Pioneer Heritage and Modern Duty

I rejoice, my brethren and sisters, in this glorious privilege of meeting with you in this great conference of the Church. I have been inspired by what has been said and earnestly desire that I may continue in the same wonderful spirit that has characterized the remarks of the brethren up to this moment. ¶

RAPID CHANGES NOTED ¶

By reason of some impressions that I have received in visits to some of the missions during the past season since our last conference, and having had the great privilege of being present at the dedication of the monument at the Hill Cumorah, and by reason of some conversations which I had with some distinguished gentlemen who drove many miles to come to that dedication and asked earnestly concerning the Church, I have felt that the changes that are occurring are so rapid that we can probably scarcely appreciate them, being so close to them, and then perhaps we do not fully understand the meaning and significance of these changes. ¶

I have been led to appreciate the work of our forefathers, who subdued this desert and made it blossom as the rose, and distinguished themselves and have won great honor and credit from the world, everywhere where people have studied the achievements of the pioneers. ¶

COMMUNITY LIFE AMONG THE MORMONS ¶

I read in a book recently published by Mr. Warren H. Wilson, who discusses rural community life in America, the following introduction by Professor Thomas Nixon Carver of Harvard University, one of the outstanding economists of the world. Speaking of those elements which have made for ideal rural community life, Mr. Carver states: ¶

The elements of permanent cultivation of the soil are found in great numbers among the Mormons, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and Pennsylvania Germans. ¶

The best farmers in the country are the Mormons, the Scotch Presbyterians and Pennsylvania Germans. ¶

Then Mr. Wilson in his book says: ¶

The Mormons represent this organization, these outstanding farmers of America, in the highest degree. Perhaps no other so large or so powerful a body of united farmers is found in the whole country. ¶

They have turned the force of religion into a community-making power, and from the highest to the lowest of their church officers the Mormon people are devoted to agriculture as a mode of living. ¶

The Mormons are organized by an idea and by the power of leadership. They have recruited their population through preachers and missionaries. This new population is woven at once into the fabric of the community; they are married to the community. ¶

The organization on which the Mormon community is based becomes embodied at once in a society with its own modes of religious, family, and moral feeling and thought. ¶

The Mormons are consolidated both by formal organization and by instinctive preference for their own in a multitude of cooperative habits, through which they build up their communities and contend with one another against their economic and religious opponents. It is not enough to say that this is clannishness; it is a mingling of kinship and religious preferences. It constitutes the strongest form of agricultural cooperation to be found in the United States. ¶

BUILDING AN ADVANCED CIVILIZATION ¶

From this very pulpit I heard, as some of you did, this same distinguished gentleman, Mr. Carver, say, after having spent two summers in Utah at the Utah State Agricultural College, that "the philosophy of life involved in the Mormon Church is the most constructive thing I have seen in American life." He sees only "a church which embraces the whole state and has a tremendous pragmatic value for its adherents, so well is it organized, so much is it the center of all community pleasure, and so closely does it endeavor to establish heaven on earth." ¶

And he continued: "I have never found more sound and wholesome personal habits than among the Mormons. I have never mingled with people who showed fewer signs of dissipation. I have never studied groups of people who seemed better nourished and more healthful. I have never known people who took more pains to educate their children. ¶

"This gives a clue to the success of the Mormons as colonizers and nation builders." ¶

Further he said that if he were hunting the whole world over to find some one building an advanced civilization, he would come and learn of it here in Utah from the Mormons. ¶

NEW DAY REQUIRES FURTHER DEMONSTRATION ¶

Now, that period is past. We have subdued the desert. We have distinguished ourselves, at least our fathers have, in doing this remarkable and unusual thing. As President Theodore Roosevelt said from this very pulpit: "It is not so much what you Mormons did as where you did it that distinguished you." But this generation cannot exist on the honors of the past. We must make our own contribution. ¶

And now it appeals to me that we have moved to a new day, the day to build upon that foundation, a day of demonstration, and I believe that this is in full harmony with the Lord's program. Let me read to you from the 45th Section of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants this injunction the Lord gave to his Church: ¶

I have sent mine everlasting covenant into the world to be a light to the world, and to be a standard for my people, and for the Gentiles to seek to it, and to be a messenger before my face to prepare the way before me. ¶

And in the 115th Section of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, given in April, 1838 the Lord, among other things, said: ¶

Verily I say unto you all [speaking to the Church]: Arise and shine forth, that thy light may be a standard for the nations. ¶

THE CHURCH A STANDARD FOR THE NATIONS ¶

And in the 103rd Section, in a revelation given in one of the dark hours of the Church, following those days of expulsion from Jackson County, Missouri, February 1834, the Lord said: ¶

But verily I say unto you, that I have decreed a decree which my people shall realize, inasmuch as they hearken from this very hour unto the counsel which I, the Lord their God, shall give unto them. ¶

Behold they shall, for I have decreed it, begin to prevail against mine enemies from this very hour. ¶

And, [here are the conditions of this marvelous promise] by hearkening to observe all the words which I, the Lord their God, shall speak unto them, they shall never cease to prevail until the kingdoms of the world are subdued under my feet, and the earth is given unto the saints, to possess it forever and ever. ¶

But inasmuch as they keep not my commandments, and hearken not to observe all my words, the kingdoms of the world shall prevail against them. ¶

For they were set to be a light unto the world, and to be the saviors of men. ¶

I am impressed, therefore, that we ought to be conscious of a new, or at least an enlarged responsibility, not only the responsibility to adhere to this Mormon way of life that was set forth yesterday by all the brethren as different from the way of life that men ordinarily follow in the world, for the personal benefits and blessings that come to the individual certainly, but also there is another reason why we ought to live this Mormon way of life. It is for the world's sake. It is for the Lord's sake. He did set us to be a light — we haven't aspired to it — but by divine appointment we are set to be the light of the world and to exalt here standards for the nations, that the promises of old might be some day fulfilled, when men would 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." For that is the purpose of this Church, to become a standard for the nations. ¶

WORLD-WIDE NEED OF MORMONISM ¶

It does seem to me in our new opportunities that the Lord has been at work breaking down the prejudice of the past. Oh, how I rejoice that those who have fought against us, that the powers of evil that have arrayed every force with which they have successfully destroyed every other gospel dispensation have utterly failed, and that our fathers, who were able to stand like beaten anvils under all the fire that was hurled against them, have survived and given evidence that they were in God's favor because they have succeeded. ¶

And now comes, I say, a new opportunity, the day of demonstration, when the world is fast losing its faith. When I think of a great nation like Russia turning entirely away from Christianity, and the great nation of Germany, that contributed perhaps more to the establishment of religious liberty and the establishment of Protestantism than any other nation in the world, turning away from Christianity, and some there are trying to introduce a religion, in some respects pagan, and other nations being influenced by the same spirit — I discover a need for Mormonism in the world, and it is apparent that men are beginning to realize it more than ever before. ¶

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH CHRISTIANITY? ¶

In a book recently published entitled "Why Wars Must Cease," Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, one of the leading American women pioneers in the great woman's movement of the world, says: ¶

The threat of hostilities challenges Christian statesmanship which, heretofore, has found itself helpless to prevent war. ¶

Wars did not decrease after the advent of the Christian era; Instead, they grew more terrible, each more bloody and destructive than the previous one. ¶

The most startling fact about the World War is that it was a Christian war. Christian nations began it, Christian nations led on both sides, and kept it going until the bitter end. ¶

She asks: ¶

What is the matter with Christianity? We have waited nineteen hundred years for Christianity to reach the zenith of its power in wealth and in membership, and then we found it utterly helpless to save the world from one of its greatest catastrophes, war. ¶

POWER OF GODLINESS LACKING ¶

And war comes out of the spirit of men, the spirit of greed, the spirit of selfishness and of hatred, all of which the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ could eliminate from the hearts of men. ¶

In this very hour in a mighty Christian nation, where there is the seat of the largest Christian denomination of the world, the members of that church, not listening to the pleadings of their own leader for peace, are waging one of the most unjust wars that was ever inaugurated against a poor and defenseless people, and all to gratify the vain ambitions of those whose hearts are filled, not with the spirit of the Master, the spirit of love, but with greed and with hatred. ¶

What does it all indicate? It proclaims that what the Lord Jesus Christ said to Joseph Smith more than a hundred years ago is true, that these institutions built in his name have a form of godliness but they lack the power thereof. ¶

I do not condemn my brethren of other Christian churches. Among them I find many noble and great men, whose hearts are set upon doing right, but they struggle helplessly to accomplish the things their hearts desire. To me they are in institutions that have the form but not the power that was in the Church of Christ as he originally endowed it, and so I have no spirit to criticize them. ¶

DEMONSTRATORS FOR GOD ¶

What I rejoice over is that with the new day that is coming, the works of this people, speaking in mighty tones, will attract the attention of the thinkers of the world that here is something more than a theory, for there are those willing to follow theories in Russia and in Germany and elsewhere; but here is a plan advocated by this Church that would meet and solve every human problem, if only the Latter-day Saints and the world would subscribe to it, the Lord's plan for human happiness and the elimination of war and distress and there are a hundred years of practical demonstration behind our theory. It does work. ¶

Therefore I see a new reason why every Latter-day Saint should live up to the Word of Wisdom. Do you want to produce a nation of men and women perfect physically in this age when the world is troubled, and tomorrow will be more seriously troubled by the painful ¶

effects of disregarding the Lord's plan of life? Do you want to distinguish yourselves ? You will never do it by living like the world lives. You are demonstrators for God and are to save the world from its utter loss of faith in Jesus Christ as the Redeemer and Savior of mankind. ¶

SOLUTION OF WORLD'S PROBLEMS IN CHURCH PLAN ¶

Do we want to save the world from its economic troubles and distresses ? Behold the Lord's plan, this principle of fasting which the Lord has given us, that once a month we abstain from food. Oh, what a splendid exercise that is to obtain spiritual control over the physical desires of men and make our contribution ! If every Latter-day Saint had lived up to that law of the Lord, supplemented by the law of tithing, that perfect, that just law — just to the rich as well as to the poor — we would have been the only people in the United States who would not have been on relief. ¶

Do not imagine that the world's problems are going to be solved by the schemes of men. They will be solved and solved permanently, not by one class filled with hatred toward another, but by love and brotherhood, in which every man makes his contribution, rich and poor alike, for the common well-being of mankind, that is found alone in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ¶

WE SHALL BE DIFFERENT ¶

When that time comes— and it is here now — we shall need the strength of the pioneer, the strength to live up to our moral standards, to maintain the Mormon way of life, to enter into marriage that binds us in love and fellowship and union for time and for all eternity, and have children, the heritage of the Lord, to bless that marriage. Then we shall be different from the world that is fast drifting into divorce, into childless marriages, and attract the attention of the world. ¶

If you want to distinguish yourselves keep the commandments of God and you will find blessings personally and we will be teaching a lesson, holding aloft the standards that will attract good men and good women elsewhere and they will come to learn of our ways and to walk in our paths. ¶

The Lord has also enjoined upon us the responsibility of being our brother's keeper, of being men and women who are bound in love. It is inspiring to me when I think of this demonstration, men and women from all parts of the world brought into this Church, amalgamated into one people in the great melting pot in glorious America, with love existing in the hearts of these men and women of all nations. If the same spirit that is in your hearts were in the hearts of the people of all the nations of the earth there couldn't be any war. There would be no need of parliaments to reduce armament. Peace would come to men. ¶

This demonstration, I say, is one of the unusual things that is and will attract the attention of men everywhere. ¶

So I feel a new interest should awaken in the heart of every Latter-day Saint towards the world, and by adhering to these standards of living, as the Lord has enjoined us, we can solve the problems for ourselves and be ready to demonstrate before the world. I fear that the world will be looking to us long before some of us are ready. ¶

OUR RESPONSIBILITY AND DESTINY ¶

Oh, I pray you, my brethren and sisters who are on the dole, get off relief just as soon as you can. If you don't you will be thrown off and it will be a sorry day when that time comes. Get off and get on your own feet. Let us all, rich and poor alike, band together to show the world that Christianity has been weighed in the balance and found wanting, for it is not vested with the power of God that once was in the Church of Christ, that a great apostasy has swept over the earth, and that men have a form of godliness but they lack the power. It is our responsibility to show a doubtful and skeptical world that there is power, there is strength, there is ability in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to fulfil all the expectations of the Master and here establish a people that shall be the light of the world, the salt of the earth. ¶

God help us to keep our eyes upon our destiny. God give us the strength to meet the situation, to conquer and master and overcome the flesh and subscribe to these standards of living, for the great joy that shall be ours who participate in it, and then in the day when from the ends of the earth people shall come to learn of our ways we will not be ashamed for them to come close unto us and look upon us and learn of our ways. It will be harder to conquer ourselves than to subdue the desert. ¶

God help us and prepare us to fulfil in our day, as gloriously as our fathers did in their day, the assignment that now is ours, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. ¶