Ward Choirs Encouraged

I express, I am sure, your feelings when I say that we have been delighted with the excellent music that has been rendered during the sessions of this Conference. This Nebo Stake Choir is made up very largely of ward choirs of that stake. The Church Music Committee, with which I happen to be associated, is extremely anxious that we shall build up a choir in every ward. These can be combined for stake conference music, or even for our General Conference music, as we have had it here today. ¶

Tomorrow night in the Tabernacle we shall have a demonstration of what sixty ward choirs can do. Some fifteen hundred singers, who have been training now for several weeks under Brother Cornwall's direction and others associated with him, are going to show you what can be achieved by a group of ward choirs. We earnestly hope that all of you who are interested will come and get the inspiration of what I think will be the finest demonstration of a group of that size that has ever been presented in this building. ¶

The Mission of the Church

The Church has a definite mission and responsibility, and how excellent it is that we come together every six months, and in our stakes every three months, to keep our eyes upon that mission. Sometimes in my missionary work people have asked : "Why do you send missionaries to this town ? We are all Christians here. Why do you not go to the pagan nations?" ¶

Our mission is to every nation, kindred, tongue and people, no matter what their faith or nationality. Our mission is unique. We recognize no competitors, and yet we recognize men doing good in all churches, insomuch as they teach men to honor Christ, to believe in God and attempt to live up to some at least of the teachings of the Master. ¶

May I help you to keep this in mind by calling your attention to the ministry of the Master himself ? He undertook to teach men to step forward to a higher level. That beautiful Sermon on the Mount, how in contrast it was to the Mosaic Law that allowed an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth ! There were not many who could endure Christ's teachings, however, and as they turned away from him he asked his disciples if they would go also, but they answered : "Whither shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life." There was no other place. Difficult as it was, they were determined to stay. ¶

Revelation Points the Way to Life Eternal

Then one of the disciples said : "Lord, are there few that be saved ?" And he answered: "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life," — life in the presence of God, life in the celestial kingdom, life in the highest place provided for the sons and daughters of our Father, — "and few there be that find it." "For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction", — to death, meaning loss of that exaltation, — "and many there be which go in thereat." ¶

Our declaration to all men is that we know the strait gate and the narrow way, not from our knowledge, but from the revelations of God, from those who knew it, who have visited the earth and have revealed to man again in this age the way through that strait gate and narrow road, and the divine authority is restored to administer the sacred ordinances of the Gospel, to put men's feet in that path that shall lead to exaltation in the celestial kingdom. ¶

We have gathered together these hosts of people who have enlisted, and we are inviting men and women everywhere to enlist, to subscribe to the highest standards that men have ever undertaken to subscribe to in the history of the world. This people is peculiar because they have been able to reach a higher standard of living set forth by the Master. There isn't an item he gave to man that is not incorporated in this Church and in the revelations of God to this generation. ¶

Honesty Should Characterize the Latter-day Saints

What Peter" said to the baptized believers, that they should add to their faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and temperance and patience and godliness and brotherly kindness and charity, we have in the fourth section of the book of Doctrine and Covenants, and there is added, humility and diligence. ¶

The Prophet said in the Articles of Faith: "We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men." I say these standards are the highest that have been undertaken to subscribe to by any generation. Our ceremonies and ordinances are important, yes, but it is only the initiation. The great effort is to bring poor, weak human nature to adhere to these standards of living, to be honest with each other. One of the characteristics of this Church has been that we have the reputation of being honest. ¶

I shall never forget the thrill that came to me forty-three years ago when in the Northern States, at the close of an open-air meeting, an elderly gentleman with a high silk hat drove up in a carriage, and asked if he might speak. He said to the people of South Bend : ¶

I want you to be kind to these Mormon Elders, because their people are my friends. I have been doing business with them for many years. I have never lost a dollar on a Mormon, and I cannot say that of any other community in the United States. I have discovered that a Mormon's word is as good as his bond. ¶

That was Mr. Studebaker, one of the members of that great institution, Studebaker Brothers. ¶

I want the Latter-day Saints to know that our Father in heaven expects our reputation for honesty to be maintained in order that we may distinguish ourselves. Honesty to the Lord in the payment of our tithes and offerings is where honesty really begins. The record we heard yesterday thrilled us all because of the honesty and the integrity of many of our people. If we have failed there is always the chance to repent and get into the path again and undertake to conquer and to master and to overcome the weaknesses of the flesh. For there is power in this Gospel to enable the weakest of the weak to attain this perfect state of living. ¶

Obedience to Commandments Brings Blessings

So far as mortality is concerned we do not expect to reach perfection, but we can live up to these standards. There may be some of us who may feel like those of old : What profit is it that we pay our tithes and offerings ? We see the wicked flourish like a green bay tree. But the Lord comforted them with the assurance that not all of his blessings were material, that a faithful record of the acts and the labors of men was being kept, and added, "When I come to make up my jewels I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him." Then shall the books be opened, and then shall we know, when we return to the earth, whether it has been profitable to serve God. For the man who pays his honest tithing is paying his rent to the Almighty, who is the proprietor of this earth, and if he expects an eternal inheritance upon it he must obey the law of inheritance. ¶

Has it been profitable to the Latter-day Saints that they have paid their tithes and offerings and sent their sons and daughters on missions ? The record shows that not only spiritual blessings but even material blessings have come and the windows of heaven have been opened and blessings have been poured out upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints. ¶

When we took our survey of the membership of the Church that was on relief it was not a surprise to me to find eighty-five percent of the entire group were non-tithe payers. The Lord had somehow or other taken care of those who had paid their tithing. There had been some who had felt that it was impossible for Latter-day Saints to pay their tithing, and then send their sons on missions and meet their other obligations. But our own survey reveals the fact that those who are meeting their obligations are tithe-payers, and those who are sending their sons on missions are tithe-payers, and they have not suffered financial loss because of these great contributions. ¶

I have before me a survey of twenty thousand living returned missionaries. What a glorious thing it is to discover some eighty-five percent of them are faithful in paying their tithing, and some eighty-seven percent of them have employment. The Lord has fulfilled his promise. I confess that a drain such as all this on any other people, without the favor and the blessing of the Almighty, would have bankrupted them, but it has not depleted us. And those who are most prosperous and who are blessed in their material affairs are those who have served the Lord in this respect. ¶

I once was asked by a banker if I thought the time would ever come when the treasures, such as gold and silver and securities, might be preserved without putting them in banks and locking them up and then electrifying the vaults. "Yes," I said, "some day, not on this earth in its present condition, there shall be separated into their own group those men who are so honest that they could walk within hand's reach of that which is not theirs, and nothing prevent them, save the rectitude of their own intentions, from taking that which does not belong to them." And when they have subscribed to all the other requirements, they shall find themselves in the celestial kingdom, whose streets will be paved with gold, and whose walls will be set with diamonds and jasper, and there will be no fear of these valuables being interfered with, for they will be honest who walk there. ¶

Sowing and Reaping

There are two principles as certain and as true as that the sun shines : Like has ever and shall ever be attracted to like ; and as we sow, so shall we reap. One poet has expressed it as follows : ¶

To every man there openeth a way and ways ¶

And the high soul climbs the high way, ¶

While the low soul gropes the low, And in between on the misty flats ¶

The rest drift to and fro. ¶

But to every man there openeth ¶

A high way and a low, ¶

And every soul decideth ¶

Which way his soul shall go. ¶

We are all free, but we are inviting every man to climb the high way. We know the way and that way will lead through the strait gate to the presence of God Almighty in the celestial kingdom. This is the mission of this Church. ¶

Yes, the men who are laboring to create faith in the hearts of the children of men in the Redeemer of the world are doing good, and we bless them for it, but they are not engaged in the kind of work we are engaged in. The masses of our Father's sons and daughters will find ultimately through their obedience, their salvation in some of our Father's other kingdoms. But that is not the work that we are concerned with. ¶

It is written in our own revelations that only those that can abide the celestial law can endure celestial glory. As we sow so shall we reap. We are reaping now, here on the earth. Blessed and fortunate are we, the sons of Joseph, the descendants of Israel, for we are reaping the consequence of our righteousness before ever we lived on this earth. Just as Brother George F. Richards has indicated that our poor benighted negro brethren are suffering the consequence of their sowing at some other time and place, so as certainly shall we hereafter reap what we are sowing here and now. ¶

These are eternal principles. Every man and woman, no matter what their nationality may be, who can subscribe to these standards and add *to their faith virtue, keep themselves above temptation and full of the spirit of charity and self-mastery in that they can control their appetites and otherwise can subscribe to these highest standards of living given to us by the Master in preparation for eternal living in his presence, will pass to that company of glorified men and women, as certain as the sun shines. ¶

Power in the Church

It is the mission of this Church to prepare men and women for eternal living in that glorified presence. And the power to do it is being seen on earth. There is more power in this Church today to control the world and its destinies than in all the armies and all the guns and all the military provision that is being made, for nations may be subdued by the might and power of arms only to rebel. There is only one way by which the nations can be brought into unity and into peace and into brotherhood. This is not through guns, nor might, nor force, but through the power of God and the love of our fellowmen that is in the hearts of this people. This great demonstration of bringing these hosts of people together from all nations, living here in love and brotherhood, is a demonstration the like of which has never been shown before in the history of the world. ¶

God bless the great and glorious cause of Zion, that we may keep our eye upon the great destiny of this work and its mission, for our redemption, for our preparation for exaltation with the glorified and to become the hope, the light of the world, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶