My Brethren And Sisters I Should Like...

My brethren and sisters: I should like to express my appreciation for this excellent choir that has been rendering the music of today. The singers are Germans, and we are all interested in the German people. They have made a contribution to this sacred religious movement that we represent. ¶

I believe with all my heart that the German nation will come back and establish again the civilization and culture that it once had. They are a great people. ¶

A few days ago, two meetings of all the General Authorities of the Church were held. The first one was in the temple at Logan, and a few days later the second meeting was held in our temple here in Salt Lake City. In thinking of them I realize more and more that to love and know God is the highest blessedness of mankind. Temples built by the Latter-day Saints are houses of prayer, of fasting, and of faith, houses of glory and order, houses of God. You recall the words as found in the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple which were given by the Prophet Joseph Smith: ¶

. . . 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; Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God; Have mercy, O Lord, upon all the nations of the earth; have mercy upon the rulers of our land; may those principles, which were so honorably and nobly defended, namely, the Constitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever. ¶

(D. & C. 109:7-8, 54.) I wonder sometimes if in reading our sacred books we enter into the thoughts of the prophets of God; and into their hearts. Have we as religious and moral men sought to attain the perfect life by contemplation and work? So much might be said about our meetings in the temples. We all felt the goodness and beauty of human life. We felt as we have never felt before the hunger and labor, love and death, faith and work which operated to produce these sacred buildings. ¶

When we think of the Constitution of our land, we recall many historical statements that are sacred and true. ¶

First, the words of the French writer, Michelet. He had written about the terrible days of the French Revolution when he writes these words: ¶

The world is waiting for a faith, to march forward again to breathe and to live. But never can faith have a beginning in deceit, cunning, or treaties of falsehood. ¶

It is interesting to note that according to Washington Irving, Columbus when he set foot on the island of San Salvador, uttered the following prayer, which has been translated from the Latin: ¶

O God, our Father, eternal and omnipotent, Creator of heaven and earth and sea, we glorify Thy holy name, praise Thy majesty, whom we serve in all humility, we give unto Thy holy protection this new part of the world. ¶

Then we have the prayer of Pastor Robinson as he blessed the Pilgrim fathers when they left in the Mayflower for the New World. ¶

Brethren, we are now quickly to part from one another, and whether I may ever live to see your face on earth anymore, the God of Heaven only knows; but whether the Lord hath appointed that or not, I charge you before God and His blessed angels, that you follow me no farther than you have seen me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. If God reveal anything to you, by any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it, as ever you were to receive truth, by my ministry; for I am fully persuaded, I am very confident that the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy word. For my part, I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed churches, who are come to a period in religion, and will go at present no further than the instruments of their reformation. ¶

The Lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw; whatever part of his will our good God has revealed to Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it, and the Calvinists, you see, stick fast, where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not all things. This is a misery much to be lamented; for though they were burning a shining light in their times, yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God; but were they now living, would be as willing to embrace further light as that which they at first received. I beseech you to remember it as an article in your church Covenant. "That you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written word of God." But I must herewithal exhort you to take heed what you receive as truth. Examine it, consider it, and compare it with other scriptures of truth, before you receive it; for it is not possible that the Christian world should come so lately out of thick anti-Christian darkness, and that perfection of knowledge should break forth at once. ¶

To be called to the field as a missionary is an honor and a recognition of a person's real worth. It is a call to labor with undying zeal to awaken within men a faith in the living God and to turn to him with a repentant heart. No one can deny the force, the beauty of the passion for extending one's own belief and hopes to others, "for imparting to them the comfort of one's own salvation." What splendor of life is that of Paul the Apostle, who no sooner was his own life made over, no sooner had the faith and the hope of a new life taken possession of him, than he was overcome with the desire to disseminate this possession to all the world and to make Jew and Gentile alike see and glory in the light and splendor of the Christian truth. In our day, since the restoration of the gospel, we know the hundreds, yea, thousands who have gone into the remote parts of the world to preach the gospel and to turn men's thoughts to their God. ¶

This was even true long before there were railroads or quick and safe means of travel by sea. Missionaries left home and friends to go to faroff China and India, and the South Seas, to say nothing of Europe and South America. They faced hardships in strange lands, and often misery for the sake of communicating the Gospel message. Many have given their lives as they bore testimony of the restored word of God. The splendor of their spirits and the grandeur of their achievements are known. The stories of their experiences and accomplishments will someday become the most beautiful epics of the Latterday Saints, epics that will thrill the world with their truth and beauty. Let me here relate a story of the long ago: ¶

In the summer of 1857, my father, Seymour B. Young, Phillip Margetts, and David Wilcken were called to England on a mission. They were all of the same age, nineteen years. Constructing a handcart, they made ready to leave. Their first objective was Council Bluffs, just across the Missouri River from Omaha. From there they would take the train for New York, where they could embark on a sailing vessel for England. One night, while they were sitting around a wood fire on the Platte River, singing songs, and talking about the "folks at home," Brother Margetts began to recite some of the fine lines from the plays of Shakespeare, among which were the words of Macbeth: ¶

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! ¶

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. ¶

(Wm. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5.) "We sat deep in thought," said my father, "for we had been listening to a sage of history, a man who knew Shakespeare. We slept under the stars that night, as we did for over three months. Every night we studied the words of Holy Writ, every day as we pulled the handcart over the trail and through the rivers, our hearts were swallowed up in a kind of glow of God's love coming down as a constant stream of light." ¶

They were missionaries of the Lord. ¶

In the days of Queen Elizabeth of England, there were many able seamen who manned the large navy which brought England to the height of her power on the seas. Among the noted commanders of the fleet was Sir Francis Drake, who sailed up the Pacific Coast as far as the present state of Washington, and then went on around the world. ¶

He was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the earth. Standing on the deck of his ship one day, Drake said to his men: ¶

Men pass away, but people abide. See that ye hold fast the heritage we leave you, yea, and teach your children its value, that never in the coming centuries, their hearts may fail them, or their hands grow weak. ¶

Hereto, we have been too much afraid. ¶

Henceforth, we will fear only God. ¶

In this troubled world we need more and more the principle of unity amid all the marring elements of human life. We must in our work have a definite purpose, and before that purpose can be well established in our hearts, we must see it related to the very purposes of God. Every quorum should have an ideal which is well defined and which invites the greatest effort on the part of every member to help realize that ideal. The ideal is to bring about a brotherhood within the quorum, a brotherhood so lasting that nothing can break it. Certainly no outside power can. This brotherhood will be expressed in their thoughts and interest in one another. The members touch one another by doing good, by kindness, by philanthropy — something more than the mere clasp of hands and interchange of idle words. It is the delight of diffusing something of the spirit of gentility and graciousness. In all such expressions of good-will and respect, the grace of the act depends as much on the manner of it, as on the act itself. ¶

One of the essential things with Jesus Christ was the training of his disciples to have faith in God. "... ye believe in God, believe also in me." (John 14:1.) His disciples went into the world to preach the gospel. I have given you an example of missionary zeal. And now one of ancient times: Paul, the Apostle, had become one of the disciples of the Lord. He went about preaching the gospel "with inspired eloquence and logic." He went to Athens. They took him to the Areopagus, saying: "... thou bringest certain strange things to our ears." (Acts 17:20.) You read Paul's discourse for yourselves. "It is the shortest important speech ever made, excepting only Lincoln's undying Gettysburg speech address. In less than one hundred and fifty words he put the argument for and assertion of the living God of salvation and the resurrection of the dead. In doing this he even included a quotation from the Greek poets." He had planted the seed. He had aroused interest. ¶

As missionaries, we should find the good in people. We should judge all people not by their mistakes but by the abundance of their powers. Our work as teachers is based on love, and if we have the love of our listeners, we must see to it that their merits are understood, rather than their faults found out. ¶

Let us keep in mind the beautiful words of the Chinese Confucius, ages before Christ: ¶

Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love it; and they who love it are not equal to those who live it. ¶

I pray that we may all come to a deeper understanding of the gospel, that we may live as God would have us live. Amen. ¶