Cultivation of the Souls of Men

I crave an interest in your faith and prayers, my brethren, that what I may say may be directed by the Spirit of God, through your prayerful help. ¶

Cultivation of the Souls of Men

As I travel over this vast country of ours, I, like you perhaps, have been impressed by the vast amount of unproductive and untilled land that we have. Only a small portion of this state and the other states around us is well cultivated and really productive. There is a writer whom I read frequently who has made the statement that there are more uncultivated souls than lands. I wonder if that is true. ¶

Certain it is that there are many souls in the world today who have been improperly cultivated, else we would not have the conditions prevalent that we are struggling with now. ¶

I like to look upon this body of men as the tillers of the soul of the Church, and it is our problem to see that the soul of the Church is well cultivated, so that it can yield itself to the purposes of God. The soul of the Church is a composite of the souls of its members, and so we become the tillers of the souls of the members of the Church, and it becomes our duty as we face this problem, each and every one of us, to till our own garden spots first, and if they turn out to be productive, then there is no question that the greater fields will, likewise, be productive. ¶

When we think of the soul of the Church, and the souls of the members of the Church, we naturally wonder what constitutes a well-developed, well-cultivated soul. ¶

We have already been told that the first and great commandment of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that we should love God with all our hearts, and that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. That is the great fundamental principle of the Gospel, and since the purpose of the Gospel is to develop men in their souls and give them joy and happiness and better life, then the first requisite of a well-cultivated soul is that he must love God and love his neighbor, be willing to serve God and serve his neighbor. ¶

Then we, who are the custodians of the people, so to speak, the tillers of the soul, must see that we love God and love our neighbors, so that we can help others to arrive at that state. ¶

There are many other virtues that enter into this picture. Right along as second to love come charity and mercy. Can we feel that our souls are well cultivated if we have not charity? If you read the scripture you will find that all these other things seem to fail in the absence of charity and mercy. ¶

Then comes forgiveness. We must be ready to forgive when persons who have sinned against us, prompted by sincere repentance, attempt to make restitution. If we are going to forgive, we are going to forget likewise, for forgiveness falls flat if it is of the mouth only and not of the heart, and if, after saying we forgive, we still carry in our minds the offense and hold it as an obstacle to the progress of the one whom we have forgiven. ¶

We must be honest, too. We must be honest with ourselves, we must be honest with our neighbors, we must be honest with the state, we must be honest with the Church. There is too great a lack of honesty in the world today; too many do not think seriously enough of those problems and feel that so long as we can act within the technicalities of the law, we are sufficiently honest for the day. I question that very much, brethren. I think we all ought repeatedly to examine our hearts and our attitude, to make sure that we are honest. ¶

And we should be industrious. If there is anything that the Church has been noted for in the past, among those things comes the fact that we have been an industrious people. We would like to continue to be such, industrious, frugal and careful. If we are, there is little question but that God will bless us and help us to meet the exigencies of our lives. ¶

We should be sympathetic with our neighbors in their trials and troubles. We should be willing to help them over their difficulties. We should be trustworthy, so that when we make a promise, everybody will know that we keep that promise to the very letter, that our word will be as our written bond, and nobody will question us. We should live clean, honorable, and upright lives. No other thing will give us greater happiness, or will develop our souls to a ¶

greater degree than to live the law of chastity which is prescribed by our Church as by no other organization on the earth. ¶

All of these things tend to develop the spirit and the soul of man. The Prophet Joseph Smith has told us that the soul consists not only of the spirit of man but of the spirit and body inseparably connected. Then, in the development of the soul, we have next, after the spiritual development, that of the body. I believe what the scripture says that the body is the temple of the spirit, the temple of God, and that his spirit will not dwell in an unclean body. Our purpose, then, as well as to develop the other phase, is to develop our bodies, to attempt perfection in them, so that the spirit which God grants the privilege of dwelling in this body of clay shall, in its development, be unhampered by physical imperfections. ¶

If we can do these things, we shall not have it said of us that there are more uncultivated souls than land where we abide and we, the priesthood presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints have this as our great purpose and our great field of activity: to develop the souls of the people and the soul of the Church. This is a complex problem but it is wholly within our power, if we can only gain the assistance that comes from the companionship of the Spirit of God. If we are humble -- and humility is one of the highest virtues that we should cultivate in this spiritual development -- if we are only humble, and if we apply the spirit of prayer as Brother Romney has just said, we can gain that power that comes from the Spirit of God. ¶

That Spirit will give us the interest which will impel us to greater activity than we have ever undertaken before. ¶

That, brethren, is my prayer today, that we the servants of God and the servants of his people, for he has told us that inasmuch as we serve the least among us we are serving him; that we can get his Spirit to give us a true vision of our responsibility and the power to meet it fully and completely. All of us should examine ourselves and our problem, and then make a high resolve before our Heavenly Father that we will, to the best of our ability magnify our calling. If we can but do that, there is no question about the power of the priesthood of God. That he may grant it to us, I pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶