And When Thou Prayest Thou Shalt Not...

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. ¶

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. ¶

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. ¶

Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. ¶

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. ¶

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. ¶

Give us this day our daily bread. ¶

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. (Matt. 6:5-12.) That last is the particular passage in this prayer that I want to call attention to. If we have learned anything through the proceedings of this conference this day, it is that this gospel is not something to talk about. It is something that requires deeds. It calls for action, and it is only what we do, not what we say or what we profess, that counts. ¶

The people of this Church can carry this message with them to their homes or wherever they may chance to go and lay it down as the foundation principle of their faith, the promise of the future. ¶

Forgiveness

It is only as we do the will of God that we have claim upon the promised blessings, and one of the particular things that I want to stress is the principle inherent in this sentence in the sublime prayer which I have just read: "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." That calls for action. It calls for self-control. ¶

It calls for putting into practical effect one of the teachings that the Lord has given us. ¶

It is not easy to practice. We are all disposed to be very charitable toward ourselves and our own misdeeds, our own failures and weaknesses. We hope the Lord will be charitable to us, that when we stand before the bar of justice, notwithstanding the exactions of the law which must be obeyed, and notwithstanding our own lapses, he who knows the heart, and knows the desire, and knows the effort, and consequently being possessed of all the factors essential to a righteous judgment, will somehow be kind and generous and will take into account our good efforts, our attempts to live righteously, the piety of our purposes, the struggles we have made against odds, and he will balance all these worthy desires of the heart and struggles of the flesh over against our failures, and the things wherein we have sinned and failed to measure up to the full standard of complete perfection. ¶

We all hope that on behalf of ourselves, but it is not so easy for us to accord the same generous consideration to those we feel have trespassed against us. We are more likely to be disposed to exact the full payment of the debt to us personally, while hoping in our hearts that God will be lenient in his judgment of us. ¶

Love of Neighbor

I think there is involved in this principle the doctrine of the first great commandment, and the second, "... Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Ibid., 22:39.) Those are easy words to say, but do we ponder what they mean? How do I love myself? Certainly I do not wish myself any ill luck. I do not wish myself any misfortune. I hope my efforts will be prospered. I hope I will be spared misery and distress and sickness and suffering. I hope I will have power to do the things I have it in my heart to do, and to succeed in my undertakings. If I love my neighbor as I love myself, then I must be equally anxious for him, that he shall be prospered, that he shall escape misery and suffering and trial and distress, that his endeavors shall be fruitful of good. ¶

I cannot hope to climb to the position I desire to achieve by stepping on the back of another and crushing him down in order that I may gain his favorable place. Suppose I am a violinist. I excel in my profession, my art. I have enjoyed the reputation for a long time of occupying first place among the members of my community. I am the greatest of them all. Then one day a younger man comes along, as will inevitably be the case, and he chances to excel me in the art, and I stand in jeopardy of losing my position as first. ¶

I suppose I should wish for him that he break his hand so that he cannot play any more, and so that I will not be toppled from the pinnacle that I have occupied, and can still be supreme in the practice of my art. That is not keeping the commandment. That is not loving my neighbor as I love myself. I would not wish myself any such misfortune. I would always want to do my best, freed from artificial hindrance. I should, if I would obey the commandment, without regard to the consequences to me personally, my own ambitions and desires, rejoice in the excellence of the performance of my rival, and wish only for him all the good I would wish for myself. ¶

I will, if I am honestly observing the commandment, wish for him the success, the glory that has been accorded to me by reason of my past station. It is easy to say those words, "Love your neighbor as yourself," but how hard it is to bring them right down to actual practice, even when our own superiority of position might be involved, the sacrifice of it. If we really could bring ourselves into full accord with that commandment, we should rejoice exultantly in the good fortunes that attend the efforts of our fellows, no matter in how great a degree they might eclipse us or how far they might excel us. You see, it requires that we root out envy, that we root out selfishness, and that is the way we grow in the development of character and the cultivation of those perfections which God has directed that we strive to achieve. ¶

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Ibid., 5:48) was the admonition of Jesus and if we would attain that station and bring ourselves to that degree of conquest of our own ambitions, then we shall have to rejoice in the good fortune, the achievements, the attainments of our fellow men without regard to the eclipse of ourselves. ¶

Forgive and Be Forgiven

Returning to the text, we cannot expect that God will forgive us if we refuse to forgive those whom we have found occasion to criticize. The measure of man's achievement lies not altogether in where he gets to. You have to have regard for the place which he started from, and the degree of his advancement, though he has not reached so high a place as one of his fellows, may be greater because of the handicap of position from which he set out. ¶

We all hope and trust and pray and depend upon the mercy of God. We hope he will be merciful to us, but we have no right to expect the extension of his mercy to us in any further degree than we are willing to extend mercy and charity and forgiveness to our fellow men, whose actions we scrutinize with much more care and less leniency than we scrutinize ourselves and our own deeds. ¶

Doers of the Word

Those are some of the things we have to learn to do. That is putting into practical application some of the positive requirements of this gospel. We are learning to do, to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. So it is with every other precept. There is no teaching in the whole compass of the gospel of Jesus Christ that ever brought injury or harm to any man. ¶

The following of those brings only happiness and joy and peace and comfort and progress. There has never been anything required of man that would degrade him or lower him in the scale of being. We are safe when we keep the commandments. ¶

But we must analyze the commandments. We must know what they signify. We must know what they require of us individually and personally, and our greatest concern is not with somebody else. Our greatest concern is with us. Are we measuring up? ¶

May God grant that in our daily pursuits, in our daily efforts, we shall always be mindful of the fact that it is not what we profess or what we pretend, but only that which we do and the degree in which we comply in our own actions with the commandments of God that counts. ¶

This I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶