I Feel As If I Had Run...

I feel as if I had run through a red light! My brethren and sisters: I join you this beautiful Sabbath morning in expressing gratitude for a testimony of the divinity of this work. As I drove up this morning from my home in Utah County, I could not help feeling grateful that I had a father and a mother who believed. My father, it is his 117th anniversary today, knew the Prophet Joseph, only as a boy, however, but his family knew the Prophet intimately, and they loved him. My father loved him. My mother loved his name. They have instilled in the hearts of us children an appreciation of this great work. They went through times that were rough. Father knew the criticisms that had been heaped against the Prophet, but he knew they were not true, and he knew in very deed that Joseph was all that he pretended to be. ¶

I tried to think this morning, as 1 was driving along, what I would have thought, had I lived in the little village of Palmyra in 1820, when a young boy was to return to his home and tell his parents of the great manifestation that had come to him. I am wondering what I would have thought, had I even been a brother, as was Hyrum, six years older than the Prophet. Would I have believed him or would I have thought that there was something wrong with the boy? But I am sure if I had come under that parental influence and had felt the faith and warmth of those parents who knew, I, too, would have subscribed to his great message and would have believed. ¶

A mother knows the weakness of her children; she knows those weaknesses before anyone else. She does not parade them, for which we are grateful, but she knows the weaknesses, and Lucy Smith would have known whether or not the Prophet, the boy, was telling the truth. She would have known whether his message was one of truth or one of error, and she did know it and she never wavered throughout her life; neither did the father, who stood loyally and truly by the side of the young Prophet. It was a fantastic message. It was not easy to believe. ¶

And I try to picture the Prophet as we picture the Savior as he stood before Pilate, alone; his disciples had left him, even Peter had said that he did not know him when he was pressed by some of the rabble; so Jesus stood alone. ¶

In that early day in the history of the Church, the Prophet stood alone, and yet think of this great work today. One and a quarter centuries have passed and here we have the evidence of the leaven that was referred to by Brother Morris, small as it was, leavening the lump; and this message of the restored gospel is spreading throughout the land. ¶

I thought of these things as I drove along, and then I thought of Oliver Cowdery. Oliver Cowdery at one time lost the gift of faith. He was like many of us today! Some little thing had cankered his soul. We sometimes let little things canker our souls, and we lose the great values and blessings that come through faithful service in this Church. Oliver had let little things canker his soul. Phineas Young who was very close to my father's family, and who was a brother-in-law of Oliver Cowdery, labored with Oliver, wrote him letter after letter, telling him never to mind the little things but to remember that the truth had been restored and that he, Oliver, knew it and that he should come back in the Church. ¶

In this very pulpit a number of years ago, Brother Alonzo Hinckley read a letter that Oliver Cowdery had written to Phineas Young, in which he set forth some of his grievances, feeling that he had been injured by some of his friends, and Phineas Young wrote back to him and said, "Never mind all that; suppose there was some grievance. ¶

You know the gospel is true; you know your testimony; you know where you belong." Following this, Oliver finally came up to Council Bluffs, and you know the rest of the story. He appeared before the people and then before the high council, and humbly he said to the high council, substantially as follows, "I do not ask to be restored to my former position . . ." the gift of faith had come back in his soul . . . "but all I ask is that I may come back into the Church, because I know it is true." ¶

It is a marvelous testimony, my brothers and sisters. He had been out of the Church ten years. It was nearly twenty years since he had written the Book of Mormon, as it fell from the lips of the Prophet Joseph, as he, Joseph, translated. He could easily have wavered; he could have said, "We were mistaken. It was all a mistake. ¶

Joseph made us believe we saw the plates. We imagined we heard a voice, and somehow or another we thought we saw an angel." But he did not say that. He said, "The Book ol Mormon is true. It was translated by the gift and power of God. We saw the angel, and we heard his voice as he declared the truthfulness of this sacred record." ¶

So, my brethren and sisters, with a heart full of gratitude and a testimony in my soul of the divinity of this work, I stand before you acknowledging the goodness of God to me, and to my family, for the gift of faith, realizing that no matter what comes in one's life, if the gift of faith is there, one may safely walk without wavering and without complaint. I feel that in my soul today, as I bear you this testimony, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. ¶

Amen. ¶