My Beloved Brethren and Sisters, I Stand...

My beloved brethren and sisters, I stand before you with a good deal of timidity and trepidation. Although I have been doing this for a good many years now, I never get quite used to the feeling. I hope that you will help me with your faith and prayers, that there may be in what I say something that may be helpful to some of us, to give us renewed courage and faith. My sole purpose is to be of help. ¶

When Dr. Widtsoe was talking the other day of his experiences and how he was called in as an expert on irrigation problems, I got to thinking about the similarity there is between that and life. I once read from a Spanish writer this statement: "There are more uncultivated souls in the world than lands." ¶

Now the purpose of irrigation, of course, is to bring under cultivation lands that otherwise are not so useful and not productive, and the accomplishment of it represents some of the fundamental principles of our lives and our faith. ¶

To begin with, the waters that we bring on to our land, when they are uncontrolled, may be the source of tremendous danger and damage to us. ¶

Sister Ivins and I stood on the banks of the river in Elmira, New York, and watched houses go by under the bridge, watched the water come into the city and fill all the basements of the town, and read in the newspaper of people who were drowned in the flood. And why? Because the waters of that river were beyond control. ¶

Now, when we can bring water under control, and through our faith and works bring it onto the arid lands, those lands become productive. But to do so, there must be a fundamental application of the principle of faith. Without it we would never make the effort. Then there must be such structures erected as will keep the water which we bring onto the lands under absolute control; furthermore, to make efficient use of it, it must have direction, wise and adequate direction. ¶

When we can apply all those things to it, we reap a harvest, a rich harvest. ¶

But if at any time, during that process, we become lax and lose control, the hope of a season, and sometimes of the future, may vanish in an hour. ¶

That is a good deal like life. The purpose of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is to redeem and cultivate the souls of the people. The purpose, even, is to build up and strengthen and make better the lives of the people who have come already to recognize the power of God, his restored priesthood in the earth, and become members of the Church, for none of us is perfect. ¶

The development of those souls is the greatest responsibility of life. There is, of course, the time when that control must be exercised by others, just as we exercise control over the life-giving elements we lead on to the soil. Custody of a soul begins when a man is born — a puny, powerless, helpless child. There is, however, implanted in him by God, a power which can develop, and if controlled, would redound to the benefit and blessing of mankind. It is the duty of the parents of that child to see that its early years are properly guided and its activities properly directed, that the selfish, jealous, evil things which carnal man is subject to, may be taught out of the nature of that child, that it may be taught the virtues, the higher virtues of life, so that in its formative period it may be safeguarded from the evils that surround us in such great number. ¶

Sometimes, as fathers and mothers, we do not realize that responsibility. ¶

We take children more or less as a matter of fact; we do not realize that they are the sons and daughters of God, and that in their care and custody, we are the representatives of God, our Heavenly Father. If we could sense that fully, I am sure that we would be more serious in the care and direction which we give to the life of our children. ¶

Now there comes a time, of course, when the father and the mother may have done all that was within their power, and they send their sons and their daughters out into the world to struggle with its changing conditions. ¶

Then these young people have this direction within their own power; they have to direct their course; they have to direct their efforts; Father and Mother are no longer in control. ¶

Now in that process the principal element of success, it seems to me, is faith, for without faith in God we are not likely to seek his aid, and without his aid we would lack inspiration, and without inspiration we may be subject to the baser tendencies of the body. ¶

This writer says, "uncultivated souls"; and the Prophet said, "The spirit and the body is the soul of man." (D. & C. ¶

88:15.) Consequently, if we are going to cultivate the soul well, we must pay attention to the spiritual development, and likewise to the physical development of the body. Without a proper relationship of the two we may not succeed. ¶

Now, faith in God then becomes the fundamental principle of life. The great principle of the gospel is love. ¶

But how can you love God without having faith in his power, and his interest in you, and his ultimate direction of the affairs of this world of ours? To love him, you must have faith in him. ¶

With that faith there will come a love of God, and an effort to do his will, to keep his commandments, to develop ourselves, that we may be ultimately valiant and useful servants unto God in developing his program in the earth. ¶

Without faith, there can be no love between a man and a wife. Without faith there can be no love between a son and a father. Faith must go in both directions, it seems to me. But if that faith can be developed, we will strive to meet the full requirements of our lives; to develop ourselves to our utmost and ultimate capacity. It requires a struggle, constantly, to drive jealousy out of our hearts; it requires a constant struggle to prevent hatred from coming into our feelings and our attitudes; it requires a constant struggle to develop the higher facilities of the body and the mind, but it must come from faith — faith in God, faith in each other as well. But in the beginning is faith in God, because from that develops love, the fundamental principle of the gospel, and from love develops the fidelity that should exist in all family relationships. ¶

We have been told what a wonderful thing it is that we can enjoy our companions here, with the expectation that if our lives are proper, we will have that association throughout eternity, culminating in the grandest blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But if we do not have the faith that prompts us to love and respect each other, to honor the pledges that we make in marriage, we will fall far short of the realization of that great and wonderful privilege. ¶

I have come to believe, in this great struggle, that the greatest victory a man can make is the victory of self-control. It did Alexander the Great no good to conquer the world and die, a drunken, debauched person, in early manhood. Because he had no self-control, he lost all the advantage that he had gained by his unholy conquests. ¶

So I repeat, it matters not what your conquests are here in other directions, if you fail to gain absolute self-control, you have failed in the greatest victory of life. It is the greatest battle, too, because man, abandoned by the spirit of God, we have been told already, is carnal, and that carnal man is an enemy of God. Without that struggle, without the Spirit of God, we are going to surrender ourselves to our baser and more ignoble tendencies. We must not do it, brothers and sisters. Man or woman, we must have faith in God in order to serve him properly, and make this tremendous struggle that is necessary to overcome these baser faculties. ¶

We must never so mistreat our bodies that we surrender the controls that we have gained over these propensities to the unsettling influences of narcotics or things of that sort. We must live, brothers and sisters, through the faith we develop in God, true to all the commandments that have been given us, and to all of the pledges that we have made. ¶

Now, when we lead the water out over the soil, we may have planted a crop which is the result of months and months of labor, and then, because in an unguarded moment, we relax our control and our watchfulness over it, the whole work may be carried away. ¶

And I have known men, and women, too, who apparently have made this successful struggle until well along in years, and then either feeling secure, or indifferent, I do not know which, they relax these controls; they succumb to temptation; and in an unguarded moment, they destroy their hopes for the future. ¶

I have seen men disorganize marriages that should have carried over into eternity because in an unguarded moment they failed to exercise their faith in God and the controls that come from it. ¶

I believe, brethren and sisters, the greatest need we have today is the development of faith in God, and the controls over ourselves which come from that faith; and if we can do so, our future is secure. If we can do so as individual families, the security of our children should be secure. If we can impress those basic principles upon them so that they will adhere to them for the rest of their lives, the generation that they bring into the world should be secure; the whole future, brothers and sisters, depends upon our faith in God, and the exercise of these controls that come through that faith, and the inspiration of God which we get through it. ¶

Now, may we realize these things, brothers and sisters, and may we live true to them, for the pledges we make in the waters of baptism and in the temples of God are serious. There are wonderful promises held out to us. The breaking of these pledges is a serious thing, and has most, what shall I say, most unwanted results, terrible, destructive results in our lives. Have you ever seen persons who forget these things, lose their standing in their communities, sink to oblivion and die, unmourned? I believe you have. Why? Simply because we allow ourselves to forget God, and in the forgetting of him, we lose faith in him because faith is maintained by the exercise of our faculties in the service of God. And when we stop exercising those faculties, that faith may decrease, and with its decrease, our controls may likewise decrease; we may wake up one sad day to find that the blessings which should have been ours are impossible to us. ¶

God grant that we may understand our relationship to him, that we may learn to love him, and have the faith which will guide us, and help us to direct our efforts to the greatest development of ourselves and those dependent upon us, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶