Remarks

Brethren and sisters, during the latter part of February and the early part of March, the Southern states mission was honored by a ¶

visit from President Heber J. Grant, As the President of the Church stood before those great audiences in Jacksonville, Florida, and Atlanta, Georgia, as a minister and a witness for Jesus Christ, I could feel in my heart that God had opened effectual doors for the President to deliver great messages to those large congregations. We have experienced, through the ministry of the President of the Church, a great spiritual uplift. The poet says: ¶

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"Thy swift messengers are treading Thy high courts where princes dwell; And thy glorious light is spreading, Zion prospers; all is well." ¶

There is in this gospel the power to bring the peace of mind that is dearer than all. Not long ago a young lady in the south who had not attained her majority heard the gospel preached by two of the humble servants of the Lord. That message, spoken under the power of the Holy Ghost, went to the heart of this young woman. She appealed to her father for permission to be baptized, but he refused, and said, "The church of your father and your mother will afford you spiritual consolation."Her pleadings were of no avail. Some months afterwards the girl died. There came to the father a great awakening. Someone has said that "the awakening of the conscience is the grandeur of the. soul."His conscience began to trouble him; he felt in his heart that he had denied his daughter, the idol of his life, a sacred privilege to which she was entitled. He could have turned in his troubled state of mind to those outwardly magnificent but soul-unsatisfying institutions in which he had bidden her to remain, and said: "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?"But the response would have been, "'Where the tree falleth, there shall it be.' Death fixes a period to man's progress."So he turned in his distress to the standard that God has set up for the Gentiles to seek to, and his rest was glorious. He considered the doctrine of salvation for the dead, and he wrote me, stating the circumstances of his refusal to permit his daughter to be baptized. He said: "I believe in the doctrine of salvation for the dead; I believe that there is in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the power to apply the grace of this gospel to those who have departed. And,"said he, "you will relieve my mind, you will make me happy by having the temple work done for my darling daughter, who departed this life without receiving the gospel, because of my prejudice."And this was done. This man received peace. ¶

My brethren and sisters, it is my testimony that in this Church there is the power and the Priesthood to administer the saving ordinances of the gospel for those who have gone to the spirit world, who have not had the opportunity of receiving the gospel in this life. And this testimony I bear in humility and with gratitude of heart, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶