Conference Address

Joseph Smith was a descendant of Robert Smith who emigrated to America from England in 1638. Robert Smith had lived in Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the ancestral home of Governor Bradford and the famous men of the Plymouth colony. It was also the ancestral home of President George Washington. That old stock was deeply religious, and there was wonderful strength in their forms of Christian belief. Robert Smith may have known John Winthrop, for when he landed in Boston, Massachusetts, Winthrop was there, and had written to his people: ¶

It will be a service to the church of great consequence to carry the gospel into these parts of the world to help on the coming of the fulness of the Gentiles. ¶

Joseph Smith came of such ancestry. ¶

Joseph Smith Restored Knowledge of Living God ¶

A new religious idea was launched that day when the Father and Son appeared to Joseph. The doctrine of "grace," the outgrowth of the Protestant Reformation from Luther's and John Calvin's day, was met by the divine truth again that man is in the image of God and is free to work out his salvation. The divinity of man was emphasized anew. A part of the greatness of any man, a sign of his worth, appears in the unbounded reverence wherewith he stands or kneels before his Maker. One great trouble today is the fact that man has not esteemed himself high enough. Man has forgotten the divine injunction of the Master when he said: ¶

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matt. 5:48.) ¶

Considering the gospel, the same energy and aspiration are needful today as in the days two thousand years ago. Whenever the followers of the Master have lived on the highest levels, they have struggled for one tremendous thing: The regeneration of the world in the light of the divine. When the knowledge of the Living God is lost, Christianity becomes merely a name. Joseph Smith was thrown back upon one thing and that was to ask. A spiritual world dawned within the content of his soul. From his youth up, he sought for an understanding of the will of God and the way to attain the kingdom of God. It meant to possess the priesthood, and to possess this light and power meant to live the life true to his God. Man never reaches after the divine unless the divine works and is acknowledged in his own life. ¶

From his life, his writings, his revelations, the Prophet had but two main ideas at heart: first, to establish within the minds of men the spirit, the knowledge of God's holy word; second, the dream to preserve the government of the United States and its divine Constitution, that man might find life and peace in its laws. In other words, religion can come to birth in the soul of man only through a conquest of the ordinary, natural world which surrounds him. ¶

The Divisions of Christendom ¶

The terrible persecutions which he had been called to withstand had made of him a man of God. He with his people had been driven from place to place, their lands taken from them, and their families scattered and put to sorrow and want. There was no redress. An undying hope lay in his heart, and subsisted through all the adverse fortune and tragedy which he and his people endured. Their hope was founded on the new vision, and they were blessed with a forward outlook. His people clung to him. Not once did he utter a discouraging word, but kept his eye on the goal which would yet be attained. He had grown to manhood in a new age of the world's history. He had noted the divisions of Christendom. To him it was the most conspicious reproach and its chief cause of inefficiency. How could the pure word of God be taught, for the different divisions were a denial of his spirit of love and fellowship. The whole Christian world was a dismembered condition of all groups and sects. Grotius, the Dutch historian, had said in the seventeenth century that the teachings of Christ were going from the world, and Leibnitz, the German scientist, declared that the teachings of Christ were lost in the varied teachings of such men as Luther, Calvin, and Erasmus. Today thinkers like Stanley Jones, Adolph Deissman, T. Z. Koo, Karl Barth, Ivan Lee Holt, and a host of other leaders in thought have been put to wonder just what the pure doctrines of Christ are. Herbert L. Willett, professor emeritus of Oriental languages at the University of Chicago, made this statement in 1939: ¶

The church although weakened by divisions, has rendered important services to other generations, but today it is facing problems so serious that it is forced to realize the enormous liability which its divided condition involves. ¶

Among these are the class hatreds which prevail, the exploitation of youth by commercialized amusements, the lure of vicious literature, and the yet unsolved drink problem. These are the present issues which the "dismembered church is unable to encounter with success." "Divide and conquer" were the words which Milton put into the mouth of Satan in the assembly of the rebel angels. ¶

The Compensations of Hardship ¶

They stood their sufferings with a feeling that the compensation would be a divine sweep of God's message. Cheerful, they accepted the heavenly call without murmur, and they "made their suppers of songs." What astonishes us still more was their resignation, their respect for government. With meekness, patience, and goodness, they left their homes to give the glad tidings of a new day. ¶

This is why our history has been tragic. It is illustrated in the famous march of the seventies of the Church from Kirtland to Missouri in 1838, when six hundred men, women, and children started out amid the storms of persecution, plodding on day by day in cloud and sunshine and camping together at night with their prayers to God for protection and rest that they might continue their march on the morrow. As President Joseph Young said after the long weeks of weary travel were over. ¶

The compensation of this journey into the West will be seen and realized by our children some day. ¶

God was their sun and shield. As the Psalmist said, he was the health of their countenance, and his presence put gladness in their hearts. ¶

Sublime Moral Teachings ¶

As one reads the Doctrine and Covenants, the revelations of God to the Prophet, one is overawed with the sublime teachings pertaining to the moral life of man. "The spirit and body are the soul of man," and the soul shall be purified by living the highest ethical laws that have been given to man: the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, the Parables of Jesus, and the many examples of the way Jesus dealt with men. The fourth section of the Doctrine and Covenants tells of the characteristics of a pure soul. The spirit must be made clean; the body must be made clean. Wrong and sin must be overcome. To bring the teachings of the Prophet within the confines of a mere essay is impossible. There is a majesty to his teachings that requires faith in God, prayer, and a realization of the power of the Holy Priesthood which you and I here today realize in our very lives. The gospel to him were beauty, truth, and goodness. The farms and cities and homes which the Saints built on the frontier give testimony of their knowledge of the institutions of civilization. Around their temples, they planted their lawns and flowers; the homes were purified by their lives. Moral perfection was based on spiritual and bodily perfection. As they reached a juster appreciation of their human needs, the regard for a pure body and spirit took its place as one of the three requisites of human character, along with the love of truth and the love of goodness. ¶

Civic Idealism of the Prophet ¶

The Prophet directed his people to build their temples, and in that grand old edifice — the Kirtland Temple, and later in that other majestic temple at Nauvoo — their hopes were realized. They were erected to God and required the human constants of the people who built; hunger, and labor, seedtime and harvest, love and death all operated to build those noble and sacred houses. Little wonder that they could say: ¶

O God, in every temple, I see people who see Thee. ¶

And in every language I hear, they praise Thee. ¶

The civic idealism of the Prophet of God is shown in the lovely old cities of Kirtland and Nauvoo, rising from town governments to civic centers. They exemplified the words of Isaiah of old: ¶

. . . We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. ¶

Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. (Isaiah 26:1,2.) ¶

In the study of their fields and gardens, one is reminded of the story of the beautiful garden found in the Odyssey of Homer, which some say, is a reflection of the tradition of the Garden of Eden. Certainly they illustrate what Goethe said in the last scene of Faust: ¶

I found God in trying to make the earth beautiful. ¶

The Kingdom of God a Concrete Reality ¶

And now to conclude. The Prophet established the Church of Christ as it was designed by the Master. As Jesus set forth the reality of the kingdom of God as spiritual and subjective — as "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost," it is also true that he set forth the establishment of this kingdom as a concrete, organic reality, small indeed at its beginning. So today is the Church separate from civic and political government and composed of the people who follow his teachings. This is a glorious part of my theme which time forbids my amplifying. We read in the gospel of Luke how Jesus chose twelve apostles who were willing to act as his heralds of the kingdom; and with the seventy, these were sent into the world to teach the gospel. So in this day, after the Church was organized, the Twelve and the seventy were sent forth to evangelize the world. The Church is a coherent organization, which can be coterminous with the nation or the whole world, but is not dependent upon, nor derived from existing forms of civilization. It is the organized concrete expression of the kingdom of God. ¶

Paul the apostle made this point clear as recorded in the first chapter of Colossians: ¶

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. ¶

And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. (Colossians 1:17,18.) ¶