Remarks by Levi Edgar Young

I think, my brethren and sisters, that the one great duty confronting us today is to teach the gospel in our homes, to our children. While we have our many teachers in the various auxiliary organizations of the Church, yet the greatest teacher a child can have are the parents. If you will turn to the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, you will find words of wisdom, and the admonition of the Prophet Moses to teach your children the laws of God: ¶

"Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: ¶

"That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life ; and that thy days may be prolonged. ¶

"Here therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of tny tathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey. ¶

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: ¶

"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. ¶

"And these w,ords, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: ¶

"And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. ¶

"And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. ¶

• i i

"And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. ¶

"And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee unto the ,land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, ¶

"And houses full of all go,od things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full; ¶

"Then beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. ¶

"Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, ana snalt swear by his name. ¶

"Ye shall not go after other gods, of. the gods of the people which are round about you." ¶

Among the ancient Jews, the parents began to teach their children Bible verses as soon as the children could understand. One of the first things that Jesus learned in the little home at Nazareth was the first verse of the Shema, the national confession of faith : "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah is our God, Jehovah alone." Other verses from the law and the prophets would be learned one by one. ¶

During the French revolution while the Reign of Terror in Paris was striking fear and hate into the hearts of every citizen, the French Assembly, by vote, discarded the Christian religion, and set up "The God of Reason." Then terror did reign. People lost all reason; the higher standards of morality were forgotten; sin reigned supreme. Fortunately for France, Napoleon Bonaparte restored the Christian religion by edict. But, alas, from that day to this, "the God of Reason" has prevailed too much over the living God of Love, the Father of us all. In our homes, we can have the Spirit of God only as w^ think of Jesus Christ and live as he has asked us to live. It is man's soul that Christ is looking for; and the great thing that Christ did first was to find his own soul. Out of the carpenter's shop at Nazareth came a personality infinitely greater than any made by myth or legend, and one destined to reveal to the human race the real beauties of life, the Fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man. In our homes Jesus Christ should be our ideal, and you know that he waged war against vulgarism and the materialistic manner of living. Christ swept false systems away, and gave us a mortality based on the principle that his God and our God lives. His morality was sympathy, and he had no regard whatever for the dry, lifeless systems of his day. ¶

The song of Isaiah rings true today : "He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ; and we hid as it were our faces from him." ¶

We parents must teach Christ more and more to our children, and like the Jews of old, hang upon the entrance of our homes and write it in our hearts : "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah is our God, Jehovah alone." Long before the Jewish child could read, he was attracted by members of the family pausing before the doorway touching reverently the Mezuzah, a small, shining cylinder of wood or metal, kissing the hand ¶

that touched it, and then passing on. Later on, he learned that the Mezuzah was placed upon the doorway obedient to the divine command: "Thou shalt write them (the laws) upon the doorsteps of thy house and upon thy gates." Within the cylinder were the words of the Lord as given to Moses: "Jehovah is our God, Jehovah alone." Can we parents not become more and more the teachers of our children ? With God's blessing I hope we may. Amen. ¶