Southern States Mission Report

I deem it a great honor, my brethren and sisters, to be privileged to preside in the Southern States Mission of this Church. One of the greatest opportunities, I think, that could come to any man or woman is the association of the fine young men and women who are sent out from your homes to represent this Church in teaching the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know it is pleasing to the Church and pleasing to the parents to know that these boys and girls are not only teaching the Gospel by precept, but by example. They are worthy to go and cry repentance to the world, because they are sweet and clean, noble young people. I rejoice every day in the privilege of their association, and feel that I am becoming a better man because of it. ¶

Roger W. Babson says that statistics show that the greatest undeveloped resources in America are not our mines or our forests or our streams, but rather the human souls of our men and women. I am sure there is no place where the development of human souls is more rapid than in the mission field. I am grateful for the wonderful contribution made by the auxiliary organizations of this Church in preparing our youth for the responsibilities of the mission field, so that when they arrive they grow rapidly. ¶

I was impressed with the statement made by Dr. Widtsoe yesterday, wherein he referred to the fundamentals of this Church that have stood the test for a hundred years and over, and have not been changed. When our boys arrive in the mission field, and go out to compare our teachings with the teachings of other people, they find an unsettled condition. Men's minds are unsettled with respect to the philosophies of life and with respect to religious ¶

teachings. Our missionaries soon detect it. We have many men in the Southern States who are ministers of the Gospel, who are interested in the teachings of our missionaries. We had the privilege, a few weeks ago, of baptizing one of them with his wife and eldest son, and he was delighted with the wonderful truths he found at the hands of our missionaries. ¶

We baptized a young woman a few weeks ago whose father is an ordained minister of the Gospel, and we baptized her. with the consent of her father. The missionaries are now visiting him regularly in his home and teaching him the truth, and he marvels at the wonderful interpretation they give of the scriptures. ¶

In a group of missionaries that arrived a few weeks ago one young man seemed to be a little perturbed. I took him apart from the other missionaries and asked him what he thought of the Gospel; if there was anything about it he did not understand, and he expressed his doubt on a few points of doctrine. After attempting to clarify his mind I gave him a fine companion and sent him into the mission field. In about two weeks I received a marvelous letter from him. He said : "President Richards, I have been here long enough to find out the Gospel is true." ¶

I want to bear testimony to you, my brethren and sisters, that these boys and girls are teaching the Gospel by example. An article appeared in the July issue of the American Magazine, called "Kingdom in the Desert." Many of you may have read it. There are some very erroneous statements made in that article, but notwithstanding this fact, the writer did acknowledge that in his investigation here in Salt Lake City he had found that there was one standard of morality, both among the business men and men of the shops. One of our very dear friends in Atlanta, Georgia, wrote an answer to that article. I would like to read two paragraphs of her letter. She said : ¶

I am a Presbyterian in good and regular standing, strong in the faith, but it has been my privilege to know well, over a period of twelve years, the many young missionaries of the Mormon faith who have passed through the Southern States Mission home at Atlanta. ¶

If there are any young people today who know where they are going, it is the Mormon young people. Brought up to seek education, to love music and the fine arts, to do without stimulants of any kind, and to lead clean lives, they have the foundation for useful and happy homes, and are certainly not proceeding under the momentum supplied by Brigham Young. ¶

I feel sure this woman was sincere in her statements, because she told Sister Richards she wanted her girls to marry Mormon boys. Sister Richards said: "Well, the Mormon boys' mothers may want them to marry Mormon girls." ¶

She said, "Of course I would expect my girls to become Mormons. ¶

We had the privilege of meeting some fine business people in Birmingham, Alabama, recently, and holding a meeting with them. These people stood high in the business world, and also in their own church. After our meeting one of the men beckoned to Sister Richards. He wanted to talk with her alone. He had with him that night in the meeting a beautiful young daughter and a son, both college students, and he asked Sister Richards this question : "What about the youth of your Church?" He said: "Have you any married children?" Sister Richards informed him that she had three married daughters. He said: "Did they marry Mormon missionaries?" and she acknowledged that they did. He wanted to know if she could trust her daughters with these boys. Sister Richards said : "Why, those boys were as sweet and clean when they took my girls, as my girls were." He said : "I can not understand it." And by the way, he stood high in his own church. "I do not know a young man to whom I would trust my daughter." Sister Richards pointed to a young man standing in the corner, a young man twenty-one years of age, president of that district, his mission about completed, and she said : "There is a young man as sweet and clean as any girl that ever lived." He surveyed him from head to foot and said : "I believe it." ¶

I want to bear testimony in closing, my brethren and sisters, that these boys and girls are making an impression upon the world. I stood in one of the great railroad stations of the South a few months ago, and read some statistics which I think are more alarming than all the statistics of finance that we are so greatly concerned about in this nation today, a statement made by the Bureau of Vital Statistics of the United States of America, to the effect that each year 770,000 boys reach their majority in the United States, and of that number 480,000, or over half of them, are either suffering from venereal diseases, or will do, during the course of their lifetime, — and that in this great Christian nation. ¶

No wonder our friend from Birmingham did not know where to find a young man to whom he could trust his daughter. Then I realized something of the magnitude of the task before us, as stated by Mr. Babson, to whom I have referred, in developing the souls of America's men and women. I thank God for the Mormon boys and girls who have kept themselves sweet and clean, and I say : Who in all the world has a better right to cry,, as John the Revelator said they should do in the latter days : "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that yt receive not of her plagues." Our boys and girls have the right to thus cry to this Babylon of today. ¶

God bless you my brethren and sisters, and your missionary boys and girls, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. ¶