Discourse

He hoped there would be a copious outpouring of the Holy Spirit during Conference. When we assemble and receive inspiration from God we are better prepared for the battle of life and the performance of all our duties. It is necessary to have an appetite for and to partake of spiritual food in order to grow in a knowledge of the truth. He could testify, with Brother Taylor, that the persecutions through which the Church is passing is having a good effect in stirring the Saints up to greater faithfulness. It has ever caused an awakening among those who were formerly lukewarm in the work. True, some who were supposed to be true have stepped aside from the path of integrity. But where one has done this many have stepped forward to fill up the ranks of the faithful, that the front presented might be unbroken. Nothing gives a man so much satisfaction as a knowledge that he is walking in accordance with the promptings of duty. Nothing creates greater misery than a departure from that line of action. This was exemplified in the cases of those who had shrunk from meeting an issue between religion and the world in the courts. He did not hesitate to say that those who suffered imprisonment and other similar conditions felt much better than those who failed at the trying moment. There is nothing dearer to the human heart than liberty. Most properly constituted men would rather sacrifice life than part with it, but a love of liberty should not be permitted to extinguish a determination to obey the commandments of God. ¶

The speaker endorsed the remark of Brother Roberts regarding the duties of parents to children. Perhaps the revelation from which he quoted was not given the importance that necessarily attached to it. Brother Grant then read further from the same part of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. The quotation has special reference to the command of the Lord to parents to teach their children the principles of the Gospel, indicating that in cases where this duty is not performed the sins of the children rest largely upon the parents. Some people think that children should not be taught upon religious subjects until they grow to maturity and can choose for themselves. Such surely have not a firm testimony of the truth of the Gospel as revealed through Joseph Smith. Why should there be any hesitancy about teaching children that which is true? Young people cannot be expected to grow up and bear the fruits of the Gospel when the seeds of truth have not been sown in their minds. The revelation referred to in regard to children was given as a law to Zion and her stakes, and cannot be lightly treated with impunity. The speaker related an incident wherein a man attended to family prayers when he had visitors. His child asked him how it was that he only had prayers when he had company. That was the poorest kind of teaching to that man’s children, as it taught them that their father was a hypocrite. He prayed merely to be heard and thought well of by man, and not of God. There should be harmony between our professions and practices. ¶