I Have In My Library...

I have in my library, I think, the conference addresses so far as they are available back to the beginning, including the Journal of Discourses, and I think all the conference pamphlets or discourses published since then. In each one is a statement of counsel, of eternal principles, of commandments, of practical advice for the day in which we live. ¶

This conference in which we have now sat nearly three days is no exception to that. With you I have marveled at the breadth and the depth of the advice here given, the need for it, and the manner in which it touches the needs of the day in which we live. We have been fed. Our lives have been enriched and steadied and encouraged in all things pertaining to life, and I feel to express the gratitude of my heart for these recurring conferences when we get together for reminder and renewal of faith, and of witness, and of instruction in eternal truth. ¶

Some time ago, as I am sure many of you have done, I saw a rather unusual documentary film produced by the Bell Telephone system, in which a panel of scientists and others were reviewing the great breadth of creation: this world, and men, and space beyond. It was developed as if it were a mystery story, and was called, as I remember, "The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays," in which scientists were telling what had been discovered and what the current thinking was about what had been discovered. They had selected a panel of distinguished men recalled from history, including some celebrated names. I think Charles Dickens was among them, and Edgar Allen Poe, and Dostoyevsky, the eminent Russian writer, men who were, in a measure, sitting in judgment on the work of the scientists. ¶

I made some notes at that time, and although they are cold and not rechecked, they have been running through my mind. The men of science asked this panel to appraise their findings, first bringing attention to the fact that the universe is a unified whole, that there is evidence of planning and intelligence and order and law throughout the entire universe. ¶

Then one of the witnesses, before he would commit himself to an opinion, asked a very significant question, which one is always disposed to ask in mystery stories: "What is the motive of it all? ¶

You have told us about space. You have told us about the earth. You have told us about cosmic rays, and life, and atoms, and all the natural phenomena. What is the motive of it all?" Then they concluded, as I recall, that they did not know enough about the motive of it all, and suggested that the panel come back fifty years hence and see whether they were any closer to an answer — with the scientists themselves conceding that however much they may have discovered, they were like Newton, who said: "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." ¶

I think the motive of it all is an everpresent and ever-insistent question: ¶

What has been the motive of this conference? What is the motive of the gospel? What is the motive of all this teaching, all this traveling, all this missionary endeavor? Of all the work and the effort and the struggle of life, of all the striving, all the learning, all the living? ¶

Blessedly the Lord God has told us what the motive of it all is, and it is no small motive, pertaining not only to time nor to life on earth. It is a motive pertaining to eternity, and the great summarizing sentence of the motive, of course, has already been recalled in this conference a number of times. The Lord God himself has declared it to be his purpose and his glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. ¶

The motive is happiness; it is peace; it is progress; it is everlasting life, and not just a few short days or a few short years. It is a motive of such consequence and such endlessness that it transcends all else. It is this for which we do all we do, this for which we gather, this for which we teach, encourage, and bear witness to each other, this for which we remind each other of these great and everlasting things of life. ¶

"But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. ¶

"Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, "Master, which is the great commandment in the law? ¶

"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. ¶

"This is the first and great commandment. ¶

"And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. ¶

"On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:34-40.) I read into this something, or would like to read into it today, something which is not always read into it: I think this implies not only that we should love our neighbors, but in a very sincere and real and unselfish way we should also love ourselves. I think the Lord God must have intended that we should have a high regard and respect for ourselves as well as a high regard and respect for other men. ¶

I am thinking of a line from Ruskin, in which he said: "There is no wealth but life." The life each of us has is, after all, the sum and substance of all that we have in time and in eternity. ¶

And I think no intelligent man would ever deliberately do anything which would not make him happy. I cannot think of an intelligent man's doing what would make him unhappy. I think when we err, we err in that we lose our sense of values or our sense of direction, or do not quite have in mind what will make us happy or unhappy. All the motive, all the commandments, all the counsel of God, all this great effort of living and of life, all the striving, the learning and all else, should make us basically happy. Our Father had no other motive for us but our happiness, our peace, and progress and limitless life with our loved ones everlastingly, ever with accomplishment, ever with growth, ever with opportunity, ever with the highest possibilities that the Lord God could help his children to realize in life — this is the motive, this is the source of happiness, of service, of all we do for each other, of all we do for ourselves. ¶

Now, as we go from here and ask ourselves what comes of all of this, what the motive of it all is, and what life is, I think we have the summary in the lines given and so oft repeated, "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man," and no shortsighted decisions and no short-sighted objectives should ever be the determining factors of our lives. ¶

I was impressed this morning with the counsel of Brother George Q. Morris in advising us to go forth and live our lives with steady purpose, and not worry too much about the uncertainties and about the things we do not know. I would leave this counsel with our youth: ¶

We all live in uncertainties, and we always have. All generations have, and if we were so concerned about the uncertainties that we did not make solid preparations for the future and turn in a solid performance we should have wasted life. With a calm, quiet peace and purpose, and with prayer in our hearts, and with the clean living of life and the keeping of the commandments, we ought to go forward into the future and lay as broad a base and acquire as much knowledge and prepare ourselves as well, and serve as well as we can or ever could, despite all ominous threats and all else that seems to disturb the present scene. ¶

From a young missionary's report given a few nights ago came a sentence that was great in its implications. Speaking of enduring to the end, he said: ¶

"We must not only endure, but we must prevail." ¶

There is great motive; there is great purpose. As has been asked through all the ages, "What is Man?" I recall a scientist's answer to a great group of men last summer as he suggested some elements of the answer as to what man was. He endeavored to tell us how many atoms each man had in his physical anatomy, and we thought we were something very considerable when he said that we each had an octillion atoms in us, in our physical frames. ¶

Then he tried to tell us what an octillion is. He said if it should start to rain peas, just ordinary garden peas, and rain peas four feet deep over the whole face of the earth, water and land surface included, and then rain peas four feet deep over 250,000 planets this size, that would be an octillion — give or take a few, more or less. We began to feel quite puffed up and important. Then he said if you squeeze out all the space between all the atoms in and between the electrons and all the component parts of these atoms, you would then be about as big as a speck of dust. Then we began to acquire our humility back again. ¶

But beyond all the atoms, he witnessed to us as a scientist, memory is perpetuated; man is more than a machine; and there is something eternal which persists always and everlastingly. That, of course, we knew by other witnesses. Life is everlasting, and the motive we know, and the purposes of our Father we know. His plans we know in sufficient amount to help us to realize them in their fullest and highest if we will, and I leave my witness with you as to the truth of the counsel which has been given in this conference, as to the prophetic leadership which we are privileged in this day and generation to have, and as to the great motive which supersedes all the transitory things of life, to the realization of which I pray God we may leave here and rededicate ourselves and teach our children, and devote all the effort and earnestness we have within us, in Jesus' name. Amen. ¶