something to the missionaries of the Church that would be helpful in their work in teaching the gospel. In a broad sense, we are all missionaries who hold the priesthood of God. We are ever ready to give the message of eternal life because of the truth, beauty, and goodness of the divine teachings of the Savior. Out of our faith, we find everything that is holy and pure and of good report. I was thinking this morning of the Sabbath day after the arrival of the pioneers in this valley. July 24, 1847. Divine services were held, and the people were seated in a circle out in the sagebrush, and nearby were the waters of a lovely stream. Gratitude to God was expressed in song and prayer, and the words of Isaiah were read by Apostle Orson Pratt, who gave the sermon:
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good; that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God rejoiceth!
Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.
TRUTHS OF GOD
The Saints had sung their sacred hymns during their long journey. They had endured their trials, and the more they suffered, the deeper was their gratitude to God. The missionaries go forth to speak of these things, because the history of this people is in many respects the most majestic and sublime of any people that ever lived. There is a sacred foundation to their teachings. The Latter-day Saints believe and know honestly that Adam came to earth sent of God from heaven. He held the priesthood of God and became the first teacher of the gospel to his descendants. The divine ideals as taught by the Father of us all were held sacred, and from that time to the days of the Messiah upon the earth, the truths of God were planted in the hearts of his children. Maurice Maeterlinck in his book, The Great Secret, says that what we read in the oldest archives of wisdom gives us only a faint idea of the sublime doctrines of the ancient teachers. The older the texts, the more pure, the more awe-inspiring are the doctrines they reveal. They may be merely an echo of sublimer doctrines. We come down to the age of the prophets. Says a noted historian:
How fitting it is that Malachi should seal up the book of the Old Testament prophecy by such a clear statement of the coming of the Lord, the Messenger of the Covenant, the Son of righteousness, and thus give the last prediction of him, with whom the evangelists begin their gospel history.
Hugo Munsterberg of Harvard University wrote, in his Psychology and Life, something of the past glory of the sacred records:
There is a truth, a beauty, a morality, which is independent of psychological conditions. Every straightforward man, to whom the duties of his real life are no sounding brass, speaks with a sound voice to the psychologist: "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
GOSPEL RE-ESTABLISHED
We have the age in which the Prophet Joseph Smith lived. He was undoubtedly the greatest character in history since the days of the Savior of the world. He re-established the divine principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the day in which we live. We first see him in the woods on the frontier of America praying as a child might pray and the Lord appearing to him, using the words of the Psalmist,
... grace is poured into thy lips, therefore, God hath blessed thee forever.
With the Father was Jesus the Savior. Joseph heard the voice of God and the divine words: "This is My Beloved Son!". A new day was at hand. From that moment he was heart and mind to the word of the Lord.
He learned that day that the divisions of Christendom are its most conspicuous reproach and the chief cause of its inefficiency. They present a moral affront to the enterprise inaugurated by Jesus Christ and constitute the outstanding limitation of its progress. Christianity is weakened by its divisions in facing the problems of today, among which are class hatreds, race antagonisms, blindness to social justice, the lure of vicious literature, crime-instigating narcotics, and the spread of military spirit in the world.
PRINCIPLE OF REVELATION
The supreme test of religion is revelation. No religion can be persuasive unless it relies on the principle of revelation. The living Church of Jesus Christ must be revelatory. Christianity in its pure sense is the religion of redeemed personality. While all true men reveal God, the completest carrier of revelation can be no other than a chosen personality.
By the power of the Holy Priesthood which Joseph Smith received from heaven, he established our true relationship to God. Out of this grows the salvation of man-his true immortal life. The nations all bear witness to the need of a light that is not of man. We can give our word to the world that the forces which are to make the world the world it ought to be are now within it. My fellow missionaries: We are to study more deeply and constantly the divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must know the history of the Church of which we are members. We must understand the meaning of the priesthood of God which has been given to us. We must know the divine teachings of the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price. How beautifully do they teach the words of Shakespeare:
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God!
FAITH IN REVEALED WORD
Think of what your message can become as you go forth to teach. But it is going to require of you some sort of planning toward an end. Your minds must become more sensitive to the revealed truths of God as never before. Your faith in your work must deepen from day to day. Let me call to your minds the words of the first two verses of the first chapter of the Book of Mormon:
I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father: and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.
Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.
What a noble tribute to education these words are. Lehi had become an educated man in his day, and his son pays him loving tribute. So you must study the words of Holy Writ every hour of the day and remember the admonition of the first teacher to the American Indians, called by some the apostle John Eliot:
Work, with faith in Jesus Christ can accomplish anything.
"WORDS OF WISDOM"
What a directive purpose the Prophet Joseph Smith gives us in the words as found in the 88th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants:
... seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.
Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.
From the beginning of the history of the Church, Joseph Smith organized schools of learning. He became a student and a member of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew classes established in the Kirtland Temple. He established the University of the City of Nauvoo, encouraged the building of the Seventies' Hall of Science. In volume five of the Times and Seasons is found this brief, but noble statement:
Among the improvements going forward in this city, none merit higher praise, than the Seventies' Library. The concern has been commenced on a footing and scale, broad enough to embrace the arts and sciences, everywhere: so that the Seventies while traveling over the face of the globe, as the Lord's "Regular Soldiers," can gather all the curious things, both natural and artificial, with all the knowledge, inventions, and wonderful specimens of genius that have been gracing the world for almost six thousand years.
REFINEMENT AND CULTURE
The early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was one of refinement and culture. The people became lovers of good literature. Even when they were camping on the frozen ground of Iowa as they began their exodus to the far West, they read their sacred books and before the campfires they knelt in prayer. We are told that in one of the camps was a copy of Mlle. Cottin's beautiful story, entitled "Elizabeth." It was so sought after that some read the book by the light of the moon. They were sustained by day and by night by
... keeping up the songs of Zion, and passing along Doxologies from front to rear when the breath froze on their eyelashes.
Jane Bicknell Young, the wife of Joseph Young, sang to her children the "Song of the Silent Land":
Into the Silent Land! Who shall lead us thither? Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand. Who leads us with a gentle hand Thither, oh, thither, Into the Silent Land.
They trained themselves to read and to think, but they had no set regulations for their studies. They embraced only guiding principles. They knew nothing of set rules and methods which would have limited their imaginations and initiative, which are so important in the successful presentation of great truths. One of the first things that President Brigham Young did after the advent of the pioneers to Utah was to issue an epistle-and this in 1847-which reads as follows:
It is very desirable that all the Saints should improve every opportunity of securing at least a copy of every valuable treatise on education-every book, map, chart, or diagram that may contain interesting, useful, and attractive matter, to gain the attention of children, and cause them to love to learn to read; and also every historical, mathematical, philosophical, geographical, geological, astronomical, scientific, practical, and all other variety of useful and interesting writings, maps, etc., to present to the general church recorder, when they shall arrive at their destination, from which important and interesting matter may be gleaned to compile the most valuable works on every science and subject, for the benefit of the rising generation. We have a printing press, and any one who can take good printing or writing paper to the valley will be blessing themselves and the Church. We also want all kinds of mathematical instruments, together with all rare specimens of natural curiosities and works of art that can be gathered.
FIRST LIBRARY
In 1851 the first extensive library was brought by ox teams to this state. It had been purchased in New York City by Dr. John M. Bernhisel and was a wonderful collection of books. There were the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Homer, Juvenal, Lucretius, Virgil, Euripides, Sophocles, Plato, Montaigne, Tacitus, Spenser, Herodotus, Goldsmith, and many others of the great masters of the world's best literature. The library received copies of the New York Herald, New York Evening Post, the Philadelphia Saturday Courier, and the North American Review. Of the scientific works there were Newton's Principia, Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, and Von Humboldt's Cosmos. The treatises on philosophy included the works of John Stuart Mill, Martin Luther, John Wesley, and Emanuel Swedenborg.
Time will not permit my going into the cultural aspects of the early days of the Church, The Latter-day Saints were a cultured people from the first, and they indicated this in their lives. The inventory of the educational resources of Utah have been what Dr. Samuel T. Dutton, of Columbia University, has pointed out. These resources are: First, homes, churches, schools, and libraries; second, newspapers, magazines, museums, drama, industry, and government; third, those intellectual and ethical aptitudes of the people which make it possible for them to be quickened and influenced in the right direction.
ACHIEVEMENTS OF PIONEERS
The pioneers were always striving to understand the arts and sciences, for they sensed keenly the power of all truth. They knew the human constants-hunger and labor, seedtime and harvest, love and faith-which entered into their lives from the very first. They built this Tabernacle in which we are worshiping today. They continued establishing schools and colleges and established a theatre in the wilderness which in time became recognized by the artists of the London stage as well as the famous dramatists of America. Mr. M. B. Leavitt has written in his Fifty Years of the American Stage:
Sweeping as the statement may seem, I do not believe that the theater has ever rested on a higher plane, both as to its purpose and its offerings, than at Salt Lake City, the Capital of Mormondom.
Utah today has become a great state. Ellsworth Huntington has recently written in his book, entitled Civilization and Climate:
The proud position of Utah is presumably the result of Mormonism. The leaders of that faith have had the wisdom to insist on a thorough system of schools, and have obliged the children to attend them. The "Gentiles" have in self-defense been forced to do equally well, and the result has been admirable. Whatever one may think of Mormonism as a religious belief, it must be credited with having accomplished a remarkable work in spreading a moderate degree of education almost universally among the people of Utah.
Count Hermann Keyserling, the noted German philosopher and historian, came to Salt Lake City a few years ago and afterwards wrote in his Travel Diary of a Philosopher these words:
The Mormons have achieved a civilization hardly attained by any other people. In barely half a century they have changed a salt-desert into a garden. They are moreover admirable citizens, law-abiding, honest, and progressive.
MISSIONARIES TO TEACH WORLD
You missionaries of Jesus Christ, our Savior, are taught the divine precepts of the religion of the Master, and you go forth in all the world to teach. Out of the faith of your fathers you take to peoples all that is holy and pure and of good report. Your zeal and self-devotion shall be increased. Your heavenly aspirations, your human sympathies, your endless deeds of charity will bring you the hearts of the people. You need never hesitate, for you have entered upon your many duties and responsibilities, your trials and discouragements "with the zeal of Peter and the gentleness of John." Well may you read the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith as he wrote in the Articles of Faith:
We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul-We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.
Elder Richard L. Evans
Richard L. Evans, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 18-22
I am sure I never fully realize how much I need help until I actually arrive at this moment and this place, and I earnestly hope that I shall have it.
ADVICE GIVEN TO MOSES
I should like to read as preface to the few remarks that I shall make, some verses from the eighteenth chapter of Exodus:
And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses sat to judge the people; and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening. And when Moses' father in law saw all that he did to the people, he said. What is this thing that thou doest to the people? Why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even?
And Moses said unto his father in law, Because the people come unto me to enquire of God:
When they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God, and his laws.
And Moses' father in law said unto him, the thing that thou doest is not good.
Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.
Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people...
And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do.
Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:
And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall hear the burden with thee.
If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace.
So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in law, and did all that he had said.
DELEGATION OF RESPONSIBILITY
There is a profound wisdom in this early utterance concerning the delegation of authority and of responsibility and of work. Surely it must be evident to every thinking person that there comes a time when, no matter how able or willing a man may be, he cannot further extend himself so far as person-to-person communication and effort are concerned. As surely as this Church grows, it must be apparent to everyone that a greater sense of responsibility must rest with all those who have membership in it and by that membership, therefore, have a responsibility for it.
I called attention on one previous occasion, I think, to the number of days a man may reasonably expect to live-assuming that the scriptural allotment of three score and ten years were granted each of us. If you will get out your pencil and paper and multiply seventy by three hundred sixty-five, it will total about twenty-five thousand days, which means that if we were to spend one day each with twenty-five thousand different people, our lives would be gone. This would indicate the limit of our personal ability to spend time with individual people. But we can extend ourselves in other ways. We are extending ourselves today by television. For many years we have extended ourselves by radio. We can extend ourselves in print and by all other means of mass communication and by delegating responsibility to other people. But in person-to-person appointments in this Church and out of it, there is a limit to which a man can extend himself-a truth which the father-in-law of Moses discovered and expressed many centuries ago, and which is a still more pressing truth in our day as the Church and its responsibilities grow.
ACTIVITY OF MEMBERSHIP
One of the great elements of strength in this Church is the activity of its membership, the individual testimony and responsibility of every member in it, in the priesthood quorums and otherwise. And we must, of course, delegate authority and responsibility. The Lord has done it to us; he has trusted us; and we must trust our brethren and our fellow men in like manner. We shall all make mistakes, but if the Lord with his patience and his wisdom can so long endure our fumbling and faltering, if he can stand by and watch his children as they work out their own salvation, surely we can well afford to watch the performance of one another as each of us attempts to work out his own salvation and to take responsibility of the work of the Church as a whole and for the salvation of one another.
I remember on one occasion some months ago, when Brother George Q. Morris was called to preside over the Eastern States Mission, a farewell testimonial was being given for him by one of the general boards of the M.I.A. As a book was being presented to him on that occasion, Sister Emily Bennett, I believe it was, who was making the presentation, offered some apology because she didn't know whether or not he had that particular book in his library-but they were presenting it to him anyway. President Clark, as I recall, followed her and somewhat facetiously said, "Why didn't you ask the First Presidency whether Brother Morris had this book in his library-others, it seems, don't hesitate to ask almost anything and everything of them."
Now, the First Presidency, and all the other brethren, I earnestly believe, are very willing to do what they can do, to the full limit of their time and strength, and certainly when people have questions and problems, they must feel free to ask someone the answers. A man should not carry an unanswered question around with him and let it canker within him without being able to ask for the answer. But I am sure that so far as the Church to its broad extent is concerned, individual audiences with the First Presidency and with the other brethren shall be proportionately fewer. And greater and greater and wider and wider, responsibility on the part of all of us, down to the youngest and least able, must be the watchword for the accomplishment of the things that need to be accomplished.
SHORTCUTS
I don't know why the Lord is content to let us move by the slow means, or at least by the seemingly slow means by which we sometimes seem to move. But the fact that he is content to let us move so slowly must be significant, and it may be that some of the shortcuts that are sometimes suggested would not be good for us, individually or as a Church.
I recall that a personality of great brilliance named Lucifer had some very drastic shortcuts to suggest and they were rejected of our Father in heaven.
I am reminded of another story concerning a shortcut that my able associate on Temple Square, Brother Marion D. Hanks, invited to my attention sometime ago. It was an incident related by the late Justice Sutherland of the United States Supreme Court. Some years ago, he recalled a group of men, who had ascended the Arch of Triumph in Paris, and one very brilliant young man among them was theorizing as to the various ways of descending. There were the stairs down which they could laboriously and slowly descend, or one could jump over the edge of the monument and thus be down much sooner. Then the brilliant young man proceeded to demonstrate his theory: he jumped over the edge, and the next day they buried him.
I think some of the shortcuts suggested these days in the world may be in this category. It serves the purposes of God, apparently, to work through men, imperfect as they are. Certainly there are many things that he could accomplish more rapidly than by letting us do them in our fumbling and faltering way. Certainly he could send armies of angels to accomplish the things he has placed on our shoulders if he chose to do so. Jesus said to his own generation that God could raise up children unto Abraham from the very stones. I think all this must lead us to only one conclusion, which is basic in this Church: that the Lord lets us move as we move because it is his purpose and glory to bring to pass our eternal and everlasting salvation, our immortality and eternal life; and if he were to take some of these shortcuts, it might do the work without developing the individual.
"WE, THE PEOPLE"
Men are only at their best and most effective under conditions of voluntary cooperation and never under conditions of coercion. When President Smith mentioned earlier this morning the Constitution of the United States, the first line from the preamble came to my mind:
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union,
"We, the people"-it was not an edict from some tall tower directing that some mass of people should do something regardless of their own wishes. "We the people" do this. Men are most effective under conditions of voluntary cooperation, and that is one of the great pillars of strength of this Church. The free agency of man is basic. We are committed to it, and corollary with it is our own individual initiative and willing cooperation in a great cause.
Now I have no concern as to the ability of our Father in heaven to accomplish his purposes in the earth. He could raise up children to Abraham from the very rocks. He could send armies of angels. He could take these and other shortcuts. He could no doubt do many things much more quickly, but he is interested in us, in our initiative, in our development, in our agency, in our voluntary willingness to cooperate one with another, and to move toward his purposes for our own soul's salvation as well as for the good of his work in the earth.
I pray that we may each of us sense our responsibility in the world and in the Church, and that we who have responsibility for any part of the work may learn to delegate detail as occasion requires and trust these men, our brethren, and these women, our sisters, to do their part in pushing forward the things that need to be done, and to feel a sense of responsibility as concerns carrying forward this work.
I should like to leave with you my conviction concerning the truthfulness and ultimate destiny of those things to which we are committed in this Church, which we earnestly accept as the Church of Jesus Christ, and I do it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Ezra Taft Benson
Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 22-29
My beloved brothers and sisters: Six years ago at the October conference of the Church you sustained me as one of the General Authorities. In spite of my weaknesses and limitations, I stand here today to testify to you of the joy and the happiness which have been mine during those six glorious years. For four and one-half years of the six, I have had the opportunity of traveling among the stakes of Zion, meeting the stake presidencies, high councils, bishoprics, and Saints, and also visiting the missions of the Church and meeting the people there. It has been a priceless experience. In no other place in all the world can anyone be privileged to enjoy the association of such fine men and women as those who constitute the leadership of the stakes and wards of Zion and the missions and branches of the Church. I am deeply grateful for all your kindness.
As though this were not enough, I have had the glorious privilege of a close and intimate association with the leadership of the Church, the General Authorities. I have always loved them, but I have never loved them as much as I do today. Any one of them would give his all, including life itself, if necessary, for the establishment of this great work and the upbuilding of the kingdom. With all my heart, I sustain them and love them and commend to you, my brethren and sisters, their example and counsel.
Some few months ago following a general conference of the Church, I received a letter from a young man in this city. He had been impressed with something that had been said regarding missionary work. In his letter he asked the question-after indicating that he was not a member of the Church-"Why do you people of the Mormon faith send missionaries out into the world, particularly to Christian nations? Why do you not confine your program to the non-Christian people?"
If the Lord will bless me, I should like to attempt to answer that question, within the limits of the time available and my own personal limitations.
CHURCH ESTABLISHED BY CHRIST
It is a common belief of all sects professing Christianity that Jesus the Christ established his divine Church here on the earth during his ministry among men. He came during a period of comparative peace. The religious world was divided into two camps-the pagans of various sects and the Jews. The Jews alone were worshiping the true and Living God. Even they were divided among themselves, the principal groups being the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. There was also a mixture of the Jewish and pagan philosophies in the Samaritan group.
But Christ came with his message indicating that the law of Moses was fulfilled in him. He brought a higher law, a law of love, the gospel of love, and he established his Church. He selected officers. We read of the apostles, the seventies, bishops, elders, priests, teachers, and deacons, and one of the members of that body of leaders later said that these officers should remain in the Church for the purpose of:
... the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Till we all come in the unity of the faith.
The Master selected his Twelve. He named them; he sent them forth with the message, "the kingdom of heaven is at hand". They went to the lost sheep of the House of Israel and later, through divine direction, to the Gentiles as well. Others were called, and the seventy, following their first mission, came back rejoicing that even the devils had been subject to them in the name of Jesus Christ.
There was a spirit of unity among the members, a spirit of brotherhood; there was a spirit of oneness. They enjoyed rich spiritual gifts. Simple ordinances were performed by men who had authority and had been commissioned. The apostolic ministry was characterized by every evidence that those engaged in it had divine authority to carry the message of the gospel and to administer in the affairs of the kingdom. They went forth freely without pay, because the Master had said, "freely ye have received, freely give". Peter, apparently the senior apostle, directed the activities of the Church.
In 44 A. D. a council of the Church membership was called in Jerusalem, with Peter presiding. According to the records, certain differences were adjusted at that conference, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Later the apostles scattered; persecution was heaped upon them; and so far as we know, they never met again in a general conference of the Church. The activities of Paul centered at Antioch, but during the period from 68 A. D. to 100 A. D., it appeared that most, if not all, of the original apostles, who had the authority to direct the kingdom-to direct the affairs of the Church-had passed from the earth.
BEGINNING OF APOSTASY
Waves of persecution continued, dissension crept in, political influence was in evidence. According to the writers of the second century, which are usually passed over in silence by many of the religious leaders of the world today, the teachings were orthodox to quite an extent during the first century and into the second century following the advent of the Master. But even during this period there was evidence that an apostasy was beginning. As Constantine came to the throne of the Roman Empire, there was a spirit of tolerance shown toward all religious groups. Finally, tolerance increased toward the Christians until Constantine himself more or less espoused their cause.
Great changes were now in evidence. Some would have us believe that the bishop of Rome, about this time, became the head of the Church. There were many bishops presiding over local congregations-churches as they were called-but none of them had authority, as had been given to the Twelve, to direct Church affairs. In fact, the records indicate that at least two of the bishops of Rome died while John, the Apostle was still known among men. Evidently, one was living when John received his last great revelation recorded in the Book of Revelation. None of these had the authority, nor assumed authority, to direct the church established by Christ and his apostles.
In the council called by Constantine, the emperor, in 325 A.D., which was apparently the first conference called subsequent to the one that was held in Jerusalem in 44 A.D., we are told that only about one-sixth of the bishops were in attendance, and that the bishop of Rome was absent from that important meeting. The emperor directed the council although he was not even baptized. According to the records we have, there was evidently no unity and no inspiration of the Spirit present at the meeting, but force and intrigue were used in an effort to bring political unity for political purposes. In fact, our best authorities seem to indicate that it must have been approximately 354 A. D. before Peter, the Apostle, was ever referred to as a bishop.
PRINCIPLES AND ORDINANCES CHANGED
But long before this time, evidences of apostasy had set in. The corrupting of the simple principles of the gospel, the introduction of pagan philosophies, the unwarranted and unauthorized addition of certain man-made ceremonies, changes in organization and in government-all these and more were in evidence.
There isn't time to dig into a detailed discussion of the changes made, but we may take as an example the simple ordinance of baptism, performed by immersion, by those having authority, following which hands of the priesthood were laid upon the heads of the baptized members and the Holy Ghost conferred. Shortly after the passing of the apostles, this ordinance was greatly modified. The mode of baptism was changed. There came a time when baptism was recognized whether or not men held or even claimed authority. They even went to the point of indicating that authority was not necessary. The baptism of infants was introduced. Adults who were baptized were treated as infants and fed on milk and honey for a period. The use of oil was introduced into the ordinance.
The sacred ordinance of the sacrament was changed, that simple and impressive ordinance introduced by the Master. The doctrine of transubstantiation was taught and actual idolatry and the worship of the emblems introduced. A change was made in the selection of officers. Nominations had been made by the Apostles who had that authority. No longer was the principle of common consent, which had been a part of the early Church, practiced and followed. Members of the Church were forbidden to read the scriptures, although the Master had said, "Search the scriptures: for in them ye think ye have eternal life".
ABOMINABLE PRACTICES INTRODUCED
Many other practices were introduced, one of the most serious, and I am sure one of the most abominable in the sight of God, was the selling of indulgences. This practice was based on the false theory that there was a treasure of merit-that certain of the saints and others through their works had performed more than was required for their salvation-and therefore, there was a treasure available upon which others might draw, who through their unrighteous lives may be short of the requirements for salvation. The doctrine of infallibility, the worship of relics, the introduction of pomp, ceremony, and mysteries, the use of incense, the worship of martyrs, applause to show the relative popularity of speakers in the Church, and even the purchase of office were approved and practiced. Rivalry, strife, and disunity were rampant, probably reaching a climax when the bishop of Rome excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople and the patriarch in turn excommunicated the bishop.
There remained then, only human churches, without authority, which had excommunicated each other. Surely the apostasy was now complete.
APOSTASY PREDICTED
As the restored Church, we affirm that with the passing of the apostolic age, the Church drifted into a condition of apostasy, that succession in the priesthood was broken, and that the Church, as an earthly organization operating under divine direction and having authority to officiate in spiritual ordinances, ceased to exist. This is attested by history. We affirm also that all this was foreseen and predicted by the apostles when they were living, yea, and by the Master in his day. The apostasy had started during the days of the Apostles, and was referred to frequently by them.
You are acquainted with the quotation in Paul's reference to the situation as he met with the elders of Ephesus for the last time when he said,
For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
Then his letter to the Thessalonians:
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come-the Second Coming of the Master except there come a falling away first.
To the Galatians Paul referred to the apostasy already under way, and marveled that they were so soon removed from him that had called them, into another gospel. He chastised them for so doing, and pointed out that there was only one gospel plan.
Peter spoke of
... false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies... and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
In fact, in the great vision given to John while on the Isle of Patmos, he refers to the few churches worthy of his note as being "neither cold nor hot". In reference to the restoration of the gospel, the passage often quoted is a clear evidence that the apostasy was to be complete, for when John received this revelation, indicating a condition of the future, he saw an angel flying through the midst of heaven, "having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth."
Even in the Old Testament, prophets had prophesied in a similar manner. Isaiah indicated that the earth would be:
... defiled under the inhabitants thereof because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.
Nowhere is the law of Moses referred to as an everlasting covenant. The everlasting covenant is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amos had spoken of a famine that should come in the land for "hearing the words of the Lord" and that people would "run to and fro to seek the work of the Lord, and shall not find it".
Not only by history, which is quite conclusive, but through prophecy also we have been informed definitely that there was and there would be a complete apostasy from the truth. Many of the early reformers recognized this fact as they struck out against the false teachings and practices of their day. Wesley, the founder of Methodism, lamented that the "Christians had turned heathen again and had only a dead form left." Even here in America, Roger Williams, head of the oldest Baptist congregation in the land, recognized, as he quit the ministry, that there was no divinely constituted authority or church upon the face of the earth, nor would there be such a church until one arose having apostles and other officers as found in the church established in the Meridian of Time.
APOSTASY ATTESTED FACT
It is an attested fact that as Joseph Smith, a humble boy, went into the woods to pray on that beautiful spring morning in 1820, the world-Christian and otherwise-was in a sad state of apostasy. The answer given to him is to me the greatest evidence we have in all the world that there had been an apostasy from the truth. When he beheld those two glorious beings, the one pointed to the other and said, "This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him". And after Joseph had asked the question, "which of all the sects was right", what was the answer that he received? These are his words:
I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong... they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.
He again forbade me to join with any of them.
TRUE CHURCH RE-ESTABLISHED
Later, the Prophet Joseph was commanded to go forth as an instrument in the hands of God and organize the Church, to publish to the world as an added testimony to the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon which was taken from the sacred records. The Church was organized, and through revelation its name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was given, as referred to earlier by President Smith. Then after a few months had elapsed, while the elders were in special conference considering the matter of the publication of the revelations that had been received up to that time, the Lord spoke through the Prophet and gave a very significant revelation and indicated that it should be the preface to the Lord's Book of Commandments. In that revelation we find these significant words, referring to the Lord's servants who would have the responsibility of carrying the message to the world and establishing the kingdom. Said the Lord:
And also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually-.
These are not our words. These are words of him who established his Church anciently, and through whose ministry it has been re-established and restored in the day and age in which we live.
A MESSAGE FOR THE WORLD
Now, my brothers and sisters, that is why we send missionaries out into the world, because this message is a world message. It is the truth restored. The Lord indicated this fact in that same revelation, in the opening verse, in which he said:
Hearken, O ye people of my church, saith the voice of him who dwells on high, and whose eyes are upon all men; yea, verily I say: Hearken ye people from afar; and ye that are upon the islands of the sea, listen together.
For verily the voice of the Lord is unto all men, and there is none to escape....
This restoration of the gospel, the bringing back of light and truth, is intended for the benefit and blessing of all God's children. And so, humbly and gratefully, our missionaries go out into the world to proclaim that there has been an apostasy from the truth, but that through the goodness of God the heavens have again been opened and the gospel revealed unto man through Joseph Smith, the Prophet.
I am grateful for this knowledge. To me it is the most precious thing in all the world. I would to God that all within the sound of my voice, and all God's children everywhere, could know of the sweetness of the gospel and what it means to hold the priesthood and to feel the fellowship and brotherhood which we have in the Church-yes, to know of the security that comes to the heart of man as a testimony of the truth is borne in upon his soul.
TESTIMONY
I testify to you this day that these things are true, that this is the work of God. I bear this testimony knowing full well that eventually I must stand before the judgment seat of God, as you my brethren and sisters will be required to do. I testify in all humility that God has again spoken from the heavens, following a long period of apostasy, that he has raised up a prophet, that Joseph Smith was the instrument in his hands in restoring again to the earth the Holy Priesthood, the true Church organization with all the blessings enjoyed in former days, and even more, because this is the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. I bear this testimony to you in all humility and with gratitude in my heart, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph F. Merrill
Joseph F. Merrill, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 33-39
Brethren, sisters, and radio listeners, as a preliminary to other remarks I would like for a moment to refer to the Prophet Joseph Smith, mentioned this morning in both prayer and speech. It is because Joseph Smith lived and functioned that we are all here today, and I have said from this stand and from other stands that in my opinion Joseph Smith was a most marvelous man, the greatest prophet this world has ever seen, aside from Jesus Christ himself, and, as I believe history will declare, one of the greatest Americans that this country has ever known.
Why am I justified in saying all this? I believe that a real, serious, honest investigation of Joseph Smith, from the time of his birth to the time of his death, will justify anyone who goes carefully into all the history and all the things he did in saying that at least he was a most marvelous man, and in saying that, in coming to that conclusion, such an investigator would be guided by exactly the same standard that is used in judging greatness of all other people: by his works shall he be known, by his works he should be judged. And in my opinion every honest, conscientious, intelligent man and woman, in the light of his claims, ought to feel justified in going carefully into a study of this wonderful man.
A PRACTICAL RELIGION
In the few minutes allotted to me I desire to talk in plain, everyday language of some things that I believe are important for all of us to study and think about. First of all, the gospel of Jesus Christ as accepted and taught by the elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a very practical religion-one that should enter into every phase of the lives of its members, whether this phase be spiritual or material. One of our basic teachings is that faith without works is dead. "...shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works". Again, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven". Other of our teachings pertinent to my theme are articles 12 and 13 of our faith:
We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law.
We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men....
If we implement these articles in our daily lives, we will be good family members, good neighbors, good citizens, and good Church members.
CONSTITUTION DIVINELY INSPIRED
Again, we teach that the Constitution of the United States as it came to us from the founders of this republic is a divinely inspired document. From a declaration of belief as found in Section 134 of The Doctrine and Covenants, and approved by unanimous vote of an assembly of the Church held in Kirtland, August 1835, I make the following quotes:
We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man; and that he holds men accountable for their acts in relation to them, both in making laws and administering them, for the good and safety of society. We believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life.
We believe that all governments necessarily require civil officers and magistrates to enforce the laws of the same; and that such as will administer the law in equity and justice should be sought for and upheld by the voice of the people if a republic, or the will of the sovereign.
Further, we also support the statements in the Declaration of Independence that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...
In the light of the foregoing statements. I am sure that all Latter-day Saints must believe that their religion imposes on them the sacred obligation of trying to be good citizens of the country under whose flag they live. In this country-the United States this obligation, among other things, entails the duty to vote in elections for public officers. And for whom should they vote? Obviously for those capable people who, they believe, will be true, if elected, to their oaths of office; those who will uphold the Constitution of the United States and the laws made in harmony with it. To do this is a duty that every loyal citizen of this country should feel honor-bound to discharge. The safety and perpetuity of our constitutional form of government demands it, so historians tell us.
CRITICAL ELECTIONS
As I view the situation, the national elections in 1950 and 1952 will be among the most critical and far-reaching in effects this country has had in a century. Powerful forces are being organized and heavily financed to defeat in these elections all candidates who voted for or support the Taft-Hartley labor law. If this movement is successful, misguided leaders of some organized groups will dominate the Congress of the United States, the White House, and every other office of the government, the functions of which would help to bring into existence a welfare state-that is, one which would operate according to the principles of socialism. Not that these leaders favor such a state, but the things they demand would inevitably bring it about, so wise men say. The result would be that our free enterprise system, the system that has operated in this country from its beginning, the one that has enabled it to become the marvel and the wonder of the modern world for the variety and magnitude of its ingenious productive capacity, this system would rather quickly be destroyed, so history teaches. Otherwise the monopoly of selfish labor leaders must be broken. Freedom and personal liberty-the pride and boast of America, the achievement of centuries of human sacrifice and bloody struggle are in great danger due to the rise of this destructive movement, engineered and directed by smart and misguided leaders in whose minds and hearts right, fairness, and justice apparently are given little or no consideration. Their followers apparently have had confidence in their leaders and have accepted as true the false and misleading statements and claims of certain men relative to the provisions of the Taft-Hartley labor law. So in the minds of many workers this law is oppressive, unfair, unjust, and robs workers of their rightful gains, made under the provisions of the repealed Wagner labor act.
PROVISIONS OF TAFT-HARTLEY LAW
But let me ask how many of these workers and other people have ever read the Taft-Hartley law and fully understand what its provisions are? My understanding is that this law was designed to protect the rights and freedom of employees and employers alike, and make unions and corporations equally responsible before the law for their contracts, obligations, etc. What right-minded citizen would have any other kind of law? In any case, two-thirds of the members of each branch of the United States Congress believe the Taft-Hartley bill would be at least a fairly good law, for they passed it over the president's veto. Is this not significant in the light of the fact that many members of his party voted to override the veto?
But the question of whether this is a good or bad law has been, and is being, hotly debated. To make this law function more equitably it needs amendments, it is said. If so, let these be made. But in this situation what should the voters of the country do? From my point of view the right to vote imposes on everyone who has this right the obligation to make a full, fair, and unprejudiced study of the issues involved in an election, and then support candidates who stand for the principles and measures that the voter sincerely and honestly believes will be for the best good of all the people and therefore for the best interests of the country as a whole. If selfishness, greed, unrighteous motives, and ignoble ambition shall dominate in our elections, the freedom that has been the pride and glory of America will vanish-many people will be practically enslaved, as is the case in Russia today-so historians predict.
DESIRE TO GET MORE
But the outlook is none too encouraging, for unjustifiable and insatiable selfishness has already made deep inroads into the economy of this country and is still unsatisfied. The desire to get more and more for less and less, spurred on by some politicians, has been growing stronger and stronger among different groups of people, especially among labor unions.
At this point let me quote from an article in the March, 1949, number of the Reader's Digest which was written by E. T. Leech, editor, The Pittsburg Press, as follows:
This country-indeed, the whole world-is being swept by an epidemic of the 'gimmes.' Nearly everybody wants to be given something at the expense of somebody else. This epidemic grows out of a belief that government can somehow provide aid and security for its people, no matter what the cost and how far in debt it already is.
The more government provides, the more is expected of it. One of the penalties of government assistance is a widespread lowering of the sense of responsibility. Individual stamina and self-determination go down at a time when public expenses are going up. This parallel development has destroyed other nations. It enabled a few thousand barbarians to overthrow the mighty Roman Empire. The Romans came to depend on the state for food, shelter and entertainment. In their eagerness for free security at state expense, they became so insecure they lost everything.
A state is just a large number of individuals. In the end, it is subject to the same limitations as the individual; it pays the same penalties for bad management. Take debt, for example. The U. S. Government owes over 250 billion dollars-more than $6000 for every American family. Other political subdivisions-states, cities, counties, school districts-owe 20 billions.
All of them are under terrific pressure to provide more services and greater benefits. All are having to boost taxes and borrow money to pour out to a never-satisfied public.
The popular idea is that these funds can be obtained from the rich and the big corporations-so that the majority of people can have the benefits without paying the cost. But nobody gets anything for nothing. Everybody shares the debt. Everybody pays taxes-direct or indirect.
There aren't enough rich people to enable the government to finance itself at their expense. If government took all the wealth of corporations, it wouldn't put the country on a sound financial keel. But it would put the corporations out of business and workers out of jobs. Meanwhile, all that the big companies pay to government becomes a part of the cost of the goods they produce-an important factor in the cost of living for everybody.
Only wider realization of these basic facts can stop the tragedy that must eventually happen if the 'give-everything-to-everybody' theory continues unchecked.
PENSION PLANS
As an example of this "gimmes" craze, let us look at the demands certain officials are now making on several large corporations. They demand something new-insurance policies and life pensions, ranging from $100 to $150 monthly, both to be paid entirely by the employers-absolutely something for nothing. Who would provide the money for these benefits? The public, of course, those who buy the goods and services the companies sell. When cost of production goes up, prices rise. The experience of the past four years definitely proves this. But many of these company employees already get top wages-wages much higher than are generally paid employees and other workers engaged in ordinary commercial and other enterprises. Is there anything fair, right, or just in asking these other workers to provide free benefits for more highly paid company employees?
It might be said, however, that the policy of providing retirement benefits on a fifty-fifty plan is now current among teachers, federal civil service employees, and others-the employer and employee each paying half. This is considered a reasonable plan. The one in which the employer pays all is wrong in principle, bad as an example, injurious for employee and employer alike, even though some corporations pension their officers free of cost to the latter-an unwise and wrong practice that should be abandoned.
It is true, of course, that employees of corporations are generally organized in powerful unions to which truculent politicians bow and scrape and give support. The unions back up their demands by strikes and picket lines through which it is so dangerous to pass that other workers do not venture. Thus production stops, and the innocent public suffer. Is this not a hold-up game exactly in principle like that played by the bank robber? But our laws make the latter a grave crime while the former is befriended by truculent officials and politicians who have an eye on the source from which votes come. The situation appears to be getting very critical. Some group leaders apparently have the country by the throat and still are demanding the repeal of restrictions that limit their power. Unless this power is still further limited this country will be absolutely under the domination of these men.
CAMPAIGN OF EDUCATION
What can be done in the matter? Let a campaign for educating the public be vigorously carried on for the purpose of inducing all voters to make a careful study of all pertinent facts-not fancies and propaganda-relative to the "gimmes" craze. There are scholarly, experienced experts who talk and write on the situation for the worthy purpose of giving the truth to us. In our study let us go to them and avoid crackpots and propagandists even truculent officials. I will trust an informed American public. I am sure that a vast number of members of organized groups are loyal American citizens and would vote against men and measures that by word and act would tend to destroy America's free enterprise system and that would imperil the right of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to loyal Americans.
But the situation, I repeat, is threatening, critical. The elections in 1950 and 1952 will undoubtedly decide whether we shall have in America freedom or a monopoly controlled by group bosses-freedom under fair, right, and just laws impartially administered, or slavery under the dictatorship of these misguided bosses. By all means let this be the dominant issue. Other issues, though highly important, can wait on the determination of this one. Is not the Republic worth saving? Who doubts it?
SUPPORT OF CONSTITUTION
Why do I speak of these things? Because our religion, as I understand it, requires us to stand for the divinely inspired Constitution of the United States and to refuse support of all candidates and measures that would bring about a condition foreign to the spirit of that instrument and that would turn our government and country over to the control and dictates of autocratic bosses, whoever they may be.
Our religion teaches without reservation the fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man, and that we should love our fellow men as we love ourselves. We are all enjoined to do this. All my life I have been in full sympathy with those who toil, those who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. For more than seventy years I have been one of them. I love the honest toiler. I ask no more of him than I ask of myself-which is-try sincerely to live the Golden Rule in all our relations with our fellow men. What more can we rightfully ask of anyone?
I pray that the Lord will give us all a desire, and the wisdom and the courage to do as he would have us do relative to these and all other matters that concern us and the welfare of our country, and I do it in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.
Elder Marion G. Romney
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 39-45
I bring you greetings from my beloved colleague, Elder Thomas E. McKay. I stood at his bedside early this morning and said, "Thomas, it is time to get up and go to conference." There is nothing in the world he would rather have done, but he was unable to come. He asked me to express his love to you and also his appreciation for the prayers you have offered in his behalf. He feels that our Heavenly Father has heard your prayers.
I am very grateful for these conferences. They revive my soul. Every one I have attended for years has lifted me up and induced me to renew my determination to devote myself more fully to works of righteousness. During them, the importance of this world's interests and distractions seems to diminish, and life's true values, as set forth in the gospel of Jesus Christ, come into plainer view.
FRUITS OF THE GOSPEL
Does each of you find it so? I hope you do, and I encourage you to take every available opportunity to renew within yourself a determination to obtain the full fruits of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When earth life is over and things appear in their true perspective, we shall more clearly see and realize what the Lord and his prophets have repeatedly told us, that the fruits of the gospel are the only objectives worthy of life's full efforts. Their possessor obtains true wealth-wealth in the Lord's view of values. We need constantly to deepen our understandings and sharpen our realization of what the fruits of the gospel are.
The Lord has defined them as... peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.
It is a bit difficult to define the "peace in this world" referred to it the revelation. But we may be assured that it is not the ease luxury, and freedom from struggle envisioned by the world's utopian dreamers. Jesus told his apostles that it would be found by theft even in their days of tribulation.
Peace I leave with you, he said,... my peace I give unto you. And then, by way of caution, it seems to me, he added,... not as the world giveth, give I unto you.
PEACE AMIDST TRIBULATION
A little later he re-emphasized this statement in these words:
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation.
Convincing evidence of the truth of this saying of the Master-that people suffering tribulation in this world could at the same time find peace in him-has come out of the most severe experiences.
I suppose that the last few days of the Prophet's life were crowded with about as much tribulation as any human being could endure. He was hounded by traitors, impeached by misguided and false-accusing associates, called to account, promised protection, and then abandoned by his government. That all the while he knew he was approaching martyrdom is clear from the record. On the evening of Saturday, June 22, he wrote in his journal:
I told Stephen Markham that if I and Hyrum were ever taken again we should be massacred, or I was not a prophet of God.
On Sunday, the 23rd, he said to his brother Hyrum, If you go back, I will go with you, but we shall be butchered.
Monday, the 24th, on leaving Nauvoo, he paused when they got to the temple, and looked with admiration first on that, and then on the city, and remarked,
This is the loveliest place and the best people under the heavens; little do they know the trials that await them.
In this setting, knowing that his own life would be taken from him by force and violence and viewing the trials and suffering which would be visited upon his beloved followers, he said to the company who were with him,
I am going like a lamb to the slaughter, but I am calm as a summer's morning.
This is a classic example of a person having at the same time tribulation in this world and peace in Christ. Many others, both in ancient and in modern times, have had similar experiences.
ETERNAL LIFE
The other fruit of the gospel named in the quotation-"eternal life in the world to come" -must be a glorious thing, for the Lord has said that "he that hath eternal life is rich", and that the "gift of eternal life is the greatest of all the gifts of God". He who obtains it will obtain an exaltation in the celestial kingdom of our Father in heaven. Speaking of such the Lord says, among other things:
They are they who are the church of the Firstborn.
... into whose hands the Father has given all things-
They are they who are priests and kings, who have received of his fulness, and of his glory;
... they are gods, even the sons of God...
These shall dwell in the presence of God and his Christ forever and ever.
These are they whom he shall bring with him, when he shall come in the clouds of heaven to reign on the earth over his people... who shall have part in the first resurrection.
... who shall come forth in the resurrection of the just. These are they whose names are written in heaven...
... of God, the highest of all, whose glory the sun of the firmament is written of as being typical.
ASSURANCE OF BLESSINGS
This gift of eternal life in the world to come may not, of course, be fully realized during earth life. An assurance that it will be obtained in the world to come may, however, be had in this world. As a matter of fact, the blessings of the celestial kingdom are promised only to those who have such an assurance. According to the vision, a successful candidate for these blessings must qualify on three counts: First, he must have "... received the testimony of Jesus, and believed on his name" and been "... baptized after the manner of his burial"; second, he must have received "the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands of him who is ordained and sealed unto this power"; and third, he must be "sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise".
The Prophet Joseph taught that one so sealed would have within himself an assurance born of the spirit, that he would obtain eternal life in the world to come. He urgently and repeatedly admonished the Saints of his day to obtain such an assurance by making their calling and election sure. It is this assurance within a person which brings to him the peace in this world which will sustain him in every tribulation.
MORE SURE WORD OF PROPHECY
So taught the Prophet in explanation of the words of Peter. Although that apostle had heard the voice of God declare, when he was with the Savior on the holy mount,
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,
he nevertheless wrote to the Saints,
We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed.
Explaining this statement the Prophet said:
Though they might hear the voice of God and know that Jesus was the Son of God, this would be no evidence that their election and calling was made sure, that they had part with Christ, and were joint heirs with him. They then would want that more sure word of prophecy, that they were sealed in the heavens, and had the promise of eternal life in the kingdom of God. Then, having this promise sealed unto them, it was an anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast. Though the thunders might roll and lightnings flash, and earthquakes bellow, and war gather thick around, yet this hope and knowledge would support the soul in every hour of trial, trouble and tribulation.
It was such an assurance which sustained the Prophet himself as he went to martyrdom, for unto him the Lord had said in a direct revelation:
... I am the Lord thy God and will be with thee even unto the end of the world, and through all eternity: for verily I seal upon you your exaltation, and prepare a throne for you in the kingdom of my Father, with Abraham your father.
SUSTAINED BY ASSURANCE
The Apostle Paul was likewise sustained by such an assurance. From the hand of the Lord "he had a promise of receiving a crown of righteousness."
... I am now ready to be offered,
he wrote to Timothy just previous to his death.
I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day.
I think Apostle Alonzo A. Hinckley had an assurance that he would receive the gift of eternal life in the world to come and that he was sustained by that assurance as he endured the sufferings of a slow death, for in a letter which he wrote to the First Presidency after he had been told by his physician that his illness would be fatal, he said:
I assure you that I am not deeply disturbed over the final results. I am reconciled, and I reach my hands to take what My Father has for me, be it life or death. With a spirit of thanksgiving, and I trust free from vanity or boastfulness, I look over the past with satisfaction. I would not turn the leaf down on any chapter of my life. So far as I know, I have honored my Heavenly Father with my time, my humble talents, and all the means that he has blessed me with, and I have dealt justly with all men. I have fought, but I have fought fairly.
As to the future. I have no misgivings. It is inviting and glorious, and I sense rather clearly what it means to be saved by the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ and to be exalted by his power and be with him ever more.
WHOLEHEARTED DEVOTION
These fruits of the gospel-assurance that we shall obtain eternal life, peace in this world sustained by such an assurance, and finally eternal life in the world to come-are within the reach of us all. Sometimes, however, because of our lack of understanding and appreciation of them, I am persuaded that we take too much for granted. We assume that because we are members of the Church, we shall receive as a matter of course all the blessings of the gospel. I have heard people contend that they have a claim upon them because they have been through the temple, even though they are not careful to keep the covenants they there made. I do not think this will be the case.
We might take a lesson from an account given by the Prophet of a vision of the resurrection, in which he records that one of the saddest things he had ever witnessed was the sorrow of members of the Church who came forth to a resurrection below that which they had taken for granted they would receive.
I conceive the blessings of the gospel to be of such inestimable worth that the price for them must be very exacting, and if I correctly understand what the Lord has said on the subject, it is. The price, however, is within the reach of us all, because it is not to be paid in money nor in any of this world's goods but in righteous living. What is required is wholehearted devotion to the gospel and unreserved allegiance to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Speaking to this point, the Prophet taught "... that those who keep the commandments of the Lord and walk in his statutes to the end, are the only individuals" who shall receive the blessings.
Referring to Paul's devotion he said:
Follow the labors of this apostle from the time of his conversion to the time of his death, and you will have a fair sample of industry and patience in promulgating the gospel of Christ. Derided, whipped, and stoned, the moment he escaped the hands of his persecutors he as zealously as ever proclaimed the doctrine of the Savior. None will say that he did not keep the faith, that he did not fight the good fight, that he did not preach and persuade to the last. And what was he to receive? A crown of righteousness, and what shall others receive who do not labor faithfully, and continue to the end? We leave such to search out their own blessings if any they have.
Explaining to the Prophet Joseph Smith the reason why his exaltation was sealed upon him, the Lord said:
Behold, I have seen your sacrifices and will forgive all your sins; I have seen your sacrifices in obedience to that which I have told you.
CALLING AND ELECTION MADE SURE
A half-hearted performance is not enough. We cannot obtain these blessings and be like the rich young man who protested that he had kept the commandments from his youth up but who went away sorrowful when, in answer to the question, "What lack I yet?". Jesus said unto him,
If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou, hast, and give to the poor... and come and follow me.
Evidently he could live everything but the welfare program.
There can be no such reservation. We must be willing to sacrifice everything. Through self-discipline and devotion we must demonstrate to the Lord that we are willing to serve him under all circumstances. When we have done this, we shall receive an assurance that we shall have eternal life in the world to come. Then we shall have peace in this world.
The Prophet Joseph Smith made this perfectly clear. He said,
After a person has faith in Christ, repents of his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives the Holy Ghost....then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will soon say unto him, Son, thou shall be exalted. When the Lord has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve him at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and his election made sure.
Now may the Lord bless us, my brethren and sisters, with an understanding of his great gospel. And may we press forward with diligence and energy to perfect and qualify ourselves to receive and enjoy the full fruits thereof, for they are of all things the most joyous to the soul. Let us each day in solemn honesty confront ourselves with the rich man's question, "What lack I yet?". And thus, with utter frankness, discovering our own limitations, let us conquer them one by one until we obtain peace in this world through an assurance that we shall have eternal life in the world to come. For these blessings I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Matthew Cowley
Matthew Cowley, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 45-49
I am indeed grateful, my brethren and sisters and friends, to be back again in a general conference of the Church. During the past eight months I have visited the Hawaiian Mission, the Central Pacific Mission, the Australian Mission, the New Zealand Mission, the Tongan Mission, the Samoan Mission, the Japanese Mission, and in company with President Robertson and President Aki, we officially opened a mission at Hong Kong, China.
SINCERITY OF MISSIONARIES
I have visited with every missionary in the respective missions who was there at the time of my visit. I have heard the testimonies of these young men and women, and I wish I could relay to you the language of sincerity and conviction which these young missionaries are carrying to the world. If there was ever a day in the history of this sorry old world when we needed to hear the voice of conviction and the language of sincerity, this is the time, and in all the world's confusion it is not only inspiring but refreshing to hear hundreds of our men and our women speaking a language of sincerity to all who will listen. I have heard their testimonies, and I have been inspired.
I have heard the testimonies of some who have said that their own parents were not very active in the Church. If any of those parents are within the sound of my voice, I trust that you will from this very moment sustain your sons and daughters by your own activity, by your own devotion to the Church while they are out in the world at your expense, giving their all in testifying that the gospel has been restored.
CHINESE MISSION
In China, at Hong Kong, on the fourteenth of July, in company with President Robertson and his wife and daughter, President Aki and his wife, and my wife, we went upon what is known as The Peak, the highest eminence overlooking the beautiful city of Hong Kong, and on to the mainland of China, and there we officially opened the mission by a brief service, each of us praying in turn. I will never forget the prayer of Brother Henry Aki, who, as he stood there, facing his homeland, with its four hundred and sixty-five million inhabitants, poured out his soul to God that he might be the means of bringing salvation to his kindred people. What great odds, brothers and sisters, one man holding the priesthood of God among four hundred and sixty-five million of his race! I was never so impressed with the preciousness of the priesthood of God as I was when that dear Chinese brother, who felt the burden that was upon him, implored God to bring salvation to his people.
In our prayers we included by reference the dedicatory prayer offered by President McKay in 1921, I think it was, when he asked God to open up the way for the gospel to be brought to that great nation. We will need missionaries for China-those who are willing to serve among a people who have not yet received the light and knowledge of the gospel.
OPPORTUNITIES IN JAPAN
In Japan we have one of the greatest opportunities for missionary service I have ever heard of or read of in the history of this Church. While I was there, we had twenty-seven missionaries in all of Japan among eighty million people, and coming to the services held by those twenty-seven missionaries were twenty-one hundred people, and they were coming to the missionaries; the missionaries were not seeking them out as we do in other missions of the Church. We would have the same results if we had three hundred missionaries among those eighty million people.
In the city of Tokyo I attended a conference at which we had five hundred in attendance. Possibly only fifty at that conference were members of the Church. We had a choir of ninety voices, young men and women who came about a hundred miles by bus to sing at the conference. They sang our hymns and our anthems, and not one of those ninety young men and women was yet a member of the Church. Some have joined since.
The director of our choir in Tokyo, a graduate of Cambridge University, a successful business man, directed the choir, made up of members and non-members, and it was just as good as many of the choirs I have heard here at home.
CITY OF SHIBATA
President Clissold and I went on one of our trips to the city of Shibata. The mayor of the city heard that we were coming, and after attending to some business with a gentleman about four miles from Shibata, we went into the mayor's office, and he asked us to come with him. We followed him upstairs over a bank building to a large chamber, and there assembled were one hundred and six of the leading businessmen and civic leaders of the city. He had phoned them and gone out to see them to bring them in to hear the ministers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After he introduced us,
he asked us to speak to those people as we saw fit. With the aid of an interpreter I bore my testimony. President Clissold spoke in Japanese, and at the conclusion of our talks the mayor said to the people: "Ladies and gentlemen, these are the representatives of the Church which we want established here in the city of Shibata." And he said to us: "Send immediately, missionaries," and the following week two missionaries were sent there, a Hawaiian sister and a Nisei Japanese sister from Hawaii who were there on missions.
The mayor of the city has turned over to them a big assembly room in another bank building, and he said: "They can use that until we have a chapel in the city of Shibata."
One of the wealthy men of the city has turned his home over to them as a residence, and in that residence they are holding cottage meetings.
Just outside the city of Shibata there is a man named Mr. Ichishima, who was the second largest landowner in Japan prior to the war. When we visited him, he had with him his banker, his lawyer, and two or three others, and after they had held a meeting together for an hour or so, they joined President Clissold and me, and Mr. Ichishima made a formal offer of his seventeen hundred acres, which surround his home, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for some project, school or otherwise. We told him we could not accept it without consulting the Authorities of the Church, and then he said: "Well, send missionaries immediately, not next month, not next year, but immediately."
And so the following week two missionaries were sent to Mr. Ichishima's home, and he turned part of his home over to them as a residence.
When President Mauss arrived in Japan, President Clissold took him to Tennen Shinden to show him this land, this estate. Mr. Ichishima met them at the railway station. The first thing he said to President Clissold was: "We had two hundred and fourteen out to church last Sunday-two hundred and fourteen!"
On his land is a private chapel which belongs to the estate, a Buddhist chapel, and they have boarded off the figure of Buddha and are using it as a chapel for our Church. Mr. Ichishima is the organist for the services. I believe it will not be long before he joins the Church.
REHABILITATION OF PEOPLE
I could go on, brothers and sisters, and tell you about the way these people are coming to our missionaries to study the gospel of Jesus Christ. They have this new freedom offered by the occupation government, and they are trying to make the most of it.
They are receiving the occupation forces of the United States, not as conquerors, but as deliverers, and it is magnificent the way they cooperate with General MacArthur and his forces in rehabilitating their country which was practically destroyed by our bombs. I never once felt a spirit or an undercurrent of opposition to our American forces, and I never heard one member of the occupation forces say an unkind word about the Japanese people. I thank God for General MacArthur who tries to understand the people, who knows as Lincoln knew that the best way to defeat our enemies is to make friends of them. And that is what the Americans are trying to do in Japan.
We have a marvelous opportunity there. The people will join the Church there if we give them the missionaries. They want to know the gospel.
MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES
They have a ladies' dressmaking school in the city of Tokyo. There are three hundred women attending this school, and they have invited a missionary to come over twice a week and teach the gospel to the school. So one of our young Nisei brothers goes over twice a week to hold an assembly of the three hundred women. He teaches the gospel to them in a meeting which lasts an hour and a half twice a week.
We have orphanages there where we are teaching Sunday Schools every Sunday morning. We have a school there at which one of the elders teaches English, and the head of the school said: "You may teach your gospel along with your English."
It is almost unbelievable, the work our missionaries are doing among the Japanese. They have been released from their allegiance to the emperor as a divine personage, and the people want to make the best of the opportunities which Christianity affords and which the freedom we have to give them affords.
PIONEER SPIRIT
I hope that we will do what Brother Merrill suggests, that we will preserve the heritage which we have. Confusion reigns all over this world. I wonder today what kind of valley we would have here now had there existed in the days of our pioneers the spirit which exists among men and women today, this spirit of wanting more and more for doing less and less.
I thought of the pioneers when I was in Japan. When I would arise in the morning, I would see those people out in their rice paddies and their little wheat fields, working from before daylight until after dark at night; it was a hive of industry; there was no idleness, no one looking to anyone else for support or for a livelihood, but all looking to the work of their own hands. And I prayed that the way would be opened for them to receive the means and the ways for bringing temporal salvation to them, eighty million people in an area the size of the state of California.
SUSTAINING OF MISSIONARIES
I testify to you, my brothers and sisters, that the Spirit of God is with your missionaries. They are teaching truth, and they know it. They are paying their own expenses or their people are paying their expenses. You cannot question that kind of sincerity.
It is a sad thing, my brothers and sisters, to hear people say in their testimonies, while they are giving their all for the Church, that in their own homes there are some who are not living the gospel and are not sustaining them in the positions which they hold. Let us begin this business of sustaining one another in our own homes. There is a power of regeneration in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It lifts us up if we will obey it.
I saw Japanese creating pearls at the Mikamoto Pearl Farm in Japan. I saw them injuring an oyster and from that injury creating a beautiful pearl. That can be done with human souls. Some of us may be damaged; some of us may have within ourselves foreign matter, foreign influences, but if we take within ourselves some of that live tissue of Christ-as they take from a live oyster and place in another one, killing the one to produce pearls in the other-if we do that, brothers and sisters, we can make ourselves and those who are not working in the Church, those who are not active in our own homes, pearls of great price. That is the gospel plan.
God grant that we may respond to it, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Bishop LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 49-54
I would have been very happy to give my time to Elder Cowley. I am sure we could all have listened another hour to his wonderful experiences while away and enjoyed the spirit he brings home to us. I love the spirit of this work. I have loved it all my life. I think it is the most wonderful thing in all the world.
GATHERING OF ISRAEL
To me, one of the greatest miracles the world has ever produced has been the fulfilment of the words of the prophets in the gathering of latter-day Israel and our establishment here in the tops of these mountains; this beautiful temple that stands on this block, our fertile valleys, and our very presence, for the Lord said he was married unto Israel, speaking of latter-day Israel,
... and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:
And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
And that is the reason for which we are gathered in this great conference here today, that we might be so fed.
We had the privilege of attending a meeting in the temple a week ago yesterday-all the General Authorities-preparatory to this conference, and one of the brethren, in bearing his testimony, indicated that as a boy he and his brother talked about the prophecies, and he said in substance, "If I ever live to see the Jews gathered back to Jerusalem, then I will know that the prophets knew what they were talking about."
Well, today, that is an obvious commonplace. We know, notwithstanding the fact that Jesus said that not one stone should be left upon another of their great temple, that that land should be plowed as an acre, and that they should be scattered, as the prophets indicated, among all nations and become a hiss and a byword, nevertheless the promise of the Lord was upon that land that it should be rebuilt, and that they should be gathered again and that it should become a great city. Compare that for a moment with the prophecy of Isaiah with respect to the great city of Babylon.
PROPHECIES FULFILLED
Isaiah had declared that Babylon should be destroyed and that it should never be rebuilt, that it should become the home of reptiles and wild animals, and that the Arab should no more pitch his tent there. Today no one would dare declare that the greatest city in the world, if destroyed, should never be rebuilt; but Babylon, the greatest city of its time, never has been rebuilt; the Arabs have not pitched their tents there because its ruins are full of reptiles and wild animals; but Jerusalem, the Lord had decreed, would be rebuilt, and it is now being built.
Brother Kimball, whose assignment is with the Indians, said that President Woodruff indicated that of all the prophecies that were the most difficult for him to believe and understand was the prophecy concerning how the Lord would fulfil all of his promises with respect to the Indians, and yet when we see the work the Church is undertaking today, and the response, similar in a way to what Brother Cowley has just reported from the islands, we can easily understand how the Lord will fulfil in every sense of the word the promises made to this great branch of the house of Israel.
BOOK OF MORMON VINDICATED
Some of us recall how President Grant, standing here in this pulpit, used to tell of his friend who graduated from college as a doctor, and he said to President Grant in substance: "I cannot accept your Book of Mormon because it is full of lies," and then he went on to talk about the fact that the Book of Mormon said that the former inhabitants of this land were experienced and trained in the use of cement. He said, "Everybody knows that is a lie. Cement is a modern product."
President Grant, having a testimony that the Book of Mormon was true, said: "If my children do not live to see vindicated the fact that they did build with cement and were proficient in its use, my grandchildren will live to see it." And he lived himself to see uncovered those great cement highways and cement buildings down in Central and South America, vindicating the truth of the words in the Book of Mormon. How would Joseph Smith have dared to write such things when the book was published in 1830 if he had been the author of it?
And another of the statements contained in the Book of Mormon which President Grant's doctor friend did not believe was where the Savior appeared here in the land of America following his resurrection, and the account says that his voice was heard all over the land, and this doctor said: "You know that is not true, for no man's voice can carry more than a few hundred feet," and yet today, as we speak from this Tabernacle, the voice is going out for thousands and thousands of miles, so today we have lived to see the truth of that statement substantiated.
CONDITIONS FORETOLD
There is another statement in the Book of Mormon that, in my judgment, no man could have made at the time the Book of Mormon was published, with any degree of assurance that he was telling the truth, and that is the statement in Second Nephi with respect to the work of the devil. I want to read a few words from the 28th Chapter of Second Nephi:
For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger, and perish;
For behold, at that day shall he rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger, against that which is good.
And others he will pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well-and thus the devil cheateth their souls and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.
And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none-and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance.
I doubt if there was a Christian minister in all the world who would have said there was no devil at the time the Book of Mormon was published in 1830, and yet when a questionnaire was sent out by the Northwestern University School of Religion in 1934 to five hundred Christian ministers, of the five hundred, fifty-four percent, or two hundred and seventy of them, said: "There is no devil." Thirty-nine percent, or one hundred and ninety-five, said there would be no judgment day; and eighty percent were opposed to teaching that hell was a place of burning.
SATAN DECEIVES WORLD
If the world could just get rid of the devil, probably it would be a different world. They little realize how much his influence and power is being felt, for, in the words of Isaiah: He decreed that he would exalt his throne above the stars of God, that he would become like unto the Most High John, the Revelator, saw the history of this world from its beginning, when there was war in heaven, and he saw Satan with a third of the hosts of heaven cast down upon this earth, and he saw that he should deceive the whole world.
This does not leave very many out, and after listening to the brethren today we realize that we must be very careful if we are not going to be deceived, and in the words of the Book of Mormon:
... he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance.
You remember the experience the Savior had when he went out in the wilderness and found a man possessed of the devil. No one needed to introduce the Savior because they had known each other in the spirit world; since Satan brought with him the knowledge he had there, he said in substance: "Why hast thou come to persecute us before our time, O Jesus, thou Son of the Most High?".
And then you remember the conversation that ensued and how the Savior cast him out, and he asked his name, and he said: "Legion," because many spirits had entered into the body of this man, and at their request, Jesus permitted them to enter the bodies of the swine, and the swine ran off into the river and were drowned.
EXPERIENCES IN HOLLAND
I would like to relate an experience I had with two of my missionary companions in Amsterdam, Holland. We went into a home for dinner. The mother was not a member of the Church; her son and daughter were. As we finished our meal, I asked her how it was she had never joined the Church. "Well," she said, "President Richards", "I find it too hard to live. I just could not keep the Word of Wisdom."
I began to explain to her that the Lord did not give us the Word of Wisdom to deprive us of anything that we ought to have or that was good for us but to protect us against the destructive elements that would destroy the vitality of our bodies, and with that a spirit took possession of her, and instead of the sweet, lovely soul that she was, she began to roll her eyes and looked up at me and in the most sneering voice I have ever been addressed in my life, said: "Who are you?"
I replied: "I am a servant of the Lord."
Then she turned to her daughter and said: "And who are you?" She answered: "I am the daughter of the house." Then she turned to me again and asked the same question, and when I replied that I was a servant of the Lord, she said: "So, if you are a servant of the Lord then I have nothing to do here."
With that I called my companions. We laid our hands upon her head. We rebuked the evil spirits. We commanded them to depart from her and that house, and she fell limp on the floor. We carried her in on the bed, and after giving her a drink, in a short time she was her natural self again. The daughter told us that her mother and father had come to America some years previous, and they had something to do with spiritualism here, and she said: "Now the spirits come and annoy her in the night, knocking on the wall until she cannot sleep."
We had another friend in The Hague in Holland tell us that because he had interested himself in spiritualism, if he went to bed at night without praying, the spirits would literally lift him out of his bed and make him kneel down and pray.
There is not time to discuss this matter further, but I want to tell you that there is a spirit of the evil one in this world and he is trying to destroy the souls of men and gather them into his net, and he is trying to do it with our young people.
I would like to read a few words from an article that appeared in one of our recent magazines to show how the devil, whispering in their ears, tries to lead men and women away and ensnare them in his net, as Nephi says.
CHASTITY
I will read the first paragraph of the article entitled "Is Chastity Outmoded?"
Today we talk about sex with an unembarrassed frankness that would have filled our grandparents with amazement and horror. This new liberty in speech has its counterpart in behavior. In many circles the traditional restraints in sex conduct are considered stuffy and out of fashion. Chastity, say many modern people, is outmoded.
What in the world could the devil, the enemy of all righteousness, desire more than to make our young people think that chastity is outmoded? To accomplish this, he must make them believe there is no devil, and that there is no hell or judgment day. Thus "he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance".
Now I want to quote from another recent magazine article entitled "The Mistake." This article tells of a boy and girl who made a mistake the night of their graduation from high school, which mistake was followed by the birth of a baby. I want to read the last paragraph of that article which shows how Satan whispered in their ears that everything could be covered up, but how they found through their own experience that this was not true, because he is the father of all lies.
"I'm sorry, darling, for everything."
"Don't be," he said, "we're in it together, and we'll get out of it together."
But later upstairs, long after he was asleep, long after the house and street outside were quiet, Janet turned her head and buried her face in the pillow to stifle the sound the sobs made. Because it wasn't true, as people had said, that you could make a mistake and pay for it. You made a mistake and then you settled down, as she and Ken were doing, to live with it for all the rest of your life.
I read an article in the newspaper at the close of the war, indicating that in Germany there were thirteen thousand illegitimate babies whose fathers were American boys!
Do you believe that in the eternal worlds those boys will ever be able to forgive themselves for having brought sons and daughters into this world-their own flesh and blood-for whom they have never claimed fatherhood and for whom they have never discharged their duty as fathers? We should remember the words of the Prophet Alma to his son Corianton, and teach them to our children:
Know ye not, my son, that these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost?.
Now, brothers and sisters, Satan is working every way he can to get us to disobey the commandments of God, and I tell you he would have every man and every woman profaning; he would have them all living immoral lives; he would have them disregard every commandment of the Lord if he could, in order that he might do what he had decreed to do, exalt his throne above the stars of God, and become like unto the Most High.
May God help us to recognize the power of evil in the world and to shun it and to serve the living God, I pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Harold B. Lee
Harold B. Lee, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 54-59
I have rejoiced with you this afternoon at the excellence of the addresses which have been delivered, and I pray that for these few moments I may be strengthened by your faith and prayers.
In President George Albert Smith's opening remarks this morning he made reference to the two great forces contending in the world today with the human soul as the prize, and he admonished the Latter-day Saints to stay "on the Lord's side."
POWER OF EVIL
I was reminded of that as the brethren have spoken, particularly Bishop Richards, of the power of evil extant in the world today, and some evidences of that power. As I thought of that, I have remembered that in the life of the boy-prophet, Joseph Smith, before he was given the outbursting of two of the greatest revelations that have ever been given to man, both of those revelations were preceded by a demonstration of the power of evil-in the Sacred Grove, and on the Hill Cumorah. It seemed to have been necessary that the Prophet was to understand the nature and power of that force in order that he could be prepared to contend successfully against it.
The Master, just before his crucifixion, in fact, it was immediately after the Last Supper, after Satan had entered into Judas Iscariot, as the scriptures record, as he received the sop from the Savior and departed to the place of the betrayal, the Master then proceeded to converse with the other eleven. Whether this took place as he stood at the table or on their way to the place of the betrayal or in the temple, we have no definite way of knowing, but in that conversation the Master gave expression to this significant statement:
Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.
That statement, which is the quotation from the King James Version, is given more significance by the Prophet Joseph in the Inspired Version when he quoted it thus:
... the prince of darkness, who is of this world, cometh, but hath no power over me, but he hath power over you ).
SATAN'S DOMINION
In a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith, his preface to his commandments in this dispensation, the Lord said this, making it still clearer as to the nature of this force of evil:
For I am no respecter of persons, and will that all men shall know that the time speedily cometh; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand, when peace shall be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his own dominion.
Satan's dominion, as the Lord has further explained, was the dominion of those who do wickedly in and throughout the world. Bishop Richards has called attention to the fact of the disbelief among many in such a being as Satan, and he has shown us that such disbelievers, without their knowing it, are but giving fulfilment to a prophecy uttered twenty-five hundred years ago to the effect that such disbelief and denial of the existence of hell and Satan would be one of the things which would come in this latter day.
Satan, or the devil, is known by various terms. He is called the dragon; he is called the serpent; he is called perdition; he is called Lucifer; and he is called the adversary or the prince of darkness ). After an encounter with Moses with this master of darkness, the Lord appeared and told Moses who Satan was, that he was one of the sons of God who came to Elohim with a proposition before this world was that would have destroyed the agency of man. Satan was cast out with all those who followed after him, and they became those striving in this earth in a further effort to destroy the agency of man.
POWERS OF DARKNESS
In a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith the Lord said that Satan drew after him a third part of the spirits whom God created, and that they with Satan became the force in the world to try to destroy the work of righteousness. That power was spoken of by Isaiah in a vision which he received which he called a grievous vision, in which it was said: "Set a watchman on the tower to tell what he seeth and report the coming of horsemen and chariots," but a voice spoke out of Mount Seir saying, "Watchman, what of the night". "Watchman, what of the night," suggesting that, more to be feared than the enemies that could be perceived with the physical senses or could be seen by physical eyes were the powers of darkness that came unseen by physical eyes.
That same thought was in the mind of the Master, no doubt, when he said:
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
The Apostle Paul seemed to understand very clearly this same power when he declared:
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
IMPORTANCE OF DEFENSES
Using words that are common to modern warfare, we might say that there are in the world today fifth columnists who are seeking to infiltrate the defenses of every one of us, and when we lower those defenses, we open avenues to an invasion of our souls. There are carefully charted on the maps of the opposition the weak spots in every one of us. They are known to the forces of evil, and just the moment we lower the defense of any one of those ports, that becomes the D Day of our invasion, and our souls are in danger.
The experiences and the examples of many cases recited in testimonies in this and other dispensations of the gospel seem clearly to indicate that whenever we allow ourselves to become doubtful, bitter in our souls, melancholy, and otherwise downcast, or despondent, we open avenues to the forces which are ready to take us in a snare just the moment these weaknesses are discovered in us.
POWER OF GOD IN WEAKNESS
With these things clearly understood and taught by the scriptures, it seems that we should do well today to look to ourselves as leaders and members of the Church of Jesus Christ. The Lord has told us in the scriptures that Satan is an enemy of all righteousness; because of that fact, those who are standing in high places in our Father's kingdom will become the objects of his attacks. You may well expect, as the Apostle Paul understood, that you who preside in the various places in our Father's kingdom will be subject to the devil's onslaughts. The Apostle Paul said this:
And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan of buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
So it is with you who in Zion preside in the various places. Sometimes there is given infirmity, difficulty, hardship upon you to try your souls; and the powers of Satan seem to be enrolled against you, watching and trying to break down your powers of resistance; but your weakness, through those infirmities, will give you the power of God that shall rest upon you even as the Apostle Paul was reconciled and comforted by the thought that through his trials the power of God might rest upon him.
SATAN'S ABILITY TO DECEIVE
Satan has been said to have the power to transform himself into an angel of light; and because of that ability to transform himself, the Apostle Paul asked the Corinthians:
Do you think it is any great thing that his ministers can likewise transform themselves into ministers of righteousness,
in order that they might lead the children of men astray. Because of Satan's ability thus to cleverly deceive, the Lord has given us a key in the scriptures by which we may be able to detect him when he comes presenting himself as that angel of light. And so we are told to be constantly on guard against these things.
Moroni said it is as easy as it is to tell the darkness from the daylight to discover evil from righteousness, for, "the devil persuadeth men continually to do evil and to believe not in Christ, but to deny him, and to serve not God nor keep his commandments. And he persuadeth no man to do good, neither his angels, neither do they who subject themselves unto him".
ARMOR OF GOD
Because of that power of evil which is so strong in the world today, the great teacher to the Gentiles declared:
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, in an evil day.
But he taught a remarkable lesson. He pictured each of us as a man of armor, clothed on various strategic points of his body with armor that would protect him against the onslaughts of evil. He said "Have a girdle around your loins", suggesting the very thing which Bishop Richards has spoken to us about, that one of the avenues by which he finds most easy to overthrow humankind is unchastity. So the Apostle Paul admonished that we have a girdle around our loins.
We are counseled to put on the breastplate of righteousness over our hearts, suggesting that our conduct in life should always be right and proper. Have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, or in other words, our objectives, the goal we set out to achieve in life be in harmony with the gospel of peace; and have on the helmet of salvation and take the shield of faith and the sword or the spirit, which is the word of God. Thus armored, we are now prepared with the weapons common to the warfare of Paul's day, comparable to those things which we would have in similar way upon us today, to attack and to fight successfully and to win this battle in which the forces of evil and the forces of righteousness are contending today.
EXPERIENCE WITH POWER OF EVIL
I want to bear you my solemn witness that I know there are such forces in the world today. It would seem to me somewhat significant as I have thought about it, that the first and only experience of its kind I ever had, came shortly after I came into the Council of the Twelve when I was asked to administer to a young woman who was possessed of an evil spirit. Seemingly, there might have been a purpose in letting me know that these powers were around. In this experience, as I was challenged by the evil spirit, the hairs on my head felt as though pin pricks were in every hair and coursing down my body. I knew in that experience the power of evil, and I knew again the superior power of the priesthood and the powers of the Living God. I came on that occasion to understand what the Savior admonished in his day to his disciples when he said: "The prince of the darkness which is of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me".
He was trying to impress upon his disciples likewise that Satan would come to each of them with cunning, temptation and deceit. Latter-day Saints, the prince of darkness which is of this world cometh among us today. He is knocking without the door of every one of us, of you and me and all who bear the names within themselves of the gospel of Jesus Christ, of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I pray God that he may find nothing in us, and will go away and let us alone.
I bear you my testimony that I know these powers are in the world and I know the powers of the gospel of Jesus Christ are sufficient to thwart these powers of darkness. God give us strength and understanding sufficient to our day, to help us to live worthy of the callings to which we have been called and be able successfully to assail these powers of darkness, and to win in this greatest of all combats known in the world today. I pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder John A. Widtsoe
John A. Widtsoe, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 61-65
My dear brethren and sisters, I trust and pray that while I speak I may be guided by the Holy Spirit of God, that some of my words at least may touch the hearts of some of those who listen.
It is good to meet in these great conferences. Thousands of us are of one mind, of one faith, of one purpose. It is always good to bear witness to the reality of the restoration of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I bear that witness for myself that this is indeed the work of God, that we are not following a mistaken path, but that we are walking in the light of truth, and that more than one hundred years of existence of this Church of the restoration have demonstrated the truth, the integrity, and the reality of the work begun under divine direction by the Prophet Joseph.
A GREAT HERITAGE
We have a great heritage, we Latter-day Saints, a heritage of doctrine, of practice, of tradition. I know of none like it. Just as these conferences coming every six months stand out as unique in the history of the world, so that which we have inherited from those who have gone before us is equally unique and distinctive. It is our duty to respect this heritage, to honor it, and to use it. Things that are not used are dead. They are of little or no value to human kind. It is only by use that knowledge and all the possessions of mankind blossom into life and become of real value.
If this were a testimony meeting, there are thousands here who would bear witness to their knowledge of the truth of this work. A testimony is a living thing. Like all living things it must be fed and nourished and cared for if it is really to be of service and value in human life and in carrying out the purposes of the Lord. So the heritage, that which has been given us, must be used to become effective in the building of God's kingdom.
We have noble traditions handed down from the past. My mind has been concerned for some time with one of these traditions. Some may say that this tradition is not spiritual, therefore not part of the gospel, but the Lord himself has said to some of his servants in early days that before him all things are spiritual, provided, as I understand it, they are used in the building of God's kingdom.
A LAND-LOVING PEOPLE
We Latter-day Saints are a land-loving people. We believe in the land. We are a land-using people. Most of us are farmers, directly or indirectly. Some few years ago-not many years ago-in a census then taken, approximately sixty-five percent, at least, of our people were engaged in agriculture, in tilling the soil, or in making use of the things that grow upon the mountains, in the valleys and on the deserts. That has given us strength. I hope that we as a people will not depart from that tradition. Those who own the land and use it in the end will determine the future of mankind. It will not come from those who work in the factories or who live in crowded cities; from those whose feet are planted upon the land will come the great determining factors in shaping human destiny. It has been so in the past. It will be so in the future. We Latter-day Saints must ever remember the sanctity and the holiness of the land given us by the Father. There is safety in the land.
NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA
Most of us live in the western part of the United States. In all these western states, in Utah, the mother of them all, a new era is opening, an industrial era. Nature has laid down in these western territories large quantities of raw materials, many, most of them perhaps, of a non-metallic character. These deposits will be used more and more in the future. There will be a reaching out to supply the needs of mankind by the use of these raw materials, of which great deposits have been laid down by nature throughout the centuries. I am afraid a good many of us will be tempted to say, "I'll join the industrial procession. I will forget the land." This industrial era is welcomed. There's no question about that; but as it arises, we must keep our minds steadily upon the old established tradition that we are a land-loving and land-using people. We must remember that industry itself thrives best in the midst of an agricultural community. Witness the social troubles of today in our own land. Analyze them, and you soon discover that if we had built, as the Saints a century ago wanted us to build, we would have escaped many of the troubles, chiefly by giving heed to the call of the land.
STRENGTH FROM SOIL
When Joseph Smith laid out his ideal city many years ago, he planned it so that while the farms would all be around the city, every homestead would have a kitchen garden in the rear of the house and a flower garden in front. There was tremendous wisdom in that. Men, no matter what their work may be, or what their daily callings may require of them, if steadily and vigorously they touch the soil, be it ever so lightly or ever so small an acreage, perhaps a back yard, will receive from that contact spiritual strength. There is something in the soil and mother earth that gives strength to all who make things grow on the land.
One great man in our history, Henry Ford, sensing this thing, undertook some years ago to make arrangements by which all the employees of one of his factories might be provided with homes surrounded by a little acreage, on which the owners might toil or play throughout the year, and thereby take away the monotony that follows work in a factory. The plan has only partially been carried out as yet, but thinking men are looking in that direction for social safety.
Some years ago, at the time of the first great war, we undertook in Salt Lake City, in common with other cities, to raise all the foodstuff we could on vacant lots and in the back yards of the city. We were not successful in converting all of them to small farms, but quite a number were so converted. When the season was over and we took an inventory of what we had done, we found that six hundred thousand dollars worth of food had been raised in the back yards and vacant lots of Salt Lake City. That was a real contribution to our war needs in those days.
RECLAMATION OF LAND
Our young people often say, "There is no more land, none for us." To my office come quite regularly men, usually young men, who want to know where to go to find new land. There is much land still available in the west. We can make more if we want to, for nearly all of these western states lie under irrigation. I trust you of Utah will not feel embarrassed when I tell you that the water now used in the state of Utah could be made to serve twice the area now being served. We have it in our own power, with the canals and reservoirs and conditions that exist today, to double the area of cultivated land in this state alone. The same holds true in nearly all the western states. Moreover, it is a pity that the hundreds of pioneer irrigation projects in this and neighboring states, built by the pioneers in their poverty, with their small means and poor tools, remain unfinished. In the state of Utah alone we have hundreds of pioneer irrigation projects waiting for modern pioneers to finish them with modern appliances, modern means. That is the challenge of the pioneer spirit to young and old. We are fixing our eyes too much upon the great projects. They will come, but meanwhile the little projects scattered all over this western country should be our first obligation as individuals, as communities. The states and federal government will and must take care of the larger ones.
FERTILITY OF SOIL
I have noticed also, to my sorrow throughout a rather long life now, that the fertility of our soils seems to be diminishing. Our crop yields are not what they were some years ago, using the same kind of methods as we used then. There seems to be a diminution. That is not the way we should preserve our heritage. When the pioneers came into the west, they found great areas of land made fertile by centuries of sunshine, wind, and rain, frost, and summer heat. Plant food lay upon the top of the soil, so to speak. We have used it, but have not paid back what we have taken from the land. In spiritual and in temporal matters the law of paying for what man gets is ever uppermost.
You farmers who are here, you children of farmers, you understand what I mean. The soil is a willing servant. It yields to the farmer if the farmer treats it right. Forty-nine or fifty years ago this last June I visited the great Rothhamsted Agricultural Experiment Station, the mother of the hundreds of experiment stations in the world. The head of the station kindly spent a day with me. He took me to a rolling hill, rather two hills with a valley between, and showed me about ten strips of the same crop, originally, then in full blossom. One was red, another blue, and still another yellow, each one bearing a different color. As we stood admiring the scene in the beautiful English June sunshine, he said, "All that has come because we have asked the soil to do certain things in a certain way, and the soil has responded. That which we started with has disappeared under the influence of our culture." Nearby, was another field where wheat had been grown continuously for fifty years. The soil still tried its best to do its duty, but there was only a small yield. In a nearby field, properly handled, the wheat stood high, comparable with the best.
Man has control over the earth. The Lord has given us mastery. We are not servants upon the face of the earth. We should use that mastery to preserve our heritage. This theme may not be directly spiritual, but it is important to help us in our spiritual lives, perhaps as important as anything that we give our attention to as a people.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
I rejoice at the testimonies borne here today and yesterday. I have enjoyed them very much. I have been thrilled by them. I could see running through the talks the age-old principles that have made us what we are today, a great people, new witnesses of Christ. I saw in the talks the foundation stones of this work here mentioned one after the other by those who spoke yesterday. Faith has always been the most important cornerstone of our lives in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is basic to know that God lives, that the story of Joseph Smith is true, that the Lord loves us, and has a great destiny for us. Every speaker touched upon that. Another foundation stone is that we must seek intelligence, education, learning, knowledge. I was thrilled by the quotation made by President Young yesterday, showing how the early hard-handed farmers of middle age or beyond gathered after the day's toil to study Latin, Greek, and subjects of the mind. We must not forsake the tradition of education. Our fathers set up also the doctrine of industry. There is no place for idleness. The idler, the deliberate idler, has no real place in the kingdom of God. All these principles have been bound together by another foundation stone, helping one another, which we call in modern language "cooperation." We cannot be individual members of the Church sufficient unto ourselves. The very fact of membership in the Church and our testimonies compel us to think of our neighbor as we go through life. With these guiding principles: faith, education, industry, and cooperation, with our feet firmly on the land, we are safe. Disaster cannot overtake us.
Now these principles and others were mentioned yesterday. They are always mentioned. There is nothing new in the age-old gospel taught by the Lord to Father Adam when the story of man upon this earth began.
I am grateful to be a member of this Church, to be one with you. I trust I am one with you. I am grateful for the blessings that flow to those who are faithful in this great work. May we all be faithful and worthy of the blessings we need and desire, I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Clifford E. Young
Clifford E. Young, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 65-68
I sincerely trust, my brethren and sisters, that what I may say may be prompted by the inspiration of the Lord. I repeat again what I have said sometimes before, it is always an overwhelming thing for me to stand before you, and yet we Latter-day Saints have so much in common that, because of the vastness of our assembly, we should not unnecessarily be disturbed; but somehow or other as one stands here, it is impossible to overcome this feeling.
I read something the other day that is encouraging. Someone said that a person's brain was a most marvelous mechanism, that it begins to work at one's birth and never stops until one stands up and attempts to speak in public.
PRACTICAL RELIGION
I appreciate very much the remarks of Brother Widtsoe. There is something about our theology, our religion, that is so practical, and of course it necessarily must be so. Mormonism is a practical religion. Indeed no religion is of much value unless it has a practical application.
Last winter some of us had a rather unusual experience. We were coming from the East on a train of luxury. We had left Chicago in the afternoon, having all the comforts that one could desire, in fact more than one needed-warmth, plenty of food; the train was almost a palace, and we were riding at ease, feeling so secure. The next morning we found ourselves in the throes of a blizzard, snowbound. That night the heat was off in the train, and by the next morning there was no food. For some time it was too cold to leave the train because of the intense blizzard. Later we found shelter in some railroad houses where we had some heat. The blizzard continued until the third day when it eased enough so that the railroad company could procure planes from Fort Warren, the military base near Cheyenne, and food could be brought in by airplanes. Even then we did not get much of it because the gale was so severe that the food was scattered to the four winds. But it brought home this realization: we may be secure today and yet suddenly be placed in a position of want. These things can happen so suddenly that it behooves us to be on our guard constantly, to be always in a position to follow those who counsel us as to what we should do in these important matters.
We have been told of the great growth of the welfare plan, and we are proud of it. As one views the welfare films which depict the marvelous growth of this agency in the Church, one cannot help sensing a deep feeling of pride, gratitude for the blessings that we enjoy as Latter-day Saints; that we belong to a Church that is practical; that when we pray for the needy and those who may be in want, we not only pray but we also do something about it. Our people are a praying people. We should be a praying people, but we cannot accomplish much, my brothers and sisters, at least that has been my experience, by just sitting or kneeling down and praying, and then doing nothing about it. The Lord never intended that.
WORK ACCOMPLISHED
In the very beginning of the Church, the Prophet Joseph had to work. The Lord gave him a task that was seemingly insurmountable. He revealed the sacred record, the Book of Mormon, and instructed him to translate it. When you recall the fact that here was an unlearned youth with no schooling, no education in the light of what we today call education, who was given a sacred record and told to translate it and that God would help him, it becomes one of the most challenging things that we have in Church history. Consider the fact that the Book of Mormon contains a vocabulary of over five thousand different words Think of the magnitude of the task! The Lord expects his servants to work. He expects us to work, and here he was teaching the Prophet Joseph something fundamental in this Church. When the Pioneers came out here, these valleys were not made to blossom as the rose by the people's merely kneeling down and praying. They had to do something about it. The Lord expected it, and they did do something about it.
I remember reading a statement of Emerson Hough, made after he had visited southern Utah. When he saw what had been accomplished in the building of a canal on the Rio Virgin through the solid rock, it was a challenge to him. The desert was made literally to blossom as the rose. And when he saw it and learned that the men had been called on the job through an announcement of the bishop in a Sabbath day meeting-a request for men and teams with their scrapes and wagons-they had no mechanized machinery in those days-and those men responded and for their pay received shares in the irrigation canal-when Emerson Hough saw all this and learned the story, he said, "Only a Mormon bishop could accomplish such a thing."
PRAYER AND WORKS
We are proud, my brothers and sisters, that the Lord has established this practice among us, and it is a glorious privilege and a blessing for all of us that when we pray for those who are in need, we have something with which we can help the Lord to answer our prayers. I do not want to be misunderstood in this. I know that the Lord can hear and answer our prayers, but he does not always answer them in the way we would like to have them answered. He answers them in his way, and in a way that gives strength and character to his people, gives faith to them.
My father was a physician. I recall one time going with him to administer to someone who was very ill, and I remember his counsel. After father had administered to this brother, he gave him some advice saying: "Now, you do these things, and they will help you to get well," and the brother said: "Well, Brother Young, can't the Lord heal me?" Father said: "Of course the Lord can heal you, but the Lord has given us ways and means that will help us to be healed, and he expects us to use them."
FAITH OF DR. MIDDLETON
I recall another occasion that came into the experience of Sister Young and me when our only boy was seriously ill. At that time peritonitis was generally fatal. This boy had had it for several days, and it appeared to be a hopeless case. The surgeon, the late Dr. George W. Middleton, who operated on the boy, removed what little of his appendix he could. He remained with us all night, and the next morning told us that we should prepare for the worst. I pay tribute to Dr. Middleton. He was a man of great faith. Those who knew him knew that he had faith. Sometimes he was regarded as too liberal in his thinking, but he did have faith in the providence and the priesthood of the Almighty. Finally he said: "Let us administer to this boy." I anointed him, and I recall the substance of Dr. Middleton's sealing prayer. "Father," he said, "we have done all that we can for this boy. We ask thee now with thy divine power to touch him and to heal him and to sanctify to his good the things that we in our weak way have done." That prayer stimulated faith. The Lord healed our boy.
NECESSITY OF WORK
It is a glorious privilege, my brethren and sisters, to belong to this Church, a Church that is practical. We have great spiritual powers. These practical things have the elements of spirituality about them.
Anyone who knew anything about the Prophet Brigham Young knew that he was spiritual, that he had unlimited faith, but with it all he realized that his people had to work and had to struggle for what they received, and he inspired the people to provide for themselves. It is said on one occasion that President Young was in a meeting where the brethren were discussing some theological subjects, a meeting that had been called in Nauvoo while the temple was being built. President Young arose and said: "If you will excuse me, I should like to go and work on the temple." It is a striking example of work where work is necessary.
Now we are faced today with some rather serious problems, and I say to you that we will be grateful before we are through that we have within this Church those elements that teach us to provide and to help the Lord to provide for the things for which we pray, and when we pray for those who are in need, we are prepared to help the Lord in answering those prayers.
SPIRITUAL NEEDS
Now, there is another phase of it. We frequently pray for those who mourn and who are bowed down with sorrow, and that is as it should be, but we have the same elements of comfort in the operation of the Holy Priesthood. We are constantly urging our brethren and sisters to visit our people and to administer to them in their spiritual needs. That is another practical way of carrying out some of the teachings that we hold dear. Our ward teachers and our Relief Society teachers have a charge to bring comfort to those who are less fortunate than we and who may be spiritually bowed down, who may be lacking in the things that feed the soul. We can bring comfort to them and help them in their problems.
I repeat that I am not unmindful that sometimes the Lord does not always answer the prayers the way we would like to have them, but he does answer them the way they should be. At times we may need physical blessings, and we do not always receive them, but we receive spiritual blessings and those spiritual blessings help us to make adjustments and to feel that no matter what is, it will be right if we are in tune with the Holy Spirit. The Lord does not expect us to be selfish about it. He expects us to acknowledge his hand, and then we shall be prepared for whatever comes. That is the spirit of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and may God help us that we may always have it. I am grateful to you, my brethren and sisters, for your association, for the strength that I feel as I visit among you in your stakes. I am grateful for my brethren with whom I am associated, for their loving kindness and for their faith. I am grateful to the Lord for his goodness to me. I pray that we may never fail in acknowledging him and in doing the things that we should do to further his work temporally and spiritually, and I humbly ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Milton R. Hunter
Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 69-75
My dear brethren and sisters, as I look into the faces of this vast congregation I feel indeed very humble. I ask our Father in heaven if he will direct the things I say.
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST
Whenever I hear the song sung, "I Know that My Redeemer Lives," I thrill throughout my entire body. This morning I would like to bear testimony to the divinity of Jesus Christ and point out a few highlights of his great mission. I know as I know that I am standing here this morning-and I am certainly thoroughly convinced of that fact-that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world, our Redeemer, our Lord, our Advocate with the Father, the Master of the plan of salvation, the Judge of this earth; and, in conjunction with the Father, he is our Lord, our God, and our King.
We read in modern revelation that Jesus Christ was and is our elder brother, the "Firstborn" unto the Father. We accept, as Latter-day Saints, the teachings of the prophets to the effect that Jesus of Nazareth was the Only Begotten Son of the Eternal Father in the flesh; therefore, the revelation I referred to points back to a previous birth, a birth in the spirit world. You and I were sons and daughters of our Eternal Parents in the spirit world. In fact, all the people in this world were of that family, and Jesus Christ was the Firstborn.
PRE-MORTAL LIFE
During his pre-mortal life Jesus Christ rose to the status of Godhood. At that time he was foreordained to be the Savior of this world. Father Abraham was privileged to see in vision the grand council in heaven that was held prior to the peopling of this earth, and he saw, as the Lord showed him, "many of the noble and great ones." The Lord pointed out:
These I will make my rulers.... Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.
Joseph Smith tells us that at that grand council the head God of all the Gods called the council, and the purpose was to present a plan whereby his children were to come into mortal earth and have the experience of mortality and then return back into the presence of God. The Eternal Father explained to his children that mortal beings would forget their premortal experiences and the gospel truths after they had come from the presence of God and, therefore, they would have to have a Savior in order that they might be taught the Gospel truths again. He also declared that they would not have the power to break the bands of death and bring about resurrection and that they would have to have a Savior for that purpose also.
As he explained these things, he asked whom he should send to be the Savior. Abraham saw that there stood one in the midst of the group in the grand council in heaven "like unto God". That one answered and said: "Here am I, send me". He said that he would come down to this earth and give men their free agency,
And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon;... and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever,
and all the honor and the glory should go to the Father.
MISSION OF JESUS CHRIST
Abraham saw that the Eternal Father was very pleased with this one like unto him and said that he would send him. At that time he ordained Jesus Christ, we say "foreordained" him, for his great mission. He ordained him to be the first great high priest over this earth and gave unto him the keys of the priesthood. God gave the Only Begotten the same power that he the Eternal Father enjoyed, the power to do all of the works of the Father with and for the Father. Elohim named that priesthood after his Only Begotten Son. In the relationship to this earth, it was to be called:
... the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God.
It bore that name among mortals down to the time of Abraham and Melchizedek.
The Eternal Father also told his Son that he would name the plan of salvation after him. Thereupon he named it the gospel of Jesus Christ. And on that occasion an eternal decree went forth from the throne of God that there would be no other name given under heaven whereby mankind could be saved, save the name of Jesus Christ. With that eternal decree going forth, we know that the true Church must bear that name throughout all ages.
There are two great factors in atonement or in the assignment given to the Savior. One was to break the bands of death and give every man immortality, i.e., resurrection. The other was to teach a gospel plan whereby if you and I and all other mortals would render obedience, we would not only receive immortality, but we would be also brought back into the presence of God. There we would receive exaltation along with him, sharing with our Father and his Only Begotten Son all the same type of glory, power, honor, and happiness that they enjoy.
GOSPEL PLAN REVEALED
Shortly after Adam and Eve became mortal beings, or at that time, Jesus Christ began his active mission upon this earth as the Savior of this world, as a mediator between the heavens and the earth, as the one to bring the gospel to mankind; in other words, he began his work to bring about the atonement. He did so by revealing to Father Adam and Mother Eve the gospel plan of salvation. As they had passed into mortality, a veil had been drawn over their minds, as the Lord had predicted would be; therefore, they had become spiritually dead; i.e., they forgot their premortal experiences and the gospel doctrines and were banished from the presence of God. They became spiritually alive by applying the message that they received from their Savior. During Adam's period and throughout Old Testament days, Jesus was known as Jehovah. He spoke at times to Adam from the Garden of Eden. At times he appeared to the first man, and on other occasions he sent angels to teach the father of the human family eternal truths, until Adam had a fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just the same as you and I as Latter-day Saints enjoy a fulness of the gospel in our dispensation. On one occasion, after Adam had been commanded to offer sacrifices, this particular event occurred. To quote:
And after many days an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me.
And then the angel spake, saying: This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth.
Wherefore, thou do all thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shall repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore.
SALVATION THROUGH JESUS
Shortly after that event occurred, the voice of the Lord came to Adam, as is recorded in The Pearl of Great Price, and told him that in the Meridian of Time that his Only Begotten would come into the world, would live and teach man how to live, would die and break the bands of death, and bring about the atonement. And then the voice of God pointed out to Adam that the name of his Only Begotten would be:
... Jesus Christ, the only name which shall be given under heaven, whereby salvation shall come to the children of men.
Therefore even in the beginning, in the first dispensation of the gospel, that same eternal decree went forth that the name of Jesus Christ would be the one whereby you and I could expect salvation, or even more than that, exaltation in the kingdom of God.
Following the days of Adam, Jesus Christ continued to serve as the mediator between the heavens and the earth by revealing the gospel to the numerous prophets during the various gospel dispensations. On a number of occasions he even appeared to some of the great prophets.
EARTHLY MISSION
Finally, as the holy prophets had predicted, in the Meridian of Time Jesus Christ came into this world. Latter-day Saints accept the doctrine that he was actually and literally the Son, heir in the flesh, of God the Eternal Father. He was born of the Virgin Mary. He was the only man in this life who was born into mortality of the Eternal Father. As I have already stated, you and I are all sons and daughters of God in the spirit world, but Christ's mortal birth, being actually the Son of God, gave him that extra power of godliness needed to be the Savior of the world. In other words, being the Only Begotten gave him power to be the one to break the bands of death. Thus he was endowed by the Father with power within himself over life and death. Also, he is the only perfect man who ever lived, showing us the way whereby you and I might become perfect if we will follow his example.
After living thirty-three years of that type of perfect life, three years of which were devoted to intensive missionary work, the Man of Galilee was crucified. Three days later he rose from the grave, as the prophets had foretold, thereby becoming the "firstfruits" of the resurrection. He broke the bands of death and not only made it possible for all men to be resurrected, but he also made it absolutely necessary. No matter how righteously people live here in mortality or no matter how wickedly they live, every man, woman, and child is promised immortality, i.e., resurrection. They must come forth from the grave and stand before the seat of Jesus Christ to be judged for the actions they committed while they lived here on this earth.
CHURCH ORGANIZED
As Brother Benson very beautifully pointed out yesterday, while Christ was here living among mortals, he organized a church. It became a great church, especially in numbers. But, as Brother Benson pointed out, as time passed this church dropped into darkness. Thousands and thousands of pagans joined this church, and they brought into it their pet pagan practices, ideas, and doctrines, which were man-made and many of which were quite crude. Thus they mingled paganism with the teachings that the Savior had given, thereby adulterating Christianity. The result was the bringing about of what is known as the great apostasy. Naturally the Savior could not accept that adulterated church as his. Thereupon he withdrew his Holy Priesthood, leaving the world to grope in darkness for hundreds and hundreds of years.
RESTORATION OF GOSPEL
But the prophets had looked down through the stream of time and had predicted that in the latter days God would stretch forth his hand again to restore the gospel upon the earth; the gospel dispensation known as the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times, the day when all the ordinances, principles and doctrines, powers and priesthoods that had been in the world from the beginning, would be restored preparatory to the coming of the Lord.
I bear solemn testimony, as have others here today, that that restoration took place approximately a hundred years ago. It began on that memorable spring morning in 1820 when the Prophet Joseph Smith went into the Sacred Grove to pray. In answer to that prayer, God the Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son appeared to that boy-prophet in their glory. The Father pointed to the Son and said, "This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!". Thereupon Jesus Christ again took his rightful place as the Mediator between the Father and mankind, as the Savior of this world, by conversing with Joseph Smith and by telling him that the true Church was not upon the earth and that if he lived the right kind of life, he had been chosen and foreordained to be the instrument in the hands of God through which that Church would be established. Christ also told Joseph that the ministers of the world drew near to God with their lips but their hearts were far from him; and that they were teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
FURTHER REVELATIONS
After this glorious vision had taken place, and I might say that it was one of the most glorious manifestations that has ever happened here upon this earth, Jesus of Nazareth continued to function in accordance with his appointment as the Savior of mankind by appearing to the Prophet several other times and also by sending great angels-men who had lived upon this earth in the past-to give to the Prophet Joseph Smith all the keys and powers and authority that had been enjoyed in other dispensations. Revelation after revelation came to the Prophet Joseph Smith until the fulness came, as had been predicted. On one of these occasions when Joseph Smith had the privilege of seeing a vision, the great revelation known as "The Vision," or "The Degrees of Glory," Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon looked into the three degrees of glory and also into perdition and recorded some of the things that are there. I would like to read a few words from Joseph's testimony:
And while we meditated upon these things, the Lord touched the eyes of our understandings and they were opened, and the glory of the Lord shone round about.
And we beheld the glory of the Son, on the right hand of the Father, and received of his fulness;
And saw the holy angels, and them who are sanctified before his throne, worshiping God, and the Lamb, who worship him forever and ever.
And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!
For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father-
That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.
THE SECOND COMING
Latter-day Saints are looking forward to the day, as predicted by the prophets, when Jesus Christ shall come upon the earth to reign as the Lord of lords and the King of kings. We are looking forward to the day when this earth shall be cleansed of its wickedness, when righteousness shall prevail, and when children shall be born in righteousness and will grow up without sin. At that time they shall live, rear their children, and when they become the age of a tree pass from mortality into immortality in the twinkling of an eye.
At the time of the second coming of Jesus Christ to reign upon the earth as the Lord and God "the great and dreadful day of the Lord" will take place. It will be a great day for the righteous and a dreadful day for the wicked. The prophets predicted that at that day the earth "shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble"; also, "the elements shall melt with fervent heat".
We as members of the true Church are looking forward to that great day when Jesus Christ shall come to his own, and when the devil shall be bound for one thousand years and cease to have power, as was explained yesterday, that he does at the present time, over the hearts of the children of men. At the close of that one thousand years' time, the devil will be loosed for a short season, and wickedness will again prevail throughout the world. Then will come the day when Lucifer and all his evil hosts will be cast off this earth. They shall go into perdition and dwell as lost souls forever.
SANCTIFIED EARTH
At that day the earth shall be sanctified. It shall die, so the Lord revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith, and be resurrected. It shall become a new world. It shall become the celestialized orb prepared for the members of "the Church of the Firstborn". Jesus Christ will judge all inhabitants of this earth. Those who have lived worthy lives from Adam's day on down to the end of the millennium will be assigned to dwell upon this earth forever, to dwell as celestialized beings with Jesus Christ; thus they will be assigned to their celestial glory. All who have inhabited this earth will stand before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ and will be assigned to their future world in which to live forever. Some will be assigned to terrestrial glory, some to telestial glory, and others even to perdition. Many Latter-day Saints will not attain the celestial glory because they did not abide by the commandments of God; therefore, they will be very unhappy because they did not gain celestial life which could have been theirs.
The Father will say to his Only Begotten Son, "This is your world because of the great work that you did in being its Redeemer. You shall now be the Lord, you shall be the God, you shall be the king of this world forevermore. This is your kingdom." Under the direction, then, of the Father who has many other kingdoms, Jesus Christ will preside here as your God and my God if we live worthy of celestial glory.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are heirs to this great kingdom on condition that we obey the teachings of the gospel as revealed to earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith. As Brother Romney very beautifully pointed out yesterday, today is the day for you and me to prepare for that great judgment day when this earth shall become the celestialized orb. Then if we are found worthy, we will hear the voice of Jesus Christ say to us to enter into our exaltation and dwell with him forever here upon this earth.
May you and I live clean and pure, be prayerful, be humble, live according to every word that has come from the mouth of God in order that this might be our happy lot, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie
Bruce R. McConkie, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 75-80
If the Holy Ghost will give me utterance, I should like to say some things to you about how I think the message of the restoration can be carried to the world with power and effect.
MESSAGE OF THE RESTORATION
This message is, first, foremost, and above all other things: that Jesus Christ is the son of the Living God; that he is the Savior of the world and the Redeemer of men; that salvation was and is and is to come, in and through his name only. We believe that he came into the world to do the will of his Father and work out the infinite and eternal atonement, and that by virtue of this atonement all men who believe and obey the gospel laws will be raised in immortality unto eternal life. It is only by obedience to his laws and his ordinances that we may gain the celestial kingdom.
This message is, secondly, that Joseph Smith, Jr., is the chosen prophet through whom the fulness of the everlasting gospel has been restored in this dispensation. He was chosen by Christ to be the restorer and revealer of all things necessary for the salvation and exaltation of man; he gave again on earth every law, every principle, and every doctrine by conformity to which we may gain the kingdom of God.
This message is, thirdly, that this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is, at this moment, the only true and living Church upon the face of the whole earth. It is the only place where the plan of life and salvation is found. There is no other path and no other way whereby men can strive and gain the peace and happiness that is available for those who live right in this life, and the eternal life that God has promised the Saints in the world to come.
GUIDANCE OF HOLY GHOST
Now we want to carry this message to the world in the way that the Lord wants us to carry it. We want to preach the truth in purity and in perfection, and to do it in the way the Lord wants it done. The only single formula whereby we may do this is for us so to live that we can be guided by the Holy Ghost. We must be guided by the Spirit. We have to have the Lord tell us how he wants us to teach the message of the restoration, and every doctrine of the gospel, and he will do this by revelation from the Holy Ghost if we are worthy to receive it.
One of the chief differences between us and the churches which are built up, and not unto the Lord, is that the Holy Ghost gives us utterance if we are faithful, but that the people in the world teach with their learning, and deny the Holy Ghost which giveth utterance.
The Holy Ghost revealed to Nephi about latter-day church conditions. Speaking of this very day Nephi foretold that many would teach "false and vain and foolish doctrines". He said that:
Because of pride, and because of false teachers, and false doctrine, their churches have become corrupted, they have all gone astray save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ; nevertheless, they are led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of men.
SOUND DOCTRINE
We have no interest in teaching by the wisdom or learning or according to the precepts of men. We want to teach the gospel the way the Lord would have us teach it, and to do it under the power and influence of the Holy Ghost. If we will do that, we will teach sound doctrine. It will be the truth. It will build faith and increase righteousness in the hearts of men, and they will be led along that path which leads to the celestial world.
But if we teach without the Spirit of the Lord, if we are not guided by the Holy Ghost, we will be teaching at our peril. It is a serious thing to teach false doctrine, to teach that which is not true, to teach that which does not build faith in the hearts of men.
In that same sermon on latter-day church conditions, Nephi said, the Holy Ghost giving him utterance,
... and all those who preach false doctrines,...wo, wo, wo be unto them, saith the Lord God Almighty, for they shall be thrust down to hell!.
There is no hope and no salvation and no blessing in carrying any message to the world by the power of man. The philosophies of the world and the wisdom of the wise shall perish. We cannot touch the hearts of men, but the Lord can, and he will touch them through our ministry if we have the Spirit of the Lord in our hearts. We will get that Spirit if we are righteous in our living and in the things we do.
And so it is that the Lord said by revelation to the whole Church through the Prophet Joseph Smith, that:
... the Spirit shall be given unto you by the prayer of faith: and if ye receive not the Spirit ye shall not teach.
And so it is that he has sent his elders out in this day commanding that they take no thought beforehand what they should say but instructing that they should treasure up in their minds continually the words of life. Theirs is then the promise that it shall be given them in the very hour that portion which should be meted to every man.
If we can have the Holy Ghost as our guide, we shall be able to touch the hearts of righteous men; we shall do the things that the Lord wants us to do; and this course will give us peace here and eternal reward hereafter.
HEAD OF THIS DISPENSATION
Now, associated with this principle, this only perfect plan and formula for carrying our message to the world, is another. The Lord said to the Prophet Joseph Smith:
... this generation shall have my word through you.
Now, I take it that we are not obligated to teach the message of salvation the way it was revealed to Peter, James, and John, to Moses, or Adam, or any of the ancient prophets, but that the Lord wants us to carry this message the way it was given through the Prophet Joseph Smith. It is the same message of salvation now as it was then. The gospel never changes. All men who ever gain salvation will win it by obedience to the same eternal laws. But in each age it has to be accepted from the oracles whom the Lord sends for that age and time.
Joseph Smith was given the keys of salvation as pertaining to all men who live in the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. That means that he stands at the head of this dispensation. It means that under Adam, the great high priest who stands at the head of all dispensations, and under Christ who is the Savior of the world, he directs all the affairs of God in the world as pertaining to this dispensation.
When we link the name of Joseph Smith with the name of Jesus Christ in the testimonies we bear, we are doing that which is pleasing to the Lord. If we had lived in ancient Israel and had attended the testimony meetings that they held, we would have linked the name of Moses with the name of Jesus Christ, because he headed that dispensation. And if we had lived in Enoch's day or Abraham's or Adam's, we would have testified of Christ and the man who stood at the head of that particular dispensation.
MODERN SCRIPTURES
But to us the word of the Lord is sent forth through Joseph Smith. It has been given through him in the manner and form, to the degree, and in the plainness that is adapted to the capacity and abilities of people who now live in the world. Some of the ancient scriptures are not so plain and intelligible to us as the modern. They were written for people who had the social conditions, the philosophies, and the backgrounds that existed generations and millenniums ago. What we have, as it has come through Joseph Smith, is adapted to our intelligence and our capacity. If we shall study it in preference to anything else, we shall have more light, more truth, and more understanding of the mind and will of the Lord, and the things that we have to do in order to be saved in his kingdom, than we could gain from any other source.
This does not mean that we do not accept the Bible. We do with all our hearts, and we do not try to spiritualize away its teachings. We believe it to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We believe all that God has revealed, and every revelation given to Joseph Smith is in strictest harmony with every revelation given through any prophet in any age. Truth is always the same; revelations never contradict each other. But there is no salvation in reading the Bible and stopping there. People must find a living oracle, a legal administrator, someone who can bind on earth and seal in heaven, someone whose teachings and performances will be recognized by the Lord. And that is where Joseph Smith and the present living oracles come in.
THE BOOK OF MORMON
So that we may carry the message of salvation to the world in this generation through Joseph Smith, we have had certain tools given us. The chief of these is the Book of Mormon. That book is a witness for Jesus Christ. Such is its chief purpose. It testifies of him, and it teaches the doctrines of his gospel in plainness and purity, and let it not be forgotten that our chief mission is to bear testimony of Christ and teach the doctrines of his gospel.
Next, the Book of Mormon is a witness that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, that he restored the fulness of the gospel and was everything we claim him to have been. No man could have written the Book of Mormon, and any person who will study it with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, following Moroni's counsel, will get the witness in his heart that Joseph Smith obtained that book from the plates in exactly the manner in which he said he got it.
So, by using the Book of Mormon to carry our message to the world, we carry forth the testimony of Christ and of Joseph Smith. If those to whom we preach have righteousness in their hearts, they soon receive by the power of the Holy Ghost the knowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God; they soon get by revelation from the Holy Ghost the knowledge that Joseph Smith is his prophet and the head of his work for this age and dispensation.
Then, because the Lord giveth not his Spirit by portions, and because they have tasted of the power and inspiration of the Holy Ghost in these two particulars, they will get, also by revelation from the same source, the knowledge that this Church, this kingdom, is the only true and living Church upon the face of the whole earth.
These three things are the very ones we want to get all the righteous everywhere to accept, and the Book of Mormon is the means whereby we may accomplish it.
MOST CORRECT OF ANY BOOK
The Prophet Joseph Smith said that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth and the keystone of our religion, and that a man would get nearer to God by abiding its precepts than by any other book.
Why, that is the very thing we want the world to do. We want the people who hear the message that we bear to get so near to the Lord that in contrition and humility they will repent of their sins, come in at the gate of baptism, and grow in faith and in righteousness until they become the sons of God, heirs to his eternal kingdom.
As far as the Latter-day Saints are concerned, if they would read and study that book, with the same real intent, purpose, and faith in Christ of which Moroni spoke, they would discover that faith would grow in their hearts. They would get a knowledge of the principles of salvation. They would have desires of righteousness spring up in their souls. Soon they would not have any inclination or any desire or any aim except to be in harmony with all of their brethren, with their bishops and stake presidents, and with every righteous person in the kingdom.
If you get the spirit of the Book of Mormon, you cannot be out of harmony with the Lord's work and with his mind and will in this day.
TESTIMONY
With these brethren who have testified, I have in my heart a knowledge and an assurance that is real and positive and certain that this work is true. I know just as well as I know anything in this world that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that Joseph Smith is his chiefest prophet and his chiefest witness for this dispensation.
At that strait gate where men must enter if they attain the celestial world, there stands a keeper of the gate who is the Holy One of Israel. He employeth no servant there.
... and there is none other way save it be by the gate; for he cannot be deceived, for the Lord God is his name.
But those who receive the servants of the Lord receive him, and he in turn receives them because they received his servants. And as pertaining to people who lived in this dispensation, when the judgment is set and the books are opened, they will find that the Prophet Joseph Smith will be seated on the right hand of Christ, and it will be with his approval and his approbation and his counsel and his consent that all men from his dispensation who attain salvation will be permitted to inherit it.
I glory in the testimony that I have. I know that this work is true and that this is the Lord's Church. I pray that the work may roll forth and that the Lord's purposes may prevail in the earth, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Mark E. Petersen
Mark E. Petersen, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 80-83
I am very grateful, my brothers and sisters, for the stimulation I have received in this conference. I am grateful for the privilege of going to the stake conferences and for the good that I receive from them. I think it is wonderful to feel the strength of the Saints in the different parts of the Church, and as I go about among the people and feel their strength and faith and note their devotion, I am very grateful indeed that this is truly a great Church. It is a strong Church, and the people who belong to it are a strong people. I am very grateful for this knowledge.
DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED
At times we meet people who find it difficult to live our religion. Sometimes they say it is hard to live some of the principles of the gospel. Occasionally people say they find it hard to live the law of tithing, or the Word of Wisdom. I know that some do find it difficult, but I know also that if they would apply themselves and really convert themselves to these great principles, they would be able to live them and enjoy doing so.
As I have observed some of the people in the Church, I believe that one of the principles they find most difficult to live is the principle set forth in one of the Articles of Faith, the sixth one:
We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, etc..
I suppose some of you will think it strange that I say that, but I really believe that there are a number of people among us who find the principle represented in that Article of Faith to be the most difficult they have to live.
FAITH IN GOD
Our first Article of Faith, which has been referred to here, says that we believe in God the Eternal Father and in his Son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost. Without faith in God we wouldn't even have any religion, because faith in God is fundamental to our religion. But such faith is no more fundamental than it is to believe that God can and will reveal himself to mankind. It is just as fundamental to believe that God can reveal himself to mankind as it is to believe that there is a God.
All down through the ages the Lord has revealed himself to men. Then, we must believe in revelation. But to whom does God reveal himself? An ancient prophet said the Lord will do nothing but he revealeth his secrets to his servants the prophets. Then we must have prophets among us. We had them anciently, from the days of Adam on down to the days of Malachi to whom God revealed himself in harmony with this great principle which is such an important part of our restored religion.
ANCIENT APOSTLES AND PROPHETS
What about prophets in Christian times? When the Church was established on the earth in the days of the Savior, it was rounded with apostles and prophets at the head. And why were they put in the Church? Paul explains, as has been mentioned once before, that they were put in the Church for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. They were to remain in the Church until we all come to a unity of the faith, unto a perfect man, unto the fulness of the measure of the stature of Christ.
Throughout the ancient times there was always a tendency to profess belief in God but to reject the teachings of the prophets. Jesus met that situation when he was upon the earth, and among the other things, he made a great appeal to overcome it. He said, "...ye believe in God, believe also in me". The great tragedy of ancient Israel was that the people of those days were willing to profess belief in God, but would not follow the teachings of the prophets of God.
What did the Lord reveal to his people through the prophets all down through the ages? He revealed to the prophets, and through them to the people, the things which he expected the people to do, and these expectations of the Lord, as revealed to the people through the prophets, formed the program which our Father in heaven desired his people on earth to follow for their salvation. In other words, these revelations and these directions given to the people through the prophets formed the program of the Church in ancient times.
APOSTLES AND PROPHETS TODAY
We today are no different from the people who lived in the days of the Savior and the ancient apostles, because our Church today also is founded with apostles and prophets at the head, and the teachings of these apostles and prophets form the program of the Church. This program is varied. It has many projects and many enterprises. It includes many commandments and many ordinances. But they are all a part of the program of the Church. We cannot distinguish between them and say that these we will accept and these others we will not accept. We cannot make fish of one and fowl of the other. The hand cannot say to the foot, "I have no need of thee".
The Sunday School could not say to the Relief Society, "You are not necessary." Not one of us can consistently say that we will sustain the priesthood program, but we will reject the welfare program. We could not say that we will accept the Aaronic Priesthood program, for instance, and that we will reject the Melchizedek Priesthood program. We could not say that we would accept and sustain the auxiliaries of the Church, and, for instance, refuse to sustain the Church publications which help to give bone and fiber and sinew to these organizations.
CONSISTENT SUPPORT OF PROGRAM
Are we in a position of consistency if we try to choose one part of the program of the Church and turn our backs upon the others? Every phase of the program is worthy of our support, whether it be priesthood or Church welfare, whether it be the Church publications or whether it be the auxiliary organizations, or any of the commandments in the gospel.
The program of the Church is inaugurated and sponsored by the heads of the Church. And who are the heads of the Church? They are the prophets of God. And why are they in the Church? For the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
We are the Saints. Our Church makes up the body of Christ. We need the edification and the perfection that come to us through participating in the program of the Church. We have the prophets of God who give us the program of the Church. Let us follow that program so that we may get the blessings God proffers to us.
Instead of going off on a tangent this way or a tangent some other way, let us be willing to follow the prophets of God who stand here at the head of the Church and who receive the divine guidance of the Almighty. Let us have enough faith and enough courage to be real Latter-day Saints. Let us have enough courage and enough faith to believe in the Articles of Faith. I challenge every Latter-day Saint everywhere to believe and accept and sustain the sixth Article of Faith which I read again:
We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, etc..
I pray that we may have this courage, that we may have the unity and the harmony as a people to support and sustain the prophet of God by sustaining the program in all its projects and enterprises as he gives it to us, and this I do in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
Joseph Fielding Smith, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 87-90
Many centuries ago, before the birth of our Lord, a prophet who was filled with the Spirit of the Lord and a desire that the gospel truths should be carried to all men, in his righteous zeal gave utterance to the following words:
O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people.
Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with a voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth.
Then on his reflection he reached the conclusion that he was asking for too much, that perhaps he was sinning in his wish to be like an angel, with a voice of thunder, to reach the ends of the earth; but if Alma were here today, I know he would be very grateful for the facilities and the opportunities that we have to reach the peoples, not only who are assembled but also scattered abroad.
WISH TO REACH PEOPLE
I feel much like Alma this afternoon. I do not desire to speak like an angel nor do I desire to shake the earth, but his desire was righteous in having the wish to reach people. I have that same wish, and I am grateful for the opportunities that present themselves, not only to reach the members of the Church here assembled and who may be listening in, but I hope also that there are multitudes of those who are not members of the Church who are listening to the counsels and the instructions which are being given in this conference, not only for the benefit of the Latter-day Saints, but also for the peoples of all the earth.
After making the statement that he asked for too much, he added these words:
I ought not to harrow up in my desires, the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto men according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction.
Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all men; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience.
FREE AGENCY
President Smith in his opening remarks spoke of free agency, the great gift the Lord has bestowed upon every soul to act for himself, to make his own choice, to be an agent with a power to believe and accept the truth and receive eternal life or to reject the truth and receive remorse of conscience. This is one of the greatest gifts of God. What would we be without it, if we were compelled as some people would like to have their fellows compelled to do their will? There could be no salvation; there could be no rewards of righteousness; no one could be punished for unfaithfulness because men would not be accountable before their Maker.
JOSEPH SMITH A PROPHET
Having made these remarks, I want to say to all those who are listening at this particular time that I have a testimony that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, and is, for his work has not ceased, for a righteous man's work does not cease: Joseph Smith was a righteous man when he died; I know that he was called, appointed by our Father in heaven; that he received revelation and guidance from the Son of God that would be of benefit and a blessing to all men if they would receive it.
Now in what I have to say I wish to direct my remarks to those who are not members of the Church, if there are any such listening. I want them to know that I believe this sincerely and absolutely. That is my faith. I think I can say safely it is my knowledge, by the gift of God, that Joseph Smith in the year 1820 did see the Father and the Son; that the Father introduced his Son; that the Son spoke to him, asked him what he wanted to know, and gave him counsel; told him what to do, with the promise that eventually other light would come and the fulness of the gospel, which was not then upon the face of the earth, would be restored.
This is either true or false. To me it cannot be false. To you who sit here looking at me it cannot be false. It is just as true as it is that the sun shines. You know it, and I know it. And every soul upon the face of the earth who has a desire to know it has the privilege for every soul that will humble himself, and in the depths of humility and faith, with a contrite spirit, go before the Lord, will receive that knowledge just as surely as he lives, so that he also may know that this story is true.
TRUTH OF THE BOOK OF MORMON
I am just as firmly convinced that this Book of Mormon from which I have read is the word of God and was revealed, as Joseph Smith declared it was revealed, as I am that I stand here looking into your faces. Every soul on the face of the earth who has intelligence enough to understand may know that truth. How can he know it? All he has to do is to follow the formula that was given by the Lord himself when he declared to the Jews that they who would do the will of his Father should know of the doctrine, whether it was of God or whether he spoke of himself. My witness to all the world is that this book is true. I have read it many, many times. I have not read it enough. It still contains truths that I still may seek and find, for I have not mastered it, but I know it is true.
I know that the testimony of these witnesses recorded in each copy of the Book of Mormon is true, that they stood in the presence of an angel of God who declared unto them that the record as it was translated was correct, that their testimony that God spoke to them from the heavens calling upon them to bear witness of that fact is true, and there is not a soul who cannot receive that testimony if he desires to receive it, by reading this book prayerfully and faithfully, with a desire to know the truth as Moroni has declared by revelation. He shall know the truth regarding the restoration of this scripture given to the ancient inhabitants of this continent.
IMPORTANCE OF ACCEPTING TRUTH
Now this declaration or testimony that I have given is vital to every living soul, for I want to say that if a man unto whom the knowledge of this record comes, and unto whom the testimony has been given that Joseph Smith saw the Father and the Son, and that the gospel was restored by commandment of God and the coming of angels, rejects that testimony and will not follow it through, he will have to face it before the judgment seat of God and give answer why he refused to harken-so it is a vital message to every soul.
Every man who rejects this record, who rejects the testimony of Joseph Smith, who declares him to be a false prophet and this book a fraud, who has had this testimony which it contains given unto him, will stand before the judgment seat of God condemned, because the truth was laid before him. He had the opportunity to hear and receive, and in rejecting it he has placed himself in disfavor with his Father in heaven.
I will read a verse or two from the testimony of Nephi which is given at the close of the record which he kept. I cannot take time to read it all. You will find it in Chapter 33 of Second Nephi. I will read the last four verses.
And I pray the Father in the name of Christ that many of us, if not all, may be saved in his kingdom at that great and last day.
And now, my beloved brethren, all those who are of the house of Israel, and all ye ends of the earth, I speak unto you as the voice of one crying from the dust: Farewell until that great day shall come.
And you that will not partake of the goodness of God, and respect the words of the Jews, and also my words, and the words which shall proceed forth out of the mouth of the Lamb of God, behold, I bid you an everlasting farewell for these words shall condemn you at the last day.
For what I seal on earth shall be brought against you at the judgment bar; for thus hath the Lord commanded me and I must obey. Amen.
The Lord bless you, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Oscar A. Kirkham
Oscar A. Kirkham, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 90-93
I humbly pray that I may enjoy the blessings of the Spirit of God. To me it is a high privilege to stand before this audience. I am extremely grateful to my Heavenly Father. I pray that he may let me speak his word.
LOOK UP TO THE SPIRES
While coming over to this meeting this afternoon, I had quite an impressive incident happen to me. I greatly admire these grounds. I often chat with the men who make the flowers grow and bloom.
Today I met a familiar brother. I said: "Well, I see you are working today."
"Yes, Brother Kirkham."
"Don't you ever get tired? I see you here early in the morning, and I have seen you here late at night."
"Oh, yes, I get tired once in awhile, but the people enjoy the flowers, and once in awhile they look up at the spires."
I would love to put it into the heart of every man and woman in this Church that they must not grow weary. Way out in your own private lives, in service in the kingdom of God, it may be that at times you may be weary, but I bear humble testimony because of what I have seen throughout the stakes of Zion and especially in the missionary field, that men with whom you have patience and with whom you patiently work, often "look up to the spires."
I was deeply impressed at the Smithfield conference last Sunday. A fine young woman was reporting her attendance at a state convention. One hundred and twenty young women had been called to one of our large institutions from all parts of the state. They were studying American citizenship opportunities. At the stake conference she was asked to make a report. She did so, and it was helpful and inspiring. All at once I saw her grasp the pulpit, and with rare dignity she said to the audience: "I want to bear my testimony."
Then in beautifully chosen words, with deep humility, she declared her faith in God and her gratitude for her heritage, for the blessings she enjoyed.
BE UNAFRAID
I am sure with many of the words of warning that have come to us during this conference, and as we do face a world of great uncertainty, so great, and so fraught with possible destruction we are almost frightened to speak about it at times, or they who know most about it are silent, and yet, in my humble thinking, I say, be unafraid. If we are living as we should live, then there need be no fear. Our faith in God will give us strength, assurance, a sense of safety and security. We need have no fear.
One of our great American thinkers has said:
We do not need to fear these things. We need to fear whether man has faith in God.
GREATNESS IN YOUTH
All my life I have labored with youth, in the out-of-doors, largely. My humble illustrations come largely from that field. I know that deep within youth there is greatness. It is a natural law that the Lord will preserve the right and the truth, and soon you and I will pass this on to the hands of a great generation of youth.
I stood a few years ago with a group of youth in Holland where the tulips grow. There were about a hundred and fifty young American youths about me. We went down to see the loveliest tulip beds in the world. Flowers were not blooming in abundance then, but here and there and in the hothouses there were some fine specimens. An elderly Dutch gardener came out when he saw we had arrived. I remember he held up a brown bulb and said: "This will be my prize winner at the fair."
All we saw were the brown husks of the tulip bulb, but he saw beyond that. He saw the prize bulb at the Holland fair.
I appeal to you, do not neglect your duty to youth but have faith in them. They may look like brown bulbs today, but they will be prize winners tomorrow. They are marching into the greatest world and are the greatest generation, in my humble opinion, that the world has ever seen. That is my faith. I only wish that I might march with them and be a lad of twelve years.
The Lord will be with them and strengthen them. They are magnificent. I have just left a hundred and seventy-five of them in the Northwestern States Mission. It was thrilling to catch their spirit and their hope and their devotion to the service of the Lord.
SUN ALWAYS THERE
Out in the Zuni Indian village one day I followed the runner who went out to give his daily ceremony to the coming of the sun. On the hilltop he stretched forth his arms and chanted. When he started to return to the village, I walked over to him and said, "It is cloudy this morning. Do you always come?"
And then he said, "Oh, the sun is always there."
That is it. "The sun is always there." Let us have faith and know that the sun is always there.
I would like to read one verse from Timothy:
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
This thought I would like to suggest in connection with youth and in connection with our own lives: There are many things that will give us inspiration and guidance. It is astonishing when you hear men frankly and freely bear their testimonies-when the message came to their hearts, that was the moment when the Lord spoke to them. I pray that the Lord will quicken the best within us. We are likely to refer to it as conscience. I believe that men and women who live humbly and prayerfully may have within themselves the blessing of the Spirit of God, the gift of the Holy Ghost, a power that will guide them, protect them, reveal to them truth, give them knowledge throughout their days, for their own blessing and protection.
"Somehow we must get back to God," said a great American, "and that is very difficult for modern minds who have lost simplicity." I shall read a few verses from the Ninetieth Psalm:
Return O Lord...
O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days...
Let thy work appear unto thy servants and thy glory unto their children.
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.
THE VOICE WITHIN
I pray that this spirit of a voice within the Lord trying to speak to us and guide us, may be with us. It is a very personal affair. We do not need to wait for any great occasion depending on someone else to assist us. His Spirit will be with us every day, at all times, if we serve God humbly and pray for his guidance.
This delightful experience came in the form of a testimony out in the mission that I recently visited. A young missionary bearing his testimony of what it meant to the family for a young man to go on a mission, and how the Lord truly provided, recited this incident:
When I left home I didn't know whether father would be able to make it or not in keeping up the expenses but he and mother said "Go, we'll do the best we can for you, Son."
I came into the missionary field. We had been getting along all right and last week I received a letter from father. He told the story that they were working hard and they had harvested a good crop, and then he told the story of my little brother eleven years old.
Dad said, "I have been giving your brother work on the binder. We were giving him fifty cents an acre to run it. He had done very well; he had worked early and late. Then the day came when we were to pay him. The neighbors had sent in their checks and I was going to pay him. I asked him: 'Now Son what are you going to do with the money?' Your brother said: 'Well, Father, I want a pair of Levis and I want to go to the County Fair and the rest I want to send to my brother on his mission.'"
He enjoyed that voice within. The Lord was guiding him in his tender years. He had caught the spirit that his brother had in missionary service.
With the same feeling I bear my testimony: have patience wherever you are called to labor, that those for whom you work may "look up to the spires," and receive inspiration and comfort. Oh, listen to the voice within, that it may guide you safely on the way. Do not be disturbed by the scare lines of papers and commentators on the radio. Know that you have God with you if you but do his will.
I thank him humbly for these things, and I bear testimony and pray for all of us, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Stephen L Richards
Stephen L Richards, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 93-97
I would like to send out greetings and a message to the elders of the Church. I refer to those belonging to the elders quorums, not to all of those who are sometimes designated as elders who belong to other quorums. I think that it is necessary to send this message out by you, my brethren and sisters, because large numbers of this priesthood are not present at our conference here today, and many may not even be listening in to the proceedings.
ELDERS QUORUMS
The elders constitute our largest body of priesthood. There are one thousand and thirty-three quorums, with seventy-two thousand nine hundred and four members enrolled, making the average enrollment in each quorum just about seventy.
The quorums are widely distributed throughout the stakes of Zion and in some of the missions of the Church, affording adequate opportunity for all men holding this priesthood to be served by their quorums.
The quorums are under the direct presidencies and supervision of the stake presidency who determine and ordain the membership and select and install their officers. In fact, the maintenance of these quorums constitutes, perhaps the most direct and exclusive priesthood responsibility which the stake presidencies have.
The membership of the quorums is made up of young men, middle-aged men, and older men. Many of the young men are on missions or are preparing to fill missions or have recently returned therefrom. Some of the young men come into the quorums in contemplation of marriage, and some merely by way of advancement from the Aaronic Priesthood.
To all of these young men I extend my congratulations. Brethren, you have attained a high place and great distinction in the Church of God. You have been accorded recognition for your faith, your clean living, and your worthy ambition to be servants of our Lord. The honor which has come to you and the responsibilities and opportunities which arise out of your high calling are immeasurable, as I shall attempt to show. I pray the Lord to bless you young elders, that your appreciation and enthusiasm for this newly-acquired priesthood shall grow and deepen with the years and your experiences, and that you will never cease to regard it as your most priceless possession.
HIGH HONOR OF ELDERS' CALLING
And now, I address myself to members of the elders quorums who have been members for five, ten, twenty, or more years. Brethren of this group, did you ever think when, as a young man you were ordained an elder preparatory to going on a mission or being married in the temple, that in five, ten, or twenty years you would lose regard for that high honor and the precious gift which has come to you? Did you ever think that the time would come when you would no longer wish the association and fellowship of your brethren in the quorum? Did you ever think then that you would fail to respond to the calls coming to you through your quorum for a kindly service to a fellow member or his family or to others in need? Did it ever occur to you in those days of your young manhood, with this Holy Priesthood resting upon you, when you took your young sweetheart to the holy temple, where your marriage was sealed and sanctified and your home begun, with a resolution in your young heart to attain through your faithfulness those transcendent blessings pronounced upon you-did it ever occur to you then that in five, ten, or twenty years hence you would have forgotten those solemn resolutions and abandoned your ambition and disappointed and saddened your dear companion?
I am sure you never thought that in those early days of your eldership these things would come.
How have they come to all too many of this great body of priesthood? I think perhaps I can tell you, or at least I can try.
LOSS OF INTEREST
Some of you began to slip when you let other affairs and other engagements take you away from your quorum meetings. You began to prefer other company to that of your fellow members. You left the work of the quorums to those few sturdy wheel horses always willing to carry on. You subordinated the quorum to other things you considered more important. You gradually lost the desire for the education and the opportunities it affords. And then after you had removed yourself from the warm, stimulating influence of your brethren in the quorum, you found yourselves becoming critical, critical of the teachings, lessons, and procedure, and you summed it all up as rather dull business, possibly without realizing that you and others like you might have made it most interesting and profitable.
And then you forgot another thing, which our brother who prayed in the session this morning brought to our attention. You forgot when you were ordained that a great confidence and trust was reposed in you, and you forgot that you must be true to that trust. You neglected it.
I remember years ago hearing of a young elders' quorum presidency setting out to visit all the members of their quorum. They came to the home of one, a man of maturity who had had considerable business success, and knocked at his door. He came to the door. They told him who they were, that his name was on the record of members, and that they had come to visit him. He said, these were the words he used: "Well, gentlemen, you may come in if you wish, but I must tell you in advance that I have long since lost interest in the work you represent. I have repented of some of the follies of my youth"-he had been on a mission-"and I now devote myself to more substantial things."
Naturally they were chilled with such a reception, and they were about to depart when they heard the voice of this man's wife, who had apparently overheard the conversation. She called to them: "Brethren, please come again."
Largely in response to her appeal, these young men took courage to go again and again, and after a time, in part through their efforts, in part through the persuasion of his wife, this man repented of the follies he had committed since his youth, and came back to activity in the Church and held a responsible office.
WEAKNESSES OF MEMBERS
Then, my brethren of the quorums, you did other things that drew you away. Without the aid and encouragement of your brethren you succumbed to some weaknesses. If you had smoked before your ordination, you took it up again. If you had never smoked, you formed the acquaintance of men who did, and you took up the practice to be one with them, as you thought. Some of you began drinking a little for the same purpose. You joined the clubs and the societies of these men of the world, sometimes their lodges. You laughed at cheap jokes about the priesthood. You joined in their pleasures and pastimes on Sundays. When you might have been exercising your priesthood, you played golf with them; you went hunting and fishing; and after awhile some of you forgot, forgot that you belonged to a quorum, that you were bound to your brethren by sacred ties, forgot even that you had been set apart and vested with a holy power to make you men "different" from other men in the world.
Now I grant that this may not have been the course of all who have become inactive in the elders' quorums of the Church. Exacting occupations, in some cases, disappointments, real or fancied differences with Church Authorities, and pure indolence may have made their contributions, but on sober consideration, my brethren, I believe you will agree that the course which I have outlined is that which many have followed.
MESSAGE FOR INACTIVE
Now this is the message that I send out to you elders of the Church who are inactive in its affairs and indifferent to your responsibilities and opportunities. Study yourselves. Hark back to the days when you received the priesthood. Try to live again the joy and pride which it brought to you. Trace your lines of authority and find out how proximate you are to the restoration of the priesthood in this dispensation. Never disparage in your own estimation the office of an elder in the Church of Christ. Remember that this Church was organized by two elders, the first and second elder of the Church, and that it was the first office in the Church. No higher priesthood than that of elder is required to be a minster of the gospel and to preach to the nations of the earth. No higher priesthood is required to go into the holy temple and receive the lofty blessings that are therein bestowed. No higher priesthood is required to enter into the eternal covenant of marriage and become the head of a great household.
I once heard President Joseph F. Smith say, over in the Assembly Hall at one of the special priesthood meetings held in connection with the general conference of the Church, that if all the priesthood of the Church were to be obliterated save one elder only, he would have the inherent right and power under appointment to reorganize the entire Church with all its offices.
Be proud to be an elder. Enrich your lives by close association with your fellow quorum members. Make the quorums of the elders the finest clubs and fraternities in this world.
Do you know my brethren, that the greatest reservoir of power and strength in the whole Church is in these quorums of the elders? Make that power available to the Church, and it will go forward by leaps and bounds.
The final appeal I make to you, my brethren, is do not disappoint and grieve your wives and families. Every understanding faithful Latter-day Saint woman knows that the highest blessings which may come to her and her children must come through the priesthood. She knows that there can be no perpetuation of the family in eternity without a husband and father honoring the Holy Priesthood. Many a good wife and mother today is filled with apprehension and sorrow in the neglect and behavior of the elder who stands at the head of her household.
For her sake, for the sake of her children and your children, and other men's children, I plead with you to forsake worldly habits and your indifference and neglect and criticism, and come back to the association of your brethren who love you.
DIVINITY OF PRIESTHOOD
You know when you stop to think that the priesthood you hold is genuine. Very few of you have strayed so far that you have lost that testimony. It may be dormant, but it is not dead. It will be rekindled, with your renewed activity, and it will bless your lives with inexpressible happiness and joy.
I know that that priesthood which we are honored to bear is genuine and divine. I know that it is more than a name. I know that in it is an essence of force and of power. I cannot explain it, but I know that there is a constituency in it which someday we will understand, and that it emanates from God himself.
I have felt that power. I have seen its effects. I know that the Prophet Joseph Smith received it from angelic ministers, and I know that it has been transmitted to you and to me to be used in the blessing of God's children and the establishment of his work. I will try to honor that priesthood. Will you, my brethren?
I pray that we may and that God will help us so to do, in the name of the Lord Jesus, whose servants we are. Amen.
Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
Joseph L. Wirthlin, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 98-102
To me, my brethren and sisters, this great conference has been a spiritual feast. The Spirit of the Lord has been here in rich abundance, and I am sure all of us have partaken of that fine sweet spirit of assurance, and I trust that the moment or two that I occupy, I might enjoy the Spirit of the Lord.
We are facing a disintegrating world. These are dark days. Some of the great nations of the past, such as Great Britain, France, Japan, and others, find themselves in spiritual and temporal bankruptcy. We look to the south and what do we see, nations in the throes of revolution. In the Orient, communism and famine are stalking over the land; and in our great nation there are certain trends which give us deep concern.
In contemplating conditions in the world, we wonder why this worldwide disorder. I think there is an answer and the answer is in the fact that men have forgotten God and many of the divine principles which would have brought peace, prosperity, and good will among the nations.
VIRTUE OF HONESTY
I am thinking particularly of one virtue that has been cast aside: namely, the virtue of honesty, that of which Richard C. Cabot of Harvard University declared: "The continued existence of any group-tribe, nation, or industry-implies the dominance of honesty as a cohesive force between them."
The first murder in the history of the human family was a result of a dishonest act. Two young men took their offerings to the Lord. Abel presented the Lord with the firstlings of the flock. Cain presented to the Lord the products of the field, but they were not the best. Abel's offering was received by the Lord. Cain was rebuked for his offering because in it there was the element of deceit. Cain became angry, and in a jealous rage slew his brother, Abel.
DISHONESTY BRINGS WAR
In every great war that has been fought, the cause can usually be traced to some dishonest act on the part of one leader on one side or the leaders on both sides. In World War I, it was declared by some of the leaders of the great nations involved in that terrible struggle that the written solemn word given by them for the maintenance of peace in the form of treaties was but scraps of paper.
Before World War II, the leaders of Europe got together, and finally Chamberlain of Great Britain returned to his people indicating that there would be peace in his time. But he had hardly returned to his countrymen when the guarantees, the promises and the words of honor that were given by the leaders of men, were cast aside, and one of the greatest and one of the bloodiest wars in all history was fought.
Salvation of the world depends upon a revival of the cardinal principles of honesty. It must become the foundation for all negotiations between nations wherein diplomatic trickery and double-talk are to be eliminated and cast aside. Other than this, World War III will become a holocaust involving the destruction of civilian populations as well as armed forces.
INDIVIDUAL HONESTY
Honesty cannot become a national, a worldwide virtue, unless it becomes a primal part of the thinking, the actions, and the character of the individual. We have some shining examples of individual honesty. I think of one pioneer grandmother who was upon her deathbed. She seemed to be reflecting over the events of her life, and finally she called her son to her side and said: "I am still in debt. I owe the dairyman up the street five cents."
Of course the dairyman was immediately paid, but in the thinking of this pioneer grandmother, an obligation of five cents was just as important as if it had been an obligation of several thousand dollars.
I think of Jacob of old who had sent his sons to the land of Egypt to purchase grain. The sacks of grain were returned and in the mouth of each sack the money was found. Jacob wanted to impress upon the ruler of Egypt that he was an honest man, and so his sons returned with double the amount of the cost of the grain.
We think of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, emancipator and liberator, titles that will go down on the pages of history till the end of time. The title that we love best to think of, as far as Abraham Lincoln is concerned, is that of "Honest Abe." And I am sure that of all the titles this great man carries, "Honest Abe" would please him the most.
Mark Twain was in the despair of financial distress. His advisers suggested that he work out some sort of a compromise with his creditors but he declared to them: "There is but one compromise, one hundred cents on the dollar."
That is a far cry from bankruptcy. Whatever might be said of Mark Twain, he was an honest man.
After all, honesty or dishonesty can become an integral part of our characters. Honesty can be taught in the schoolroom. In the schoolroom there can be put forth honest efforts or there can be cheating. In the schoolroom great truths can be taught to the students, or false doctrine.
I say that any teacher, whether it be in the schoolroom, or whether it be in a Sunday School class, who fails to teach the truth, and particularly in Church organizations, the truth as revealed to the world through the Prophet Joseph Smith, is not honest with his students, himself, nor his God.
HONESTY IN GOVERNMENT
In business there can be dependable, honest merchandising or there can be false advertising, or poor quality of merchandise sold. In the great field of politics there can be forthright, honest leadership, or there can be double-talk, unfulfilled promises, which eventually lead to the destruction of American fundamentals. In administration of government affairs, if the administrators are honest in handling the public funds-which after all, belong to the people-they will administer them in such a way that there will be frugality and savings and not extravagant expenditures.
As we think of present-day conditions, there come to mind the words of one of the founders of this great Republic, Thomas Jefferson-and I should like to say that had he been alive today the words that I am about to quote to you could not be more fitting. He said:
I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and our comforts, in our labors and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Over the years we have been singing, "God Bless America," and I want to say to you that God has blessed America and her people more abundantly than any other people or nation in all the world. But that time has come, my brethren and sisters when we should pray, "God save America," on a basis of applying the principle of honesty and integrity in all of our dealings, individually, collectively, nationally, and internationally; thereby we can save the Constitution of the United States and preserve for ourselves and unborn generations the blessings that come from a government that was given to us by Almighty God.
HONESTY IN WORK
There can be honesty or dishonesty in the field of labor, an honest day's work and also an honest day's pay. If management and labor could but come to this simple solution, there would be an elimination of strife and difficulty. Idleness, too, breeds dishonesty, for idleness anticipates getting something for nothing, and the darkest hour in any man's life is when he sits down and plans to get something for nothing.
I submit the question to you as to whether or not a member of this Church who affiliates himself with any organization that destroys the principle of free agency and freedom of action is honest with himself and God. I do not believe that there is any compromise between truth and that which is false. No man can maintain his standing in the Church of Jesus Christ and compromise with error, for as the Savior said:
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
HERITAGE OF HONESTY
Now, my brethren and sisters, what does this mean to you, and what does this mean to me? It means that you and I have a heritage from our pioneer forefathers in the form of a banner of honesty untarnished, and there rests upon each and everyone of us the obligation to see that that banner is as brilliant, sweet, and clean as the day it was handed to us.
Joseph Smith, in writing the Articles of Faith, said this: We believe in being honest, we believe in being true.
One of the evidences of an honest man is one who first is honest with God in paying back to the Lord that tenth which belongs to him. An honest tithepayer is an honest man. He is dependable. He is one who will keep his word. He is one that we can depend upon to keep and fulfil his contracts.
I have heard President Grant relate many times the story of a great farm implement manufacturer who said this:
I would rather have the word of a Mormon farmer than I would his written contract or note.
Brigham Young declared:
Woe to those who profess to be Saints and are not honest. Only be honest with yourselves, and you will be honest to the brethren. Men must be honest. They must live faithfully before God and honor their calling; and being on the earth.
And again he declared:
It is much better to be honest, to live here uprightly, and forsake and shun evil, than it is to be dishonest. It is the easiest path in the world to be honest, to be upright before God; and when people learn this, they will practice it.
HONESTY DEFINED
It is as one unknown writer declared:
Honesty is the will and the effort to keep one's agreements, explicit and tacit. It can be expressed in words, or in actions such as fulfilment of contracts and habits such as fidelity, loyalty and punctuality. Newman Smart declared:
Inward truthfulness is essential to moral growth and personal vigor. What a flaw is in steel, or a foreign body in our tissues, a falsehood is to the character-a source of weaknesses, a front where it may break under strain.
Honesty, then, after all, is the king of all virtues because the good life presupposes itself. Dishonesty cuts the arteries by which social life is nourished. Mutual deceit is social murder. Self-deceit cuts the blood vessels of one's own existence. It is suicide.
And as Mark of old declared to the early-day Saints:
Thou knowest the commandments. Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.
As I have read this verse of scripture I wondered why Mark had included in it, "Honour thy father and mother", and the thought came to me that any honest son and any honest daughter will honor father and mother not so much from the point of view of lip service but from the standpoint of being prepared to help father and mother in any way possible. That is honesty in honoring father and mother.
EXAMPLE OF HONESTY
Now, as Latter-day Saints, we have a great destiny and a great future. The old Prophet Isaiah declared to the world thousands of years ago that the house of the Lord would be established in the top of the mountains. He went on to say that all nations should flow unto it, and men should be heard to say,
... Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.
I am sure because of the fact that the house of God is established in the top of these mountains where the prophets of God are found, where the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is being preached to the world, that the first great virtue we must hold out to the world, if we are to set them the proper example, is that of honesty, square dealing among ourselves, and with the world as a whole.
May God bless us and sustain us, that we will be honest with the Lord, honest with one another, honest with those who are not of our faith, and I am sure out of this that the world will come to know us as the Lord's people and men will be heard to say, Come, let us go up to the house of Jacob's God and learn of his ways and walk in his paths.
I leave you my testimony that this is the work of the Lord, that a boy fourteen years of age saw the Father and the Son in the wilderness: they actually spoke to him and used him as the instrument through whom the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ was restored to the earth in the last days for the salvation of all the Lord's children. I bear you this testimony in his holy name. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report October 1949, pp. 107-111
The time has come when I shall make a few remarks to this conference, and I trust that while I stand before you the Lord will bless me, for I need his blessing, and I hope that you who are here and that you who are listening in and you who are seeing our services will add your prayers to mine.
OBSERVANCE OF SABBATH
In the early days of the Church, indeed before the Church was organized, the Lord on more than one occasion told the Prophet and those working with him that they were to cry repentance to the people. At last he commanded them that when they preached they should preach not of tenets, but cry nothing but repentance unto this generation.
I assume that that imposes upon us who stand in responsible positions of leadership in the Church, the obligation to speak of things that involve the need of repentance, and I thought today, in the few moments that I shall stand before you that I would talk about the Sabbath.
I am going to read a good part of what I say from the revelations of the Lord, so that you will understand that the words I speak are not my words; they are the words of the Lord.
INSTRUCTIONS AT SINAI
At Sinai you will recall the Lord said:
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Before coming to the modern revelation, I should like to say that ancient Israel found that one of its most difficult commandments to observe was that of remembering the Sabbath day. After they were led into captivity, they were among a people who knew not the Sabbath which they knew, and very soon they began to partake, as we are partaking of the sins of those among whom they lived. It came to be, as it is with us, that not alone was the matter one of laboring on the Sabbath, but it was also one of recreation on the Sabbath. So rather trivial regulations were made by captive Israel in order to prevent ancient Israel from breaking the Sabbath.
TIME FOR RECREATION
Now on this question of recreation, which I may return to again if I have time, I should like to say that there is not much excuse for most of us now to resort to the Sabbath for recreation. Those who labor have a forty hour week, which means that they have Saturdays off. They have an eight-hour day, which gives them quite a lot of time either in the morning or in the evening, and there is no need whatsoever to resort to the Sabbath day for recreation. There is an abundance of recreation time during the week.
MODERN REVELATION ON SABBATH
On August 7, 1831, the Lord gave to the Prophet, then in Jackson County, Missouri, a revelation which included directions about observing the Sabbath. I am reading from Section 59:
"And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world," that is what the Lord said way back yonder,-"that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world,"-that is as true today as it was when the Lord spoke it, for our breaches of the Sabbath "spot" us with the transgression of the world-"thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day". I call your attention to the fact that this meeting in the house of prayer is the only assembly which the Lord authorizes on the Sabbath day. We are to go to the house of prayer and "offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day."
For verily this is a day appointed unto you to rest from your labors, and to pay thy devotions unto the Most High;
Nevertheless thy vows shall be offered up in righteousness on all days and at all times;
But remember that on this, the Lord's day, thou shalt offer thine oblations and thy sacraments unto the Most High, confessing thy sins unto thy brethren, and before the Lord.
And on this day thou shalt do none other thing, only let thy food be prepared with singleness of heart that thy fasting may be perfect, or, in other words, that thy joy may be full...
And inasmuch as ye do these things with thanksgiving, with cheerful hearts and countenances, not with much laughter, for this is sin, but with a glad heart and a cheerful countenance-
Verily I say, that inasmuch as ye do this, the fulness of the earth is yours, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which climbeth upon the trees and walketh upon the earth;
Yea, and the herb, and the good things which come of the earth, whether for food or for rainment, or for houses, or for barns, or for orchards, or for gardens, or for vineyards...
And it pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto man; for unto this end were they made to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion. And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments...
But learn that he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.
I, the Lord, have spoken it, and the Spirit beareth record. Amen.
FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS
In November 1831, at Hiram, Ohio, in the great revelation dealing with many other things, the Lord referred to the Sabbath again. I am reading from Section 68:
And the inhabitants of Zion shall also observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
And the inhabitants of Zion also shall remember their labors, inasmuch as they are appointed to labor, in all faithfulness; for the idler shall be had in remembrance before the Lord.
Now, I, the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them; and their children are also growing up in wickedness; they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness.
These things ought not to be, and must be done away from among them; wherefore, let my servant Oliver Cowdery carry these sayings unto the land of Zion.
And a commandment I give unto them-that he that observeth not his prayers before the Lord in the season thereof, let him be had in remembrance before the judge of my people.
These sayings are true and faithful; wherefore, transgress them not, neither take therefrom.
Behold, I am Alpha and Omega, and I come quickly. Amen.
In a revelation given to the Prophet on December 27, 1832, I am reading from Section 88, the Lord said:
And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.
Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;
That your incomings may be in the name of the Lord; that your outgoings may be in the name of the Lord; that all your salutations may be in the name of the Lord, with uplifted hands unto the Most High.
Therefore, cease from all your light speeches, from all laughter, from all your lustful desires, from all your pride and light-mindedness, and from all your wicked doings.
On another occasion the Lord said to the Prophet, and I am reading from Section 90, given at Kirtland, Ohio, March 8, 1833:
And set in order the churches, and study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people.
And at Winter Quarters, President Brigham Young declared "The Word and Will of the Lord":
Let him that is ignorant learn wisdom by humbling himself and calling upon the Lord his God, that his eyes may be opened that he may see, and his ears opened that he may hear;
For my Spirit is sent forth into the world to enlighten the humble and contrite, and to the condemnation of the ungodly.
I have read these commandments regarding what should be done and what might be done on the Sabbath, and I have noted that the Lord told them to build a house of prayer into which they should go to learn the things which I have read to you.
ACTIVITIES AT HOME AND ABROAD
Now, the ancient Israelites, as I have already told you, had a great many rules and regulations regarding what they might do on the Sabbath day. They found it necessary to draw distinctions between what they might do in their homes and what they might do when they were abroad.
This raised difficulties. So in order to give a little more scope to their home activities, they made a rule, a regulation, that if they were in a street that was a cul-de-sac, each household along the street would contribute a handful of meal, and out of this meal they would make a cake, and then they would hang up this cake at the end, the open end of the street, and thus all the street became part of the household of this whole group. If the street was open, they did the same thing by hanging a cake at each end of the street where they lived.
My reason for making that explanation is that I think there is a difference between what we may do in our homes and what we may go abroad to do.
The Lord has told us what we may do in the house of prayer, and what we may do in the house of prayer we may do, I take it, in our homes. We may seek learning. We may read good books. We may acquaint ourselves with languages, tongues, and people.
I call your attention again to the fact that the only places of gathering to which we are authorized to go, the only gatherings we are authorized to attend, are the meetings in the house of prayer. No other gathering is authorized on the Sabbath.
I think we may listen to good music in the home. I do not think we may go joy riding, nor to beach parties, nor on picnics! Nowadays, as this conference is witnessing throughout this valley and in adjacent areas, you may have what we may call movies right in your home. We shall have them tomorrow, Sunday. I think there is a great difference between looking at a good movie in your home and going to a movie house, a very great difference. But the home movies we look at should be of a kind that teach things specified in the revelations as in order in the house of prayer.
Some of you are using in your Sunday Schools visual aids which in fact are frequently only movies. But their character should be carefully guarded, and I am sure they will be, that nothing be shown that does not contribute to the learning we may get in the house of prayer, for in Sunday School you are in the house of prayer. You will then be gaining the knowledge which the Lord said should be gained in the house of prayer. But that gives you no license to go to commercial movies on Sunday, because we are not authorized to go to such gatherings. I think there is a sharp distinction in this matter.
HORSE RACING
Of course, I do not suppose there is any need of my even mentioning, though perhaps it might be well for me to mention, that horse racing on Sunday is not a proper place for a Latter-day Saint to be. They have a good deal of it, they tell me, in the southern part of the state. I have been in touch with some of the officers and know how difficult they think it is to handle. If you Latter-day Saints cannot stay away from horse racing and betting on Sunday, I am not sure how much the Lord is going to listen to your prayers about some other things that you very much desire. Of course, we may not gamble at any time or in any place.
Now, I am merely making some suggestions to you as to what I think are sharp lines of distinction. I think you may do anything in your home on Sunday or in the house of prayer on Sunday which the Lord has said you might do, and the words of the Lord in the revelations to which I have referred will tell you what you may do in the house of prayer.
BLESSINGS OF SABBATH OBSERVANCE
Now, may the Lord help us to observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, because, as I read to you at the very beginning, this commandment regarding the Sabbath was given, among other reasons, "that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world".
And then there follow along in that same revelation all the things which the Lord has given to us from the earth, and to me those things are recited by the Lord as showing what we are entitled to if we keep the Sabbath.
May the Lord help us keep the Sabbath I humbly pray, adding my testimony to those that have been borne regarding the truth of this great work, the divinity of the mission of Joseph Smith, the sonship of Jesus, that we have the restored gospel and the restored priesthood. That the Lord will bless us, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Bishop LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 175-179
Just as soon as I can get my breath I will start. Brother Ivins tells the story of a deacon who was called, extemporaneously, to speak in one of our stakes. He stood up a minute and switched from one foot to the other and said, "Brothers and sisters, I am just stalling for time." Then he preached a nice sermon on the Word of Wisdom. He then looked at them and said, "I have surely put myself on the spot, haven't I?"
DOES THE GOSPEL FIT?
Now brethren, I am happy to be here; I am happy in my work in the Church; I love the brethren, and I love the Saints. I have the privilege of interviewing a good many missionaries as I travel from stake to stake, and I always ask them how they feel about going on a mission and how the gospel fits them. I say, "When you go into a store to buy a suit of clothes, it either fits or it does not fit. Does the gospel fit you? How do you feel when you hear the Prophet Joseph Smith's story of having gone into the woods to pray, and having seen the Father and the Son and what transpired there? Can you accept all of that; do you believe it? Do you believe that John the Baptist came and conferred the Aaronic Priesthood upon Joseph and Oliver and that Peter, James, and John conferred the Melchizedek Priesthood? And that Elijah, Elias, and Moses brought the keys of their dispensations; does all that fit?" When they say it does, then I say: "Then you know that we do not have just another Church-we have the only true Church."
I feel that the most important thing in our teaching in this Church is to try to impress upon our people the truth of the gospel, and I want to tell you from my experience that I do not think they have to be old men and old women to know the gospel is true. I have more young people at our conferences tell me they know the gospel is true, than the older ones, and I believe them.
On the day of Pentecost, Peter called the people to repentance and they were pricked in their hearts and said, "Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized, everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call". And I know the promise is unto our children, and they can know the truth of the gospel through the gift of the Holy Ghost. I am not quite so much worried, sometimes, about the children as I am about the older folk.
EZEKIEL'S CONTRIBUTION
I attended a Sunday School class not very long ago, and they were considering the life and mission of the prophet, Ezekiel, and the brother in charge of the class proceeded to say that we did not know very much about Ezekiel. Then he told a little about the condition of the world at the time Ezekiel lived, but said nothing about his teachings or prophecies. He was about to close the class. I very seldom say anything in a Sunday School class when I am there, but I said, "Brother So-and-so, were you going to close right at that point?" He said, "I thought so, is there anything you would like to add?" I told the class that Ezekiel had made one contribution to this great Latter-day cause thousands of years ago, that no other prophet had made, for it was he who gave us the knowledge that there were two records to be kept, not only one of Judah and his posterity, but one of Joseph and his posterity, and save for Ezekiel we would not know that there was to be another volume of scripture, and I said that it seems to me we ought to capitalize on what Ezekiel left us.
MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES
It reminded me of when I was in the mission field in the Eastern States. Into one home I went, the man was not a member of the Church, and every time I would leave he would say, "I believe I have been a Mormon all my life, but did not know it;" but I could not get his wife to come in and listen to me. She would go into the next room and iron. You know ironing is a quiet job. I do not need to tell you that I usually take my "loud-speaker" along with me, just in case, and I made sure she heard all I had to say. The last visit I made there I said, "Mrs. McDonald, you would surely honor me if you would come in today and listen to me." She finally consented. I said, "You may never see me again in this world." We had just started our discussion and in walked her son from Harvard College. She said, "My boy, you are just in time. You take this book," because I had her take the Bible to follow me, "and you show us how this man is trying to lead us astray." I took one hour and a half and I closed my Bible. The discussion that day was on the House of Israel, the new land the Lord had promised to Joseph, the ultimate final gathering in the latter days, and the two records to be kept; and I turned to her son from Harvard and said, "You tell your mother how I am trying to lead you astray, will you please?" He said, "Mother, this man is not trying to lead you astray, he is teaching you the truth." Before I left she said, "Mr. Richards, even if I do not believe all you say, there is something about you I cannot help but like. Will you pray with us before you go?"
In that same city we were holding a street meeting, and the Gospel Hall people were holding a convention a short distance away. They adjourned their meeting to come and try and break up ours. I said, "You men would like to be gentlemen, wouldn't you?" As I recall, there were about sixteen ministers there that night. I said, "You give us twenty minutes to finish our meeting and then we will stay thirty minutes and listen to you." I said to the crowd, "Won't we?" There were between two and three hundred there, and they indicated they would. During their thirty minutes they painted the Prophet Joseph as black as anybody could. "Why," they said, "if you would let them, the Mormons would bind the Book of Mormon in the same cover with the Bible and ask us to take it and like it." I did not like to see that meeting close right at that point, so I stepped up to this minister and said, "You would not mind if I made an announcement before the meeting closes, would you?" He said, "No, go ahead." So I turned to the crowd and said, "If you will come back next Tuesday night at 7:30 we will tell you why we bind the Book of Mormon in the same cover with the Bible and ask you to take it and like it." And I said, "Bring your Bibles along with you because you will not need them after next Tuesday night if you are not willing to accept the companion volume of scripture, Ezekiel said the Lord would bring forth the record of Joseph which He would join to the record of the Jews and the two should become one in His hand". When they came that night, and the crowd was larger than the previous one, I said, "How can any of us stay the hand of God from bringing forth the record He has promised?" As I remember we sold sixteen copies of the Book of Mormon that night.
Well, I have had so many experiences that I cannot understand why we cannot plant the truth in the hearts of our people until no outside thing or movement in the world can have any influence with them. We have so much more to offer than any other church in the world.
I was out tracting in that city one day and I had been to a particular house several times when the lady of the house said, "Mr. Richards, what are you trying to do anyway, are you trying to make Mormons out of all of us?" "Well," I said, "I will tell you one thing, I will never ask you to join the Mormon Church," and that seemed to put her mind at ease. Then I said, "If I could show you where you could trade a dollar for five dollars, I would not have to ask you to do it, would I?" After I had been home a few months I received a letter from her calling me "Brother Richards." She said, "I decided to trade the dollar for five dollars. I was baptized a member of the Church last Friday night."
I think that any elder in Israel who cannot make Mormonism look better than five to one had better get hold of the scriptures and go to work and study the gospel.
I was in The Hague, Holland, and was invited into the home of the owner of a large furniture store. His associates were all business men. I cannot take the time to tell you how I got there, but I was there by invitation, and I was there to discuss a certain subject of the gospel-the universal salvation of man, including the work for the dead. This happened to be a Bible class and they spent a night each week studying together. They all had their Bibles and they turned the class over to me. After having discussed this subject for about an hour and a half, I closed my Bible and there wasn't anything said for a few minutes. Finally the daughter of the house turned to her father and said. "Father, I cannot understand; you always have the last word to say on everything and tonight you have not said a word." He said, "My daughter, there isn't anything to say. This man is teaching us things we have never heard of before and he is teaching them to us out of our own Bibles." And he did not have anything to say.
Well, why don't we teach these things to our children until they become like the Rock of Gibraltar, founded upon a faith that cannot be moved?
ETERNAL MARRIAGE
You take our principle of eternal marriage and the eternal duration of the marriage covenant. I have had similar experiences in teaching this principle. I spoke on this subject in Quitman, Georgia, and I took the statement from Brother Rulon Howells' book, "Do Men Believe What Their Church Prescribes?" and read what other churches prescribe on this subject. There is no church I have ever heard of that believes the marriage tie or the family unit will endure beyond the grave. We cannot imagine anybody being satisfied with a religion like that unless he is like the lady I met back in New Bedford. I tried to teach her this principle and she said, "I'll tell you, Mr. Richards, if there is any marriage relationship beyond the grave, I'll take chances on getting something better than I have now." "If I live with my husband until I die, I think I will have done pretty well."
As I say, I spoke on this subject in Quitman, Georgia, and at the close of the meeting a Baptist minister came up and introduced himself and told me who he was. I said, "Did I misquote you," because I had read of the belief of the Baptist Church on this subject. He said, "No, Mr. Richards, it is just like you say, we do not all believe all the things our churches prescribe." I said, "You do not believe it either. Why do you not go home and teach your people the truth. They will be glad to receive it from you, and they are not yet ready to accept it from the Mormon elders." That was all I could get out of him. He said, "I will see you again."
The next time I went to Quitman my picture appeared in the paper, because I was president of the mission, and when I went up to that little church he was waiting for me. I said, "I would be glad to know what you thought of my last sermon." He said, "Mr. Richards, I have been thinking about it ever since and I believe every word you said, only I would like to have heard the rest of it." You know I never quite get finished on a subject, the clock travels too fast. This principle is not difficult for even ministers to accept when you explain it to them.
I was at the Manti Temple recently with my father, and President Anderson, who is here tonight, told of a minister who had visited the temple grounds a few weeks ago. When he heard our story of our belief in eternal marriage and the eternal duration of the family unit he said, "You know, I had two of my young people come to me recently, and they wanted me to marry them for time and all eternity," and he said, "I did it. I thought that was the kind of marriage we all ought to have, but they do not teach it in their churches."
I spent an hour and a half in the study of one of the most prominent ministers in the United States. He died a few weeks ago, and at the time of his death he was chaplain of the United States Senate. While I was in his study we discussed this subject. He said, "Mr. Richards, our church does not give us any hope that there will be a continuation of the marriage tie or the family unit beyond this life, but in my heart I find stubborn objections." Then he used this illustration, and it was better than I could have given him. I have used it since, myself. He said, "When you take the kitten away from the cat, in a few days the cat has forgotten all about the kitten, and when you take the calf away from the cow, in a few days the cow has forgotten about its calf; but when you take the child away from its mother's bosom, though she lives to be a hundred years old, she never forgets the child of her bosom. I find it difficult to believe that God created love like that to perish in the grave." But he could not tell his people that from the pulpit because he could not hold his job and teach them Mormonism.
I want to tell you that we have so much more than any other church that five to one does not begin to show it. Why do we not get into the hearts of our boys and girls and our men and women so that no power under heaven will have the power to take them away from this Church.
God bless you in the great work you are doing, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 185-191
I am sure that everyone present feels to say sincerely in his own heart, thank the Lord for the spirit of the brotherhood of Christ. I am overwhelmed at this vast audience. I believe it is the largest Priesthood meeting held in the history of the Church. We sense even though dimly that the strength of Zion is to "put on the authority of the priesthood."
I pray for the inspiration of the Lord, and for your sympathy while I attempt to say something which will be of interest and value to you leaders of Zion.
"EVILS AND DESIGNS"
One of the most significant statements in the Doctrine and Covenants, one which carries with it evidence of the inspiration of the Prophet Joseph Smith, is found in the 89th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants:
In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation....
METHODS OF TOBACCO INTERESTS
"Evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men..." The purport of that impressed me in the twenties, and the thirties of this century. I just ask you men tonight to recall the methods employed by certain tobacco interests to induce women to smoke cigarettes.
You remember how insidiously they launched their plan. First, by saying that it would reduce weight. They had a slogan: "Take a cigarette instead of a sweet."
Later, some of us who like the theatre, noticed that they would have a young lady light the gentleman's cigarette. Following this a woman's hand would be shown on billboards lighting or taking a cigarette. A year or two passed and soon they were brazen enough to show the lady on the screen or on the billboard smoking the cigarette.
I find here a clipping which I set aside in the early thirties, which corroborates this idea. This is 1931:
It is well known that the cigarette manufacturers are after the young women and girls, now. They say there are twenty-five million of these in the United States, and if they can popularize smoking among them, they will be able to increase their sales from three billions, six hundred million dollars annually to six billion dollars. This is their claim and their aim.
CIGARETTE ADVERTISING
Now, it is common to see beautiful young women depicted on billboards, and in the popular journals advertising certain brands of cigarettes. "Last year three of the large cigarette manufacturers, we are informed, spent fifty-four million dollars in advertising their wares. This is probably a greater outlay than has ever before been spent to popularize any kind of merchandise.
"There is hardly a dead wall in the country or a railroad right of way that escapes the cigarette posters. The revenue from one Broadway, New York, billboard covering the front of a building, it is said, exceeds the rent for the building itself.
"The radio has become one of the most successful means of advertising cigarettes. Attractive programs are presented, not for the purpose of entertaining the youth, but for the purpose of enticing and encouraging them to reach for a cigarette.
"Parents meekly submit to this and later deplore the fact when their children are hopeless cigarette addicts."
I may be wrong, but I thought I saw an indication recently that conspiring men now have evil designs upon our youth. Keep your eyes and ears open, to observe if they are not taking the same steps now to get our young men as they did to entice women to use that vile weed. You know that:
Sin is a monster of such hideous mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen, But seen too oft, familiar with its face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
CONFIDENCE IN YOUTH
Lest you might think from what I am going to say in giving some statistics, that I am losing confidence in the youth, I want to say here that my confidence in them is unshaken. Every week I sit with my brethren and hear recommends from you bishops, of young men and young women to go on missions. While there are some whom we think you should not have recommended, the great majority of these young men and young women are the noblest in the land. They are not addicts; they are not seeking evil ways; they have high ideals.
The young men, even the boys in Sunday School, particularly those in the Deacons Quorums, Teachers and Priests, and girls of corresponding age, are a credit to the parents, a credit to the Church. As an illustration, out in Uintah recently, I had the privilege of dedicating three church edifices. I learned from the president of the stake that many people had "given their all."
EXAMPLES OF DEVOTION
I have heard that expression in other places, and took it at first that it was just an exaggerated expression of devotion. But when I learned on this occasion of a widow who had given all she could possibly give-others, each of whom had sold their last cow, and others who had taken the tax money that had been saved, then I began to realize that there was something in that phrase. And the whole thing was climaxed by the following incident.
The ward was putting forth every effort to finish the meetinghouse, but it was unpaid for. They needed more money. I am not sure that young boy's father is in the Church. I think he is, but he would not contribute, and I have to imagine the devotion of his mother. But this young boy, about fourteen, had saved money by shining shoes, washing automobiles, doing odd chores, and had saved a hundred and fifty-nine dollars.
He had heard of a recent call for more contributions and said to the president of the stake who was cashier of the bank: "I need the nine dollars, but I wish you would take the hundred and fifty and give to the bishop to help pay the cost of that meetinghouse."
"But," said the president, "you cannot afford it." "Yes, I can."
He gave his hundred and fifty dollars as a contribution. Several months passed and the ward needed more money, and that young boy out of his meager savings gave a total of two hundred and twenty-five dollars.
An entire group of the lesser priesthood taking turns in shifts carried every brick from one old meetinghouse over to the new.
Well, I could multiply incidents of the devotion of the youth, so I have not lost confidence in them, but, we must not close our eyes to the approaching wolves who would ravish the flock. We must not close our eyes to the fact that there are conspiring men who would pollute young boys, and girls of corresponding age for sake of increasing profits. I have these things in mind as I read you the following statistics:
A VICE TO BE SHUNNED
I think tobacco is a vice which should be shunned as the bite of a rattlesnake. When I say that, I am not unaware of the fact that though seemingly there are some young men who can use tobacco without serious injury, there are many others who are poisoned, their character weakened, and their health undermined by the ingredients of the cigarette. The Lord has said that tobacco is not good for man. That should be sufficient for Latter-day Saints.
Too many of our boys are tampering with cigarettes. I do not like to hear tobacco programs on the radio. Young people say: "Well, they are the best we have." Of course they are, because tobacco interests can pay the highest salaries and get the best actors, and singers to further their evil "designs."
REPORT ON DELINQUENCY
I have been favored recently, as I have told you once before, in receiving a monthly report of the young people who are arrested in Salt Lake County. Note from the following how many delinquents are users of tobacco:
In January there were 94 fingerprinted. Eighty of these were tobacco users, and sixty-eight used liquor. Twenty-two of them belonged to our Church; thirty to the Catholics, twenty-seven to the Protestants, and fifteen no religion at all. There were five deacons, three priests and five elders among them.
February there were seventy-one fingerprinted. Fifty-six used tobacco and fifty-one drank liquor.
March, eighty-eight. Seventy-eight tobacco users, and seventy-four drinkers.
April, there were a hundred and four. Eighty-seven used tobacco, eighty-six used liquor.
May, ninety-three. Seventy-five tobacco, sixty-seven liquor. June, ninety-four. Ninety-two tobacco users, eighty-six whiskey.
June, ninety-four. Ninety-two tobacco users, eighty-six whiskey.
July, one hundred and six. Ninety-four tobacco users, eighty-eight liquor.
Out of the six hundred and fifty, five hundred and sixty-two used tobacco, five hundred and twenty drank liquor.
TOBACCO AND LUNG CANCER
Recently there came to this city a gentleman who has been specializing on cancer, Dr. E. L. Winder, Department of Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri. He is attached to the National Cancer Foundation and is one of the most eminent men in cancer treatment in the country. He spent a few days here in Salt Lake City the week of August 29th.
He came to the laboratory in which Dr. George R. Hill, Jr., works, because the company who employs him had published a paper on arsenic content of tobacco smoke. This gentleman stated that he had come to Utah to make a study of lung cancer since he had heard that cigarette smoking is appreciably lower in Utah than in any other state, "because Mormons do not smoke." He reports that lung cancer, virtually unknown a hundred years ago, and occurring only rarely in 1912, is today taking the lives of more men than any other type of cancer. More than twenty percent of the cancers attributed to men are lung cancers. They have been endeavoring to find out why this increase in lung cancer, and have found the answer-cigarette smoking, definitely and unmistakably so.
He has personally investigated over five hundred cases of lung cancer and says that in every case but four, these men have been smoking cigarettes, from one pack to two packs a day, for some twenty to thirty years. And then he adds: "That percentage is far too great to be meaningless."
He says that the average patient of lung cancer dies at fifty-two years of age, and that the average lung cancer lasts only thirteen months before proving fatal.
He interviewed eleven or twelve Mormons who call themselves "Jack-Mormons," having lung cancer, and found them in every case but one, a man seventy-four years of age, to be heavy smokers.
Dr. Hill asked him if he had found similar cases among women. The doctor answered, "No, but I look for a very great increase in lung cancers among women in the next ten or fifteen years."
DRINKING ON INCREASE
Liquor drinking is increasing. In Salt Lake County we have reports from seven of these liquor stores. From June 1st to 5th of 1948, one store that week-note only about four days-sold $62,381 worth. The corresponding week this year $72,000. June 14th to 19th, $65,900, practically $66,000. And this year, corresponding week $78,900, or $79,000. The increase in the first week was $9,700, the second $13,000, the fourth, $4,000, the fifth, $3,000, the sixth, $12,000, seventh, $19,000, eighth, $13,000, and in August $10,000.
"In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men, I have warned you, and forewarn you".
Now, we do not want to condemn the unfortunates, but we do want to warn our boys and girls against these evils. We must not shut our eyes to the fact that all this smoking and all this drinking is not done by those who are non-members of the Church. Even if we have only a small percentage, it is worth our while to be on our guard and try to save our boys and our girls from these evils.
RESULTS OF ALCOHOLISM
A young man who, addicted to drink, became an alcoholic, and finally took his own life in a New York hotel, left his last will and testament as follows:
I leave to society a ruined character. I leave to my parents as much misery as they can bear. I leave to my brothers and sisters the memory of a misspent life. I leave to my wife a broken heart. I leave to my children the memory of a drunkard's name.
James L. Gordon, by whom this is quoted, says this ought to be written on the memory of every youth who is prone to say to himself, "I can drink and I can let it alone."
OBLIGATIONS TO YOUTH
Some of our foolish girls, here in the city particularly, are becoming addicts to nicotine. We should warn them, labor with them, not drive them from us, bring them into our Mutuals, our Sunday Schools, and into our socials where they may mingle with those who cherish higher ideals. I want to tell you, brethren, that we cannot with impunity sit by and be satisfied with having the best of our boys and girls come to auxiliary and priesthood meetings and let the others go unvisited.
If parents are failing in guiding the youth then it is the duty of ward teachers and priesthood quorums and auxiliary teachers to supplant in the lives of these children the love which they are losing perhaps because of broken homes.
PREVALENCE OF DIVORCE
If I had time to give you the number of these young people who have been fingerprinted who come from broken homes, you would see where one source of this evil lies. Divorces are altogether too common in our Church. I hope the time will come soon when there will be no divorce granted, no sealing cancelled, unless that couple first come to a member of the priesthood, stake or ward, and try their best to avoid a separation.
STANDARDS OF SERVICEMEN
Now I conclude with a reference to the standards of our boys during the war. Many of them, under difficult conditions, proved themselves strong enough to resist the temptations. Only today a returned soldier came and put this into my hands with the remark: "I collected this while overseas during the war years."
No matter what else you are doing, From cradle days through to the end; You are writing your life's secret story, Each night sees another page penned. Each month ends a thirty page chapter, Each year the end of a part; And never an act is misstated, Nor even a wish of the heart. Each morn when you wake the book opens, Revealing a page clean and white; What thoughts and what words and what doings, Will cover its surface by night! God leaves that to you, you are the writer, And never one word will grow dim; Until someday you write the word "finish" And give back your life's book to Him.
God help us as men of the priesthood to keep the lives of our boys and girls pure and white, that they may return, with us, back to the presence of our Father in heaven, worthy of the welcome, "Well done, thou good and faithful servants", I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report October 1949, pp. 191-195
Are you bringing the figures, Bishop? I thought there were so many, perhaps they could not count them. I always question these figures.
Tonight, October 1, 1949, there are here in the Tabernacle, including the baptistry and the vestry, 10,082; in the Assembly Hall, 2,307; a total of 12,389. On April 1, 1949,, there were in attendance 12,392. I think we have the extra three here tonight, and so we're as many as were at our April meeting.
In October, 1948, we had 10,275 in attendance. The doorways and hallways are packed, the Assembly Hall is overflowing, many are on the outside unable to get in.
We are hoping that sometime, before too long a period goes by, we shall be able, somehow, to provide a hall that will seat all of you brethren that want to come.
POWER IN UNITY
Brethren: We have had a glorious meeting. The time is getting late. I am not going to say very much. I do want to repeat my theme song, which is brought to my mind every time I stand before this great audience of priesthood. If, brethren, you could only know what your power would be if you were really and truly united, you would not delay a day in reaching that unity.
Now, unity does not consist merely in words, or professions of loyalty; it consists in actual acts. We must see eye to eye, and we must act accordingly. Bishops and presidents of stakes cannot-and have unity in the Church-decide that they have a special situation which requires special treatment. There are the same basic passions, the same basic problems, everywhere in this broad land. They have been with men from the beginning. Now, there seems to be at the moment, or for the year, or for the years, a resurgence of the evil part or side of men, but there are no new passions, no new ambitions, no new greeds, no new thirsts for power, no new cruelties. It is all the same old story.
WAY TO HANDLE SIN
When we think that our present condition is something new and that we can tamper with it, when we think that we can approach it by some other means than have been proved effective in the past, I fear we may be fooling ourselves. Somebody says, I believe, that when you have a thorn the thing to do is grasp it, like this, not toy with it in your hands or you get hurt.
It is my belief that there is only one way to handle sin and that is to take it by the throat and throttle it. Now, I do not mean that you go around killing people; I do not mean that you should throw them out of the Church; I do not mean that you should be unkind, unsympathetic, uncharitable, but the Lord does not look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, though he has all charity for the individual sinner, whom he tries to win back.
I had thought before conference began that I might say something about the great council of heaven, the part Lucifer played in it, but we have handled Lucifer pretty roughly this conference; and the story of the grand council has been told two or three times. President Hunter gave us a very elaborate version of it today.
SATAN'S PLAN
To my mind, as I read the scriptures, the thing boils down rather simply. I do not know whether Satan was offering a new plan or whether he had offered it before, but it sounded as if he thought it was a new plan. Satan offered the Father to take over all the spirits in the great council and save them all. Nobody was going to be lost, and all he asked of the Father was that the Father abdicate. He did not use that word. Maybe it is not used up in heaven, but we know what it means down here. The Father was to turn all of his power over to Satan, was to disappear, get out of the picture.
The Son apparently had been organizing worlds before, interpreting the passage in the Book of Moses, where the Father said to Moses: "Worlds without number had He created; by His Only Begotten Son had He made them".
The Son proposed he would take it over and apparently do as he always had done, give all the power and the honor and the glory to the Father. There was no suggestion of abdication.
What Satan wanted, quite evidently, was the full possession, ownership, of this creation of spirits that is involved in the peopling of this earth; so he tried to get them by gift, and that being denied, he is following along and trying to get us through the commission of sin. If we sin sufficiently we become his subjects.
As I read the scriptures, Satan's plan required one of two things: Either the compulsion of the mind, the spirit, the intelligence of man, or else saving men in sin. I question whether the intelligence of man can be compelled. Certainly men cannot be saved in sin, because the laws of salvation and exaltation are rounded in righteousness, not in sin.
We grow only by the things we overcome, our failings that we put under foot. We climb up, get on top, one after the other of our failings, till in the end, if we are righteous living, all of our failings are under our feet, and that is what salvation and exaltation require.
CHASTITY
I thought that I might conclude the few remarks I want to make tonight, by some statements which I have written out, because I wanted to be fairly sure of what I said regarding chastity. And I want to say I approve of all that President McKay has said regarding my belief in the substantial purity of the great bulk of our people. But this devil is out amongst us, there is no question about it. It is just as real as though there was an army of invasion of mortal men. So what I have written has been written in broad terms, but I want you to understand that what I say as including my firm belief that the great bulk of our young people are clean.
The Ten Commandments contain two provisions I wish now specially to note: "Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife".
It seems to me that the besetting sin today is sensuality, sex perversion, sex indulgence.
SEX DESIRE
There is some belief, too much I fear, that sex desire is planted in us solely for the pleasures of full gratification; that the begetting of children is only an unfortunate incident. The direct opposite is the fact. Sex desire was planted in us in order to be sure that bodies would be begotten to house the spirits; the pleasures of gratification of the desire is an incident, not the primary purpose of the desire.
Remembering that fact, many problems will disappear, particularly the one presented by these who seek full gratification without begetting children.
Our art, literature, drama, movies, television, music, the ads in magazines-in great part run to sex. It seems to have become the uppermost thought in many minds. It colors their whole lives. This is all wrong. A mind engrossed in sex is not good for much else.
UNCHASTITY TOO COMMON
Unchastity is too common. It is in our schools, from the graders up. It is in our business houses and industrial plants. It is too large a part of our ordinary social life.
Parents are grasping at straws in an effort to hold their children. The cry is raised that the Church needs a book on sex. But what should such a book tell? Already the schools have taught sex facts ad nauseam. All their teachings have but torn away the modesty that once clothed sex; their discussions tend to make, and sometimes seem to make, sex animals of our boys and girls. The teachings do little but arouse curiosity for experience. It is said these courses tell enough about the generation of human beings to enable the youth, largely, to escape parenthood. Books are written, courses are given about courtship and marriage. To what point? We have not too far to go to get to the heathenish abominations and practices of the pre-Christian and early Christian times, against which the Lord again and again lashed out to ancient Israel and to early Christians.
BE CHASTE
A word on chastity can be given in one sentence, two words: Be chaste! That tells everything. You do not need to know all the details of the reproduction processes in order to keep clean. Be chaste because God commanded it. That is all there is to it. "Thou shalt not commit adultery", said the Lord at Sinai, and he has drawn no fine distinctions such as some would like to draw between adultery and fornication. The Lord used the words interchangeably.
SEX IN MARRIAGE
As to sex in marriage, the necessary treatise on that for Latter-day Saints can be written in two sentences: Remember the prime purpose of sex desire is to beget children. Sex gratification must be had at that hazard. You husbands: be kind and considerate of your wives. They are not your property; they are not mere conveniences; they are your partners for time and eternity.
CULTIVATION OF MODESTY
If you would be chaste, as God has commanded, then avoid conduct and practices that arouse the passions. A wise and pure boy or girl, one that wishes to be clean, will not "pet," nor "neck," nor "love-play," nor practice any other undue physical familiarity, by whatever name known. At best, these are gross and provocative indiscretions; at worst they are the preludes to certain and, too frequently, planned transgressions. These are all uncleanly in the sight of the Lord. If youth will abandon these, if it will decently re-cloth itself, and cultivate modesty-a largely lost virtue-it will be a long way on the road to chastity, which will bring untarnished happiness here and eternal joy in the hereafter.
And what I say to youth, I say to you young married people who are said to be, in many cases, far too lax in your morals. What may unchaste parents expect from their children, except unchastity.
EVILS OF DIVORCE
And with all this unchastity comes the great evils of divorce which is increasing amongst us at a wholly undue rate. The Lord has made clear from the beginning that these things are not pleasing in his sight.
May the Lord bless us. May we be on guard. There is no such thing with us as transgressing today, confessing tomorrow, paying the price, and then transgressing the next day all over again. That is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.
God bless us and help us to guide the youth. Again I pay tribute to the youth, the clean youth, and the great bulk of them are, but this danger is amongst us. It will not do to think it, or hide our eyes to it. O, brethren, be a unit in fighting sin, in sustaining those who are placed in authority, from the highest to the lowest, in the Church. Be a unit in clinging to the fundamental principles of the gospel, that
God may bless us, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
President David O. McKay
David O. McKay, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 116-123
It is always more or less an ordeal for me to face an audience, and particularly a congregation in this historic Tabernacle. I've been in hopes for years that I would outgrow that feeling, but I still think, study, and pray in anticipation; I tremble as I stand before you with the sense of inadequacy to give a timely message as it should be given; and after it's over, worry in self-reproachment for having failed to do justice to the cause. I suppose you brethren have all sensed these same feelings; so I ask for your sympathy, your help this morning. I particularly pray for guidance of the Holy Spirit.
TEACH ALL NATIONS
Said the Savior to his Apostles:
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
Nearly every member of the Church understands that there are two general ecclesiastical divisions in the Church of Jesus Christ: one made up of the organized stakes and wards; the other, of the missionary work.
It is of this second division I wish to speak this morning.
Many of us fail to realize the value and potent possibilities of this great branch of Church activity.
1.-As an example of voluntary service in the cause of the Master, it is unexcelled.
2.-As an incentive to clean living among youth, as a contributing factor to character building, its influence is immeasurable.
3.-As an educative force and uplifting influence upon our communities, its effect is clearly manifest.
4.-As a contributing factor to a better understanding among nations, and to the establishing of international friendship, it wields a significant influence.
5.-As it is the purpose of the Almighty to save the individual, not to make him a mere cog in the machinery of the state, the missionary service works most harmoniously in the consummation of this eternal plan!
Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God...
And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!
And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!.
NUMBER OF MISSIONARIES
Its importance, significance, and magnitude may be glimpsed when I tell you that the total number of missionaries assigned by the First Presidency, now actively engaged in missionary work, has reached 5001. At the next official meeting of the Missionary Appointment Committee, undoubtedly there will be assigned fifty or sixty additional missionaries whom bishops and stake presidencies have recommended.
In addition to these, there are between 1200 and 1500 missionaries assigned by mission presidents, a number of whom are devoting all their time to the preaching of the gospel in the missions, and others working part time, making a total of approximately 6500 missionaries in the world today.
This number is exclusive of the 2900 missionaries laboring in the stakes of Zion-a total number of approximately ten thousand.
In monetary terms, applying it only to the five thousand plus appointed officially by the First Presidency, this means that missionaries and their parents in stakes and wards are spending at the present time in cash $275,000 every month, or $3,300,000 each year.
Their expense will average about fifty-five dollars a month including the cost from home to their fields of labor. The latest report is just a little under fifty-five dollars.
The text I have just quoted, "go ye unto all the world" is really the missionary injunction given by the risen Christ to his Apostles. In effect he says:
Consider this work unfinished until all nations shall have accepted the gospel and shall have enlisted themselves as my disciples. Now, that command was not given to men indiscriminately; for even to the Twelve, to whom he addressed that commission, he later gave a formal assignment and blessing:
... as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.
With the same direct commission from the risen Lord who with the Father appeared in person in the beginning of the nineteenth century, the proclamation of the gospel is being made by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to "every nation, kindred, tongue and people" as fast as means and personnel can carry it forward.
FORTY-SIX MISSIONS
Though the Church is young in years and comparatively small in numbers, there are today, including the great mission on Temple Square, forty-six organized missions in Europe, the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, the Pacific Isles, Japan, and China.
In these missions there are 1470 branches; if we include independent Sunday Schools, there are 1780. That number is exclusive of wards and branches in organized stakes.
The forty-six men who preside over these missions are chosen generally from the rank and file of the Church. They are businessmen, contractors, ranchers, college professors, lawyers, physicians and surgeons, dentists, and members of other professions. When the call comes to any such, no matter what his responsibilities or circumstances, seldom if ever does he offer an excuse, but, as Samuel of old, replies: "Speak, thy servant heareth", even though such acceptance means a financial sacrifice and sometimes the loss of political preferment.
The missionaries, generally, are young men and women, ranging in age from twenty to thirty years, with a sprinkling among them of more experienced men and women.
It is well to say here that the direct responsibility of preaching the gospel rests upon the priesthood of the Church-not upon the women, though the efficiency of the latter in cottage meetings, in Primaries, and Sunday Schools, and in other phases of missionary work, is of the highest order, and their willingness, even eagerness, to labor is not excelled by that of the young men.
WHO MISSIONARIES ARE
Who are these youths chosen to represent the Church? They, too, as their mission presidents, come from the rank and file. They are farmers, artisans, factory workers, bank clerks, secretaries in business firms, and other vocations. Some who are married leave their wives and their children who help to support them in their work. All of them look forward to the time after their return when they, with congenial loving companions, may build happy homes.
As already stated, each pays his or her own expenses, in most cases, of course, with the assistance of parents. True Christianity is love in action. There is no better way to manifest love for God than to show an unselfish love for your fellow men. This is the spirit of missionary work. Our hearts respond to the cry of the poet:
"O brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother. Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there; To worship rightly is to love each other, Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer."
These men go out in the spirit of love, seeking nothing from any nation to which they are sent: no personal acclaim, no monetary acquisition. Two or three years ago, many of these missionaries were honorably discharged from military duty. Not a few had saved their government allowance to pay their expenses in the mission field if and when they should be called.
INFLUENCE OF MISSIONARY SYSTEM UPON YOUTH
In this fact we get a glimpse of the helpful influence of the missionary system upon the youth. Every deacon, teacher, and priest, every elder in the Church understands that to be worthy to be a representative of the Church of Christ, he must be temperate in his habits and morally clean. He is taught that there is no double standard of chastity, that every young man, as well as every young woman, is to keep himself free from sexual impurity.
I once read one of the most impressive letters of a mother to a son that I think has ever been written. It contained only three words, except the signature: "Quinn, keep clean," and was signed, "Lovingly, Mother."
Young men in the army, therefore, who looked forward to serving as missionaries and saved their money for that purpose, cherished higher ideals than their "buddies" who sometimes prodigally spent their earnings in saloons, gambling dens, and brothels.
In more than one instance, Latter-day Saint soldiers sent home their earnings of their parents to be deposited in the savings bank to bear their missionary costs after the war. And we know of two or three young men each of whom added in effect: "If I do not come home, use the money to pay the expenses of some other young man to go out as a missionary."
TRUSTWORTHINESS
These young men are instructed that they go out as representatives of the Church, and that a representative of any organization-economic or religious-must possess at least one outstanding quality, and that is: trustworthiness. He was right who said, "To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved." And whom do these missionaries represent? First, they represent their parents, carrying the responsibility.of keeping their good name unsullied. Second, they represent the Church, specifically the ward in which they live. And third, they represent the Lord Jesus Christ, whose authorized servants they are.
These ambassadors, for such they are, represent these three groups and carry in that representation one of the greatest responsibilities of their lives.
Now, what is the outstanding message that they have to give to Christian, as well as to un-Christian countries? There must surely be something distinctive to justify their presence in all parts of the world.
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST
First, their message is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the redeemer and Savior of mankind. To these missionaries-"Jesus is not a legendary figure in history," to paraphrase a question asked by Hall Caine to the Christian world,
... he is not merely a saint to be painted in the stained glass of church windows, a sort of sacred fairy not to be approached and hardly to be mentioned by name. But he is still what he was in the flesh, a reality, a man of like passions with ourselves, a guide, a counselor, a comforter, a great voice calling to us to live nobly, to die bravely, and to keep up our courage to the last.
These missionaries declare with Peter of old:
... there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
RELATION TO OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
The second distinctive message is this: Every missionary should clearly understand, and so declare in unmistakable words, the relation of this Church to other Christian organizations-that it is neither an outgrowth nor a division of any of them. True, the Church is generally classed with the Protestants; but Protestantism began with the great dissenters-Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Ulrich Zwingli, John Knox, and others. These great reformers denounced corrupt practices in the Roman Church, particularly the selling of indulgences wherein delinquents could make satisfaction by money contributions, a practice carried on under one pretext and another until it became a regular financial expedient for increasing papal revenue.
It was extended even to souls in purgatory.
The great men whom I have named rebelled against this evil and others, and organized churches in protest.
Accordingly, when the second Diet of Spires in 1529 passed a resolution:
... disallowing further religious innovations in the Lutheran states, whilst prohibiting the profession of the Zwinglian and Anabaptist forms of the reformed faith, the Lutheran minority protested, and this protestation was signed by fourteen cities as well as by the elector of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse and four other provinces. Hence the name Protestant as a designation of the evangelical party.
Protestantism, under many different names, spread over Europe and later among the American colonies, and freedom to worship as one sincerely wished became more and more the proscribed right of the individual, but in the hearts of many a true believer in Jesus of Nazareth, there remained an abiding belief, a feeling that the authority to represent him had been taken from the earth, and that there... can be no recovery out of that apostasy till Christ shall send forth new apostles to plant churches anew.
TRUE CHURCH RESTORED
This in effect is what the Lord told the Prophet Joseph Smith when as a fourteen-year-old lad he inquired which of all sects was right and which should he join. Joseph was told to join none of them for:
"They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrine the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof".
A few years later, specifically, April 6, 1830, Joseph Smith received by the spirit of prophecy and revelation instructions from the Savior "to organize his Church once more here upon the earth".
Thus was established by direct revelation and divine authority from the Eternal Father and Jesus Christ who founded the Church in the Meridian of Times, the Church of Latter-days, which is set up as a forerunner, if you please, to the establishing of the kingdom of God upon the earth. In the words of President John Taylor:
"... with such an organization, there is a chance for the Lord God to be revealed, there is an opportunity for the law of life to be made manifest, there is a chance for God to introduce the principles of heaven upon the earth and for the will of God to be done upon earth as it is done in heaven"..
With these two great fundamental truths as the heart of their message, namely, the divinity of the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, and the restoration of his gospel in this age, the missionaries are to the best of their ability, fulfilling the injunction to preach the gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever the Lord has commanded.
This, then, brethren, is a worldwide Church organized preparatory to the establishing of the kingdom of God on earth by means of which:
... the Lord God may be revealed, and an opportunity for the laws of life to be made manifest.
AMBASSADORS OF GOOD WILL
These thousands of missionaries and men who hold the priesthood everywhere are ambassadors of good will, the ultimate purpose of whose service is to change the hearts of men everywhere from selfishness and greed to tolerance, compassion, and brotherhood. And, so, with all our hearts we can sing:
Go, ye messengers of glory; Run, ye legates of the skies; Go and tell the pleasing story That a glorious angel flies, Great and mighty, With a message from the skies.
Go to ev'ry tribe and nation; Visit ev'ry land and clime; Sound to all the proclamation. Tell to all the truth sublime: That the gospel Does in ancient glory shine.
Go, to all the gospel carry. Let the joyful news abound; Go till ev'ry nation hear you, Jew and Gentile greet the sound. Let the gospel, Echo all the earth around.
Bearing seed of heav'nly virtue, Scatter it o'er all the earth; Go! Jehovah will support you; Gather all the sheaves of worth; Then, with Jesus, Reign in glory on the earth. -John Taylor
May the heart of every missionary be inspired by the spirit of his Lord, whose authorized servant he is, to the end that selfishness and violence now so powerful in the world will be replaced by loyal service, truth, and brotherhood! I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 123-134
My brothers and sisters and friends, in all humility I stand before you today, and I desire to address my remarks to all you who sit before us and to those many who are outside the walls of this building but who are listening and seeing.
A PROPHET OF GOD
When the prophet on Friday morning opened this glorious conference and bore his testimony to this world, I wonder if it affected all of you as it did me. My mind went back to the twenty-third chapter of Matthew where the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking to people who disregarded the solemn and sacred things that were there for their acceptance. In words condemnatory he said:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify...
and then later:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee....
You folk in the Church and out of the Church heard a prophet of God bear testimony that this was the only true and living Church upon the earth. Did you listen, or do you also build sepulchres for the dead prophets and tombs for those who have passed away long ago and disregard the living ones? I bear witness to you that the Prophet of God who bore testimony to you on Friday morning is the recognized head of God's kingdom here upon this earth, and you would do well to listen and to accept it in your hearts. I bear testimony also, in all solemnity, that this is the true and living Church and that it is officered by men who are called of God, and it is accepted of the Lord, and that the gospel which it promulgates, by these thousands of missionaries abroad and the other thousands here at home, is the gospel of Jesus Christ which will cure all ills and solve all problems and will exalt mankind as well as save him.
WORK AMONG LAMANITES
I had thought of saying something about the Indian or Lamanite program at this conference, but I have been "pressed by the spirit", as Paul said, to speak upon other matters; however, I should like to make this one statement, that the work among the Lamanites, though still in its infancy, is going forward at an incredible pace. The responsiveness of the children of Lehi is unbelievable. There will be many hundreds of baptisms this year both in stakes and missions, and I pray the blessings of the Lord upon all those who are contributing toward fulfilment of the promises with which the Lord has filled his books of scripture.
Much has been said in this conference already about the fundamental principle of repentance. President Clark repeated the other night the passage where the Lord said, "...preach nothing but repentance unto this people".
It seems that most of us think that repentance is for the other person, for the one who has committed murder or adultery or theft or something that is very heinous, but repentance, as I read the scriptures, is for us all.
NEED FOR REPENTANCE
It is my pleasure, also, to go into the homes of the leaders in the missions, wards, and stakes of Zion, and I am deeply appreciative of the fact that most of our people are trying to live the commandments of the Lord. I find in this Church many people who amaze me with their close approach toward perfection, but I do find, as I go about the Church, some who need this principle of repentance. I thank the Lord for this glorious principle. I find parents who have lost the natural affection for their children. I find children who disown and disclaim their parents and evade responsibility concerning them. I find sometimes husbands who desert their wives and their children, and who use almost every pretext to justify such action. I find wives who are demanding, unworthy, quarrelsome, and who are uncooperative and selfish and worldly, provoking such action. I find those who gossip and bear false witness against their neighbors. I find brethren who hate each other into the courts on trivial matters that could have been settled by themselves. I find blood brothers and sisters who fight over inheritances and bring each other into the courts of the land and draft before the public the most intimate and personal family secrets, bringing all of the skeletons out of the closets, leaving nothing sacred, having little regard for each other, interested only in that which they might acquire by such action. I saw one family split wide apart, half of the brothers and sisters on one side, and half on the other, in a most disgraceful feud. At the funeral half of them sat on one side of the aisle and half on the other. They would not speak to each other. The property involved was worth only a few thousand dollars, and yet they are avowed enemies. I have seen people in wards and branches who impugn the motives of the Authorities and of each other and make them "offender for a word". I have seen people in branches where they have broken wide apart and say unkind things about each other and will hardly speak to each other. They bring into their meetings the spirit of the evil one instead of the spirit of the Christ.
FAULTS TO BE OVERCOME
I have seen husbands and wives, living under the same roof, who are selfish, unbending, and unforgiving, who with their misunderstandings have hardened their hearts and poisoned their minds.
Then I have seen many people who have become offended at Church authorities, their ward, stake, mission, auxiliary, and priesthood leaders, for things which have been said or were imagined to have been said or thought.
To the children who are unkind to their parents the Lord has said, "Ye hypocrites". "He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death". To the intolerant, God has said. "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common". To the gossip he has said from Sinai: "Thou shalt not bear false witness". To those who would impugn motives, he said: "Judge not, that ye be not judged". And to those who would criticize the Authorities and use them as stumbling blocks, who would absent themselves from their meetings, who would fail to pay their tithes and other obligations because of fancied offenses, I would like to read from the Doctrine & Covenants, Section 121:16-18, 20-21:
Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed, saith the Lord, and cry they have sinned when they have not sinned before me, saith the Lord, but have done that which was meet in mine eyes, and which I commanded them.
But those who cry transgression do it because they are the servants of sin, and are the children of disobedience themselves.
And those who swear falsely against my servants...
Their basket shall not be full, their houses and their barns shall perish, and they themselves shall be despised by those that flattered them.
They shall not have right to the priesthood, nor their posterity after them from generation to generation.
And to all who sin in devious ways, the Savior says:
... except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
ALL NEED TO REPENT
And so, repentance is not for the murderer alone, nor the adulterer. It comes to them, too, but to all those who have been tempted of the evil one to commit sins of omission and sins of commission.
As I read the scriptures, I find that all the various sins are condemned. May I name only a few whom he calls to repentance: the murderer and the adulterer and the thief, the proud, the coveter, the drinker, the smoker, the ungrateful, the liar, the gambler, the drunkard, the selfish, the unforgiving, the accuser, the defrauder, the gossip, the profane, the vulgar, the intolerant, the malicious, the idler, the persecutor, the envious, the jealous, and to all these the Lord says:
... repent and walk more uprightly before me.
Repentance is required of us all. In this dispensation the Lord said:
... entangle not yourselves in sin, but let your hands be clean, until the Lord comes.
Paul told the Romans:
... There is none righteous, no, not one.
Even in the days of Kirtland the Lord flashed forth this indictment:
Behold, I, the Lord, am not well pleased with many who are in the church at Kirtland;
For they do not forsake their sins, and their wicked ways, the pride of their hearts, and their covetousness, and all their detestable things, and observe the words of wisdom and eternal life which I have given unto them.
... I, the Lord, will chasten them.
He called even the Prophet Joseph to repentance, though his sin was as nothing compared to ours:
... now I command you, my servant Joseph, to repent and walk more uprightly before me, and to yield to the persuasions of men no more.
His sin had been in yielding to the persuasions of Martin Harris to permit him to borrow the sacred records and let them be viewed. The Lord said further:
Wherefore, I will that all men shall repent, for all are under sin, except those which I have reserved unto myself, holy men that ye know not of.
And surely every man must repent or suffer, for I, God, am endless.
A MERCIFUL LAW
Repentance is a glorious and merciful law. It means a sorrow for sin, a confession of sin, abandonment of sin, restitution for sin, and then the living of the commandments of the Lord, which itself includes the forgiving of others, even those who sin against us. The Father says:
By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins-behold, he will confess them and forsake them.
The Lord has made provisions for those who commit heinous crimes, but I shall not dwell specifically upon them today. Those who are in deep sin should go to their ward, stake, or mission authorities for assistance. I am talking now, generally, about the sins that many of us commit.
In the Doctrine & Covenants, Section 59, the Lord says,
But remember that on this, the Lord's day, thou shalt offer thine oblations and thy sacraments unto the Most High, confessing thy sins unto thy brethren, and before the Lord.
Long years ago in every testimony meeting we had people who arose and said to their brothers and sisters, substantially, this: "I confess before you my weaknesses and imperfections and ask your assistance, your help, your tolerance, your understanding, and I pray the Lord will forgive me." We do not hear it so much any more. I think the Lord so instructed us, that we might seek forgiveness of our sins, by having confessed them humbly, acknowledging them before the people and the Lord.
Now, in Proverbs 28:13, the Lord inspired his prophets to say,
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.
ABANDONMENT OF SIN
And then to the Nephites this word came from the Lord:
And whosoever repented of their sins and did confess them, them he did number among the people of the church;
And those that would not confess their sins and repent of their iniquity, the same were not numbered among the people of the church, and their names were blotted out.
The abandonment of sin is an important part of repentance and is a requirement before forgiveness can be expected. The Lord says we may know a man has repented if he confess and forsake his sins and:
...whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.
RESTITUTION
The sinner should make restitution. It is obvious that the murderer cannot give back a life he has taken; the libertine cannot restore the virtue he has violated; the gossip may be unable to nullify and overcome the evils done by a loose tongue; but, so far as is possible, one must restore and make good the damage done. Perhaps the warning of the Redeemer "... thou shalt not depart thence, till thou hast paid the very last mite" may have reference to restitution as well as to the suffering of the sinner. Again the Lord says: "... and they shall not be blotted out until he repent and reward the four-fold in all things wherewith he has trespassed against thee".
One of the most important elements in repentance and forgiveness is living the commands of God for the Father says in his preface to his latter-day revelation,
... I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance,
Nevertheless, he that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven.
FORGIVENESS OF SINS
Now, the doing of the commandments includes many things, and much good works, but one of its very important aspects is the purging of our own hearts and forgiving others their trespasses against us.
To obtain forgiveness of our sins, we must forgive. Read the scriptures given us on that point: "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you". Then in the Lord's prayer to the people in Jerusalem, he said: "Our Father which art in heaven... forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors". Did he not mean in the same manner and in the same degree, perhaps, as we forgive our debtors? He made it a little more clear even to the Nephites, for after he had said, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" he said, "For, if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you;
"But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses". And again to the Nephites the Lord says: "... ye shall also forgive one another your trespasses; for verily I say unto you, he that forgiveth not his neighbor's trespasses when he says that he repents, the same hath brought himself under condemnation". Condemnation, then, comes to you who will not forgive, probably even greater than to him who gave the offense.
Even the ancient Apostles suffered on this account: "My disciples, in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts; and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened.
"Wherefore I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin".
THE HIGHER LAW
Now, the Savior said to his people when he was upon the earth, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth", and then he went on to give us the higher law. He proceeded: "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
"And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
"And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain". And again Jesus said: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.
"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you". Why? That you might have the benefit of it. It does not injure him so much when you hate a person, especially if he is far removed and does not come in contact with you, but the hate and the bitterness canker your unforgiving heart.
One great blessing that comes to those who will forgive, and love their neighbors and enemies also, is: "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven...
"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have you? do not even the publicans the same?". And then he commanded: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect".
"HOW OFT SHALL I... FORGIVE"
Perhaps Peter had met people who continued to trespass against him, and he asked: "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?". And the Lord said: "I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven". "... and as oft as thine enemy repenteth of the trespass wherewith he has trespassed against thee, thou shalt forgive him, until seventy times seven". Until seventy times seven! That seems very difficult indeed for us mortals, and yet there are still harder things to do. When they have repented and come on their knees to ask forgiveness, most of us can forgive, but the Lord has required that we shall even forgive them if they do not repent nor ask forgiveness of us.
In D. & C. Sec. 98:41-45, he said:
"And if he trespass against thee and repent not the first time, nevertheless thou shalt forgive him.
"And if he trespass against thee the second time, and repent not, nevertheless thou shalt forgive him.
"And if he trespass against thee the third time, and repent not, thou shalt also forgive him.
"But if he trespass against thee the fourth time thou shalt not forgive him, but shall bring these testimonies before the Lord; and they shall not be blotted out until he repent and reward thee fourfold in all things wherewith he has trespassed against thee.
"And if he do this, thou shalt forgive him with all thine heart"; we must still forgive. The Lord will avenge us. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord", and man must not seek vengeance nor retaliate against those who have damaged him. Bitterness injures the one who carries it more than the one against whom it is directed.
JUDGE NOT
Can we ever forget the lesson taught us by the Lord Jesus Christ when he said:
Judge not, that ye be not judged,
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
The contrast between the huge beam and the tiny mote brings to our attention, forcibly, that we mortals should totally avoid judgment of our fellow men. When a beam is obscuring our own vision, how can we know their motives, intents, and desires? And not knowing, how can we judge righteously?
Another indictment of us who accuse others is the touching story of the woman taken in adultery and brought before the Savior for judgment. Her accusers, apparently with monumental beams in their eyes blinding them, brought the unfortunate sinner demanding the extreme penalty of stoning. The Lord was wise beyond their comprehension and could not be trapped by these wanton sinners.
... But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
So when they continued asking him, he lifted himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
And when he looked up a little later, all the accusers "... being convicted by their own conscience", had sneaked away.
UNHOLY JUDGING
Another impressive example of unholy judging comes to us in the Lord's parable of the unmerciful servant who owed to his lord ten thousand talents but being unable to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant fell down and begged for a moratorium, and when the compassionate lord had loosed him and forgiven his debt, this conscienceless person straightway found one of his fellowservants who owed him an hundred pence, and taking him by the throat demanded payment in full, and upon failure of the debtor, cast him into prison. When the lord heard of this rank injustice, he chastised the unmerciful servant:
... O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:
Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?
And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.
Then the Redeemer, summarizing, said to his disciples:
So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.
According to my Bible, the Roman penny is an eighth of an ounce of silver, while the talent is 750 ounces. Accordingly the unmerciful servant was forgiven 600,000 units but would not forgive one unit.
I met a woman once, demanding and critical. She accused her stake president of harshness and would have displaced him if she could. She had committed adultery, and yet with her comparative debt of 600,000 pence she had the temerity to criticize her leader with a hundred pence debt. I also knew a young man who complained at his bishop and took offense at the leader's inefficiency and his grammatical errors, yet he himself had in his life sins comparable to the talents and had the effrontery to accuse his bishop of weaknesses comparable only to the pence.
Those of us who have sins, heinous or less serious, would do well to sing frequently the beautiful hymns: "Should You Feel Inclined to Censure," by George H. Durham; "School Thy Feelings, O My Brother," by President Charles W. Penrose; and "Let Each Man Learn to Know Himself," so much sung and loved by President Heber J. Grant.
EXAMPLES OF FORGIVENESS
Remember that we must forgive even if our offender did not repent and ask forgiveness. Stephen yet in his young life had mastered this principle. His accusers, unable to find anything against him other than fancied blasphemy, stoned him to death. Not waiting for them to repent, Stephen displayed his saintliness by using his last breath to forgive them saying: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge". They had taken his very life, and yet he forgave them. The Prophet Joseph moved to his certain death with the same spirit of forgiveness. The Lord Jesus also gave to us the lesson. Before they asked forgiveness, before they repented, while they were still in their murderous passion, he found it in his heart to forgive them and to ask his Father to "... forgive them; for they know not what they do". He did not wait till his crucifiers, the high priests, scribes, elders, and Pharisees, should have a change of heart, but forgave them while they were yet covered with his life's blood.
DUTIES OF OFFENDED ONE
It frequently happens that offenses are committed when the offender is not aware of it. Something he has said or done is misconstrued or misunderstood. The offended one treasures in his heart the offense, adding to it such other things as might give fuel to the fire and justify his conclusions. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the Lord requires that the offended one should make the overtures toward peace. He says:
And if thy brother or sister offend thee, thou shalt take him or her between him or her and thee alone; and if he or she confess thou shalt be reconciled.
To the Nephites the Lord said:
... if... thy brother hath aught against thee-
Go thy way unto thy brother, and first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I will receive you.
And to the disciples in Judea he said:
Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
Leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Do we follow that commandment or do we sulk in our bitterness, waiting for our offender to learn of it and to kneel to us in remorse?
FORGIVENESS INVOLVES FORGETTING
And this reconciliation suggests also forgetting. Unless you forget, have you forgiven? A woman in a branch in the mission field where there had been friction finally capitulated and said, "Yes. I will forgive the others, but I have an eternal memory." Certainly she had not fulfilled the law of forgiving. She was meeting the letter but not the spirit. Frequently we say we forgive then permit the grievance to continue to poison and embitter us.
The Lord forgets when he has forgiven, and certainly must we. He inspired Isaiah to say:
I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.
And again in our dispensation, he said:
Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven; and I, the Lord, remember them no more.
And we are instructed by him that
... thou shalt forgive him with all thine heart;....
No bitterness of past frictions can be held in memory if we forgive with all our hearts.
So long as we are bitter, hold grudges, are unrepentant ourselves, unforgiving to others, how can we partake of the sacrament? Read again what God said in the matter:
Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself.
SETTLING DIFFERENCES
Brothers and sisters and friends, if we will sue for peace, taking the initiative in settling differences-if we can forgive and forget with all our hearts-if we can cleanse our own souls of sin, accusations, bitterness, and guilt before we cast a stone at others-if we forgive all real or fancied offenses before we ask forgiveness for our own sins-if we pay our own debts, large or small, before we press our debtors-if we manage to clear our own eyes of the blinding beams before we magnify the motes in the eyes of others-what a glorious world this would be! Divorce would be reduced to a minimum; courts would be freed from disgusting routines; family life would be heavenly; the building of the kingdom would go forward at an accelerated pace; and the peace which passeth understanding would bring to us all a joy and happiness which has hardly "entered into the heart of man".
And a final word from the Lord:
Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I humble you with my almighty power; and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit.
May the Lord bless us all that we may continually carry in our hearts the true spirit of repentance and forgiveness until we shall have perfected ourselves, looking toward the glories of exaltation awaiting the most faithful, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Antoine R. Ivins
Antoine R. Ivins, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 134-137
My brethren and sisters, I believe that I have enjoyed this conference thus far to the fullest extent that a nervous man can. The testimonies that have been given have been wonderful, and we have hard much that is worthy of our remembrance and reflection. It is my desire to bear you my testimony as to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if in doing so, I can say any little thing that will comfort any of us or give us greater courage in living the gospel of Jesus Christ then I shall be happy.
INFLUENCE OF JOSEPH SMITH
Not long ago, as I was leaving the office, I met a man who told me that he was a prominent lecturer. I have never heard him, but he alleged that he is a prominent lecturer. He had in his hand a pamphlet, "Joseph Smith Tells His Own Story." He said he was looking for the best printed picture of the Prophet Joseph Smith, for purposes of his own, of course. He was a man, I presume, of Jewish faith, for he said he was a Jew. As he showed me that picture, he made this remark: "Joseph Smith is not dead. He is no more dead than Abraham and Moses and Christ. His influence has extended throughout the whole world. It is felt wherever one goes." I said, "I hope that is true," and he said, "I know it is true. I have been around and felt his influence."
I am glad that I have faith in the Prophet Joseph Smith and the story that he told us. I believe implicitly in the gospel of Jesus Christ, as interpreted by the Church, and the prophets who stand at its head. If I have any doubts, it is only as to my ability to properly understand and properly interpret that gospel in my life.
FIRM FOUNDATION
Not very long ago, also, I sat at a banquet table next to one of our good sisters. During the conversation she told me of two teenage boys, brothers they were, who had just left the Church and had become affiliated with another. In explaining it to her, they said, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has nothing to offer us." It seems to me that that is a strange thing for a young man born in the Church to be able to say, and of course I don't believe a word of it, that is, I don't believe that it is true, because it came perhaps out of the ignorance of those two boys as to the Church and its teachings. We have sung "How Firm a Foundation" is laid for us. I believe that foundation is of such a peculiar nature and so thoroughly and deeply laid that any man or any woman who comes to understand it should accept it and appreciate it. Every man who worships should know the God he worships. Some people who teach tell us that the glorious thing about God is that men cannot understand him; but Christ said, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God". He implies there, and I infer, that it is possible to come to know God if we will worship him well; and the great thing, as has already been intimated this morning, that came back to us through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith was the clear definition as to the personality of God and of his Son, Jesus Christ. That is the great and basic foundation stone, so far as my faith is concerned, and it came back to the world through the Prophet Joseph Smith. That is why we go to Christian people to teach the gospel, because at the time of the Prophet Joseph Smith there was not, and there is not today, so far as I understand, another Christian denomination which teaches the true personality of God. How can you worship really, honestly, and sincerely without knowing it?
THE PRIESTHOOD
There is another foundation stone that he was instrumental in bringing to us, which was represented last evening in the gathering of twelve thousand people on this block, and that is the priesthood of God. It is the greatest power, the most desirable thing in the world.
When I was in Tennessee one time, a good Methodist asked me if we thought we were the only people, to which I replied that God loves all people and will reward them as they live. We are, however, the custodians of his priesthood, and that priesthood is essential to the performance of the ordinances that he has set up as essential to our exaltation in his kingdom. Without it one cannot even be baptized into the Church. I hope that our friends who are not of us will not be offended when I use an illustration that I read in a letter from a young man who wrote from Barcelona, Spain, recently. He said, "I have come to realize that baptism into the Church of God is essential. I believe that the Catholic baptism is ineffective and Protestant baptism is still worse." Now, I have no enmity toward them. I say this only to show that people do believe, as we do, that baptism is essential. It is set forth in the scriptures unequivocally, but it must be performed by a man who holds the corresponding priesthood to do it. So then, we have another reason for going to even Christian peoples with the message which we bear. That priesthood brings us the privileges of our endowment in the temple. It brings us the privilege of being sealed to our wives for time and all eternity, that our children may be born under the covenant and be ours through eternity if their lives justify it, than which no greater blessing could ever be given to man. If those three things are not something to offer to the people of the world, what do they want? Getting past that, we have other things that were restored. We have the true manner of the administration of the sacrament of Christ. There is no other place in the world that you can find stated the blessings that must be used on the water and the bread, than in the revealed scripture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You find it in the Doctrine and Covenants. You find it in the Book of Mormon.
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
The Church fosters education as no other religious organization in the world, I think, has ever done. The dominant church boasts the oldest college, I believe, in the world, located in Mexico. It is true that it is old, almost as old as the discovery of America, but what was it used for? It was used to educate a few people who could minister to the masses, but it was never made available to the masses of the people, not even desirable, some writers say, that the masses should be educated, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints offers an educational program to young and old, the like of which no other church has ever done.
We have our youth program, which is being copied by many today, which is an offering to the young that they should not consider lightly.
One could go on, if time permitted, to enumerate the many benefits and blessings that come from membership in the Church, so that one wonders why anybody should let trivial things drive him from it.
BASIC PRINCIPLES
I heard the other day of a man who left the Church because his son was denied entry into the temple-I imagine, justifiably so. You find people who leave the Church because, sometimes, they think the bishops and stake presidents do not understand them. They do not think of these broad and basic things, faith in God; faith in the revealed word as it has come from the Prophet Joseph Smith, that he was actually an inspired servant of God; faith in the appointed leaders who have followed him with an unbroken line of authority to minister in these things. They are the important things, it seems to me, brethren and sisters, and when we think Mormonism, if you want to call it that, when we think of the gospel, it seems to me that those basic things are the ones that we should think of and appreciate, and we should not worry too much about the prohibitions that it gives us. There is not a single one of them that is not set up for the benefit and blessing of men. It is true that many men are frail and have great difficulty in observing all of those things, but they should not let their failure to observe them, their lack of power to observe them, drive them out of the Church, because in other sections they are given liberty and license that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cannot condone.
HIGH MOTIVES OF OFFICERS
The Lord has to use human elements in the guidance of this great work, and it is not to be expected that any bishop or any stake president or any of the leaders shall be absolutely perfect in his life, but I would have you understand that it is my belief that those who stand as the presiding officers of this Church have nothing but high and holy motives in the things which they do and that they constantly and continuously and always seek the spirit of God to prompt them in the decisions they make, the programs they suggest.
Brethren and sisters, the Church offers a program that should be attractive to all, because it is through the observance of that program that men will not only live better and more righteous lives here on the earth and gain while they live here greater joy and greater happiness and greater satisfaction, but it also paves the way to exaltation in the presence of God, our Heavenly Father, when this mortal sojourn shall end.
It is my testimony to you that I feel, deep down in my heart, the truth of these things, that because I sense this, I am willing to devote my life to their teachings as one of the great missionary forces to which President McKay has referred today. I only hope and desire in serving you that I may do it with full love and fellowship, without hate, in my heart, toward any man, that when men come for advice God may inspire me to give them the advice that will encourage them and comfort them, that in all my ministry the spirit of God may characterize my acts.
May God bless us, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Albert E. Bowen
Albert E. Bowen, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 138-143
As I have listened to the various speakers during this conference, I have been impressed with the persistence of one theme. Every speaker has urged us all to greater fidelity to principles and a closer conformance in practice to the teachings of our belief. Now I come to think of it, I can't remember any time when this was not so. I have no remembrance of sermons in our religious services which did not exhort the congregation to live in closer harmony with gospel teachings. Always the admonition is to do better.
ADMONITION TO DO BETTER
So characteristic is this feature that I am led to wonder if listeners might not sometimes be tempted to ask, "Aren't you ever satisfied?" Can you not tell us for once that we are doing well enough?" I cannot remember ever having heard such complacency expressed. I have heard plenty of commendation for the good done and encouragement for the advancement made. I have heard recitals of incidents evidencing individual deeds of great sublimity wherein men have risen to lofty heights of spiritual and moral grandeur. These have been acknowledged as benefactors of mankind and extolled as exemplars of what is praiseworthy.
But always such men and deeds are held forth as exhibitions of the inherent human capacity to rise above baser instincts and climb to higher standards of goodness. Their attainments, it will be noted, are rehearsed for their admonitory value-as a basis for enticing others, in emulation, to improve themselves by struggling upward to the high plane achieved by their exemplars. So always the same exhortation, whether expressed in direct terms or by manifest implication, is there, urging us on to do better, to conform to the standards of our high ideal.
Moreover, I am persuaded on reflection that such will and should always be the case. There can be no end to importunings for improvement because improvement, growth, progress, self-betterment is a concept basic to our creed. It is a cardinal principle going to the depths and bottomed on the meaning and purpose of life.
THE GOSPEL PLAN
The gospel is the revelation of God for the salvation of man. Coming from God it is perfect, the authentic plan for right living.
If observed in its completeness, it will make men perfect, and ultimate individual perfection, according to gospel teachings is the goal of life, its real purpose. When men attain it they will be saved, which is the ultimate of all hopes and aspirations, the inspiration for all striving. In that matchless sermon delivered from the mountainside, Jesus admonished his listeners:
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
And Paul and Timothy, writing to the Philippians said of the Savior that he,
... being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.
HUMAN FRAILTIES
But men are mortal and beset by human frailties. They are enticed by the pressures of immediate carnal desire to depart from the high standards of the perfect law. When they are under the influence of an exalted occasion, they make high resolves. They firmly determine to avoid past mistakes and to do better. But gone out from under the spell of that influence and absorbed in the complicated pursuits of life, they find difficulty in holding fast to their noble purposes. In competition with their fellows they are influenced by the natural instinct to play a winning game. An opportunity presents itself to turn a good deal, to outsmart a fellow man, or profit at another's expense by suppressing some facts or misrepresenting others, or practicing some other form of deception. Or it may be that they see a chance to gain advantage by evil speaking about a rival or to gratify a debasing appetite or a lustful passion, and under the pressure of the immediate impulse the high resolve is dimmed, the noble determination submerged, and they slip below the standard of their ideal. So it is essential that they come again, and frequently, under the influence which kindles anew the warmth of spirit in which good resolutions are begotten, that they may go out fortified to withstand the pressures of temptation which lure them into false ways. Happily, if they refresh themselves frequently enough under ennobling influences, the spirit of repentance will be at work with them, and they will make conquest of some temptations-rise above them-and advance thus far toward their final goal.
RESOLUTION TO DO GOOD
That is one reason why, when we congregate together, we must always and forever be admonished and urged and inspired to renew and strengthen our good determinations, by degrees to correct our imperfections and advance in the scale of goodness. So long as men are subject to be lured by ignoble desires from the perfect law of life, they need constant reminders to bring them back and fortify them against repeated departures. So long as that condition obtains, which is throughout mortality, just so long will it be needful that religious services be devoted to admonition and persuasion and, if may be, to inspiring with the resolution to withstand evil and cleave to the good-to conquer even the desire to yield to debasing appetites or passions or to lower themselves to the level of ignoble deeds.
I trust, therefore, that none of us shall feel that admonitions and exhortations and even reprovings are offered in the spirit of complaining or of chastisement, but rather as reminders of the necessity in our own self-interest of moving forward to higher planes. It is one of the prime offices of religion and of worshiping assemblies that interest should be centered on the grandeur of purity and perfection of life. It has ever been so, and is not something peculiar to our day. It is a practice as old as history and must endure to the end of time.
EARLY CHRISTIAN EXHORTATIONS
If you go back to the early history of the Christian Church, you will find it there. The epistles of Paul, for example, are full of chidings for transgressions, pleadings to forsake evil ways and exhortations to live righteously.
Know ye not,
he wrote to the Corinthians,
that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers...
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
He also pleaded with them to put away envyings and strife and dissensions, which he denounced as carnal and not compatible with the spirit which belonged to those who had accepted the Christ. The things he warned against are such as reveal blemishes in human behavior and make manifest its imperfections.
So Peter in his epistle addressed to the saints in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia urges:
... laying aside all malice, and all guile, hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings.
He reminded them that in times past, before Christ had been preached to them, they had walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries and admonished them that they must now make an end of these things. He exhorted them to patience in persecution, long-suffering, endurance of scorn, if need be, because of forsaking former ways to humility, charity, and steadfastness in the faith, husbands and wives respecting and fortifying each other.
These expounders of the early Christian faith, it is to be observed, were not content to deal in abstractions or to gloss over evil doings lest some might take offense. They particularized to the degree that no one could be left in doubt as to what they meant. They neither compromised principles nor softened their censure of wrong. Thus, Paul, after the sweeping generalization that the "unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God," proceeds to tell specifically some of the things which make men unrighteous and unfit for the kingdom. The unrighteous include thieves, the covetous, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners, as well as those whose hearts are so eaten out with envy that they become breeders of strife and dissensions. Peter expands the list of things that belong to the qualities of unrighteousness to include malice, guile, hypocrisies, evil speaking, lasciviousness, lusts, revelings, and abominable idolatries. These no doubt were practices indulged by the particular congregations to whom Paul and Peter wrote.
If you will take the trouble to go through the gospels and the letters and epistles and narratives of the men whom Jesus commissioned to carry his message and perpetuate it in the world, you cannot help noting the striking sameness of evil things they exhorted against with the deeds and habits which fall under censure today. The catalogue of vices seems to have been fairly complete way back in that remote period. There hasn't been very much added, and there isn't much to subtract from the list. After all the intervening centuries of teaching, we still need the same admonitions against the same vices. Neither has there been any virtue added to Christ's teaching. These facts perhaps ought not to prove so startling as they may seem when recognition of them first bursts upon our consciousness.
STRUGGLE FOR PERFECTION
The persistence of these human frailties from the beginning of the race till now is but an indication of the heritage of mortality rooted down deep in it. The age-old urging to conquer them attests that mortal imperfections are antagonistic to other instincts native to the human family. There is then set up in the individual a conflict between the opposing forces of good and evil. We should accordingly expect the vices and the virtues respectively, to be essentially of the same nature till the conflict is over, though there may be differences of degree and of manifestation. The conquest of evil by the good is the struggle of life. It is the struggle for perfection and the attainment of salvation which is supremacy over evil. We must not be too discouraged because progress is slow, for it involves working changes in human desires and inclinations. Perfection has to be achieved; salvation has to be won. They do not come as free bestowals. The process seems to be through winning the struggle for supremacy between human imperfections and the mandates of the God-given perfect law. It is by meeting adversities, battling down obstacles, rising triumphant over opposing forces that man builds muscle and moral and intellectual fiber and spiritual stamina. It is the process by which he has built up his amazing mastery in the physical world and the forces that operate in it reducing them to servitude and ordering them to his bidding. There is no such thing in this world as getting something for nothing. Everything has its price. Every step forward in the realm of human progress, in the amazing advance of man in his mastery in the physical world has come out of grueling toil and sweat, heartbreaking disappointments and failures and, after failure returning again to the struggle.
The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night. The Ladder of St. Augustine Henry W. Longfellow
PRACTICE OF VIRTUES
That inexorable law is operative in the spiritual realm as well as in the temporal domain. It is the law of life operative in all its aspects that progress, growth, advancement are the result of struggle and conquest. In the spiritual realm the struggle is between good and evil, a struggle for the supremacy of righteousness. There is only one way to win in that struggle, and that is to practice the virtues and cease to practice evil. The formula is simple. It consists in adopting as habitual behavior that set of principles and teachings which collectively we call the gospel. There is no other way. Our lives are patterned, our natures formed, our characters established by the things we do and not by theoretical professions of principles or abstract contemplations. If you want to overcome envy, you have to practice rejoicing in the good fortune and successes and attainments of your fellows; if you want to purge yourself of covetousness, you have to practice generosity and contentment in seeing others prosper as you would like yourself to prosper; if you want to be rid of reviling, you must practice reverence and respect for worthy things; if you want to avoid drunkenness, you have to practice sobriety; if you want to be cleansed of lasciviousness, you have to practice continence and purity of thought; if you want to conquer thieving, you must practice honesty; if you want to be free of the vice of extortion, you must practice benevolence and fairness toward others, and so on we might go till we have enumerated every vice and its opposing virtue throughout the whole catalogue of gospel precepts. Obey them in practice, make them the governing feature in your lives and you will win perfection, and hence salvation.
FIDELITY TO GOSPEL LAW
It is easy to conceive that greater progress might have been made if those entrusted with the teaching of the gospel law had maintained a greater fidelity to its principles. I have already called attention to the practice during apostolic times of naming the evil practices which must be done away and recommending conformance to the saving principles of the Christian teaching. But in the interest of winning converts and spreading power this practice was relaxed to suit the temper of the world. As Macaulay observed, the surest and easiest way to win converts is to lower standards. In an early century a great deal of effort was expended in an attempt to reconcile Christian teaching with pagan philosophy. This was an impossible task, but an apparent harmony was achieved by bending Christian doctrines into conformity which resulted in its adulteration and the consequent weakening or destruction of its saving power. It did win a more universal favor, facilitate the drawing in of greater numbers, but at a devitalizing cost which always flows from compromising principles of right. It was even brazenly taught by men in places of power, entrusted with guidance, in the interest of perpetuating and extending their sway, that certain Christian principles were to be suppressed because not congenial to people given over to contrary indulgences, so that, as Macaulay declared: "... instead of toiling to elevate human nature to the noble standard fixed by divine precept and example," the standard was lowered "till it was beneath the average of human nature."
Thus was sacrificed the true office of divine worship and guidance, instead of holding up before men the ideal of the God-given and perfect gospel law and fortifying them for the struggle incident to the conquest of evil, they were seduced into deadening compromises with sin, and progress toward the ultimate triumph of righteousness was immeasurably retarded. In this contemplation it ought to be clear to us that in all our worshiping assemblies it should be accepted as established usage to be received without resentment, but gratefully, that the law of God should be reiterated and emphasized and exhortation given for conformance of life thereto. You leaders cannot discharge your duties as such unless you see that this is done. Only thus can we be regenerated by the gospel's saving power and through obedience to it rise triumphant above our mortal imperfections, which may God grant us power to do, I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
President George F. Richards
George F. Richards, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 150-153
My dear brethren, sisters, and friends, here present and on the air, I greet you in affectionate fellowship as sons and daughters of God, which we are, and pray God's blessings upon you, that the light of Christ may direct you in the straight and narrow way that leads to life everlasting.
LOVE OF GOD
When the hymn was announced in the afternoon meeting yesterday, "God So Loved the World," the thought occurred to me, that is the title of that which I desire to say when called upon to speak.
Completing the quotation:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
This represents the love of the Father for us, his children. Then I thought of another scripture:
... I lay down my life for the sheep. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down myself.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Taking these two quotations together, we see the gift of the Father and of the Son to the world, of all that the atonement meant of mental and physical suffering in life, and in his death upon the cross, of which it can be said in truth, that as a gift to mankind it was the greatest ever given; a sacrifice, the greatest ever made; a service, the greatest ever rendered; a demonstration of love such as is possessed only by the Gods.
WORK OF CHRIST TRACED
I would like, if possible, for us to become better acquainted with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and his life's work, that knowing him better, we might love him more, and loving him more, serve him better, and thereby obtain eternal life, God's greatest gift to man.
Quoting from Isaiah, 53rd Chapter:
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
And we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Under the direction of the Father, he created the heavens and the earth and all things existing thereon, as attested by scriptures.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
And worlds without number have I created;... and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.
Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who created the heavens and the earth.
Jesus Christ ministered as the God of this world from the beginning until he came to earth in the meridian of time.
And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord; And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them.
Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world.
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE OF CHRIST
The following is taken from "Conscript Fathers." I quote:
In these our days appeared a man named Jesus Christ, who is yet living among us, and of the Gentiles is accepted as a Prophet of great truth; but his own disciples call him the Son of God. He hath raised the dead and cured all manner of diseases. He is a man of stature somewhat tall and comely, with a ruddy countenance, such as the beholder may both love and fear. His hair is the color of a filbert when fully ripe, plain to his ear, whence downward it is more of orient color, curling and waving on his shoulders; in the middle of his head is a seam of long hair, after the manner of the Nazarites. His forehead is plain and delicate, the face without spot or wrinkle, beautiful with a comely red; his nose and mouth are exactly formed; his beard is the color of his hair and thick, not of any length, but forked. In reproving he is terrible; in admonishing, courteous; in speaking, very modest and wise; in proportion of body, well-shaped. None has seen him laugh, many have seen him weep. A man, for his surpassing beauty, excelling the children of men.
The following pen picture of the Savior was written by J. A. Francis of Los Angeles and is just as true as if it had been spoken by one of the prophets:
"Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty, and then for three years he was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompanies greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He had nothing to do with, in this world, except the naked power of his divine manhood.
"While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him; another betrayed him. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed on the cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth while he was yet dying, and that was his cloak. When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
"Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone, and today he is the center of the human race and the leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth as profitably as has that one solitary man."
PARALLEL IN LIVES OF SAVIOR AND JOSEPH SMITH
In the life and accomplishments of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, we see a strong resemblance to that of the Savior. When the Savior chose his twelve disciples, he chose them from the humble walks of life. It is the Lord's way.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called;
But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, the things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
That no flesh should glory in his presence.
Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph Smith, I am well pleased with your offering and acknowledgements, which you have made; for unto this end have I raised you up, that I might show forth my wisdom through the weak things of the earth.
Joseph Smith was born of humble parentage in an obscure village. He never went to college nor attended high school, but he accomplished in the short period of his life of thirty-eight and one-half years more than any other mortal man of his time, if not of all time. Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were martyrs to the truth. They were murdered in cold blood by a disguised and ruthless mob.
During the short life of the Prophet Joseph Smith he was instrumental in the hands of the Lord in the establishment of the Church and kingdom of God on earth as seen in vision by the Prophet Daniel. Through him the everlasting gospel in its fulness was restored, with all its gifts, blessings, principles, and ordinances, and the power and authority of the priesthood to administer the ordinances of the gospel to the children of men, who, by repentance and obedience, are prepared to receive them.
The works of Joseph Smith and the spirit that prompted them live on in the hearts and lives of his followers who are numbered by the hundreds of thousands now living and have influenced the lives of other hundreds of thousands who have gone to their reward.
More than a century has passed since the martyrdom of the Prophet, but his works and the spirit which actuated them are increasing in the earth. Many have died for the religion established by the Prophet Joseph Smith, and there are many thousands today who would do likewise if necessary. He gave his life for the cause and, like the Savior, sealed his testimony with his blood.
PERSONAL TESTIMONY
As a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ, I bear you my testimony that God the Eternal Father lives, a glorified and exalted being, having a body of flesh, bones, and spirit as tangible as man's, and that he has revealed himself anew to the world through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith, whom he raised up to be the mighty Prophet of the last days; that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world; that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Living God; and that the work in which we, as Latter-day Saints, are engaged is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, which all men must receive if they would be saved in the kingdom of God.
I bear this testimony to you and to all the world, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Thorpe B. Isaacson
Thorpe B. Isaacson, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 153-159
President Smith, and my dear brothers and sisters, the other day as we were attempting to guess our time when we would be called upon to speak, Bishop Wirthlin spoke and said: "No man knoweth the day nor the hour", and he was not referring to the original passage of scripture, either.
GRATITUDE FOR CHOIR
I know we are all grateful for this choir today. I thought this morning when President McKay was giving the number of missionaries in the field, probably the choir should be included. The men of the choir furnished our music last night at the general priesthood meeting, and it was very beautiful, and this morning again their songs have been so appropriate. The choir comes here each week, each Thursday evening, and each Sunday morning early to practice. I am confident that we are all very proud of them. They are a choir of service. They are indeed a missionary choir, and I know we are grateful to the conductor, Brother J. Spencer Cornwall, and the fine organists and all the members of the choir, Brother Lester F. Hewlett, the president, and all those who are associated with him. We cannot think of the choir on Sunday morning without thinking of the Spoken Word by our beloved brother and friend, President Richard L. Evans.
STRENGTH IN PRAYER
As I look into this great audience, I feel very weak and very humble, and I pray that the Lord will help me. I have prayed to the Lord, not once, but many times the last few days, and I pray to the Lord first because I believe in prayer, and second, I pray to the Lord because I know of my weaknesses and I know of my incapabilities, and I am very dependent upon the help of the Lord. I would feel sorry for anyone who would attempt to occupy this position if he felt in his own strength, that his own sufficiency, was enough. I will be very grateful to you if you will say a short prayer for me, because I need it very badly.
Sometimes I have wished that all of you could have this opportunity for just a moment, not because I think you would enjoy it any more than I do, but because it is indeed a humbling experience and certainly a sobering experience.
I have felt the prayers of this conference were very strengthening, indeed, every one of them. I have enjoyed the words of our brethren. I love them as men; I admire and respect them.
Prayer is indeed a privilege; it is indeed a blessing; and it is indeed a comfort. Prayer is not just a duty.
PAGEANT AT HILL CUMORAH
I had made some study and preparation to discuss a subject that I thought might be appropriate at this conference, but I am not going to give that talk. Instead, if you will pardon me, I would like to share with you an experience that I recently had at Hill Cumorah and the Sacred Grove at Palmyra, New York.
I am grateful for the privilege of being in Palmyra at the time the pageant was presented, entitled America's Witness for Christ. This pageant was presented by the missionaries, approximately one hundred and ninety of them, of the Eastern States Mission, under the direction of Dr. Harold I. Hansen of the Utah State Agricultural College faculty, and President George Q. Morris of the Eastern States Mission.
The pageant is the story of the Book of Mormon. The rustic setting of Hill Cumorah is the stage or the background of that pageant. The scenes are those of the Angel Moroni receiving his instructions from his father Mormon, the story of the Prophet Joseph receiving his instructions from the Angel Moroni, and other scenes of the Nephite and Lamanite people, the story of the Book of Mormon, and the great message of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
The pageant was held on three nights, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Thursday evening, the first night, the newspapers estimated that there were between twelve and fifteen thousand people who attended that pageant. The second night it was estimated there were between twenty and twenty-five thousand people who attended the pageant, and on the last night, the third evening, it was estimated that there were between twenty-five and thirty-five thousand people assembled to witness that great pageant.
NON-MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE
We must keep in mind that probably ninety percent of that great gathering were non-members of the Church. To me it was great evidence that the prejudice and ill feeling, though not entirely diminished, was certainly at a low ebb. The newspapers of the cities in New York were very liberal, very courteous, and very praiseworthy of that great pageant.
The highway patrol of the state of New York estimated that there were thousands of carloads of people the last night who could not get to see the pageant because the parking lots and the highways were all congested. The police rendered us most excellent service.
The officials of those cities were very friendly. It was reported that one of the businessmen of Palmyra or Rochester stated that he thought the communities should assist by making contributions to the pageant, and they ought to make a collection and help finance that great pageant. Of course, our appreciation was expressed to them, and we told them this was not necessary; nevertheless it was the attitude that he expressed which we appreciated.
Hundreds of the homes there were opened to people. Many of our missionaries while they were there at Palmyra preparing for the pageant, stayed in the homes of people who were not members of the Church.
BLESSING SOUGHT
The pageant was scheduled for nine-thirty in the evening. The dates had been selected when the moon was not shining, because the participants wanted darkness of the night on the hill. All the lights were turned off in that vicinity at the beginning of the pageant. At nine-ten every night those missionaries were asked to assemble at a certain wooded spot on Hill Cumorah, behind one of the large scenes, in the darkness. There was that great audience out in front, not knowing what was going on, but there those missionaries assembled every night at nine-ten, quietly, in a circle, huddled together, praying to the Lord that he would bless that pageant, that it would go forward without any interruption and that the audience would partake of the spirit of the pageant.
I remember the first night it started to rain about six o'clock. There was some concern whether or not it would prevent presentation of the pageant. It is all outdoors: the stage, the audience, and the scenes; I remember shaking hands with two fine young missionaries who had their pageant costumes on, and I said to them, as I shook hands with them, "I hope the rain will not spoil the pageant."
One of them looked me straight in the eye and he said: "Oh, Bishop, don't worry, the rain will not spoil the pageant. Nothing will spoil the pageant, because the elders of this mission have united our faith and called upon the Lord to bless this pageant that the message would go forward to the thousands of people who assemble to witness it."
Now some may call that simple faith, but I call that most beautiful, most humble faith. By the time the pageant was ready to start, the storm had ceased and the stars were out bright.
It was stated that no group of professionals in all the world could present that pageant as those humble missionaries presented it because their hearts and souls were in it and because they knew this story to be true. They were living that story; they were preaching that story; and for that reason great honor and credit is due those missionaries.
FAITH EVIDENCED
The audience was kept informed of the pageant proceedings by narrators who were speaking over a central loud-speaking system. Beautiful spotlights were flashed upon the different scenes on the Hill Cumorah. A commercial firm was employed to furnish the loud-speaking system, and a few of the Mormon missionaries who were mechanically inclined were assigned to help the technician with the loud-speaking system.
The last night the technician became very much concerned that the loud-speaking system might not continue to operate, and he told the missionaries he did not know what to do. There was that great audience of thousands of people. They could not follow the pageant without the loud-speaking system functioning: because some of the audience were a block away from the Hill and from the scenes. But as he became concerned, all he would have needed to do was to ask those missionaries, but he did not do that, so they took it in their own hands. They went out behind that truck in the wooded section of Hill Cumorah, and as we would expect, those missionaries knelt down and prayed that the Lord would see to it that the loud-speaking system would continue, and the loud-speaking system did continue until the pageant was over.
That kind of faith is the kind of faith that we have been hearing about the last few days here. That is the kind of faith that draws men close to God, their Eternal Father. May I quote from Alma just a word about that same kind of faith:
Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe.
Now I ask, is that faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it. And now as I said concerning faith-faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.
May I digress here, just a little, to say to those teachers or to any philosophers or to any men who have to do with young people, that you never say anything or do anything knowingly or unknowingly that would shock that beautiful faith in the lives of young people. Conviction kindles conviction; faith promotes faith; and testimony inspires testimony.
Faith is one of the great principles of the Church. Faith is that which brought our forefathers to this country. I am grateful for the faith of my grandfather in Denmark where he accepted the gospel because he had faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The pageant closed the third night, and before that great audience, as they saw the last scene, four missionaries, in the darkness of the night, with a brilliant spotlight flashed upon them, stood on top of Hill Cumorah. They were dressed in beautiful long white robes and each of them with his bugle turned toward that beautiful monument of the Angel Moroni and played in unity, "An Angel From On High." Those thirty thousand people could not have witnessed that scene without their hearts being touched; it was one of the most thrilling yet touching experiences of my life.
CONFERENCE IN SACRED GROVE
Never in my life have I appreciated, probably, as I did that very moment what that beautiful story has meant to us as a people. The next day following that great pageant those same missionaries held their missionary conference on a beautiful Sabbath morning in the Sacred Grove. They had held two sessions there Friday and Saturday. Since their pageant was produced at night, they had their days for their conferences.
Saturday afternoon was devoted entirely to testimony bearing. Sunday morning's meeting was programmed; speakers were called upon to speak; but in the afternoon it was not programmed, and the meeting started at one o'clock in the afternoon, with the idea that it would perhaps close by four o'clock, and we would thus get an extra hour of testimony bearing.
I wish everyone could have been in that Sacred Grove that beautiful afternoon as those elders, without wasting a minute's time or a second's time, came forward and stood by the microphone. There was no pulpit to stand by, so they stood there by the loud-speaker and gave their testimonies, one by one. Those three hours passed all too quickly. Four o'clock came, and as the missionaries had expressed the desire to bear their testimony in the Sacred Grove, they were not all through, and it was decided to continue the meeting until five o'clock, but at five o'clock they were not through and it continued till six o'clock. At six o'clock they were not through, and we continued the meeting until seven o'clock-until every missionary there had had an opportunity to bear his or her testimony. I think eighty-nine of them that afternoon bore their testimonies.
PRIVILEGE OF A MISSION
You could not have doubted that testimony if you had heard those young men and women. Some of them had been in the mission field only a month, and, oh, how they thanked the Lord for the privilege of that mission. I thought what a shame it would have been if any one of those boys or girls had been denied that mission, and I thought of the thousands of others who probably will want to go on a mission some day, and sometimes they are made to feel as if they cannot afford it. I hope some of us in the Church who have been blessed perhaps more than others with financial security and material things, will share it with some missionary who wants to go on a mission, and never let it be said that a boy was kept home from a mission because someone could not afford it.
As those missionaries came forward, I wished their fathers and mothers could have heard the great love they expressed for them. They truly love and appreciate you. Every one of them, without an exception, was so grateful for his father and mother, and many of them were sons and daughters of widowed mothers. Oh, how the gratitude came from their souls for the love of their widowed mothers. Some of them had experienced the loss of their father or mother while they had been in the mission field, but there was no evidence of bitterness. Every one of them acknowledged the hand of the Lord, even in that sorrow that came to them while they were away.
But there were some who pleaded with the Lord to bless their parents and their loved ones while they were in the mission field. I am sure that if you parents and the brothers and the sisters and the loved ones could have heard those boys, you would have tried harder to live as they are teaching. How they thanked the Lord for the blessings that had come to them. I was astounded at the strength of their testimonies. Two or three of them had only been out two or three weeks, and how they loved their companions, how they loved their mission president, and the same thing could be said of all of the five thousand missionaries who are in the field today.
I do not see how the homes, the families, and the loved ones of those missionaries could help but partake of that same sweet spirit when they so humbly prayed for them. Many of them spoke to the Lord so kindly, acknowledged their shortcomings, and prayed to the Lord that he would help them overcome those weaknesses. I am sure that the Lord was looking down upon those missionaries with all of his tender mercy.
GOD'S PAY
As the day closed and every missionary had borne his testimony, I could not help but think of this poem, and I would like to read it as a tribute to those missionaries and all missionaries. It is entitled, "Who Does God's Work Will Get God's Pay":
Who does God's work will get God's pay; No human hand God's hand can stay. He does not pay as others pay. But God's high wisdom knows a way; And this is sure, let come what may; Who does God's work will get God's pay.
At seven o'clock at night the sun went down-the shadows fell, and it seemed as if God in heaven had looked down and pronounced a silent benediction on the heads of all who were assembled in the Sacred Grove that day. Yes, it was as if those servants of the Lord had been able to lift up the corner of the veil and had a little glimpse into the eternities to come.
May God bless the missionaries all over the earth. May our homes and all of us partake of the spirit that they are privileged to enjoy, and I know and you know why they are privileged to enjoy that spirit. It is because they live so close to the Lord.
I know that the Spirit of the Lord was there in the grove that day. I know that sacred spot was the place to which the Prophet Joseph went as a boy and knelt down and prayed to the Lord, and there the Father and Son appeared to him. I know that those thousands who saw the story of the pageant could not help but receive some influence and inspiration for having witnessed it, and I am confident that they are hungering to hear more about it.
May the Lord bless us in our work that we may live as those missionaries preach. May the Lord bless us that we may have the Spirit of the Lord with us to guide us in our every act every day, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Henry D. Moyle
Henry D. Moyle, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 160-164
It was thirteen and a half years ago, my brethren and sisters, that the Great Church welfare program was given to us. I am certain that the Lord has been with us every day of those many years and has guided and directed the course which this program has taken.
PROGRESS OF WELFARE PROGRAM
My mind today goes back to one of the early meetings which we held, as I remember it, in Barratt Hall, when President McKay told us that we might not be able to see too far into the future as to the work to be done in this great field of endeavor, but that just like a locomotive engineer taking his train out of the station at night, that light which preceded the engineer and his locomotive was symbolic of what we would experience. I am sure that those utterances were prophetic because there has never been a time during those thirteen odd years when we have failed to have our way lighted at least a short distance ahead.
I am conscious that we may have made, and undoubtedly have made, mistakes in the program, both members of the general committee, presidents of stakes, and bishops of wards, but, generally speaking, our course has been straightforward and ahead. And as we review the work which we have accomplished, it satisfies us. We are conscious that the Lord has blessed us and that we have yet a work to do.
We have heard a great deal in this conference about our duties and our responsibilities in the Church. I am sure that we are a blessed people, that much has been given to us, and those who receive much are expected to give much. I would like to know how far we would have progressed in this program if all the bishops in this Church and all stakes of Zion had exerted themselves to the utmost from the beginning until now because we have accomplished what we have by the help of relatively few, whereas this program was intended for all. There is no one too rich and no one too poor in this Church but what he might have participated in this welfare program.
My heart goes out in gratitude to my Heavenly Father today, that the hearts of so many people in the Church have been touched. They have responded to this program, and they have given of their time and of their means, their talents, to further its purposes, and to give aid and sustenance to those who were in need.
HELP GIVEN GERMAN FAMILY
I received a letter not long ago from a family of Saints in Germany, a family who are dear to me because I, among other elders in the Church, assisted them in establishing in their hearts the faith that was necessary to apply for baptism in this Church. In this letter from a widowed grandmother she reported that all of the male members of their family for four generations had been exterminated by the war, save one crippled grandson. They had one granddaughter who was ill. The doctors had told her, told the grandmother and the mother, that there was no chance for her life, that there was only one thing that would save her life, because she suffered from diseases incident to malnutrition, and that was to put her on a diet of cracked wheat.
It was not by chance that the prayers of this family were answered. They had been faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord ever since they entered into the waters of baptism. They had found strength and courage to go forward and carry on in the absence of all their male members, because of those blessings and that consolation which came to them as a result of the prayers which they offered. The next day, after the doctor had pronounced this solemn decision, a welfare package arrived in that home; and when it was opened, the first thing they found was twenty pounds of cracked wheat which this welfare program had furnished.
I am sure that incidents of that kind could be multiplied a thousand-fold in the lives of Latter-day Saints, not only in Europe but also here at home, and I wonder if there are any of us who would begrudge that which we have done, that which we have contributed towards this welfare program, when we realize what it has meant in the lives of the children of our Heavenly Father all over this earth. And I want to say we do not have to go to Germany or to any faraway land to find the benefits that have been derived from this program, for we find them here at home.
INGLEWOOD STAKE PROJECT
I had the privilege Monday of last week, after our quarterly conference in the Inglewood Stake, of going out near Venice to see a little project, a very humble project which a ward had instituted there under the inspiration and guidance of a bishop, who in very deed is a servant of the Lord. And there I found some elderly men, men who were not physically fit or qualified to participate in the activities of industry in competition with younger men. They were well past sixty-five, all of them. One man came up to me and told me that he was grateful for that opportunity. He told me that he had been a lifelong friend of my father. I thought that it might very well have been my father, in place of that man, receiving the benefits of this program, for there he was engaged upon this project, carrying out the details of it. In fact, he was really supervising it.
It consisted of nothing more than shredding newspapers, magazines, papers of all kinds, in a very simple machine which they had purchased second-hand. When they could not gather up enough papers because of lack of trucks and facilities, they bought paper in order that they might shred it and bale it. And they were receiving forty dollars a ton for that baled paper and giving employment to a group of fine brethren. The interesting thing about it was how from small beginnings we can accomplish great things.
This brother, as a result of the work which he was doing there, and a life-long experience in business and in industry, was planning a new industry to employ other people. I am sure the day will come when that little ward project will become a stake project, or even a regional project. The benefits of it will be enjoyed by many of our brethren in other parts of the Church because it is one of those industries that could be copied in every big city and in many of the smaller ones.
They have paid for everything they have received out of the proceeds of the business itself, and they have made it profitable. So I drew from that experience this thought, that in the welfare program we need the experience and training of older men and of older women, and when they come to us in our projects to assist us, they are bringing to us something more valuable than that which we give them. It was evidenced right there by the work that this man was doing, and I know there are thousands of other elderly brethren who are fit and qualified to assist us in that same way.
FAITH INCREASED
We have had a great deal said at this conference-and I have thrilled with every word that has been uttered here by my brethren-about the necessity for our living the gospel, keeping the commandments of the Lord. I love President Smith's admonition for us to stay in the territory of the Lord and out of the territory of the adversary.
I wonder if there is any tangible way that we can show our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his work better than we can when we are engaged in this welfare work, contributing of our time and of our means and of our talents to further the interests of those who may not be so fortunate or so young as we are at the moment.
It is my testimony to you, my brethren and sisters, that none of us can engage in this work and find ourselves in the territory of the adversary or under his power or under his dominion. This work cultivates and develops within the men who participate in it a faith in God.
We heard a testimony borne yesterday afternoon, after the afternoon session, in a meeting we held over in the welfare office, of one of the humble sons of Israel concerning the welfare work, and what had been accomplished by a little group of men, calling upon the Lord in humble prayer when they were in serious difficulty and did not know which way to proceed in the operation of that project, and the peace and the comfort and the satisfaction that came to them as a result of that prayer.
I do not know where we could find in this Church any instrumentality that causes men to turn their hearts toward God any more than by turning our hearts to our fellow men and becoming indeed concerned in their welfare. We profess a great love for our brethren and sisters in this Church. My heart goes out to all of you. I love you from the bottom of my heart. There is not anything that I have or anything that I might do to assist you in your lives and in your work that it would not be my pleasure to do. And I hope and pray that the Lord will give me strength and courage to go forward and to accomplish all of the desires of my heart and all that he has in store for me in your behalf.
WORK OF THE LORD
This work is true. It did not take me long to become converted to the welfare work. President Grant called me in one day and said: "Brother Moyle, we would like you to work in this welfare program." He did not ask me if I was converted, nor did he give me any time to convert myself, but I knew then and I know now that Heber J. Grant was a prophet of God, and when he spoke to me, gave me an assignment, I knew that that assignment came from God, and there was no such thing entered my heart as to question whether or not the prophet of God knew what he was talking about. So I immediately responded as I had been brought up to do all my life. I have never spent one moment of my life since that call but what I have been conscious of the fact that those of us who have been engaged in this welfare work have been engaged in the work of the Lord. We have been engaged in a work which has done much to instill in the hearts of men a testimony of the existence of God and the divine calling of his present-day prophet; and it was with no small degree of satisfaction that we received President George Albert Smith's blessings when he came to the presidency of this Church.
I felt as if I should go to him and tell him that it would be my privilege to resign and step aside if there was someone of his own choice or calling that he would like to take over the responsibilities that were then mine. And he simply said to me, "I want you to continue."
And so I have had the audible, the tangible, the conscious privilege of having two prophets of God tell me that the work in which we are engaged in this Church is that which the Lord would have us accomplish.
It is a further testimony to me that this work which was initiated under the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith is indeed the work of God. I know that the Prophet Joseph Smith was called of the Lord to open up this dispensation, the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times, and to give to all of us every blessing and every privilege and every power that it is right for man to receive, and we have received these blessings, my brethren and sisters. I know, as I know that I live, that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ and that this work is his work, and that we are engaged in his ministry. I wonder, with this knowledge and assurance burning in our hearts, how we can fail, those of us who have been in attendance here in this conference today, to take to heart the advice and the admonition that has come to us from these inspired brethren whom I love, every one of them.
START WITH SIMPLE PROJECTS
I have this one word to say further about welfare before I sit down. Let us not wait until some great project comes into view or into our imagination which calls for a great expenditure of money, something that we can envision as paying all of our debts and obligations and meeting all of our assignments in the Church with little or no effort upon our part, some project that does not require any work on the part of the membership of the Church, something that we can hire done.
My brethren and sisters, those are not the kinds of projects we want. I would much rather start in with a simple, helpful project and depend upon the Lord throwing light ahead of us as we proceed with that humble project, and inspiring us to enlarge it as he may see fit.
I think likely New York Stake has set us an example. They have a welfare project today which consists of producing shoe polish. Now that is a pretty humble activity, and still it has within it the right objective, the right philosophy. The stake has not called upon us for any money to assist in the establishment of that project. I can promise those brethren that if they stay true to their trust and are faithful in the performance of that humble project, that light will be given them in the manner and form in which they could expand in that great city where it has seemed to be so impossible to start any welfare work.
May the Lord bless us, my brethren and sisters, and may we go back home instilled and imbued with the idea that this testimony of ours of the divinity of the work in which we are engaged calls upon us to do something for our brethren and sisters here upon this earth, and that we may turn our hearts to the less fortunate and thus assist them, I humbly pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
President George Albert Smith
George Albert Smith, Conference Report October 1949, pp. 167-173
I am delighted with what has been said during this entire conference. The Lord has blessed those who have addressed us. He has blessed those who have furnished us with such delightful music.
We are almost ready to adjourn, and from this building and the adjoining building there will go men and women to many parts of the world.
You will find no other place in the world that is more peaceful or more comfortable or more delightful than here where we have been during the last few days, waiting upon the Lord with the assurance that when even two or three should meet together in his name, he would be there to bless them. Surely, we have been blessed.
WICKEDNESS IN WORLD
The world is sick. It is not the first time it has been sick. It has had a good many different experiences of that kind. Sometimes nations have had to be wiped out because of the wickedness of the people who live in them. The Lord, all down through the ages, has spoken to his leaders and teachers who are inspired, but when the world refuses to heed after it has been properly taught, it places itself in a position of saying to our Heavenly Father who owns this world-he is our landlord-"We do not need you. We will do just as we please."
Unfortunately, people who think that way do not realize how they are shortening their own experiences in life, and setting the stage for the sorrows that may follow.
Think of the condition of our own nation, with all the blessings that we enjoy; and yet men, women, and children are being distressed and annoyed because of the determination on the part of a few to have their own way. This nation does not belong to the people who live here. We are permitted to be citizens of it just as we are permitted to be members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is not our Church, and this is not our nation.
A BLESSED LAND
The Lord raised up men to frame a Constitution for this nation because it was his nation. It was his desire that the people here would be blessed, and there have been no people in all the world who have been more blessed than those who live in the United States of America.
We have every comfort that you can think of, every blessing that is enjoyed by people in any other nation, and then we have the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our conscience because the Lord himself made that provision in the Constitution of the United States and in the framing of the laws that govern this nation.
I wonder if we appreciate that. Do we realize that we can lose it all just as we can lose it with any epidemic? If an epidemic of some kind, that we did not have a remedy for, was to break out among the people and increase and increase, it would be possible for this entire nation to be wiped out.
CARELESSNESS EVIDENT
Yet we are trifling with our Heavenly Father and his advice and his counsel. He gave to us his commandments through Moses, anciently, and he gave us advice and counsel in our day through the Prophet Joseph Smith that is intended to keep us in a frame of mind that we would honor God and keep his commandments, that we would love one another.
It does seem strange how careless we are when we realize we may be destroyed. Think of the atom bomb. If it is all that they say it is, it would be possible to wipe out one of our great cities with its millions of people in just a few moments of time.
Do we want that kind of thing? Are we going to continue contending for something of physical power and physical strength or are we going to the Lord and honor him and keep his commandments?
JUDGE NOT
I will read you something in the scripture I have here, something that will give us cause to think. It is so easy to criticize someone else, so easy to find fault, and sometimes we speak harshly of our neighbors and friends. Now this is what our Heavenly Father gave us in the days of Matthew. He said:
Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?.
As a people we are advised not to be critical, not to be unkind, not to speak harshly of those with whom we associate. We ought to be the greatest exemplars in all the world in that regard. Consider the criticism today. Pick up your newspapers and see the unkind things that are being said by individuals about others, and yet many times the individual who is criticizing has a beam in his own eye and does not see at all clearly, but he does think his brother has a mote in his eye. I would like to call attention to that situation.
There is growing in our own country, really, a conflict between capital and labor, or may I say between the rich and the poor. What does the Lord say about things of that kind?
WELFARE PROGRAM
We have been told this afternoon about the welfare program, about how it is possible to help those who are in need. Since the war closed, this Church has imparted of its substance in very large measure to those who are in need. But all this time we have been just as well off, or better off, perhaps, than we would have been if we had not sent over 16,000 packages, 9000 quilts and 131 carloads of food and bedding and clothing to Europe to people who were needing it more than we needed it. We have not missed it.
The Lord gave a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith. He said:
Behold, thus saith the Lord unto my people-you have many things to do and to repent of; for behold, your sins have come up unto me, and are not pardoned, because you seek to counsel in your own ways.
And your hearts are not satisfied. And ye obey not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness.
OUR SHORTCOMINGS
I thought when one of our brethren was talking to us and telling us of the little shortcomings each of us may have, and each of us has some, I am sure-some more than others-I thought how careless we are in observing the Sabbath day.
How careless we are about attending to our prayers. How careless we are in failing to thank the Lord for the food that we have so abundantly, I would like to say abundantly, and that there is no necessity for any man, woman, or child in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to go without, for the Church is organized to help those who lack the necessities of life. There is plenty for all, and to spare.
GENEROSITY SHOWN
We have in the Church many wonderful individuals-and out of the Church many wonderful individuals. I heard of a case here just a few days ago of a man who had been informed that a child had polio and had to go to the hospital. The probability was it would recover but would remain ill for months or years. I am speaking of a man who is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He lives in this part of the world, however.
He was told of the situation, and that there was no way of obtaining what was needed. When he was informed it would take $700 to provide treatment for this particular child, and it was not known where the money could be obtained, he said, "You get what is needed and send the bill to me."
The man was a wealthy man. He will not miss it. In fact, there is an old saying that has come down to us that they who give to the poor but lend to the Lord. This man has made an investment in the life of a child, and he has made an investment in his own happiness that will return to him great dividends.
Not all people who are well-to-do would think they could do that. They would say, "Get somebody else. Let us take up a collection. Get somebody else to do it."
ADVICE TO RICH AND POOR
This is what the Lord says further in that same chapter, and I am reading from the fifty-sixth section of the Doctrine and Covenants:
Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!.
That is what the Lord says of the rich people who refuse to impart of their substance to those who are poor. But he says something just as serious to the poor man who is not doing his best. He says:
Wo unto you poor men, whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite, and whose bellies are not satisfied, and whose hands are not stayed from laying hold upon other men's goods, whose eyes are full of greediness, and who will not labor with your own hands!.
That is the situation of many of our own brothers and sisters in America with all the blessings that we enjoy-better wages, better homes, better opportunities for education than have ever been known before. Yet we have today men who not only will not work themselves, but they also will not permit somebody else to be employed. They are not willing to earn their living by work, but they propose to take it from the rich man.
THE PURE IN HEART
So the Lord says of them, "Wo unto them," the same as he says of the poor. Then he said further, "But blessed are the poor who are pure in heart." There is quite a difference there,
... blessed are the poor who are pure in heart, whose hearts are broken, and whose spirits are contrite, for they shall see the kingdom of God coming in power and great glory unto their deliverance; for the fatness of the earth shall be theirs.
They are those who have not the wealth of the world but still have life and being and intelligence, and who are anxious to do the thing the Lord would have them do.
He says further,
For behold, the Lord shall come, and his recompense shall be with him, and he shall reward every man, and the poor shall rejoice;
And their generations shall inherit the earth-
there will be more poor than any other kind, undoubtedly-
... and their generations shall inherit the earth from generation to generation, forever and ever. And now I make an end of speaking unto you. Even so. Amen.
IDLERS AND LABORERS
That was the Lord talking to the Prophet Joseph Smith in our day in June 1831.
He has further said,
Thou shalt not be idle; for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer.
Now, my brethren and sisters, we have both rich and poor in our organizations. If we are poor, we can be worthy just as the Lord indicates here. We can be pure in heart and do our best, and he will not permit those who do their best to suffer for the necessities of life among the people who are in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Our welfare program has been a wonderful thing, a program by which unemployed may be employed, and a way has been opened for men and women who cannot do much work but who can do something to be gainfully employed. How much better off we are when we are occupied with some reasonable work.
Consider the condition in the world, the number who are determined to take from the rich man not what belongs to themselves, but that which belongs to the others. God has permitted men to get wealth, and if they obtained it properly, it is theirs, and he will bless them in its use if they will use it properly.
I hope we are not going to become bitter because some men and women are well-to-do. If we are well-to-do, I hope we are not going to be self-centered and unconscious of the needs of our Father's other children. If we are better off than they are, we ought to be real brothers and sisters, not make-believe. Our desires should be to develop in this world such an organization that others, seeing our good works would be constrained to glorify the name of our Heavenly Father.
We have had a wonderful conference. Where in all the world could you go to find such an organization, to witness such assemblies as we have had here on this block, this week? This is the Lord's house. This is the Lord's work. You have been addressed and advised and counseled by the servants of the Lord, men who are giving their time and the best they have in them-as has been indicated-some of them not well enough now because they have overworked. They are trying to do what our Heavenly Father would like all of us to do.
COVETOUSNESS
We must not fall into the bad habits of other people. We must not get into the frame of mind that we will take what the other man has. Refer back to the Ten Commandments, and you will find one short paragraph, "Thou shalt not covet". That is what is the matter with a good many people today. They are coveting what somebody else has, when as a matter of fact, many of them have been cared for and provided with means to live by those very ones from whom they would take away property,
We must not get into that frame of mind. Others may do that, but if we have the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our hearts, we will not be deceived in that regard.
We are told that we cannot serve God and some other master. We have to make our choice, and if we want to be the servants of God and the children of our Heavenly Father and earn his blessings, we must do it by honoring him and by keeping his commandments. Our feelings, and our love, if I may use that expression, should go out to all the world as far as they will receive it. We in our humble way, with the blessings of our Heavenly Father, go among them to teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ that will prepare them for eternal happiness.
SACRIFICE BRINGS BLESSINGS
I am grateful to you, my brethren and sisters, for the privilege of being here with you today. As I look into your faces and see this great audience in this, the Lord's house, I would like to say in the name of Jesus Christ, that our Father in heaven will bless you for whatever sacrifice you may have made to come here to worship. He will bless your families, and he will bring to you a richness of experience and light that you could obtain in no other way. That your sons and daughters may grow up to honor our Heavenly Father. I humbly pray.
The most precious of all the jewels that the Lord has bestowed upon any of us are our children, and we are responsible for them in their tender years. The Lord says that the parents in Zion who fail to teach their children faith in God, repentance, baptism when eight years of age, the sin be upon the heads of the parents, not upon the schoolteachers, not upon the mayors and governors, but the sin be upon the heads of the parents. We must not suffer the effects of that sin in our lives.
Let us gather our families together when we return to our homes, and under the influence of prayer thank our Heavenly Father for our blessings and face our problems honestly and faithfully, with love in our hearts for all people, for the Lord says we must love our enemies as well as our friends. If we can learn to do that, we will be happy.
Now that peace and joy and comfort and satisfaction may abide with all of us who are here, with all the members of the Church wherever they may be in all the world, and with all our Father's children, that they may learn as a result of obedience to his commandments how to be happy in this life and prepare for eternal happiness is my humble prayer.
That is what the gospel is for, to prepare us not just for the comforts of mortality but for eternal happiness. That we may live to be worthy of these blessings, I pray, and I invoke upon you all the favor and blessing of our Heavenly Father this day and henceforth in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.