Conference Address

My brethren and sisters, I stand before you this afternoon with a good deal of trepidation and nervousness, and I trust that while I am here I may have your faith and prayers, that the time we are together may be spent to our mutual advantage. ¶

We are here as a representative body of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have come from all parts of the Church to listen to the instructions that fall from the lips of the presiding authorities of the Church in the hope that we may gain therefrom courage to carry us on and faith to buoy us up and strengthen us in the trials we have to face. We have desired comfort in the past, and we have always realized that hope and that faith ; and I pray that we may be so blessed and benefitted today, that when the conference shall have passed it may, like its predecessors, be said to be the best ever. ¶

We have a faith in God our Father and in Jesus Christ his Son That faith to me is very fundamental. If I could not have it I would feel at a loss as to what to do and how to work. With that faith there is an anchor, a stone firmly set that seems to support and sustain me in all the things I have to encounter. God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son are to me realities. I believe that they are, as we teach them to be, real personages, personages who have interest in us and in our welfare. That faith carries me on through all the trials I have to undergo. ¶

They have given us a system that has many wonderful features in it, and not the least perhaps of the wonderful principles that we call the Gospel is our belief in a future life and in the power that is vested in us to carry on through that future life with greater accomplishments, with greater attainments than we have been able to accomplish here. We believe that in the future life the organization and the association and ¶

the attachments that we form here will carry on. Were it not for that there would be many, many very sad occasions, but because of that faith these sad and trying conditions become the stepping stones to greater hopes. Whenever I see winter come I am glad because I know there will be a spring. Whenever I lie down at night I am glad of the opportunity because I know there will be sunshine on the morrow. There is a faith and hope in every winter and in every night. There is a hope in every spring, because in that spring there is a planting, and we hope for a harvest in the fall. Likewise we hope and believe that the transition from this life to another is but a step in the greater progress, the eternal progress through all the ages that are to come. We believe that we were individual identities before we came here, that we go through this sphere as an educational process, and that we shall go on to another greater, more magnificent and more wonderful sphere, and that through all the eternities to come there will be no limit in the progress that our spirits may attain to. ¶

To me that is the most wonderful thing about the Gospel, it is one of the most fundamental things, and it becomes a possibility only when I place my faith in God the Father and Jesus Christ as his Son, as the personages that Joseph Smith taught us they are — real, virile, active personalities who have a concern in our welfare and in the welfare of this world. I believe that they overrule the destinies of this world for the good and advancement of those who are placed in it. "The glory of God is intelligence," and because of that and the faith that we have in a future of progress, we lay the foundations here for great and grand educational institutions which help us to acquire an understanding of our condition. Intelligence to me is not merely the cramming of my mind full of learning that I get from books. Schools are not the only media of acquiring knowledge, intelligence does not, perhaps, necessarily come from scholastic education. To me intelligence is the power to meet conditions and circumstances and overrule them for our mutual benefit and blessing. Many men have lived and died who never had the advantages of our schools and colleges, but who most certainly were among our most intelligent and useful men. ¶

I believe that those intelligences and those spirits, as well as yours and mine, shall carry on through all future time, with greater realization and greater accomplishments. That faith is what carries me on. That faith is what enables me to face the changing circumstances of life with a hope and a faith that the ultimate will be beneficial to us. I believe that God so loves us that he will overrule the world's activities for our good. When I say our good I do not limit that to those of us who are gathered here, I do not limit it to those who have joined the Church, but I include all our race, even those who are very much opposed to us in our present circumstances and in our belief. ¶

I pray that God may bless us all, that he will overrule the destinies of this nation, and that he will overrule the destinies of other nations of the earth, so that out of the chaos that seems apparent now good will come. We do not know what those changes may mean. They certainly ¶

are significant and have a meaning, and out of those changes will come advancement perhaps just such as we hope to obtain' individually through our experience here. The change will benefit and bless us even though the transitional period may be very trying. ¶

I do not feel like talking long this afternoon, but I wish to say this much, that this faith is what carries me on. If it does not just agree with your faith I trust that yours will be of as much service to you as mine is to me. But I believe that all of you who are here believe very much as I do, that we are here through the design of a loving, kind, and all-wise Father, that he has planned this whole thing out, and that it will work very much according to his plan and to our ultimate good and blessing. ¶

I pray that we may carry on in faith, in sincerity of purpose, and do our portion, each and all of us, to roll this work on, that it may eventually fill the measure for which it was established in the earth in this the last dispensation ; that the purposes that God had, when he visited the Prophet Joseph Smith and gave to him again the priesthood and the right to organize the Church, may not be hindered in any way by anything that any of us may do, but on the contrary, every act that we perform may be a beneficial one, and that we may push this work along so that ultimately we may realize our hopes and aspirations. God bless you all. Amen. ¶