A Choice Land

There are only five minutes left until time for us to turn the Conference over to the Choir recital. I do not want to ask any one to occupy that short period of time, so I shall do so myself. I am happy indeed to see this marvelous congregation. Not only are all of the seats taken, but people are standing up in the galleries and in the aisles below. It is a great evidence to me of the growth of the work of the Lord in our day. I think it is perhaps the largest audience that I remember to have seen crowded into this building at a Conference session, and I am grateful for this. ¶

A CHOICE LAND ¶

I am very thankful that I am not in the least pessimistic or at all alarmed about the work of the Lord. I am a firm believer that this country, both North and South America, is the choice land of the world, a land choice above all other lands, according to the words of the prophets in the Book of Mormon. I believe in its final destiny. I believe that there is an over-ruling Providence protecting this country. I believe that this is the only place in the United States of America where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could have been established and continued without the most terrible persecution, worse than anything we ever had. ¶

FAITH IN DIVINITY OF THE GOSPEL ¶

I am very thankful indeed for the remarkable men and women that we have in the Church, who are devoting their lives without hesitancy to the advancement of the kingdom of God on earth. I am very thankful indeed, in my eighty-first year (I will be eighty-one years old in a little more than a month), that from my childhood days till now I have never found anything that has in the least degree weakened my faith in the divinity of this work. I am very thankful that faith is a gift from God, and that gift came to me in my young manhood. There came into my heart at that time an abiding testimony that the Book of Mormon is exactly what it purports to be. I read that book through as a boy, prayerfully and numbly, and there came into my very being — that part of me that will exist when my body is placed in mother earth — an absolute assurance that that book is exactly what it purports to be. To my mind, the Book of Mormon is the greatest tract, the greatest preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ of all the literature that we have. That book has stood the test for over a hundred years, notwithstanding the abuse and ridicule that have been brought against it; year after year additional evidences are coming regarding the divinity of that book. ¶

I remember when first they said, "Oh, it is a falsehood because it says the people who lived on this continent anciently had horses, and no remains of horses have been found." Since that time we have found in the great oil fields of California remains of horses. ¶

SKILLFUL IN USE OF CEMENT ¶

People ridiculed me because I believed that those people had erected cement houses; they said that there had never been a cement house found. Since that time cement houses have been uncovered by the score. A great monument upon which my Counselor J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and my former Counselor Anthony W. Ivins, stood, covers eleven acres of ground — ten per cent more than this Tabernacle block, and as I remember it, is one hundred and fifty percent higher than this building. The outside of this great monument is cement, and people have dug down into the earth in front of this monument and have found a fine cement road, showing a skill in the use of cement equal, if not the superior, to what we have today. And additional evidences are coming all the time. ¶

THE INEXPLICABLE EXPLAINED ¶

When I was in England, presiding over the European Mission, I was entertained by the assistant manager of the great New York Life Insurance Company in London, and one of the guests at that dinner was a man who had been connected with the British Legation. He had been to Canada a number of times and to United States many times. He said to me: "Mr. Grant, I saw the most inexplicable thing in my life when I was way up in Canada beyond the bounds of civilization, among those heathen Indians. I found an exact copy of a Holy Land rug, woven in small beads, the exact pattern of what I had seen in the Holy Land. How under heaven those Indians up there who had never heard of Jerusalem could duplicate a Holy Land rug is beyond my comprehension." ¶

I said : "I will give you a copy of the Book of Mormon and you will find that the forefathers of the American Indians came from Jerusalem." "What?" he said. "That explains the inexplicable." ¶

GRATEFUL FOR GROWTH OF CHURCH ¶

I rejoice beyond my powers of expression for the growth of the Church of Jesus Christ. I am grateful for this magnificent audience. I am thankful for the opportunity that our Choir has each Sabbath of broadcasting their splendid music, and it is doing more, I believe, to create good will for the Latter-day Saints than any of the missionary work we have established. ¶

May the Lord bless every one of us who has a testimony of the divinity of the work in which we are engaged to so order our lives that our integrity, upright devotion to the work of God will preach the Gospel, is my prayer and I ask it in the name of our Redeemer and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶

TABERNACLE CHOIR AND ORGAN BROADCAST ¶

During the period from 10:30 to 11 :00 the following program of choral and organ music was presented by the Tabernacle Choir and Organ, which program was broadcast by radio throughout the United States and Canada through the courtesy of the Columbia Broadcasting System, originating over Station KSL, Salt Lake City. ¶

"Lord, Thou Alone Art God" (Mendelssohn) Choir ¶

"Devotion" (Mascagni) Choir ¶

"Pilgrim's Chorus" (Wagner) Organ ¶

"Come Soothing Death" (Bach) Choir ¶

"The Holy City" (Adams), Organ ¶

"Worthy is the Lamb" (Handel) Choir ¶

The singing of the Choir was conducted by J. Spencer Cornwall. Organ accompaniments and Organ solo presentations were played by Frank W. Asper. ¶

CHURCH OF THE AIR BROADCAST ¶

Immediately after the conclusion of the Tabernacle Choir and Organ Broadcast, as part of the proceedings of the Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the following program was presented on the Columbia Broadcasting System's regularly scheduled Church of the Air series : ¶

The Choir and congregation joined in singing the hymn, "The Spirit of God like a Fire is Burning." ¶

"Prayer," (Hansel and Gretel) was sung by the ladies of the Tabernacle Choir. ¶