Faith and Service

I cannot express fully my gratitude to God and my brethren for the opportunity I have of being present on this great occasion. The Lord knows my heart and he knows my desires and intents, and he has abundantly blessed me, and I acknowledge his hand this morning in my presence in this congregation. During part of the time that has elapsed since our April Conference in this building, I have passed through a time of severe bodily affliction, something to which I haven't been very much accustomed during my eventful life, but I suffered very severely, and it seemed to me that I was approaching very closely to the gates that we sing about sometimes. President Grant came to me at my bedroom one morning and told me that I had to get up out of that bed and go down to the coast and spend a month there. Well, I almost laughed in his face at the idea, but he said I could go and he would see to my transportation all right, I need not worry about that, and to cut the story short I found it advisable for me to carry out good counsel. I made the effort and succeeded. I did as he requested me and stayed as long as I thought I ought to stay there, having been encouraged by him and President Ivins so to do, and returned when I thought the time had properly arrived for me to come home, and here I am this morning, revived ¶

in spirit as well as in body, and filled with gratitude and thanksgiving to God and my brethren and sisters who prayed for me. ¶

Faith the Beginning of Our Religion

I know that I had the faith and prayers of a great many of my friends and I thank them for the exercise of their faith, that faith which I believe and hope will abide always, as we have heard in the song. That is the beginning of our religion, faith, real faith in the true and living God. Faith in a false god does not amount to much, Still it is better to believe in some kind of a god or supreme being, to whom we feel we owe allegiance, than to have no faith at all. But true faith, living faith, which brings forth works, in the right God, the only living and true God, our Eternal Father, is a great thing, and it is the gift of God that is given to all his children in their very nature and being as his sons and daughters. That is the beginning of the religion that is called "Mormonism." "We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in his Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." That is the first article of our belief as expressed by the Prophet Joseph in the reasons that he gave for the faith of the Latter-day Saints, and which we hold today and repeat in our Sunday Schools and in many of our gatherings. ¶

What a blessed thing it is to have real faith and confidence in that Being who is the Author of our lives, from whom we received our organized spiritual existence. The elements as he has told us, are eternal. The elements of our bodies, as well as of our spirits, have no beginning. They always were, they always will be. It is a great consolation to know that fact, a fact that we are not beings of a moment, as it were, but we are eternal in our nature, that we are of eternal existence from an eternal parentage, and that we can approach our Father, and that our spirits can reach out to him and have communion with him, that we can realize our relationship to him, and his to us, and know that he is mindful of us as his offspring. For the spirit of man is the offspring of God. It is through the exercise of faith in my behalf by my friends, and my own faith, that I recovered from my sickness, and I was benefited greatly by the breezes of the ocean down by the beach near Los Angeles. The real revivification that has come to me has been by the spiritual life, the spirit that proceeds from our Father throughout the immensity of space, which, as he has told us, gives life to all things that have life, which is light also, as well as life, which is the Spirit of Christ in which we are told, he is in the sun and the moon and the stars and in the earth on which we stand, and by which God has told us he made the worlds through and by his Son, "and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God." ¶

The living faith that we have in that Being is our supporter under every circumstance. In the darkest hours we have spent in our mortal lives, or as a community, in the tribulations and trials through which the Church has passed, we could approach to him, the Author of our being, our Father, and feel, as Jesus of Nazareth did when he was in the flesh, that he is our Father and that we can come to him and he will lean to us. The Lord says : "Seek unto me saith the Lord, and I will draw near unto you." That is a great truth that the Latter-day Saints, I think, understand pretty well, or they are coming to understand. It is a reality and should be impressed upon our offspring, our children, our little children. Mothers and fathers should have this fact impressed upon them, that "while they have fathers of the flesh," as the Apostle Paul puts it, "and we gave them reverence, how much rather should we have reverence for him who is the Father of spirits and live." Teach your children real faith in a real God, a person, a being who exists and who understands all our feelings— and our emotions, having passed through the experiences that we are now passing through and who is the very embodiment of everything that is right and true and good throughout the whole universe, all that is pure, all that is enlightening, all that is intelligent, all that is sympathetic, all that there is in life, and faith and truth are embodied in him, and he is the expression of these eternal verities to us. What a blessing it is today that we have that faith, that has been sung about here, which shall abide always. ¶

Now these three, Paul taught, "faith, hope and charity shall abide." Faith must abide in our hearts under every circumstance in which we operate, individually and as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And it is by that faith that the elders whom we have been hearing about go out into the mission world to proclaim the truth, to bear witness of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and to bear testimony that our Father has spoken in these last days, as he spoke many times anciently, and that he, who is the Father of Jesus Christ and who spake through him in the meridian of time, spake to and through the Prophet Joseph Smith in these last days and that his Son has been teaching, through that prophet and his successors, right along down, from the time when the boy Joseph offered that glorious prayer of faith in the Grove. He is our Father and Jesus Christ is his spokesman. All that has been revealed to the children of men from time to time has been done through that agency, that sonship, the voice of God to the Prophet Joseph, "This is my beloved Son, hear him," has been the policy of our Father from the beginning of the organization of this Church. It was through his Son and by his Son, that this earth was framed. It is through him and by him that all the revelations God has given to mankind, have come to the human family, and he is today at the head of this Church, representing the Father, and he can speak for the Father, and the Holy Ghost can speak for both, and bear witness of the truth in the hearts of the children of men. ¶

Missionary Work and Means

One matter that President Grant has touched upon this morning is this work of our boys, and mothers and fathers, younger men and ¶

older men, who go out into the world without money and without price, so far as payment is concerned, spending their own money or their parents' money, and sometimes, I am afraid, spending it a little too lavishly. Boys that go out into the mission field ought not to go with the feeling that they have at their command large sums of money. There is no need for it. It is true that it costs a good deal more now to pay the expenses of a missionary abroad than it used to do in former times. In my early labors, in fact nearly all that I have done in foreign lands as a missionary, was done under the old law of no purse and no scrip. When I went' out first as a boy I took nothing with me but the clothes I had on, except a bundle of tracts and a pair of pants and a shirt to use in baptizing. I had faith I could bring people into the Church, and I wanted something I could put on to baptize them in. I had use for those things and I did the work just as I have said. Indeed, all my ministry among the people of the world was literally "without purse or scrip." Now I do not say that this should be done now. I believe that as circumstances change, the Lord changes his commandments, to correspond therewith. As Jesus taught, a great many of you who went out in the world took "neither brass nor gold nor silver in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, nor two coats, "for the laborer is worthy of his hire," but afterwards he said: "When I sent you out without purse or scrip, did you lack anything? And they said, Nay, Lord," but now he said, "He that has no purse let him get one and he that hath no sword let him buy one." Circumstances had changed and so the word was changed. He didn't change, but the circumstances being changed the word of the Lord was different. So in these times conditions have changed very much from those times. ¶

We find it necessary to have the boys go out two and two. Sometimes one of them is a poor boy comparatively, has no money, or very little, and the other has plenty. It is a rather difficult condition for the poor boy, but they have to lodge together and divide expenses, and' this should be regulated by prudence, by economy, by wisdom, and the parents should see to it that their boys are not given too much money and that the others who are more poorly supplied are assisted so that they don't have too little money; but, generally speaking, I think our missionaries, in these latter days, are in many respects too well favored with money to spend. They are not sent out for the purpose of indulging in seeing the sights of the world, of going to motion picture shows, theatres, and other places of amusement, although occasionally something of that kind is all right, but that is not the object. What they are sent out for is to carry with them that abiding faith in God, and preach it to the people, that he is the same yesterday, today and forever, that he can be approached, that he has laws and commandments and ordinances which he requires people who desire to come to him, to attend to in the right way, and under proper authority. They go out for that purpose, and that should be their object, and be their main object. After they have been in the field for awhile, it gets to be so, even if it is not so in the ¶

beginning, some of our boys, who have done things that are wrong, who have not kept themselves as straight as they should be as the offspring of Latter-day Saints, after they. have been in the mission field for a little while, begin to get their hearts softened, and in humility and faith in God they go and confess their wrong-doings to their presiding officers. When they can be forgiven, through full repentance and change of life, that blessing is extended to them. When they are still hardened in their hearts and prone to do wrong they have to be sent home, of course. ¶

The Spirit, Not the Flesh, Should Govern

Now, they should be taught from their childhood to preserve the purity of their lives and bodies, to act with purity of conduct always, and especially in their association with the other sex. This should be in the minds of our parents and they should instil it into the minds of their boys and girls. God is a being of purity, he is sacred and holy, and sacred and holy be his Name, and sacred and holy should we, his servants, be in all our conduct while we dwell upon the earth in the flesh, and we should learn the great lesson of the spirit governing the flesh instead of permitting the flesh to govern the spirit. These are simple truths that should be impressed upon the minds of our little children that they may grow up in that spirit and in that supreme faith in God which is at the foundation of our religion. ¶

Faith and Purity to Be Taught in the Home

This should be taught in the household, or privately, by the mothers to their girls, and the fathers to their boys, and they should grow up in that atmosphere. Let us see to that, my brethren and sisters, so that in our homes that faith shall prevail, faith in God, real true faith, coming from the soul, from the heart, in God our Eternal Father, and impress that upon our children, and they will grow up in the favor of the Lord and be ready to serve in his great latter-day work, and there is no work like it in the world. The privilege of a man holding the Holy Priesthood, of being an elder in the Church of Christ, ordained to preach the gospel, to administer baptism for . the remission of sins, to lay his hands upon the baptized believer and say, "receive the Holy Ghost," that is a wonderful thing, but it is bestowed upon our missionary boys and if they grow up in the fear of the Lord, in full faith in him, wherever they go they will carry a power with them in the world that is not possessed by other men. We want it at home* right here where we live. Every boy and every girl born to the Latter-day Saints should grow up in that spirit of purity. ¶

Let us see to it, my brethren and sisters, that we carry this out, every ordinance and every counsel that comes from the mouth of God for our guidance and direction. This is what we should do. "Man," said Jesus Christ, "should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." That is the ¶

celestial law. When we do that we are living the celestial law and we shall gain celestial glory if we continue to abide in it, for by abiding in these things we sanctify our nature, we make our bodies and our spirits serve God, and come in subjection to his law and his influence and Spirit-, which proceed from him, and our bodies become so sanctified that they are capable of being quickened in the resurrection by a celestial glory, and if we do not live in accordance with such law we cannot gain a celestial glory. That should be in our minds, and we should teach it to our children. ¶

OUR DUTY TO LOVE GOD AND SERVE HIM XN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST. ¶

Now, there is a law, as our President declared to us, that we shall love God with all our heart, and might, and mind', and strength. God told that to the people anciently. It is also in the Doctrine and Covenants. It was told to the first settlers in Zion: "The land of Zion" which is to be consecrated to be inhabited by the Saints where the great temple of God shall be reared, upon which "the glory of God shall rest." The Lord told the people there in the very beginning of their settlement to love him "with all their heart and soul and mind and strength ; and, said he, "in the name of Jesus Christ shalt thou serve him." Don't forget that, my brethren. We serve God in the name of Jesus Christ. That is his full name. That is his name which was given anciently. You can read it in the Pearl of' Great Price. That is the name given in the latter days. It is in nearly every revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants : "Listen to the voice of Jesus Christ;" we are to love God with all our hearts and serve him in the name of Jesus Christ. The ordinances we perform, all the prayers we offer, all that we do as servants of God in this Church, should be done in the name of Jesus Christ, for it is his Church, and he stands really at its head. Then we are told that we should love our neighbors, also, as ourselves. What a good thing it would be for Latter-day Saints, if we all carried out that law, would it not? ¶

Finance Circulation — Pay What Thou Owest

This morning, when President Grant was illustrating so beautifully the circulation of the blood in the body of man, and the circulation in finance which he also touched upon, the thought I had in my mind was this : yes, if that blood is good, but it would not be much good if it wasn't circulating. If it remained there — sometimes a clot of blood comes into a part of the body and it brings about death instead of life, because it impedes the circulation. I was wondering if there wasn't a good deal of money owned by our people tucked away somewhere "against a rainy day." You know this is a threatening time, and we are very much perplexed, the banks are tied up, so to speak — they have money no doubt locked up somewhere, I think so, but that is their business. If we have, and we are owing anything to anybody ; pay what thou owest, I believe it is a good injunction to the Latter-day Saints today, and if all people who ¶

owe money to any of their brethren, or to people that are not their brethren, or of their brethren, still unpaid, to^ pull that money out of that old stocking and out of that box locked up in a bank, and pay your debts. I believe it would make a great change financially among our people. There are many people in debt to their neighbors and they don't love their neighbors as they ought to love them. Take out that money and put it into circulation, and then it will accomplish much of what President Grant was referring to in that little story about Brother Farrell. I have heard him tell that before and it is very striking. It is circulation of the blood that feeds the body. It is circulation of money that feeds the body of finance, and we cannot get along as a community and be as great, wealthy, and strong as we would be if we would circulate what we have. ¶

The Priesthood Entitled to Inspiration

We have met here, my brethren and sisters, to worship God, the true and living God, and I feel that he will accept our offering. I feel that he is here by the presence of his Holy Spirit, that he is here in the presence of these good men who have been laboring in the various stakes of Zion and the wards of the bishoprics, and in the mission fields. In their personality, there is the spirit and power of God and authority in the holy Priesthood to minister in the name of the Lord. What a great influential body there is here today in this congregation ! I realize it, I feel it. I believe in it with all my heart, and I know that this power that God has revealed in the latter days and which is sent down out of heaven upon the earth for the salvation of mankind is a reality, and we, all of us, can have it to the extent of the authority to which we are ordained. Every man ordained to any office in this Priesthood is entitled to the spirit and power of that office, and he can have it if he will live in accordance with that which it teaches, if he will live in accordance with the inspiration that it brings, for the Spirit of God whispers to the soul of man, and he can know the "still small voice." It doesn't come always in great manifestations. ¶

Remember the Lord Both in Joy and Sorrow

I am pleased when people have definite manifestations, no matter how material they seem to be. I believe there is a good deal of thinking on these things in the world, and sometimes in the Church. Imagination goes a great way, sometimes, but there is a link between every man ordained to the Priesthood and his God, and that link ought not to be sundered, it ought not to be weakened. We should live in harmony, in union, in communion, with him who is our living Head, and he will not forsake us either in days of trouble or pain or sickness or anything else. By the way, we ought not to leave our prayers and our devotions to the time of trouble and of sickness and difficulty, but go to the Lord when we are happy,, when our souls are full of joy and gladness, for he loves a cheerful countenance. He does not like very loud, noisy laughter — he says that is sin, but he likes to ¶

see a "cheerful countenance," when people come to worship him in the beauty of holiness, with a smile upon their faces and gladness in their hearts. Let us not forget the Lord when we are glad, when we are happy, and go to him and with all our hearts thank and praise his holy name for the mercies we enjoy, for we are a blessed people. ¶

We Are Wonderfully Blessed as a People

Separate and apart from all these blessings that pertain to the affairs of the holy Priesthood and to the congregations of the Saints when they meet to partake of the sacrament and to worship God, as a community, we are blessed wonderfully when we come to compare our conditions to that condition which we had in the days referred to by President Grant. I couldn't help thinking, this morning, about a little thing that occurred in the ward that I belonged to once. I shan't tell where it was- And that was in those days of scarcity ; when we wanted to have a dance. The. boys usually contributed some tallow candles to be placed on the ward house walls for lights. One evening some of the girls took the notion that they ought to be up with "outside" customs which required waxed floors. So they used some of the candles and "waxed" the floor with tallow, and you can guess what was the condition some of the girls were in when they slipped down on the floor with their nice best dresses on. But this illustrates the kind of straits to which we were put at that time, and those early days are right before my m'ind, and ,I can contrast them with the conditions which surround us at present. Here we are blessed of the Lord financially, temporally ; we have better homes, we have better clothes — I don't say that they are better than the home-made, mind you ; I endorse what Brother Grant has said about home manufacture — and we are blessed very abundantly, and should be filled with gratitude for these blessings, these good things we have. The Saints are able to come up here from distant parts now with ease and comfort. In old times when I left home to come here a long distance, I came with an ox-team or sometimes on "Shanks' pony," and I rejoiced when I got here. But today our people are blessed with means of transportation which are so far ahead of the old ways that we should be filled with thanksgiving. Let us praise the Lord in our hearts and in our works, for that is the way to praise him. Our faith should be exhibited in our works. What there is to do in our accepted fields of labor at home or abroad should be done with all our minds and might and strength. "What thy hand doeth today," said the old preacher "do it with thy might." Yes, put your soul into your work, whatever it is, brethren and sisters, members of auxiliary societies as well as members of the different quorums of the holy Priesthood, and be willing and obedient, because it is the willing as well as obedient that are to get the fruits of the land. ¶

Determine to Serve God and Keep His Commandments

Now let us who are here together this morning make up our minds when we go back to our fields of labor, or respective abodes, to ¶

feel that we will serve our Father, that we will keep his commandments, that we will walk in his ways, that we will unite with our brethren, that we will forgive our friends of their trespasses as we hope to be forgiven of ours, and that we will love the Lord and devote ourselves with all our might, mind and strength, and all the powers that we have and the means that come into our hands, to the building up of this Latter-day kingdom. It is the greatest thing on earth, brethren and sisters. It is the grandest thing that ever has graced this globe, and it will abide and continue, and will not perish or fall away, neither will it be trampled under foot, neither will it be overcome by the evil power. It will abide and continue to grow and increase and spread forth and some of us will live to see it, and if we don't live in the flesh, we will live out of the flesh, and we will learn about it. ¶

Crowned with Glory, Im Mortality, and Eternal Lives

President Grant spoke this morning about some of our good, faithful brethren passing away. They are not lost to this Church. They have gone where they ought to be. They will labor there as well as they labored here, in a different capacity perhaps, but they will labor for this same great cause and all the good men who depart from us and go behind the veil are engaged and organized, and are in the Latter-day work, and they will add to our strength, if we will live so that they can come nigh unto us, and the angels of God will be round about us, and our Father will administer unto us, and the power of his Spirit will increase in our souls, if we continue in well-doing to labor with all our mind, to build up this great kingdom on the earth. Christ is and will be at its head. He will be King of kings and Lord of lords, and every man who has labored with him and for him in this holy ministry will be crowned with glory and immortality and "eternal lives." That means more than life, more than mere existence, it means perpetual increase of posterity, worlds without end, and these blessings shall be ours if we will prove faithful to that which we have received of the Lord, and this is what we are for in the Church, every one of us, that is our duty, that is what we are on the earth for, to build up this Latter-day kingdom, to lead the inhabitants of the earth up to God, to bring them nearer to him so that they will be obedient in their hearts and be willing to obey his commandments and walk in his ways and be prepared for the glorious future that lies before them. ¶

Blessings and Counsel for the Laboring Authorities

God bless you my brethren who are laboring in this great cause, presidents of stakes and counselors, bishops and counselors, teachers who visit among the people, carry with you a good spirit of comfort and peace, and joy, into the hearts of the Saints. Encourage all good things, encourage all people in well doing. Do not be too severe in censure but when it is necessary let it come from the proper source, from the proper authority, and when things are not moving ¶

right, go to the proper authority. Don't jump over the heads of your bishops to presidents of stakes with little matters which ought not to come up to the presidency, but talk to the brethren where you are, and give them a chance to exercise their wisdom and judgment and discretion and the power of their priesthood, and let us labor together in union and concord and love, forgiving one another of our faults, overlooking what we can properly overlook, not being too severe, against the weak and faulty but act so that we will not practice nor encourage evil but act so as to make the Saints feel that we ourselves are devoted to the Lord, our eternal Father, as his sons and daughters, and that we are pledged to his service as long as we live on the earth in the flesh and then forever and ever. Amen. ¶