(Of the Presidency of the Liberty

(Of the Presidency of the Liberty Stake, and Secretary of the Deseret Gymnasium.) ¶

My brethren and sisters, I am admonished that no poor word of mine will encourage you in the work of the Lord, but I am sustained with the thought that no word, be it ever so humble, spoken under the impress and power of the Spirit of God. is forgotten or falls fruitless to the earth. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there is no place for pride or vanity. ¶

As Elder Monson has well said, "Mormonism" spells service, and service in the Church cannot be effective save it be attended by the Spirit of the Master. ¶

I was very much impressed with the utterances in the prayer, which was offered here this morning. Brother Lambert prayed that the hearts of men might be turned to the Master, that peace might obtain in the earth. We live in a very great and important hour. The world has never been visited with such a devastating and cruel war as that which we live to witness, and on the other hand, there has never been a period in the history of this Church when peace and plenty have been more manifest than at this time. It seems to me that this should lead Latter-day Saints to reflect and rejoice in the fact that our Father has established us in these mighty hills, and has given us a proud place in the best nation of the world ; has established us upon the hilltops that the world might see us, and has made us the depositary of faith, faith in Jesus Christ, the one element the Lord has said through his prophets in the Book of Mormon that would save this land from desolation and destruction. ¶

The great question of preparedness deeply concerns at this hour the people of the United States. When large and troubled questions confront me, I find solace in reference to the Book of Mormon, a book which is written in the third reader stvle, but a book which is saturated with the spirit and essence of faith in God. The Lord said repeatedly, in the Book of Mormon, referring to this land, that it was a land choice above all other lands, and that the people who should inhabit this land should be a free people, free from bondage unto all other people so long as they would serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, and that word has been ¶

most completely vindicated in the past. He has said repeatedly that whenever the people inhabiting this land become sufficiently ripe in iniquity,, they should be swept from the face of the earth. And the Lord said, through this book, that when signs and miracles cease among the people it is evidence that they have forgotten the God of the land and have forsaken him. ¶

The Lord has not said what agencies he would employ to consummate his purposes, but he has said that if the people would serve him, they would be prospered in the land, but if they should not they should be swept from the land. I thought while Brother Lambert was praying, if one could visit the homes of the people of the Church, he would find them to be sanctuaries of prayer, and if he were to listen to the instructions there given, he would find them filled with faith in God and his redeeming and exalting power. I am not a prophet, but I am not afraid to say that if the Latter-day Saints have faith enough, simple faith enough, to live the religion which God in his mercy has given to them, they will become the pride of the world; they shall become the tribunes of justice and righteousness among men. ¶

We are engaged in the great problem of race building. We believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has in it the elements of the best civilization the world has ever seen. I wonder if we will forget in the days of our opulence and plenty the simple principles that have distinguished us in the past? I wonder if we will run after the vain and foolish things of the world, forgetting the great and weighty things of eternity? The Lord expects us to be, ¶

ELDER BRYANTS. HINCKLEY. ¶

an extraordinary people, because he has called us to an extraordinary work. We belong naturally to the plainj people whom Abraham Lincoln said the Lord loved, else he would not have made so many of them, but there is a something attached to this Church and this people that cannot be found among any other people or in any other organization. I think that it centers around the plain principle ,of faith in God. No man, he he ever so great intellectually, be he ever so profoundly learned, has power of himself in the exercise of his finite powers to comprehend the scope and power and capacity of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. But still there is somethins; about it so simple that the humblest can comprehend and accept it, and their acceptance works their salvation as completely as would its acceptance on the part of anybody else. ¶

I am proud of my people. I am proud of the heroic history that stands behind them. I look with confidence into a future, full of hope, for the Lord has said that he has set his hand for the last time to establish his work among the peoples of the earth, and he has called us to become the exponents of that great work among his children here upon the earth. ¶

May the Lord help us to live worthy of this high calling. I hope that the second, the third, and all coming generations may rise full up to the stature of their fathers in their service to this great cause. I would like to have my own home a center of faith. I should like to engender in the hearts of my own children a love and reverence, not only for the principles of the gospel, but for the men who have been ¶

instrumental in their establishment in this great day. The Lord has called us to a high place, and given us a great work, and may he enable us to perform this work after the grave and royal fashion which it demands. May he in his mercy overlook our weaknesses and sustain us in our honest efforts to glorify his name in the earth, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶