President Joseph F. Smith's Life a Book of Righteousness

Many of the things that have already been spoken have been passing through my mind, and if I shall repeat some of them I trust the congregation will charge it to the spirit that seems to pervade the conference. This morning, in the address of President Smith, in referring to the presidency, he refrained from saying much about themselves. He declared that their lives were as an open book to the people ; that we were familiar with them and their lives ; and hence he felt it not necessary to make any special remarks concerning themselves and their labors. However, I should like, for a few moments this afternoon, to read a few pages from the book of the life of the President of the Church, inasmuch as I am more or less familiar with the contents thereof. My experience in connection with him, of course, covers the period of my own life, during, which time I have read, very extensively, the things contained in this book. We find therein written that he always has been very conscientious in the care and protection that he bestowed upon his wives and his children, and religiously endeavored to instruct them in the ways of truth and righteousness. He has taught his children from their infancy to be truthful and honest, to be virtuous and chaste, to be kind and just, and merciful, to be temperate and sober, and obedient. He taught his sons to love their country, to love the United States government, to love America. They were told that it was a chosen and highly favored land, choice above all other lands. That it has been held in reserve by the Lord as a land that should be inhabited by a people who should love God, and fear Him, and keep His commandments. His sons and daughters were taught that the discovery of this country was the result of the inspiration of God upon Columbus, and that the men who established the government were also servants of God, raised up and prepared and inspired to establish in this goodly land a government which should offer to the oppressed and the downtrodden of all the world a haven of refuge, where they might enjoy freedom and liberty, and also have the privilege of taking advantage of the unparalleled resources and opportunities for prosperity, advancement, and education that this great republic held out to them. ¶

Now, I may reveal, perhaps, something that has not been intended necessarily for the public. It is there recorded that he exemplified in a most wonderful degree, the principles of justice and impartiality among the members of his household — his wives and his children— so that it could not be discovered, that any one of them was held more dearly and more closely in his affections than any other. There was no favoritism, no injustice, no partiality shown ; but on the other hand, as near as it is possible for man to execute judgment, and justice, and mercy, equitably, these things were so imparted to his family. He loved them all with a love akin to the love of God for His children. We have seen, upon more than one occasion, the president bowed and crushed in sorrow over the bier of one of his departed children. We have seen him weep as only a great and strong man can weep ; yet in the private instruction imparted to his sons and daughters he has told them that he would rather carry every one of them to the grave, in their purity and their innocence, than have one of them ever deny God, or turn away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ and depart from the Church, as it has been established through Joseph Smith, the prophet. He has taught and so impressed it upon his sons and daughters that they knew he spoke the truth — that notwithstanding his great love for his children, he would rather bury them, or die a thousand deaths himself than to see them fall from virtue and chastity, or into drunkenness and immorality. These things were taught at home to his children as they grew from infancy to youth, and from youth to manhood. ¶

We have also known him as a man of God, as a servant of the Lord, ministering among the people, in public. We have heard him on numberless occasions, and we have never found that he taught a different doctrine in public than that which he taught in private, but that the same principles of justice, mercy, righteousness, prayer, chastity, charity, and sobriety, loyalty and patriotism, were preached unto the Church. The pages that constitute the public part of that book, as was said this morning, are open before the people; you know them; you may read the contents and judge whether or not I speak the truth. Now, I have been through the temple ; I have received the blessings of the house of the Lord ; I have received, perhaps, all that may be imparted to members of the Church therein ; and I have never been taught anything that is in the least contrary to the instructions which I have received in private and in public from the President of the Church and from the servants of God, the elders called to preach the gospel. I have never taken an oath, nor made a covenant that is inimical to our country or its government, nor have I ever been required or even asked to do so. Is it not impossible to even think of a man teaching that this is a land of Zion, a choice land of God, reserved for a government that shall extend liberty and freedom unto all men, preserving their rights unto them; and teaching that his children should be loyal, should sustain the government and uphold it, and never upbraid nor rail against dignitaries who are selected and chosen to hold responsible and governing positions, teaching his sons to lay down their lives, if need be, in defense of their country, and of their people, and of their government, just as they had been taught to lay down their lives, if need be, for virtue's or Christ's sake — I say it would be impossible to think of a man giving such instructions as these to his sons if he was himself disloyal and knew that at manhood and maturity they would be permitted to go into the house of God and there be required to take a covenant or oath that was treasonable to the government. Now, then, so far as that charge is concerned, let me again say what has often been said, and what every Latter-day Saint who has been in the house of God knows, that there is nothing there that requires any man to be disloyal in any degree to his country. But, . if it is possible for a man, born an American citizen, of parents themselves American citizens, descended from an ancestry of loyal Americans who fought and bled in defense of the principles of liberty and freedom and right, to have his love for his country increased, then the obligations and covenants imparted to him in the house of God would accomplish it. No man who goes into the house of the Lord in worthiness but that will come out again more loyal and patriotic to both God and his country, than he was before, also more willing and determined to sustain and uphold this government, which God has established, and to perpetuate it and its benign influences. ¶

Why, my brethren and sisters, you know these things as well as I know them ; and so far as the president of the Church is concerned, let me say that it is given to few men to more thoroughly and honorably exemplify, in their lives, these noble precepts which he and his associates have been engaged in teaching, both in private and in public. ¶

Now, we say this to Latter-day Saints, who know it to be the truth, in the hope that it may go beyond the Latter-day Saints and find its way among strangers, who do not understand the truth, and who are misinformed. It may be like casting pearls before swine ; the swine may trample them beneath their feet ; but the lustre of such jewels as these cannot be dimmed, they will be seen and discovered, gathered up and cherished by those who are seeking for the truth. They will be enlightened, and they will be impressed that the Latter-day Saints, as has been testified of them today, by President Lyman, Brother Grant, and others, are a good people. They are a good people, because they have been taught to be a good people, because all the precepts of the gospel are good, because every principle of the gospel of Christ is a good principle. Every doctrine of the gospel and every precept imparted, in this Church, tend to exalt, and uplift, and ennoble men and make them better, purer, and more righteous men and women, more devoted, and full of integrity, loyalty, and faithfulness both to God and to man. I know whereof I speak, concerning the President of the Church, because my life has been enwrapped with his to this moment ; I do not know any one who can better, perhaps, bear testimony of these truths than I, though it may be rather personal. And such a man as he has been, all Latter-day Saint men should be, and many Latter-day Saint men are. This is the kind of fathers and mothers the gospel teaches men and women to be. ¶

I rejoiced most wonderfully when those statistics were read concerning the fidelity, the unswerving loyalty and faithfulness on the part of wives to their husbands and husbands to their wives in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The gospel requires men to be true to their wives ; as well as it requires women to be true to their husbands. The covenants we take in the house of God make an impression upon our hearts, as great as life itself, and more enduring than mortal life. Those joined in the holy bonds of matrimony, by the servants of God, clothed upon by the authority of the priesthood, are precious to each other. They must cherish and love and be true to one another as long as they live, because they are married for time and for all eternity. There can be no trivial thing allowed to come between man and wife who are united in accordance with the principles ¶

and doctrines and ordinances of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jealousy, human weaknesses, frailties, mistakes must be tolerated and borne with in love and patience. We are all subject more or less to these human frailties, and we expect that those given to each other in the holy bonds of matrimony will be tolerant, kind and long suffering. They know that they must not allow little things to so grow that they bring about a separation and divorce and a severing of those bonds so sacredly entered into. No, we are not like the world; trifles can't separate men and women whom God joins together. Trifles often come between those joined together by men and result in separation and sorrow, because there is no virtue, or little, it seems, in the ceremonies thus enacted and entered into by the authority of man alone. With us it is different ; we are joined by the power and the authority of God, and we must endure. Thank God, men and women thus united, who are full of the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the love of the truth, are willing to do their duty and fulfill the measure of their creation, to become fathers and mothers in Israel, with the hope and knowledge that in thus obeying God they are laying the foundations for their kingdoms and exaltations, in the presence of the eternal Father. ¶

I rejoice in the record we have thus made, and I pray that the Lord will give us strength and power to ever increase and make better our splendid record of fidelity and truthfulness, of sincerity and virtue, one to another, as husbands and wives, as fathers and mothers, as parents and children, and as a people before the Lord and before our fellow men in the nation. God help us to fulfill the mighty and glorious destiny that we have set forth to accomplish, under His direction and inspiration, and all honor, and glory, and power, and dominion be unto God the Father, and Jesus Christ, the Son, forever and ever. Amen. ¶