No Substitute for Work

My brethren and sisters, may I have your faith and your prayers on this occasion? I believe I voice the feelings of all of you when I say, thank God for our choir, for its leader, and for the organists. May I say thank the Lord also for the organ, built when we were in our infancy, unexcelled at the time and unrivalled still in the spirit and the hope of its message. We who have been in f oreign lands and have had its consoling tones in our midnight hours of anxiety, know something of its message of peace. We know something of the way in which the Lord's word and his music may be made to fill the earth. ¶

Pays Tribute to Senator Smoot

I want to take this occasion to thank my Heavenly Father, as a member of this Church, for the return amongst us of one whom I regard as the greatest missionary of his own generation. I refer to the Honorable Reed Smoot. ¶

I went East to live at about the time he went into the Senate. I know something of the feeling that then existed toward us. I have seen the smile of disdain and the curl of the lip of scorn at the statement that one was a Mormon. During the thirty years of Senator Smoot's tenure of office, I have lived a great part of my time in the East in the same environment to which both of us went when he went into the Senate. I want now to say to you, brethren and sisters, that, judged at any rate by my human wisdom and understanding, no other contributing cause equals that of the service which he has furnished, to the change that has come among the people of the earth who now honor and respect where formerly they scorned and despised. Furthermore Senator Smoot has given to his country a devoted service rarely equalled and never excelled. ¶

Feels Responsibility

I am keenly aware of and am deeply grateful for the great honor the people have bestowed upon me. I am also aware that a responsibility equally great comes with that honor. May I say that just now I am thinking more about the responsibility than about the honor. ¶

Should any of you have hopes about my work in this high office to which I am called, I trust I shall not too much disappoint you. If any of you have misgivings, I can only say that your misgivings can hardly be greater than my own. I am keenly conscious of my own deficiencies. I come late in life to a new work. ¶

But whatever shall be the outcome of my humble service, whatever shall overtake me, there shall be yet abiding with all of us eternal truth, which is light and life, even life everlasting. ¶

We shall still know that "The glory of God is intelligence" and that we, his children, are heirs to and subjects of that same law, for the glory of man is intelligence likewise. ¶

There will still be with us the knowledge that man was not made merely that he might suffer pain and want and sorrow, but that "Men are that they might have joy," — a joy that is not the passing pleasures of the flesh nor of worldly riches, but the joy of a clean body and a clean mind, the joy of right living, the joy of growth and progress, the joy of brotherly comradeship one with another, the joy of spiritual communion with the Infinite, the joy of the knowledge of everlasting life and eternal progression. ¶

No Substitute for Work

We shall have the joy of work too, for man also is that he might work, he went forth from the innocence of Eden to the God-like knowledge of good and evil, with the Divine blessing — not curse — as it seems to me: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." And save in extremity, no man may rightfully violate that law by living by the sweat from the brow of his brother. It is the eternal, inescapable law that growth comes only from work and preparation, whether the growth be material, mental, or spiritual. Work has no substitute. Idleness brings neither profit, nor advantage, nor good — only a withering decay and death. The world is near to forgetting all this ; I hope that we as a people shall keep it ever in remembrance, for in proportion as it is forgotten, evil will rule. ¶

The World's Problem

The world is moaning in tribulation. I do not know the cure. The questions involved are so nearly infinite in their vastness, that I question whether any human mind can answer them. But it is my faith that if the people shall shun idleness ; if they shall cast out from their hearts those twin usurpers, ambition and greed, and then shall re-enthrone brotherly love, and return to the old time virtues — industry, thrift, honesty, self-reliance, independence of spirit, self -discipline, and mutual helpfulness — we shall be far on our way to returned prosperity and worldly happiness. We must again yield fealty to the law that mouldering wealth, however great, is a mere shadow compared with the living, enduring riches of the mind and heart. We must remember the command given to Israel of old — "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self," which, says James, is "The royal law according to the scriptures." The world problem is not primarily one of finance, but of unselfishness, industry, courage, confidence, character, heart, temperance, integrity, and righteousness. The world has been on a, wild debauch, materially and spiritually; it must recover in the same way the drunken reprobate recovers ; by repentance and right living. ¶

God Will Speak

We here are strengthened, even in our want, by the knowledge that in this wilderness of modernism, with its mounting error and multiplying nostrums, with its new thought and strange action, man is not left to wander, unguided save by the truth given to him when he moved in a different world, with different standards, problems, and ideals. For we know that the Almighty, in pace with the progress of his children, will speak to them from time to time, giving them further light and wisdom, measurable to their new needs in their new life. We know that individually each of us may so live that he may ask for Divine help with the assurance that aid will come. ¶

Still the Good Shepherd

And in this time of stress, it is our right also to know that our Father has not forgotten us though we well nigh forgot him ; he has not shut the heavens from us ; he has not cast us out from his care ; he has not walled off his love against us. He is still the Good Shepherd, reaching after, watching over us,, with the tenderness of the Infinite. His love and his care are eternal. ¶

Standing before Capernaum Jesus said : "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." ¶

To the multitude on the Mount, he said : "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added." ¶

The Psalmist sang: "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." ¶

Thus is the law, the promise, and the blessing. ¶

The Master, speaking' with spiritual intent, said to Simon Peter : "Feed my sheep." This command of the Savior makes it greater and nobler by infinity, to feed the mind and spirit of man than to crush his body or to break his will. It is my duty, it will be my effort, to follow after the mandate of the Master. To this service I pledge the best I have of experience, of wisdom, of faith. ¶

Nineteen hundred years ago today, as the historians count, Christ came in through the gates of Jerusalem to the temple, the multitude going before, bearing palm branches and crying : "Blessed be the king that cometh in the name of the Lord." The multitude cried out thinking him an earthly king; we know him as the sovereign of our souls, as the Redeemer of the World, as him who died that man might live. Let us not forget him nor his truth, lest we "crucify to ourselves the Son of God afresh." ¶

Gives Light

God lives. We are his children. He has given back to earth his priesthood. He has spoken and is speaking through his prophets. To each of us he gives spiritual light just in the measure we are ready and willing to take it, and his blessings are ours, not for sinning disobedience to the truth already given, but through the righteous keeping thereof. We may not rightfully expect that God will flash either to our minds or to our spirits new knowledge for which we are not ready and for which we have no need. We may rightfully expect only that God will give new lessons when we have learned the old ones and they no longer serve our wants. ¶

God grant us the supreme knowledge, proclaimed by the Master on his way to the spiritual agony and ecstacy of Gethsemane: "And this is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." ¶

To his children on this hemisphere Jesus said : "I am the light and life of the world," and to Martha, she of the almost perfect faith: "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." ¶

God grant to us the gifts of his Holy Spirit and provide us with the needful things of life. May he bless me with the spirit of my calling. Will you make your prayers in my behalf that I may do his service righteously ? ¶