Conference Address

It is a great joy, my brethren and sisters, to meet with you again in one of the great conferences of the Church, and how my heart has rejoiced in the spirit of this meeting. ¶

With Brother McKay, I rejoice in the selection of those splendid, devoted, faithful men who have been called into the service. Our hearts are made sad at the loss of such giants as Brother Talmage and Brother Roberts, but their works will live after them. But I am as sure that the Lord will raise up men to carry on this work as I am that I live. I have no fear about it. ¶

PROPHECY OF JOEL QUOTED ¶

One hundred and ten years ago last month, three years after the prophet had received his first vision in the sacred grove, while praying concerning the future of his work, anxious to have a forgiveness of his sins and to know his standing before the Lord, he received a visit from ¶

a prophet of this American hemisphere who announced that he was Moroni, who had kept the records of his fathers sacredly guarded for hundreds of years, and that these records were about to come forth, and that a new and marvelous work was about to begin. Among other things he quoted the second chapter of Joel, twenty-eighth to the last verse. The angel said that this was not yet fulfilled, but soon would be. I shall read a part of what Moroni quoted : ¶

"And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions : ¶

"And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. ¶

"And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth." ¶

One hundred and ten years ago Moroni declared that the day was at hand when that prediction of old was about to be fulfilled. ¶

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO ¶

As I stood in the World's Fair a few days ago, A Century of Progress, in Chicago, witnessing the marvelous growth that has occurred in the hundred years that have just passed, I could not help but think of this prophecy of Joel. In the hall of transportation and communication I saw what was the condition of the world one hundred years ago, so far as their means of communication or travel was concerned, and it had made almost no progress since the days of ancient Egypt. During all these centuries of time men were traveling as they did one hundred years ago. Their means of travel was the canal boat, the ox-cart, the horse and wagon. Their tools were largely the shovels, the scythes, axes, and the flails. It took from May to November, one hundred years ago, to send a letter from one coast to the other, and the cost was five dollars. Dirt roads were the only highways. Newspapers were made on hand presses, and only two hundred copies an hour. ¶

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ¶

Then the eighteenth century came, the new day that the Lord declared 110 years ago was about to dawn, burst on the world, and what marvels have been wrought ! Wonders in the heavens, and wonders upon the earth, even as Joel declared. In 1829 came the locomotive ; in 1832 the telegraph ; in 1833 reaping machinery ; in 1830 sewing machines ; in 1849 steam engines ; in 1852 elevators ; in 1856 steel. Then followed internal combination engines, electric generators, automobiles, airplanes, typewriters, motion pictures, the telephone, the radio, the electric lamp, and a thousand other marvelous inventions. ¶

In 1874 it cost two hundred and fifty dollars to move a ton of freight four hundred miles. In 1896 Barnum and Bailey exhibited for the first time in their circus a horseless carriage. Elwood Haynes was arrested in Chicago for driving the first automobile in that city. There are only twenty-five million of them traveling in the United States today. ¶

Jane Addams said: "The decade beginning in 1830 has been described as the beginning day of the emancipation and hope, opening paths of progress in all directions." ¶

Bruce Barton said: "The heresy of yesterday becomes the orthodoxy of today. Truth never stands still. It goes forward, sometimes slowly, sometimes by leaps and bounds ; at present it is flying." ¶

MORONI'S WORDS FULFILLED ¶

I bear witness to you, my brethren and sisters, that the words of the angel of the Lord to Joseph Smith have been fulfilled. Wonders have been wrought upon the earth and in the heavens. The vision of God has been opened to the minds of men. In the laboratory and elsewhere they have dreamed dreams. The secrets of God have been made known to man. It is not because this generation is smarter than those which have preceded it, for some of the greatest of minds that ever appeared in the world came before our century of time, but it was not the hour when these secrets were to be known. I grant you that the Lord has sent into the world in this day choice men who can be used to accomplish these marvelous things, but even their smartness would not have succeeded had it not been the good pleasure of God to unlock and open the windows of heaven and pour his Spirit out upon all flesh, and we have made greater progress in the last hundred years than was made in all the ages of time. Surely God has done it. ¶

As I looked upon these marvelous advancements and realized that I had lived to see in my own period of time greater progress than all of my fathers have seen in all the ages of time that they have lived upon the earth, I asked myself what have I done to be privileged to live in such a marvelous age, and to see so much, and what is my responsibility, and what is the end of the matter, for we have not yet reached the end ? ¶

MARVELOUS TRANSFORMATION IN PALESTINE ¶

Among the marvels that I witness in the earth in addition to these inventions is the hand of God at work establishing his people, even as he predicted in ancient times. The Lord Jesus Christ said concerning Jerusalem : ¶

"And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations ; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." ¶

All of that has been fulfilled, and Jerusalem has been trodden down. But the time of deliverance had come when General Allenby's army marched up to the land of Palestine and broke the band and the power that had ruled that land for ages. Although the Crusaders had waged war to redeem it, and millions of lives and property had been given to rescue the land, it was not the hour until this day dawned, and from that day on the hand of God has been over the land and its prosperity is manifest. ¶

I want to read just a few words from a recent visitor, an eminent gentleman who has been over the land of Palestine, and who calls attention to the fact that a few years ago, an eminent Frenchman, Chateaubriand, visited the land, and called it a land of desolation, where the voice of God was not heard any more, where all was still and quiet, and the end of miracles had come. But, said this visitor, "Chateaubriand was wrong, for a host of miracles had happened even in the short interval of time since my last visit to the Holy Land." — Some two years before. — "Wheatfields waved me a welcome, where only marsh and barren sand existed on the previous trip. Jerusalem has spread out in brand-new Jewish suburbs. Tiberias has become a Spa. Perfume is borne on the breezes from the new orange groves of Sharon. Here and there too the hanging gardens of Solomon's day have been restored. Fresh earth has been dragged up the mountain slopes by Jewish labor battalions. Trees have been planted on the hills. New vineyards have been laid out over the gray, sun-beaten rocks of Samaria. Chateaubriand's 'desert' has grown a hundred new schoolhouses ; it has 'budded, bloomed blossoms, and yielded' transmission stations and farmsteads, a university, and a network of colonies. Surely it is a miracle more wondrous than the budding of Aaron's rod in the wilderness of Paran." ¶

PROMISES CONCERNING JEWS BEING FULFILLED ¶

And the Jews are turning their faces towards that land of hope for them. Our hearts have been full of sympathy for this race. They are our half-brothers. God's promises upon them are to be fulfilled. The inspiration that directed the Prophet Joseph to send one of the Apostles of the Church a hundred years ago to bless the land for the return of the Jews, speaks of our affection for them, and the day has come when there is no enmity between Ephraim and Judah, for we are of Ephraim and we love our brothers the Jews. If the hand of oppression seems still reared against them in Germany, and there seems to be no peace for them, we still see the hand of God even in that. For we came west because we had to; it was the place for us, and the Lord has appointed a place for them, and if they do not go willingly they will have to go otherwise, even as we had to do, but they will see the hand of God opening before them a way and an opportunity to rebuild themselves and to establish a nation. ¶

ANOTHER GREAT PROPHECY FULFILLED ¶

This is one of the miracles, one of the mighty miracles of this modern age. And then I remember also that the prophet Isaiah declared concerning that other great movement that was to come in this age : ¶

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills ; and all nations shall flow unto it. ¶

"And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths." ¶

That miracle has been fulfilled — a part of this century of progress. For up in the tops of these mountains, not down in the valleys and prairies of Illinois and of Ohio, but here, this is the place, and we came to fulfil the prophecies of old, to a place which God has preserved for this people. And here we are, made up of all nations of the earth, trying to work out the problems of the world and solve them by and through the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. ¶

AT THE WORLD'S FAIR IN CHICAGO ¶

In our booth at Chicago the elders of our Church are calling the attention of the thousands who pause there to the wonderful Gospel message. That to me is a miracle. Forty years ago, when we sent Brother Brigham H. Roberts to speak for the Church before the Parliament of Religions, he did not get a hearing except in a committee room. But today it is different, we stand with equal opportunity to every other Church in the land, with a display that is in many respects far more interesting, and more people pause to listen to our story. Mormonism is solving the problems of the day, and I thought as I witnessed these things, how God is moving. ¶

MAKING HISTORY ¶

We are to be a light unto the world and solve the problems of men, and as I listened to the appeal of our President I felt that we were making history today. We have been making history during these years, and we are going to make some more history in the next month or so, that we are either going to be proud or ashamed of, when we come to express ourselves on the Eighteenth Amendment. ¶

IF WE ARE DIFFERENT ¶

I heard the missionaries in Canada, where I visited recently saying, "O, how we are praying that Utah will be different! Then we may go from door to door with our heads up and with a new spirit in our hearts, with new courage to appeal to the best people." For let me say to you that many of the best people in this land are standing for the maintenance of the Eighteenth Amendment. I find that in the churches all over the land noble souls are fighting for these high ideals, and our appeal to them will be greater than it has ever been before, if we are different. And ought we to be different? The day will come when the ends of the earth will say, "Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob." It will be to learn of our ways, and if our ways are like the ways of the world, why will they come? If we are different they will come. We are called to be pattern-makers, to hold aloft the colors, and to show the way to others who cannot see as clearly as we can. ¶

Thank the Lord for our glorious principles. Our fathers were true to them in the day of their trials, they showed their stamina and their worth. If there is enough of the iron that was in them in us ¶

we too will stand, though we stand alone, for ideals, for standards, for the accomplishment of great things. God expects it of the Latter-day Saints. ¶

IN PREPARATION FOR CHRIST'S COMING ¶

Now what is to be the end of all this progress, brethren and sisters? I declare to you it is preparing this world for the coming of the Son of God. He would not come to a world that was in the condition this world was in a hundred years ago. All these marvelous changes had to come. Yes, and many changes will yet come, for there are many things that will have to take place before the Son of Man shall come. But this world was never more willing to receive him than they are today, because the whole world would like a dictator, somebody to tell them what to do, someone in whom they have confidence. But they will want him worse than they want him today before he comes. There are battles to be fought, yes, and struggles and conflict, war and bloodshed, and famine and pestilence. And nations will be wrecked, and thrones will fall, but out of all of these conflicts will come the victory for truth and righteousness. All things will go forward to prepare this world for its golden age, and its golden age will come, and universal brotherhood will come, and peace will come to men. ¶

DELIVERANCE PROMISED ¶

God bless the Latter-day Saints through these trials, that we may be true, that we may not show the white feather, that we shall be patient under trials and be true to God. For I promise you that you will see the work of God go forward. Its new day has come, and God has a great program for this Church. If the Latter-day Saints will keep their covenants, if they will pay their tithes and their offerings, and keep themselves clean and undefiled from the sins of the world, I promise them, in the name of the Lord, deliverance from all their difficulties, and they shall see the sun arise with healing in its wings for all who have been wounded and hurt. ¶

God help us to be faithful and true, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶