I Desire, My Brethren and Sisters, to Express My Gratitude

I desire, my brethren and sisters, to express my gratitude to my Heavenly Father for the many blessings and opportunities that have come to me during my life. Two of these opportunities I desire to mention. I was grateful for the appointment that came to me a number of years ago to inaugurate in the Church and to develop in a way, two programs: an organized program of athletics and the Boy Scout program. I was grateful for the kind and wise counsel that was given to me from time to time by the General Superintendency of the Mutuals. I say that I was grateful for this opportunity, not for the position, but because of the opportunity it gave me to labor among the young people of the Church. Among the young people is that vitality, enthusiasm and desire for progress that make them do things. To have an opportunity to help guide that enthusiasm and love of life into channels of righteousness, so that our young people might take their place in the work of the Church a little better than they could otherwise do, was a privilege and blessing. ¶

The other opportunity that came to me was the privilege of laboring as president of one of the Missions of the Church. And again I say, not because of the position, not because of the honor — for it is an honor to preside in a mission, to preside in anything that has to do with God's work — but I was grateful for the privilege of again laboring with the young men and women who have faith sufficient to bring them out into the world to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have seen them grow and increase in faith, in testimony and in power, and I have realized that God has been with them. I have been grateful when a boy or girl could go home at the end of his or her mission firmly established in the testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In leaving the mission field I do so with a degree of regret, because I love the work and I have enjoyed laboring with the boys and girls who have been sent out to do missionary work under my direction. ¶

In our message to the people of the world we are not questioning the sincerity of the thousands and thousands of honest men and women, we are not questioning their devotion or their love of God or their purity of life ; but we are questioning the correctness of their interpretation of the principles of life. We are questioning the correctness of their interpretation of the scriptures which have been given unto us by the servants of the Lord who wrote and spoke by the inspiration and power of God. When men and women can look upon the laws of nature, express their admiration and reverence for God because of the orderly way in which he works in this great creation of ours — orderliness in astronomy, in mathematics, in chemistry — it seems strange that they cannot also see that it is quite as necessary that there be an order in the spiritual phases of life. Is it possible that God shall be orderly in all other things except his way of saving men and women and bringing them back into his presence? ¶

I am convinced that the unbelief and division that we have in the world at the present time are the result of an incorrect interpretation of the word of God, and because, of such interpretation men and women and young people especially are beginning to wonder just how far they can go in religion, and whether it is possible to find out God at all. In our interpretation of the scriptures we have faith, but we are not interpreting faith as some interpret it, namely, that by faith we are saved without works. We are not interpreting baptism as something which can be accepted or rejected as we may please to do. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is one of completeness. It has in it all things necessary for our salvation. We do not believe in faith to the exclusion of all other things, or as many of the people of the world believe, "By grace are ye saved." ¶

So I am grateful, my brethren and sisters, for the gospel of Jesus Christ that has come to us through the instrumentality of the Prophet ¶

Joseph Smith. It is so broad and so complete that it has an appeal to young people ; it has an appeal to older people ; it has an appeal to scientific people and to educators. It matters not who the person may be who comes in contact with the gospel, as he studies it he discovers that splendid appeal. ¶

May the Lord bless us and help us to do the work that he desires us to do here upon the earth, may our boys and girls continue to grow up to be splendid men and women, that they shall have a desire in their hearts to go out and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in plainness and simplicity, and above all in humility, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. Amen. ¶