The Purpose of Education

The religious census of 1926 reveals the fact that there are in the United States two hundred and thirteen denominations of Christians, "presenting a more complicated religious pattern than exists among any other people." The total membership of these denominations is nearly 55,000,000 souls. What a power all these denominations and their following might have to bring peace to this troubled world ! ¶

I wish to speak on a subject in which we are all vitally interested, the Re-idealizing of the World. I was impressed with the words of Elder Widtsoe, for they become so fundamental in their teaching. An old oriental said once: "He who sows corn sows righteousness." And the farmer does sow righteousness. ¶

In one of our books of holy scriptures, namely the Pearl of Great Price, is a majestic message contained in the words of the Lord to Moses : ¶

For behold, this is my work and my glory — to bring to pass the immortality and the eternal life of man. ¶

A spiritual message from on high, it involves the recognition of Jesus as the living Lord, and religion as an actual experience, and a living union with God. It sums up the purposes of God in his relationship to his children, and is a vision and a light directing to a spiritual ideal. The world is in need of turning again to the Savior of the world, for he taught that in order to find life, we must turn in service to the kingdom. ¶

It is hard for the modern world to grasp this divine truth today, for our civilization is in the throes of all kinds of commotion. It creaks and groans in labor disputes ; the home and the sacredness of family life are being destroyed ; and again are the nations crashing in world war. The Church of the living God does not stand for these things. It is man that causes them. We are pleading for the preservation of our civilization. If the world could only be taught to turn to the Savior, civilization would take care of itself. If civilization is overthrown, it will be because we have thought too much of the rights of property and wealth. It will be because civilization has turned from God and has built its life on another than the Lord's commanded basis. ¶

If Christianity is to have a message today for this war-torn world, it must first learn that the Lord is ever revealing his message of love with ever increasing clearness, just as he did two thousand years ago. For his message is eternal, and when the prophet of old first declared that you and I must do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God, he spoke the foundation that becomes the fundamental divine duty of man. And Jesus declared that we should love the Lord with all our hearts, minds and strength, and this involves loving our neighbors as ourselves. Are we losing our spiritual values? The values that have been made manifest to mankind by the revelations from on high. No greater religious teachings have ever risen to equal those of Jesus in power and in grace. In days of yore, in the ages before the coming of the Son of man, the name of God was always referred to as the power that transcends the grasp of our finite minds. Men strove for a vision that they might understand reality. It was to obtain an illumination, an insight to the divine purposes. ¶

What we need today is more religion, but let it be real religion, with God as the supreme ideal, who is approached in deep humility. Let us not seek him for the purpose of preserving civilization, but because we have lost our way. He is our lost treasure. We have too long put our faith and confidence in the institutions of men, and have lost the divine faith which was given us in the beginning of history, and which we have given up for the ways of human kind. ¶

Our homes must become again centers of the way of divine life. Children should pray ; parents should pray. Children should be brought not so much by word as by divine thought to the altar of God every day, and there find more illuminating purposes. Our churches should be what all sacred houses should be — houses of prayer — where men and women should gather and in deep humility and with hungry hearts lift themselves up to him whom, to truly know, is the only life that matters. David of old said that the holy temple is not for man, but for the Lord God. That God is all for whom we are seeking ; to know him and to find him forever is not superstition. It is religion. ¶

I wish that we might teach the youth of the world to hold fast to the teachings of the fathers; and to provoke the consciousness of things spiritual. I wish we might read the scriptures more and more in all our walks of life, that the youth might be brought into contact with truths significant and profound; that they might be affected with the thought of revelation. There is a subtle beauty to all truth, and it requires no learning to feel its force. But it admits of much learning for its aesthetic quality is so high. Why are certain great truths so appealing to every soul today, if they are read and visionized ? Take for example the divine words : ¶

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. ¶

And the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. ¶

And God said, Let there be light : and there was light. ¶

Why were these truths so appealing in our childhood days? It was because they were exalted; because they appealed to the spirit of man. We did not find so much of a story in these words, as a doctrine. It is a great truth, a truth everlasting. A man wrote the words, but it is man's speaking glorified. ¶

I am not depreciating any line of human endeavor that has brought mankind to its present condition in our onward march of knowledge. What would the world be today without its learning ? Without its men of genius and vision? No one ever gave a more exalted view of justice in human society than did Plato of old ; and the truths of William James of Harvard discovered by years of study and calm reflection will always be illuminating mile posts, for the uplift of humanity. But the point is this : If the Lord in his holy purposes is to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man — and this is his sole purpose — then it will be done as mankind turns to him in that sublime and holy faith which was the basic teaching of the Master. ¶

We are marching on to glorious things in a material way ; inventions have changed the social and economic life of man, but have they made us see more and more the vision of the divine purposes of God ? Speaking of the contributions to progress of the engineer, Sir Alfred Ewing, President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, recently said : ¶

Beyond question, these gifts are benefits to mankind, making life fuller, wider, healthier, richer in comforts and interests and in such happiness as material things can promote. But we are acutely aware that the engineer's gifts have been and may grievously be abused. In some there is potential tragedy and present burdens. Man was ethically unprepared for so great a bounty. In the growth of morals, he is still unfit for the tremendous responsibility it entails. The commands of nature have been put into his hands, before he knows how to command himself. ¶

Humanity must turn if the world will go on. The vision of God must be made clearer ; the vision of the kingdom must be the impelling thing in life, and a recreated society must come by a re-idealizing of the world. Civilization must be better unified by a divine faith in the "divine purposes." ¶

Yes, we have seen this old world beginning to crumble; signs of social chaos, class struggle and revolt; the rumblings of coming war. But the Christian world is able, if it will, to bring about a new world; a new stirring of conscience and idealism in men of good-will, some of whom are intellectuals, some of them workers — all dreaming of something finer, juster, and nobler, dreaming of a time again, when men will leave their lower selves and march hand in hand toward the deeper and richer life, when the war-drum sounds no longer and the battle flag is furled in the parliament of man, the federation of the world. The forces which are to make the world, the world it ought to be, are now within it, and every sign of the presence of God in the world is of help to us. The Gospel of our Lord and Savior has been restored and the past and the future meet within it as it bears witness to the truth that God is carrying forward his ministry which entered the world when Christ ¶

was born in Bethlehem. So I bear testimony to you, my brethren, holding the Priesthood of God: "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." ¶

In conclusion let us think of the words of the prophet Moses and then of the admonition of Jesus our Lord : ¶

Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them : for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee ; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. ¶

These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. ¶

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. ¶

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. ¶

May the Kingdom of God triumph in all the world, I pray in his name. Amen. ¶