The Significance of the Resurrection

Brethren and sisters of this great throng and of the air, — children all of one supreme God : today is the traditional day of the resurrectionbirth of our Lord and Master, our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten of the Father, the Messiah that was to come, the Lamb of God, the First-fruits of the Resurrection, the Redeemer of the world. We may not forget this day, nor its significance for us. ¶

Heralded centuries before his birth as the "Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6), heavenly angels announced his coming, saying: ¶

Glory to God in the highest,' and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2 :14.) ¶

Righteousness at War with Sin

Modern man sometimes vainly thinks that Jesus' mission was to wipe out war ; and scoffers have cried that since war still curses the earth, Christ's mission has failed and Christianity is a blight. ¶

Yet Christ himself sent forth his Twelve, saying : ¶

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword. (Matt. 10:34.) ¶

Christ did proclaim a peace — the peace of everlasting righteousness, which is the eternal and mortal enemy of sin. Between righteousness and ¶

sin, in whatever form, there can only be unceasing war, whether in one man, among the people, or between nations in armed conflict. This war is the sword of Christ ; whatever its form this war cannot end until sin is crushed and Christ brings all flesh under his dominion. Righteousness is peace wherever it abides ; sin in itself is war wherever it is found. ¶

Sin and spiritual and mortal death came to the world through the fall of Adam ; these were overcome by the atonement of Christ. As Paul declared it : ¶

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (I Cor. 15:22.) ¶

Christ's mission perfect and complete ¶

The mission of Christ, planned before the foundations of the earth were laid, was to conquer death and bring the resurrection to each and every of God's children born to the earth. This mission Christ made perfect and complete. To fill this mission he needed no help from man, and no man can take from or add to it, no matter what man has done or may do. So Christ's mission has not failed ; it cannot fail. It is the perfect service finished, for it is the service of Deity himself. ¶

What today's world must have, if humanity is to go on climbing upward, is men — those wearing the cloth as well as the laity — who know that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ ; men who, having this knowledge, have also the intellectual honesty not only to admit but to proclaim it; and men who have further the moral courage and sterling character to live the righteous lives this knowledge demands. And this knowledge must be a living, burning knowledge of God and Christ. The world will never thrive, if indeed it can live, on abstruse ideals or an ethical code. ¶

Furthermore, to you men of all beliefs, truth is saying: The righteous life is not for the other man only ; do not hug this delusion to your soul. It will destroy you. The righteous life is for you and each of you also. ¶

Responsibilities Attending Homemaking

The chief place in which this knowledge and this righteousness, this peace of Christ shall be bred and nurtured, is the home, and yet throughout the world the modern way of apostasy, of idolatry, and of paganism, is threatening the home — the very bulwark of civilization itself. ¶

Everybody knows that home is not the four walls that keep out the cold, the wind, and the storm, nor the rooms therein that add comfort to the indwellers. These are merely the house under which the home is roofed. The home must have a husband and wife, with all the virtues that the Christian generations have given them ; and to this husband and wife there must be born children. Dogs and cats on the hearth, and blooded horses and cows in the barn, are not children and do not make a home. There must be a father and mother and sons and daughters of God in the home. "Multiply and replenish the earth," was God's command and is the law of all creation. ¶

Among Latter-day Saints, children have a peculiar place and relation : They are the fleshly tabernacled spirits whose intelligences are co-eternal with God. Not following the rebellion of Lucifer, these spirits kept their "first estate" in heaven. They have come to this earth to receive the mortal bodies given them by us fathers and mothers, and to live their "second estate." If these children live rightly here, observing the principles of the Gospel and the commandments of the Lord, they will keep their "second estate," and will not only be resurrected, as will all mortals, but they will also be exalted and "have glory added upon their heads forever and ever." And this glory is the glory of intelligence, which is the glory of God. They shall have also the glory of eternal progression. This righteous family of father, mother, and children, with their loving relationships, will endure throughout the eternities to the glory and blessing of its members. ¶

National Stability Depends Upon True Homes

Out of this purposeful, divine relationship of parent and child, comes a dual duty and love. ¶

To the child God said at the great day of law-giving at Sinai : ¶

Honor thy father and thy mother : that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. (Ex. 20:12.) ¶

This command is not spiritual only, it is not religious only, it is also political. It declares that in the nation which shall live, children must honor, that is, must hearken to and obey, their parents. This means there must be in the land the true home, and that without this home, so signifies the command, the nation will perish. ¶

Christ himself, as a child of twelve in the Temple, though knowing his divine mission, its meaning, and its source, followed homeward his anxious, sorrowing, and mildly reproving mother, saying only : ¶

How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? (Luke 2:49.) ¶

Filial Obedience Enjoined

Out of the wisdom of the past we have to the children these words : ¶

Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old. (Prov. 23:22.) ¶

A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him. (Prov. 17:25.) ¶

A wise son maketh a glad father : but a foolish man despiseth his mother. (Prov. 15:20.) ¶

My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother : ¶

Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee ; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee : and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. ¶

For the commandment is a lamp ; and the law is light ; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life. (Prov. 6:20-23.) ¶

Paul commanded the Ephesians : ¶

Children, obey your parents in the Lord : for this is right. Honor thy father and mother ; which is the first commandment with promise ; ¶

That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. (Eph. 6:1-3.) ¶

To the wayward child, there comes the poignant wisdom of the immortal poet: ¶

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is ¶

To have a thankless child. {King Lear, Shakespeare.) ¶

One of the things Christ told the rich young man inquiring as to what he should do to inherit eternal life, was to "honor thy father and mother." (Mark 10:19.) This duty so divinely imposed, carries with it to the child the obligation lovingly to care for the parent in poverty, in sickness, and in death. ¶

Charge to Parents

To the parent there are equal duties. The same wisdom of the past says: ¶

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (Prov. 22:6.) ¶

And again : ¶

Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. (Prov. 19:18.) ¶

To you parents it must be said : This precious spirit of God is here with you, because you willed it so. Your act, not his, brought him to you. He did not ask you to bring him to you. When you beckoned him into the flesh, you became responsible for him. ¶

You can do no act to thrust aside or, lay off from your shoulders that responsibility. That spirit, dear to God, is in your keeping. No other person can take your place. Our Eternal Father will hold every father and every mother to a strict accountability for the custody and guardianship of every spirit they bring into the world. ¶

Revelations Cite Parental Laxness

The Lord in our own day has said that the "sin is upon the heads of the parents" that teach their children "not to understand the doctrines of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands.'" ¶

For this shall be a law unto the inhabitants of Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized. ¶

And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord. ¶

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Now, I, the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them ; and their children are also growing up in wickedness ; they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness. ¶

These things ought not to be, and must be done away from among them. (Doc. and Cov. 68:26, 28, 31, 32.) ¶

A little later the Lord spoke again : ¶

But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth. (Doc. and Cov. 93:40.) ¶

To Frederick G. Williams he said : ¶

You have continued under this condemnation ; ¶

You have not taught your children light and truth, according to the commandments ; and that wicked one hath power, as yet, over you, and this is the cause of your affliction. ¶

And now a commandment I give unto you — if you will be delivered you shall set in order your own house, for there are many things that are not right in your house. ¶

Verily, I say unto my servant Sidney Rigdon, that in some things he hath not kept the commandments concerning his children; therefore, first set in order thy house. ¶

"And now, verily I say unto Joseph Smith, Jun., you have not kept the commandments, and must needs stand rebuked before the Lord; ¶

Your family must needs repent and forsake some things, and give more earnest heed unto your sayings, or be removed out of their place. ¶

My servant Newel K. Whitney also, a bishop of my Church, hath ¶

need to be chastened, and set in order his family, and see that they are ¶

more diligent and concerned at home, and pray always or they shall be removed out of their place. (Doc. and Cov. 93:41-50.) ¶

Paul speaking to the Ephesians, said : ¶

And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath ; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (Eph. 6:4.) ¶

To the Colossians he said : ¶

Fathers, provoke not your "children to anger, lest they be discouraged. (Col. 3:21.) ¶

Children to Be Taught Gospel Principles

Thus it is not now the doctrine of the Church, and it never has been, that children should be allowed to grow up to a maturity when they may choose their religious beliefs for themselves, before any attempt is made to teach them the principles of the Gospel of Christ, and the paths of righteousness. The Lord never intended that children should spiritually grow up neglected and cast adrift to care for themselves any more than he intended that the newborrr.babe should be thrown out into the street to live or die as chance might decree, or to wait until maturity to determine whether he should seek learning or remain in ignorance. ¶

On the contrary, the Lord has made clear in his revelations that, from earliest infancy, children must be taught in the principles of the Gospel and in the doctrines of the Church, else "the sin be upon the heads of the parents." "A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." (Prov. 29:15), said the ancient proverb. The Savior teaching his disciples, said: ¶

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? ¶

Of if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? (Luke 11:11, 12.) ¶

Anyone who teaches, encourages, or spreads this doctrine of neglect, no matter who he is or what his position, will not be held guiltless before the Lord. ¶

This monstrous doctrine is founded either in a disbelief in all religion, or in a belief that all religion is for the immature and weak-minded, for the morons of society, or else that all religions, pagan, Christian, idolatrous, are equally good, all lead to the same goal, and no choice is to be made amongst them — all of which ideas are contrary to the revealed will of God, as his words all testify. ¶

Character to Be Built in the Home

I repeat again, the prime, indeed the sole, responsibility for starting the child along the right way, rests upon the parents. This responsibility is the inescapable result of bringing children into the world. It cannot go unheeded, nor can it be cast off, or shifted to another. It is a responsibility that comes by divine decree. ¶

Parents may not assume that their work can be done by the schools ; and the schools shall not try to usurp the place of the parents nor to relieve them of their obligations. Each has its own place in building the upright, patriot citizen and the righteous man of God. So with the summer camps, with sports and other diversions — these, rightly conducted, may be helps to the building of youth character, but they are not homes and cannot be. If it be said that they are better than some homes, it may be answered then shame upon such homes ; they are not the homes which God has declared children should have. ¶

Greed for Gain Destroying Christian Standards

So also of the mere amusements of the hour — the theater, the concert hall, the movie, and even the radio in the home itself. Too often these are too much guided by the mere greed for gain ; all too frequently they pander to them of low morals and to the weakest in mentality ; too often they lack in simple decency and deserved shame. But when not going to these extremes, when in morals and ethics their works are not beyond the pale, yet in their ordinary offerings they too often depict a standard of life and conduct which is un-Christian. A Christian life is not built around cocktail lounges, exotic night cabarets, luxurious hotel lobbies, princely dwellings of idleness, and an ease and luxury that the imperial palace has rarely known. Yet the youth are coming to think that these are the norms of our life, and that if they do not get them, something is wrong with parents or society. The world has never had a people that were all millionaires ; it never will have. The sooner we know this the better it will be for the world. ¶

We parents may not trust the training of our children to any or all of these. If we shall do so and our children shall sin, then so surely as the Lord has said it, "the sins be upon the heads" of us, the parents, ¶

Proper Teaching a Shield in Temptation

Children should be home at night, every night, and not away from home; our youth should be home most nights, too, and the occasional night when they are away, they should be carefully protected by us parents, or someone for us, from evil in all its forms and guises. ¶

We parents must never forget and must ever remember that whenever our children leave the home and its purlieus, for whatever reason it may be, whether it be for amusement, for learning, for matters of livelihood, or for the activities of religion and religious training, they have for the moment passed beyond our immediate protection and control ; they are away from our personal guidance and restraint; we may not then with our own hands and love and care minister to their need however grave the need may be. We may send our prayers with them ; we may know that the righteousness we may have instilled into their hearts will be to them as a shield; we may, if we have done our full duty, know that the spirit of God will be with them, to guard and protect them. But we must also know that as they move out there alone without us, Evil will be there too, for so it has always been, and will be till bound ; and remember, the choicer the spirit, the more insistent are Evil's wiles and temptations to lead them to destruction. ¶

Home Fundamental to Civic and Religious Life

Again I say, not out of the school, nor the concert hall, nor the theater, not out of the stadium, nor the movie, nor the radio, not even out of the church itself by itself, nor out of all of them together, shall come the mutual respect for the rights of others, the restraining of will and selfishness, the due obedience to proper authority, the forbearance, the devotion to duty, the poorness of spirit, the repentance for sin, the meekness, the hunger and thirst for righteousness, the mercy, the pureness of heart, the peacemaking, the honesty, the sterling integrity, the charity, the love, the reverence, that shall make the citizenry of free nations and the subjects of the kingdom of heaven. ¶

All these must come mostly from the home ; they will fully come from nowhere else. To be certain and sure of their effect, they must be engendered in the forefathers of those who would enjoy them. This duty we parents of today owe to our posterity. Thus we must, as the Lord said through his prophet of old, "turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." (Mai. 4:6.) ¶

God grant we may in this nation, and in the world, rebuild, fortify, and keep forever safe, the true Christian home. ¶

(End of the Church of the Air broadcast.) At the conclusion of the Church of the Air broadcast, at the request of President Heber J. Grant the congregation arose and joined with the Choir in singing the hymn, "Redeemer of Israel," ¶

PRESIDENT DAVID 0. McKAY ¶