The Goodness of the Latter-day Saints

I have been interested in the words of my brethren in the meeting this morning. I only regret that I did not hear all the words of yesterday. My academic duties at the Uuiversity of Utah prevented my being in attendance at the conference in the forenoon. ¶

I rejoice in seeing the people. As we all have our favorite themes and thoughts to speak about, I have mine, and the impressive thought that I have this morning is this fact, that no better people ever lived nor lives today, than the Latter-day Saints of the Church of Christ. I believe in you, and- I am always grateful when I can meet you, my brethren and sisters, feel your genial and hospitable spirits here in the center stake of Zion, or wherever you live in your homes throughout the State. I am proud of you, and I am proud to know that I am one of you. I believe in the goodness of your hearts, in your hospitality, in your charity, in your love for truth, wherever you live, and I only wish that we here in the center stake of Zion, may retain in our hearts the same honesty and sincerity of purpose, and truthloving character that seems to be so characteristic of you people who come from the remote parts of these states in the west. The rural districts today have a people that are honest. God-fearing, lovers of the truth, and I hope that spirit can be retained in those comunities ; and I also pray that we will get more of it right here in the city where we live. ¶

It has been pointed out briefly that we have had a great history. I believe our people have always been tolerant, charitable, and above all, constant to the principles which they hold to be true, and which they know with all their hearts. I am glad for all the organizations of this Church, for they have made history by their acts as well as their thoughts. I believe that the one great organization that has impressed the world with its charity and its bigness of activity has been the Relief Society, from the beginning to the present day. It was my privilege but a few weeks ago to listen to a man who had not been to Salt Lake City since 1856, He asked the question — How the Mormon Church had grown ? He wanted to know whether or not we hold to be sacred and true principles that we held to be sacred and true in 1856 when he came here on a visit on his way to California. I answered him as best I could, but one thing he said that impressed me, and I want to say it to the sisters of the Relief Society. He said that he landed here with some emigrants. They were penniless, they were hungry, they were without shoes and stockings; but he never forgot the time when some "Mormon" women came into camp, gave them stockings, brought them bacon and flour, and fehey did it because, said they, "Our prophet leader tells us to, and not only he told it, but greater still, we have the Spirit of God that dictates to us, and it says that no one must starve or be in need where there is plenty, and where we have the chance to give, and to live and let live." This ¶

man said that these woman were members of a society organized for charitable purposes. It was the Relief Society of one of the wards of Salt Lake City, which as early as 1850 was doing charitable acts and helping humanity in its need. I am grateful today for such an organization, and I am proud of it, for I think you have done great deeds, and manifested your faith in God by your acts. ¶

What we need today, my brethren and sisters, more than anything else, is honesty and integrity to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We can't get too much faith in our hearts. Faith, after all, is the moving force in the history of the world, and is today, and always will be ; and I hold that faith in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ, must become the greatest moving force for humanity. It will be in the future, for I believe that the world is coming back, after all, to a belief in God the Eternal Father. In our schools, in all of our institutions of learning, there can't be too much of the teaching that God lives, and is the directive force and power behind the onward march of the human race. ¶

Not long ago some prominent educators in the United States came together in a meeting, and the question was asked : "What can we do that will bring the children of our schools to a higher standard of thought and action?" The question was answered in many, many ways. One brother of this city was asked the question, and the answer was that there are many practical ways but he believed that if in every school room throughout the world there could be on the right in gold letters the Ten Commandments, and on the left the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States, and on the front the words, "I believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ," he believed that the students and scholars of this country would receive an inspiration and a power in their work that would lift the standard of American life and American scholarship. So this is the thought I want to leave with you today. May I ask you to receive it and think about it. I know that we can get your support for it. ¶

There are today nineteen million students in the schools of the United States. This includes the university students, down to those of the kindergarten department ; nineteen million students whom we hold to be educated, whom we hope to see go out into life as real citizens, true citzens of this republic and believers in God. The question comes up whether or not we are performing our duties as we should perform them. Being in the academic world I see on every hand great blunders, great mistakes made in the name of education. You see them in your homes, you see these blunders in the schools, but I believe that the glory of this country and the glory of this state, just the same, is the public school system, which is destined to grow and grow until men and women are truly educated. But I say that the one thing that will lift us up educationally and morally to higher standards in a general way throughout all this land, will be to teach our children the majesty, the greatness, the divinity, and the power of the Ten .Commandments, and the beauty, the justice and the grandeur and the greatness of the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States, together with the belief in God, and Jesus Christ as the ¶

Redeemer of the world. These three things I think are needed in our American schools. They are needed by men, women and children. We have never yet learned to live up to the Ten Commandments, and politically the Constitution of the United States is so far ahead of us that it will take ages to see its greatness and its power prevail. And so what has this to do with us, as followers of the Lord and the Redeemer of the world and the Christian faith? Only this, that as the great tenor and standard of morality are raised, our dreams are made higher, our ideals become greater ; and people can only become great as they have great ideals to which they work. ¶

My brethren and sisters,to me the glory of "Mormonism" lies in this fact, that there is never a thing suggested for the uplift of humanity but what we are behind it with all our souls, and with all of our works as well. We believe that the human race will be redeemed if the human race will accept the law of the Gospel ; and obedience to law is liberty. Let us remember that obedience to political law, to religious law, to social law, becomes our truest liberty after all, and when we learn to become liberty-loving we will be law-abiding, and when we are law-abiding we will be developed individually and socially, and become lights unto the world as holders of the Priesthood of God. "Mormonism" is the greatest movement in the history of the race. It stands today for the greatest intellectual moral and social uplift and political uplift that the race has today. It stands for everything good, everything noble. It stands, however, upon the principle of faith in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ ; and let us as ¶

Latter-day Saints hold this sacredly in our hearts. Whatever we do, and think, there is always that truth within us that God is God, and that Jesus is the Christ, now and forever. We must, therefore, learn true charity, true love. We must learn to work and to pray, and not give up our simplicity of life. The other day I was asked what our institutions, human society, need more than anything else. My reply was that we need more of the faith, honesty, and sincerity of our fathers and mothers, more than we need anything else. We want to hark back to the honesty and the simplicity of what some call the common people. We need to get rid of the love for gold and show, and come back with all our souls to the knowledge that this gospel is true, and that we must be true to it. Then our standard of living will be raised, we will be united. W e will act more as God wants us to act. We will live nearer to the Savior as He taught the race to live, and as He teaches us today. I hope we may be united in the faith, in the law, and in tke knowledge of what is right and true ; and I hope the day may come when in every schoolroom throughout this land, at least whenever we come into that schoolroom, there shall be placed in gold letters first, "I believe in God the Eternal Father and in His Son Jesus Christ," on the right the Ten Commandments, the greatest moral law of the human race ; and on the left the Preamble of the greatest document ever given to the world, for the government of nations, the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States. When we do this we will raise our standard of thought, our standard of living, and we will approach what the Prophet ¶

Joseph Smith once said we must do, the higher soul, the higher life that naturally lies within. ¶

That God may help us to see these things one and all, and to work for great truths and live humbly and to work with a hunger for truth and light, I ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶