Closing Address

President Castle H. Murphy of the Hawaiian Mission has been in the hospital for a week and has been confined to his home another week. He has cabled us that he is now able to continue with his work and sends greetings and aloha to the Authorities and the Saints. ¶

I am sorry that the good people who are listening to these services over the radio will be deprived of the privilege of hearing the last song by the choir, as I understand that the radio broadcasting company will shut us off the air promptly at four o'clock. I am going to rob the choir of the privilege of being heard over the radio when they sing the closing number. They had an hour this morning and were heard all over the United States, so I am going to take the five minutes that belong to them. I am very grateful that there have been five minutes left for me. I do not remember that this has happened before. ¶

BLESSES LATTER-DAY SAINTS ¶

I feel in my heart of hearts to bless the Latter-day Saints. I feel grateful to the Lord beyond all the power and ability he has given me to express my feelings for the devotion and faith and integrity of the Latter-day Saints. I feel grateful to them for their prayers in my behalf a year ago when I was in the hospital. ¶

CONFERENCES ESTABLISHED BY GOD ¶

I really felt when this conference opened that we could not possibly have a conference that would equal the one we had six months ago. Perhaps I enjoyed it so much at that time because I had been absent from the previous conference, but I feel in my heart that we have been blessed as abundantly during the three days of this conference as we were six months ago. God established these conferences. Nothing but the Spirit of the living God could bring together such a congregation as we had here this morning, and as we have here this afternoon. ¶

The General Conferences of the Latter-day Saints are one of the great outstanding testimonies to me of the divinity of the work in which we are engaged. I have now attended these conferences as one of the General Authorities of the Church for fifty years, lacking only the ones that I missed when I was in Japan and in Europe and when I was ill a year ago. I have heard the expression after each and every conference, "The best we have ever had." ¶

BECAUSE OF APPETITE FOR SUCH THINGS ¶

The main reason why each conference seems to be the best is that we have an appetite for such things. On one occasion after I had been shoveling snow for many hours, being on a delayed train at the time, dry bread tasted very sweet. It almost makes my mouth water today as I think of Zebulon Jacobs, in a snow blockade between here and Ogden, inviting me into his car and taking a piece of iron and breaking an old piece of bread and dividing it with me. Hunger makes food very delicious. Hunger for the Gospel of Jesus Christ makes us enjoy these conferences. ¶

We have had a time of rejoicing. I have been grateful beyond expression for all that has been said in this conference, for the spirit of the brethren and the inspiration to them. I am grateful to the Lord for the freedom of utterance that I had in my opening address. ¶

INVOKES BLESSINGS ¶

May God bless the Latter-day Saints at home and abroad, and so far as the power is given to me to call down the blessings of the Lord, ¶

I bless you one and all, not only those who are here, but those who are in any part of the world who are serving God and laboring for his cause. I pray from the bottom of my heart that God will bless the President of the United States, his Cabinet, and the officers of our States and Counties. I pray that there may be such loyalty in the hearts of all citizens of our country that they will not try to impose upon the government. Men offered their lives for this country during the World War, and I think it is a shame that any man who is in such a favorable financial condition as the one referred to by President Clark would draw support from the government of the United States. ¶

God's blessings upon you, I ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶