Moral Sense Basis of All Social Law

This morning as I listened to the sincere and earnest appeal made by President Grant to the people of the Church to obey the Word of Wisdom and other commandments of the Lord, I was reminded of a significant saying of Jesus recorded in the 7th chapter of Matthew. This afternoon I wish to associate this passage also with the warning and admonition given by President Clark : ¶

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock; ¶

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house; and it fell not; for it was founded upon a rock. ¶

I commend this passage of the Savior to every Latter-day Saint, and trust that we may be not forgetful hearers, but doers of the word. ¶

A number of these have come to my mind, each of which is worthy of consideration at this conference, but none seems to me to be more timely and of greater significance than respect for law. Our twelfth Article of Faith says : ¶

We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law. ¶

MORAL SENSE BASIS OF ALL SOCIAL LAW ¶

Law, particularly in a democracy, is a system of social order established and enforced by society. ¶

Divine law has its origin in Deity ; social law sprang primarily from the moral sense of the community. In a democracy in which the will of the people is sovereign, law is successfully operative only to the extent that the moral sense of the community is in sympathy with it. ¶

The three significant words used in the 12th Article of Faith express the proper attitude of the membership of the Church toward law. These words are — obey, honor and sustain. ¶

The Article does not say we believe in submission to the law. Obedience implies a higher attitude than mere submission, for obedience has its root in good intent ; submission may spring from selfishness or meanness of spirit. Though obedience and submission both imply restraint on one's own will, we are obedient only from a sense of right ; submissive from a sense of necessity. ¶

Honor expresses an act or attitude of an inferior towards a superior. When applied to things it is taken in the sense of holding in honor. Thus, in honoring the law, we look upon it as something which is above selfish desires or indulgences. ¶

To sustain signifies to hold up ; to keep from falling. To sustain the law, therefore, is to refrain from saying or doing anything which will weaken it or make it ineffective. ¶

We obey law from a sense of right. ¶

We honor law because of its necessity and strength to society. . We sustain-law by keeping it in good repute. ¶

One of the principal functions of religion is to develop a sense of confidence in man, and faith in God as the Father of men. If the Church (of Jesus Christ) cannot do these things, then it will have failed in fulfilling its divine destiny. However in efforts to establish confidence in man and social institutions, we must not shut from our minds certain unpleasant facts which tend to undermine confidence and disintegrate the very foundation upon which society is built. ¶

DISRESPECT FOR LAW AMONG WORST OF EVILS ¶

Disrespect for law is among the worst of such evils. It is regrettable that the United States today has the reputation of being one of the most lawless of nations. This unsavory reputation is attributed largely to the shattering during the World War of long-cherished ideals and the lowering of moral standards ; and it is true that "the war was in every respect a vast school of demoralization." Every rule of morality, public and private, was openly infringed. ¶

There are those who blame Prohibition for the wave of lawlessness that has been sweeping over the country, but since repeal, the illicit traffic in booze still continues unabated. Drunkenness is increasing, and so is the number of intoxicated drivers who imperil the lives of innocent people on the public highway. In the use of tobacco the law is flagrantly violated and dishonored. ¶

Note the following : "Any person who sells, gives or furnishes any cigar, cigaret or tobacco in any form, or any opium or other narcotic in any form to any person under 21 years of age is guilty of a misdemeanor." ¶

And again, "Any person under the age of 21 years who buys, accepts or has in his possession any cigar, cigaret or tobacco in any form, or any opium or any other narcotic in any form is guilty of a misdemeanor or shall be deemed a delinquent child as the case may be." ¶

VIOLATIONS BODE ILL FOR SOCIETY ¶

It augurs ill for society when in the face of such a law on the statute books, many high school boys from 15 to 19 years of age indulge openly in this pernicious habit. That such violations occur constantly in our own community none can deny. ¶

Petty thefts, holdups, and robberies of various kinds and degrees are all too common. ¶

Illegal possession of corporate property is a new menace. Millions of dollars are being lost to laborers, and bitter animosities engendered by sit-down strikes, a new weapon in the hands of unionism which may prove a boomerang to honest labor. If lawlessness or even disregard for the rights of employes on the part of employers is the cause of sit-down strikes, then the menace of such strife to the stability of society is only increased. ¶

These things which I have merely named indicate the trend to disregard law and order. Of all crushing taxes that impede the economic recovery of the American people, the crime tax is the greatest. The cost of our crime has now reached the staggering sum of 13 billion dollars a year, an amount equal to the entire revenue of the United States. Every year twelve thousand persons are murdered, three thousand are kidnaped, 100,000 are assaulted, and fifty thousand are robbed. ¶

America is a land of boasted liberty, but liberty may be either helpful or fatal according to the use made of it. Is it liberty when a group of men with threats of violence prevent an employer from entering his own property ? No ! Liberty is shackled and violence rules ! "Liberty is an atmosphere of the higher life, and it is only by a slow and patient inward transformation that one becomes capable of breathing it." ¶

MAN MUST BE MADE WORTHY OF LIBERTY ¶

Liberty ? — it is respect ; liberty ? — it is obedience to the inner law ; and this law is neither the good pleasure of the mighty, nor the caprice of the crowd, but the high and impersonal rule before which those who govern are the first to bow the head. Shall liberty, then, be proscribed ? No ; but men must be made capable and worthy of it, otherwise public life becomes impossible, and the nation, undisciplined and unrestrained, goes on through license into the inextricable tangles of demagoguery." ¶

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are explicitly enjoined to uphold the law. The Lord says in Section 58 of the Doctrine and Covenants, "Let no man break the laws of the land, for he that keepeth the laws of God hath no need to break the laws of the land." ¶

Reverence. Akin to the respect for law and a contributing factor ¶

toward it is reverence for sacred things. It has been truly said that reverence is the noblest state in which a man can live in the world. If that is true, then irreverent man has a crudeness about him that is repellant. He is cynical, often sneering, and nearly always, iconoclastic. ¶

RESPONSIBILITY TO TEACH CHILDREN REVERENCE, OBEDIENCE TO LAW ¶

Reverence and obedience to law should begin at home. Indeed, too much emphasis cannot be laid upon the responsibility of parents to teach their children reverence for God in all things sacred, and to honor and uphold the law. ¶

The true expression of reverence is found in the Saviour's admonition—"Love the Lord thy God with all thy might, mind and strength, and thy neighbour as thyself." ¶

As a Church in our worshiping assemblies, we have much room for improvement in this regard. Stake officers, Bishops, Quorum Presidents, Auxiliary leaders should make a special effort to maintain more reverence during hours of worship. Children should be impressed with the inappropriateness of confusion and disorder in a worshiping assembly, and should be made to realize that it is the height of rudeness to leave service before dismissal. Young people who ignore such proprieties are two hundred and fifty years behind the times. They should have lived in colonial days when just to make sure that they stayed out the service, young men were locked in their pews by their superiors. ¶

REVERENCE ON DECLINE AMONG MANY ¶

Charles Edward Jefferson, the author of "The Character of Jesus," says: ¶

We are not by nature or by training a reverent people. There are those who say we become less reverent as the years go on. The older people are constantly lamenting that they miss a certain beautiful respectfulness, a lovely reverence which were more common many years ago. There are wide areas of American society from which the spirit of reverence has been banished. Men and women in many circles are clever, interesting, brilliant, but they lack one of the three dimensions of life — they have no reach upward. Their conversation sparkles, but it is frivolous and often flippant. Their talk is witty, but the wit is often at the expense of high and sacred things. ¶

He has come far down in the scale of being who in order to display his powers finds it necessary to ridicule those things which have been prized by all good men. When one enters the world of our present-day reformers he is impressed by the large number who lack the upward look. Many of these, men are tremendously in earnest, they see the crying evils of the world; their sympathies are wide and their zeal is hot, but they have no sky above their heads. They aim to glorify no Father who is in Heaven. Some of them claim to admire the Man of Nazareth. They extol His character and His teachings. Yet strange to say, they do not imitate His reverence, or cast a single glance in the direction in which His eyes were always looking. One finds this lack of reverence even in the Church. In every community there are those who treat the house of God as they treat a street car, entering it and leaving it when they ¶

please. Even habitual Church attendants often surprise and shock one by their irreverent behavior in the house of prayer. Those persons are not ignoramuses or barbarians ; they are simply undeveloped in the virtue of reverence. / ¶

WHAT LIES BEHIND DECADENCE OF REVERENCE? ¶

Why is it that reverence is apparently in a state of decadence? Is 'it due to our improper reading? The press is constantly exploiting the sordid side of human nature, calling our attention to moral collapse and degradation, and it may be that our familiarity with vice in its varied forms is taking off the edge of our sensibility so that we no longer respond readily to the things which are noble and high. What has the stage to do — do you think — with our loss of reverence? It is lamentable that so large a proportion of plays move in that border-land which lies between decency and indecency. The openly immoral play cannot as yet be endured, but the play that is most popular is often a play which skirts the edges of the realms of the indecent. Theater audiences seem to like a sentence now and then which looks in the direction of the unclean, and to relish an occasional insinuation or remark which leads down to the mud. Our imagination may be so coarsened by the realism through which it travels as to lose the capacity for feeling the rapture of the sense of awe. ¶

REVERENT PEOPLE LAW-ABIDING ¶

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar : for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? ¶

And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. ¶

I speak of Reverence in connection with obedience to law because a reverent person is law-abiding. No one can love God sincerely and harbor in his heart enmity for his fellow men. Enmity is sin and "whosoever committeth sin doth lawlessness ; for sin is lawlessness." ¶

Brethren and sisters, the time calls for Latter-day Saints everywhere to demonstrate by deeds as well as by words that we love God, revere sacred things and places, and obey, honor, and sustain the law. God help us in our efforts so to do, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶

The Choir and the congregation sang the hymn, "O, Say, What is Truth?" ¶