Blessed Is The Nation Whose God Is...

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord." (Psalm 33:12.) My brethren and sisters, I pray for an interest in your faith and prayers, for this is a holy place from which to speak. ¶

In the dedicatory prayer in the Kirtland Temple given by the Prophet Joseph Smith we have these words, "seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith." (D. & C. 109:7.) But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding? ¶

Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. ¶

The depth saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not with me. ¶

It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. ¶

It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. ¶

The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold. . . . ¶

Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. (Job 28:12-17, 28.) ¶

Lack of Wisdom

To me, one of the great defects of our day is the lack of wisdom. If there were wisdom enough in the world to direct the course of human conduct, we need not have wars. If we were wise enough, we would search for truth in solving all of our problems. We would try to discover the causes of these problems, and we would seek more wisdom in their solution. We would search for the truth without prejudice, but with an understanding mind and heart until through wisdom we could agree among men on important solutions for permanent peace and the betterment of mankind. Such wisdom demands that we have a deep faith in God, active minds, with insight and understanding of the realities of life, and the teachings of the Redeemer. In the book of Ecclesiastes we read, Wisdom is better than strength . . . ¶

Wisdom is better than weapons of war. (Ecc. 9:16, 18.) ¶

Search for Truth

We Latter-day Saints are searching for truth in ourselves in order to contribute to the peace and the betterment of the world. ¶

Yet we cannot find truth without hard work, patient and sincere work in the form of study, over a long period of time. ¶

This is what a French writer meant when he said, "Nothing is really known until it has been known a long time." Wisdom considers things in the long run; it considers life from the standpoint beyond the individual, beyond the local, beyond the temporary and changing. It looks upon society from a high plane and in the pattern of eternal progression. In other words the goal of wisdom is the building of the kingdom of God upon the earth. ¶

Education of Youth

The young people of today must be taught to work and study hard that they may establish a good beginning in their search for truth. We read again, "The things that thou hast not gathered in thy youth, how shall thou find them in thine old age?" How important it is that the early education of our children be encouraged and developed that a sound basis of study may be established. There are only a very few years in every life, when the mind is fresh and plastic and the memory able to retain. These years should not be wasted; they should be used to every possible advantage in the search for light, in the development and growth of thought and deeds. Let everyone remember that the work he does shall rise up in judgment against him, and the roots of self-respect lie in work done to the best of man's abilities. ¶

President Joseph Young, who for many years was the head of the First Council of the Seventy, taught that the most effective way to satisfy one's noble impulses is training one's intelligence to its highest pitch, having a depth of faith in Almighty God. Such training means years of study of good books, years of devotion to the search for truth. This is what the gospel of Jesus Christ demands of you and me. ¶

Need for Teachers

Every man to be educated on any rung of the ladder must have a teacher, not necessarily in the schoolroom, but he must be taught by a good book, a good friend, a leader. Let us not be accused as were the Stoics of ancient times that "The nourishment of religion was drawn from the shallow springs of their own intelligence." That is our trouble today. ¶

Let me read to you from the Acts of the Apostles. One Philip is admonished by the angel of the Lord to go to the man of Ethiopia to be taught and to understand what he is reading. As a result the Ethiopian was converted to Christianity. ¶

And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. ¶

And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, a man of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, Was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet. ¶

Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. ¶

And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understand thou what thou readest? ¶

And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. (Acts 8:26-31.) ¶

Paul's Search

The great missionary of Christ, Paul the Apostle, was a man that was ever searching for truth, ever alert, never at any time mentally inactive. His was an active mind, seeking truth in the university at Tarsus. He was a student of the great teachers, Gamaliel and Hillel. When Paul received the vision and was converted on the road to Damascus, even then was his mind active in his intense search to understand the word of God and obtain the wisdom of the great message. Paul knew that the life spent in the search of truth was not an easy one. He realized that his mission was to gain understanding of the truth of Christ and to teach this truth to others. Paul might have said: "The easier road I leave to others, I have chosen the harder one." It was Emerson who said, "God gives to every man the choice between truth and repose; he cannot have both." But when Paul said, "I have chosen the harder road," he might have added, "but I have also chosen the happier one," for the search for truth is a happy search, an interesting one, an adventuresome, exciting road to travel. ¶

A child begins his search for truth with his mother to guide him, in the reading of childhood rhymes and stories and classics, Bible stories, tales of heroes, and as he grows and develops, he continues his search in the study of history, certainly one of the great fields in which the wisdom of the ages is contained. Unexcelled in the field of history are the Old and New Testaments, in connection with the other great works of Holy Writ. We find in the scriptures the words of great poets, great writers — the highest, the most exalted expressions of human thought. ¶

School at Kirtland

Every student of Church history knows about the high school established in the Kirtland Temple. The students were taught English by reading the best literature and the ancient classics. The principal of the school was Professor H. M. Hawes. There were also established Hebrew, Greek, and Latin classes; the professor of Hebrew was Joshua Seixas. I have found out that the attendance at these classes on the part of the elders was very large, and we have from the records the statement of how the Prophet Joseph Smith attended night in and night out the Hebrew and Greek classes. ¶

He undoubtedly felt and responded to the beauty of these languages, for only those who have studied Greek and Latin and Hebrew know of the beauty and richness of the literature that has come down to the present day from those far-off times. The Prophet Joseph Smith shows us the majesty of the statement, "Seek ye knowledge out of the best books," and Joseph Young, president of all the seventies in his day, insisted that the seventies in their respective quorums become students of literature and philosophy and religion. Thousands of them adopted the motto that, "Knowledge is Power." The beauty of this idea lies in the fact that the concept of what knowledge means with the Latter-day Saints is this truth that God blesses us as we approach him with deep faith and ask his blessing in our obtaining knowledge. Our minds and hearts are opened, and we become students in the true sense of the term, for it is under God's direction that we learn, and Jesus Christ our Redeemer becomes our greatest teacher. ¶

Knowledge Through Faith

The young student devotes himself to the study of literature and art, engineering and medicine, and whatever he may choose, and in all he learns the truth and beauty of morality, the truths of nature, and of life itself, the truth by which he gains the understanding and knowledge of God through his faith. Then these young people are on their way to life everlasting. They put into practice our Thirteenth Article of Faith: ¶

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul — We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things. — Joseph Smith. ¶

I pray that we, and all America, may hark back to our forebears in our American history, to those who gave us by the divine will of God the Constitution of the United States, and who saw in this government the grandeur that God himself wished, for the word of the Lord is right, and all his works are true. ¶

He loved righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. ¶

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. . . . ¶

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. (Psalm 33:5-6, 12.) May the American people bring back the ideal of the search for wisdom through faith in God, may God become again the Lord of this nation, I ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶