My Dear Brethren And Sisters And Friends...

My dear brethren and sisters and friends listening to the proceedings of our conference, I extend to all of you my warmest greetings and my sincere and earnest solicitude for your happiness and well-being. I rejoice with you on this Easter Sunday in the opportunity we all have to pay homage to our Savior and to give to him our thanksgiving and veneration for the incomparable gift of eternal life which he brought to all mankind. We remind ourselves on this day that we are charged with the transcendent responsibility of building and maintaining his kingdom in the earth. It is in the hope that I may add a word of contribution to that greatest of all causes that I bring to you a somewhat practical suggestion on this sacred day. Termites are permeating the foundation of the kingdom — the homes of the people — even more destructive and elusive than those seraimicroscopic little animals that break down our walls. Corrective measures are imperative. ¶

I have chosen to make some comment on a theme which I earnestly hope may not prove to be too provocative, and certainly not offensive, to our sisters and to other women who may listen. I lift my text, with full acknowledgment, from an article appearing in This Week Magazine of some months ago, and recently reprinted in the Reader's Digest, written by Judge Samuel S. Leibowitz, senior judge of Brooklyn's highest criminal court. The article is entitled: "Nine Words That Can Stop Juvenile Delinquency," and the nine words used by the Judge are these: "Put Father Back at the Head of the Family." ¶

It is likely that many of our audience have read this challenging article, and there is no time at my disposal to do more than to set before you a few statistical items and a few conclusions drawn by this eminent judge who has spent 21 years of his life as a criminal lawyer and 16 years as a judge in the criminal court, with long years of study and observation on causes of teen-age crime. He went to Europe and discovered from official reports that the percentage of crimes committed in each of the following countries by offenders 18 years of age or under was as follows: ¶

In Italy: 2 percent of sex crimes, and Y2 of 1 percent of homicides. ¶

In France: 7 percent of sex crimes, with 8 percent of homicides. ¶

In Belgium: 12 percent of sex crimes, with 1 percent of homicides. ¶

In Germany: 15 percent of sex crimes, with 2 percent of homicides. ¶

In Britain: 16 percent of sex crimes, and 1 percent of homicides. ¶

And — here is the tragedy — in the United States 35 percent of all sex crimes are committed by offenders under 18, and 12 percent of all murders are committed by offenders under 18. Teen-age offenders in the United States exceeded those of other countries reported, ranging from 1800 percent to 100 percent. The judge reached the conclusion that there must be some principal factor in this great disparity so unfavorable to our own country, and he discovered, as perhaps might well have been assumed, that the primary reason for the reduced percentages of juvenile delinquency in the European countries was respect for authority, and that the principal contribution to that respect, which might not have been so readily assumed, was respect for authority in the home, which, as he points out, normally reposes in the father as head of the family. ¶

These conclusions reached by this judicial investigator I believe would seem more sensational and surprising to people outside of the Church to which we have the honor to belong than to our own members. For generations we as a Church have been endeavoring to do just what the judge advocates — to put and keep Father at the head of the family, and with all our might we have been trying to make him fit for that high and heavy responsibility. ¶

May I take a few minutes to give you our concept of home, fatherhood, and motherhood? Nothing occupies a more unique and distinctive and important position in our theology and understanding of God's purposes for his children. ¶

We define a home as being a divinely appointed institution established on the enduring compact of a good man and a good woman, wherein spiritual children of our Eternal Father are permitted to receive mortal bodies endowed with eternal intelligence, these children so received in the home to be nurtured in health and so guided in the ways of living by loving and wise parents that they may be conditioned on completion of their lives to return to the presence of the Lord whence their spirits originally came. In this greatest of all enterprises the man and the woman are partners — co-signers, if you will, of the enduring compact which binds them together. ¶

In this eternal compact, however, there is a feature which may not be understood by many thousands of men and women who enter into Christian marriage. It is the element of priesthood. Two things have been revealed about priesthood and marriage which are of most vital importance. First, that no marriage which is to endure forever, so that in essence a home may be projected into eternity, may be established without the authorization and sanction of divinely appointed priesthood. And secondly, that no marriage is eligible for the solemnization of divinely appointed priesthood without the man party to the compact having first received the endowment of the Holy Priesthood himself. ¶

We call the ordinance of marriage when performed not only for time but for all eternity a sealing — a sealing of a good woman to a good man of the priesthood, with the express understanding and covenant that the priesthood of the man, if he shall be faithful and live worthy to enjoy it, shall be the supreme authority of the household, and no good woman of our faith begrudges her worthy husband of the priesthood the respect which goes with his high calling. ¶

She knows that to build him up in the esteem of their children, and thus make him conscious of the responsibility of leadership is the surest safeguard she can bring to her family in a world of temptation. The women of the Church rejoice in the priesthood of their husbands. They know that that priesthood is not expressed in autocratic or unrighteous dominion. They know that it is a divinely given power to be exercised only in long-suffering and patience, kindness and mercy, "reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him" who hast been reproved. (D & C 121:43.) They know that that priesthood has true virtue within it — the power to bless, the power to heal, the power to counsel, to make peace and harmony prevail. ¶

Perhaps the saddest of all our women are they who see their husbands fall away from that priesthood with which they have been endowed. They are the wives who are filled with anxiety for the future of themselves and their families. In the true companionship of a husband of the priesthood a good woman may pass through any trouble and have comfort, resignation, and peace. But if her husband fails her and fails his holy calling, it is hard indeed for consolation to come to her. She grieves, she prays, she pleads — sometimes seemingly in vain. ¶

You husbands of the priesthood who have been neglectful of your covenants, I plead with you, in behalf of sorrowing wives and families, to relieve the pain you are causing those who love you, to regain manhood and strength and be worthy to assume in righteousness the leadership of your families. ¶

They want to respect you. They will if you will let them. ¶

I think I have spoken for the great majority of our wives and mothers. ¶

There may be, however, a few who are not helping as much as they may do in the maintenance and re-establishment of respect for proper authority and leadership in the home. We have many brilliant women. I have admiration for their superior accomplishments. ¶

They are continually becoming more influential in all aspects of life and living, and I have no doubt but that their contributions will be of lasting value. If any of these brilliant women is a mother, I give it as my firm belief that however potent she may be in matters extraneous to the home, she has no higher, loftier, and more divinely given calling and obligation than to be the right kind of wife and mother in her home. And however superior her attainments may be, she owes a duty to her husband, to respect him as head of the family and adequately teach her children to do likewise. ¶

The judge to whom I referred says: ¶

"If mothers would understand that much of their importance lies in building up the father image for the child, they would achieve the deep satisfaction of children who turn out well. . . . ¶

And no mother would ever have to stand before me with tears in her eyes and ask, 'What did I do that was wrong, Judge? What did I do that was wrong?' " ¶

It seems indelicate in an address of this character even to use the expression, "nagging wives." If I did not regard the matter pertinent to the subject I am discussing, I would not mention it. I feel that women who may be said to be in this category cannot be fully conscious, whatever their provocation may be, of the damage they do to the morale of a home. I give to women generally the credit for being longsuffering and patient, and I think that in the foreseeable future they will still be called upon for great toleration, but I hope they will still be able to show kindness and patience to those who may annoy them. I think that parental disputes before the children are one of the most regrettable and lamentable of all aspects of domestic relations. They are responsible for more disruption of domestic tranquility and inimical effects on children than almost any other occurrences in family life. I suppose inevitably parents will have some differences. For the sake of everybody concerned let them be settled privately, and of course they can be settled privately if a spirit of tolerance and a recognition of responsibility prevail. I think that "nagging wives" cannot nag their husbands into doing anything that is worthwhile. Nagging is futile in the main, and disruptive of any spirit of harmony and peace. In homes where the priesthood presides rebellion and devotion will not thrive together. ¶

Now, my brethren and sisters and friends, this idea of putting Father back at the head of the family is not just a novel and catchy phrase. It conforms to the revelations of the Lord, as I think the judge who advocated it must have well known. In Ephesians, chapter 5, verses 22 through 25, we read: ¶

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. ¶

"For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. ¶

"Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. ¶

"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it." ¶

Scripture given in modern times also lends support to this fundamental doctrine. When properly interpreted and applied I do not see how good women should take exception to it. No woman can be a good mother without desiring the goodness and well-being of her children. If the establishment of headship in the family contributes to their welfare, as the learning on the subject seems to indicate, how can she do other than strive to establish respect and regard for her husband? I admit that some husbands and fathers have made it difficult for respect to be maintained for them, but to abandon the principle and thus remove from fathers the responsibility of maintaining virtue and goodness among their children would certainly avail nothing. ¶

It is needless to say that if a father is to be respected as the head of the household he must be an exemplar. ¶

The article to which I have referred sets forth the principle that students of juvenile delinquency seem agreed upon the fact that the child, to be safe for society and his home, must have dependable standards to live by. There must be clear recognition between right and wrong, and there must be sound, wise, and kindly discipline. In the midst of the somewhat confusing theories advanced by the sociologists and criminologists, it seems to me we cannot be going far afield by endeavoring to furnish to youth criteria for the guidance of their lives. There are no criteria which seem dependable excepting only those which have been tried and not found wanting, principles of righteousness and truth, coming to us from divine sources. I cannot see how any intelligent parent can feel much in the way of hazard and uncertainty in having his child brought up to recognize the traditionally divinely approved virtues and principles of conduct. ¶

Yesterday we read of a youth of rather high social standing gratifying a passion to kill, which resulted in the murder of a girl. Tomorrow we will read of another such case, or the next day, or shortly thereafter. Certainly there is something lacking in the training for life of such perverts. I noted with satisfaction the observations of J. ¶

Edgar Hoover in the paper night before last on that same subject. ¶

The other day Billy Graham wrote an article for the same magazine from which I have quoted, under the caption, "Why I Believe in the Devil." He gave three reasons. First, because the Bible plainly says he exists. Second, "because I see his work everywhere." ¶

Third, because great scholars have recognized his existence. ¶

The first reason is enough for me. ¶

The Lord has revealed the existence of Satan and his place and function in the eternal plan of life and salvation. Billy Graham apparently did not know what modern scripture contained in the Book of Mormon and our Doctrine and Covenants reveals on this subject, or he would have quoted it, or at least I hope he would. Here is a quotation: ¶

It must needs be that the devil should tempt the children of men, or they could not be agents unto themselves; for if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet. (D & C 29:39.) This and other illuminating scriptures indicate that man could not have had his free agency to develop strength of character, resistance to evil, and go on to perfection except he be subjected to the power and the influence of Satan, the father of evil. Some sophisticated people ridicule the idea of such a personage of power, but that does not dispense with the revealed account of his actuality and the record of his accomplishments. ¶

Sunday School teachers and others may give to the growing child teachings concerning good and evil, but who like the father of the family can teach the power of the Adversary and the resistance necessary to be built up to resist his seductive temptations to the children for whom he is responsible? Who can demonstrate to the child by the power of example the virtues and the standards of righteousness as can this head of the family? ¶

To all who believe that order is the law of heaven and that the kingdom of God is established on the principles of righteousness, I submit these questions: ¶

Can order be maintained without acceptance of law and without discipline? Is discipline possible without recognition of authority? In human institutions and the government of men is it not essential that authority be vested in personalities? Where is the personality more perfectly endowed by nature and divine ordinance to receive and exercise authority in his own household than the father of that household? ¶

Where can we hope for a greater contribution to come to the order of the kingdom than from the homes of our land? What greater tribute may we pay to our beloved Savior on this Easter day than to rededicate ourselves to the maintenance of a righteous discipline in his kingdom, and in all the worthy institutions which have been set up in the societies of men? Can you think of a greater kindness to youth than to prepare them in love and firmness to be worthy of the love of God and the eternal blessings which he holds out to all who obey? ¶

So, my friends, I have no hesitancy, no feeling of dubiety and uncertainty in advocating the adoption in your homes of this salutary promising idea to bring Father back as the head of the family. ¶

I have no words to express my admiration and deep-seated regard for the mothers in our homes, and I am fully aware that their loving, patient care shall always be a major factor in the development of good and virtuous men and women. Because of their intense love of home and family I believe they will the more readily respond to the idea I am advancing. I know that they will welcome anything that is right to guard against an ever-increasing calamity that shakes our very national life, not only for present generations but that may shape its course for ages to come. ¶

God bless the homes of our own land and of all the whole world. God bless the children that they may come to know truth and righteousness and adopt all that is good in their lives. God bless the mothers for the love they bring into our homes, and God bless the fathers that they may be worthy to take their appointed places as heads of the households over which they may preside in gentleness, love, dignity, and honor, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. ¶

Amen. ¶