Conference Address

My beloved brethren and sisters, I need an interest in your faith and prayers if the few moments I occupy your time shall be spent to any profit, and I pray that the Spirit of God will direct the testimony which I may offer to you this afternoon, for I stand before you in firm belief and with the knowledge that we represent God our Heavenly Father; that we are carrying on his work in the hope that we who have this responsibility shall be a blessing and a comfort to his people. ¶

Pioneer Standards and Ideals

Since President Smith began the conference by referring to the fact that this is a centennial year, recounting some of the accomplishments of the Church during the century that has passed since we arrived in this valley, I have been thinking a little about that myself. I wonder how nearly we of this day live the ideals and the standards of our grandfathers and our grandmothers who came into this valley, some of whom moved on into other parts of this state and the ad- ¶

joining states. Their ideals were high and lofty. They had noble purpose in coming here because they had the testimony that the gospel had been restored, and they believed that their life, though it should all be one in sacrifice, should be dedicated to the promulgation of that great truth, and the development of the Church which has the responsibility of carrying that into effect. ¶

Both of my grandfathers came here at a very early date and from here both of them moved south to St. George. I have been reading a little lately about St. George and its development. Those people carried in their hearts the same ideals, and they undertook the same problems, acquitting themselves wonderfully well. ¶

Founding of St. George

I believe that St. George is one of the very few cities of the country which was founded deliberately with a specially selected group of men and women. Every family that was called to that settlement was headed by a man of some special attainment, and he was called for a very special purpose. Under the wise direction that they had, they made a wonderful development. ¶

They arrived in St. George in December, and it was an inhospitable place. They were hardly located until they began to think about public buildings for their use. Before any of them had homes in which to live, they began to think of the education of their children and the erection of schoolhouses, and then the next thought was for a suitable place in which to worship God, so they proceeded to build a tabernacle. You can realize that going as they did in the dead of winter they had no opportunity to raise crops to sustain themselves, and some of them were hard put to carry on. But the Church realized that and came to their rescue in this way, that they fostered the development of these public buildings so that those capable men would have something to do to earn their way. Much of that work was done as outright donations to the cause, but some of it was done in the spirit of our present welfare work. It was an early illustration of the purpose and program that we are trying to carry out today, and it required sacrifice, sacrifice of a high quality. ¶

Generosity Exhibited

When I think of it, I think of the good old brother who lived in Washington, a few miles from St. George. When the time came to put the glass into the tabernacle, I believe it was, there was no money with which to buy it. It had to be procured in California. Men with their teams were ready to go and get it. but there was no money available, and this good brother had recently received from England a thousand dollars, and a thousand dollars in those days was a fortune. He slept on that a night or two and thought it over, then one morning he arose and walked the distance from Washington City to St. George and put that thousand dollars into the hands of the brethren. The ¶

teams went off to California and brought back the glass and other supplies that were necessary. Thus the building was completed. ¶

I wonder how many of us today, if we were faced with that same problem, would have the courage, with an outlook such as he had, to do the thing he did. It was a noble gesture, a wonderful thing. And why do you think he did it? Do you think he had any idea that in making that contribution the brethren would look at him and maybe make him a bishop or something of that sort? Not in the world. It was sheer devotion to the work of the Lord that prompted him to do it. Can we do it today? That was one of the high and lofty ideals of those pioneer grandfathers of ours. ¶

Spirit of Independence

Then they had other desires and other ideals, and one of them was that every man among them should sustain himself by his own labor as long as he could and in that spirit all the work of the development of that very difficult section was done. Many times the river had to be conquered. It was conquered in that same spirit that men should provide for themselves the means of their support, and I believe today that most of them have that same ideal down there, the spirit of independence. I would that every man and woman in this Church should have deep in his heart the pride in accomplishment that would force him to sustain himself as long as he has the power within him to do it! ¶

I grant you that unfortunate people must be taken care of by the rest of us who are more fortunate, but I still feel, as I have said before, that every able-bodied man, or a woman for that matter, who can sustain himself should do it as long as he has that power, that he may be useful in his community. ¶

In those days when a man said, "I will do it," he did it. That was the genius of the Church, that a man's word was as good as his bond. In those days we had little cause for recourse to the courts of the land, because such disagreements as developed were settled between the brethren before the presiding officers of the Church. ¶

Measuring Up to Lofty Ideals

Do we still have that high and lofty ideal of honesty, of integrity, that when we say, "We will," it is an accomplished fact? Some of us come to feel that unless the other man happens to get our signature to a written document we are not under obligation. But, brethren, a document with a signature on is just evidence, and our word is the thing that counts, and if we would honor our pioneer ancestors, we will live our obligations as they did. We will be honest; we will be true; and we will be devoted; we will be generous with what comes into our hands, realizing that anything that we may attain is through the grace and mercy of God. We will be humble, and we will realize that in our hearts there is no place for pride. The proud man, in my estimation, is always looking in the ¶

wrong direction. He is looking perhaps, behind him at unfortunate people, but if he looked before him at his ideals, or at people equally blessed or better, he would find that he is so far behind what he might do that he ought to be humble. ¶

And if we follow our grandfathers we will be prayerful. That is a thing I think that we ought to bear in mind these days, for in our investigations we find that the percentage of our priesthood bearers who are willing to claim that they have regular family prayers in their households is altogether too small. If we could stimulate that thought as we come among you, as your servants., and bring you just a bit closer to God we would feel that our ministry was a success. ¶

Faith in Youth

Now, like our brother [Thorpe B. Isaacson] who just preceded me, I want to express to you that I have faith also in the young people of today. I have said it to you before, and I have no reason for changing it. I interview many of your sons and daughters before they go into the mission field. I feel their pulse and their spirit and their hearts, and I testify to you that it is a gratifying thing indeed to become acquainted with them before they go into the mission field and then follow through afterwards and find them out there, far from home, in the adverse conditions under which their work must be carried on, still faithful and growing in power and influence under the Spirit of God. I have faith in them, and I believe if we put our trust in them, and if we teach them properly that they will realize the standards of our grandfathers, the ideals and ambitions that they had in coming to this far-off land, they will measure up to the expectancy that we have of them. ¶

May God grant that we may realize these things and that every man and woman shall go from this conference with a determination in his heart that he will magnify his calling and his opportunities that he may be worthy of the heritage that has come to him from those pioneers, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. ¶