Sunday School Work and the Importance of Home Training

It is very gratifying to see so many present here tonight and I trust that we shall enjoy God's blessings, and that this may be an occasion which we shall long remember. You may have noticed in the presentation of the authorities, that there was one change. Since our last meeting, Elder Thomas C. Griggs has been called from our midst. For years he has acted as the business manager of our Union, and has been a most efficient laborer, and we greatly miss him today. Elder Griggs has for many years been devoted to the Sunday school cause. He has likewise been fond of music, and shown marked ability in composing tunes for some of our favorite hymns. But God, in His infinite wisdom, has seen fit to call him from us, and so you find a change tonight—Brother William A. Morton having been called to act in his place, as our business manager. I am very pleased to report that there has been a marked improvement in our Sunday school work during the past year. It has been one of some innovation. We have prepared a course of "Outlines," covering sixteen years, containing a sufficient amount of study to give our young people a liberal theological education, if they but have the ambition and the pride to learn the lessons every week as they come along. These lessons are so arranged as to give a testimony to our young people, to implant in their hearts a love for the scriptures to attach to their minds the importance of a knowledge of Holy Writ; and we are anxious that these "Outlines" should be adhered to; for no one can tonight say what great benefit they may be to our young people. They are upon trial, and so far as we can learn, they are received with satisfaction, and with assurances of good, by practically all the workers in the Sunday school course. Along with these "Outlines" there are given from time to time such instructions as are intended to help the Sunday School workers in the discharge of their duties. We are not only anxious that our young people should know the Scriptures, but also that they should put them into practice. We are anxious that they should observe the word of God. We are anxious that testimonies concerning the Gospel should be implanted in their hearts at an early period of their lives. God has made no distinction as to when a testimony of the truth may be received. A testimony may be as true and as beautiful in the life of a child as it is in matured persons. There may not be the experience in youth that there is in maturer years, but there may be a purity and a devotion and a fidelity in the hearts of the children that will cause the Holy Ghost to abide in them and make "Mormonism," or the work of God in this dispensation a permanent truth in their lives; and it is beautiful when young men and women can testify in all truth that they never knew a time in their lives that "Mormonism" was not to them a living truth. It is beautiful when their lives conform to every principle of the Gospel. Thousands of our young people today are growing up without any knowledge or experience, in those things forbidden of God, never knowing the taste of tea or coffee, of tobacco or spirituous drinks. Their bodies are strong, their minds are pure, and they love the work, and there is a growing interest in it among them. We are enlisting many young men and women who heretofore have not taken much interest in this work. We are interesting men of ability, young men of energy. They are devoting their time and their talents to this work. There is one thing, however, to which I desire to call your attention. There is a growing disposition among some of the Latter-day Saints to leave the religious training of their children to the various auxiliary organizations of the Church, that is, their children are to be taught in the Sunday schools, in the Mutual Improvement associations, the Religion classes, etc., and they feel that these organizations are doing practically all that is necessary for them; I fear that in proportion to the extent to which we furnish means for educating our children that some of the parents look upon this work as something wholly within the sphere of these organizations, and that, therefore, they are not occupying their time in bearing their testimony to their children and giving them such instruction as they need from their parents. I desire to say that there is something in the testimony of a father and a mother; there is something in the word of life and light to the child that gives authority to them when it comes from the father and the mother; and no organization in the church can supercede the authority of the home, the authority of the father and the authority of the mother. And as our faith is based upon the authority of the Priesthood and upon the authority of the home, the instructions that should come from us or to us through the Priesthood must also be supplemented by the instruction and the authority of the home. And so a testimony is necessary from the parents, and if they neglect it, their children will feel the results of that neglect, and they will realize a weakness in consequence. We therefore ask the parents to sit down in the home circle wherever and whenever they can, and read the Sunday school lessons with their children. They are carefully prepared, the references are given, and the work is such that it can be taken up advantageously in the home, and studied and read with the children. If the parents will co-operate with us, it will have a wonderful effect upon the lives of our young people. ¶

This is a glorious work. It is growing. It is becoming more systematic, and I believe that there is more of the Spirit thrown into this work, and our young people are receiving the spirit of it, and praise be to God for the conditions of our Sunday schools. We thank Him and we thank you for the arduous labor that is devoted and dedicated to the cause of the youth of Zion. They are the real inheritance of God, and we can nowhere manifest our love for Him in any greater way than by thus manifesting our love for these children that He has given into our charge. ¶

God grant that we may enjoy His blessings tonight, and that we may have, during the subsequent exercises of this meeting a rich outpouring of the Spirit of God. I know this is the work of God. I have known it from my infancy, and I don't remember the day when "Mormonism" to me was not a fundamental truth, and this is my testimony tonight. God bless you, and God bless our superintendent and all those who labor for the upbuilding of Zion, I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶