My Brethren This Is A Solemn Moment...

My brethren, this is a solemn moment for me, I can assure you. I have been coming to these Saturday evening Priesthood meetings for a good many years — all my life — since I was ordained a deacon. I was here when President McKay was called into the Twelve. I was here when President Richards was called into the Twelve. I have come here many times with my father. I have realized that the instructions that were given to the Priesthood by the Brethren on these occasions were equally good for father and for son. ¶

This is the first call that has come to me to address this great body of Priesthood, and I assure you that if I am able to give you any thoughts this evening that will be beneficial to the work, we shall have to ascribe the honor to our Father in Heaven. I am sure we must all of us feel dependent upon him for the guidance, the direction and the inspiration essential for each one of us to have ever present in order to fulfill the calls which are made of us by those who preside over us in the Priesthood. ¶

I have a deep sense of appreciation for the work of these Brethren who have preceded me, and especially President Stephen L Richards. For many years past it has been my great pleasure to be here and to expect to hear words of inspiration and wisdom from him, and I have never been disappointed. We miss President Richards, and we continue, as we undertake to carry on, to remember his beloved wife and all of his posterity, and pray that the blessings of the Almighty may continue to be with them, to guide and direct them in the footsteps of their illustrious father and husband. ¶

We do not need, however, to eulogize men who perform their duties and responsibilities in the Priesthood. Certainly that which we undertake to do is not done for the purpose of being praised of men. It is to give us that solemn deep-seated satisfaction in our hearts that we in some small way have helped to establish the Kingdom of our Heavenly Father here upon this earth in these latter days. To this purpose we dedicate our lives and all that we have and are, and our constant prayer to our Heavenly Father is that we might have added strength, added capacity, added capability to accomplish more and more in his service. If I have any complaint tonight it would be that the days are not long enough. Some of you were here last night when I was suggesting to the bishops that we ought to increase the hours of proselyting of our stake missionaries, and I said I thought that we ought to strike an average of about 40 hours a week. I, of course, misspoke myself — I meant 40 hours a month. ¶

But I have been thinking about that incident, and I know many men in this Church whose time would permit them to live up to the ideal which I spoke unintentionally. We have these — I was going to say, eight-hour days — but I suppose nobody works eight hours any more, do they? Six times eight would be forty-eight, and it seems to me I heard something about a 40 hour week, and sometimes weeks that call for lesser labor. ¶

It may not be entirely a coincidence that these shrinking hours of labor required of us in our daily employment should come about coincident with the tremendous need that we have in the Church for work in the service of the Master. This subject of ward teaching that Bishop Cheever and Bishop Hill have so beautifully discussed with us tonight has at its root the performance of a service, a labor. It is time-consuming, but how tremendously rewarding to know that every month of our lives we have contacted somebody, made their lives happier and better than they otherwise would have been. ¶

Now, I know one of these bishops pretty well. He had no more been called into the bishopric than he said to himself and to me and to some others in the ward, "I wonder if it's necessary for a young man to ever reach the age of 20 and not be worthy and ready and willing to go on a mission?" It is little wonder that he has ward teaching in his heart, because he could not have hoped for such a result had the homes in which those young men lived not been visited regularly. ¶

Sometimes I get off on my statistics, but my best knowledge and understanding is that since he became bishop there hasn't been a single boy escape, and if there have, perchance, been one or two that I do not know about, I still say the record is miraculous, and it comes about as a result of work. Everyone of those young men who have gone into the mission field — and I can speak with some feeling about this subject because one of them is my own son — loves his bishop, and when they come back from their mission fields, as they do nearly every month, they go to their bishop and tell him they are ready to go to work in the ward. ¶

I tell you, brethren, this ward teaching is basically fundamental. It is the foundation, so to speak, upon which we can build in any of our Church activities, to accomplish any results that are desirable. Now, we have in the Church today about one out of every four young men who reach the age of 20 who go on a mission. I want you bishops to ask yourselves this question: "Where have we failed with reference to the other three?" That was the plea that Bishop Isaacson made to you last night with reference to your Senior Aaronic Priesthood Group. I am sure that a bishop should either have that young man ready to go on a mission, or have the satisfaction of knowing that he had exhausted the resources at his command in attempting to qualify him therefor. ¶

We have a tremendous need for missionaries, and I have a feeling, brethren, that if we started to exercise our Priesthood in our relationships with our families, our intimate relationships, early in our family history, that our young men would have become so well assured of the power and the efficacy of the Priesthood held by their fathers, that it would become in very deed their principal ambition in life to receive that same Priesthood, and I cannot think of any greater satisfaction that comes into the life of a righteous father than to himself be worthy when the time arrives, and his son has qualified himself to receive either the Lesser or the Higher Priesthood, to confer that Priesthood upon him under the direction of his bishop or his stake president. ¶

I want to leave this thought with you this evening, brethren. I do not believe that any one of us who are recipients of the Priesthood ever exercise that Priesthood in the performance of a single ordinance, the performance of a single act, in which we invoke the power of our Priesthood, without having in our hearts simultaneously therewith a deepseated, genuine, true testimony of the divinity of the work in which we are engaged, and a knowledge that God has in very deed restored his Priesthood to the earth, and that we have been the beneficiaries of that great gift. ¶

My thoughts go back at the moment to when I was a little boy. I was awfully sick, I thought. I do not think my sickness was very serious. I may have had a bad case of measles or something like that, but I was sick, and I was miserable, and my father had lived so closely to me that I was just as certain as that I lived that when my father came home and I asked him to administer to me that I would be healed. Do you think a boy can go through that kind of an experience with his father and have his prayers answered, have his faith justified, and not love that father? And even more important than that, not have a keen realization and appreciation of the power that his father has by virtue of the Priesthood which has been conferred upon him? I am sure that from that moment on I lived, as far as I can review my life in my own mind, to receive that same Priesthood, to perform that same service in behalf of my family when I might be blessed with one, and I never cease to be grateful to the Lord for the almost innumerable instances when I have had the privilege of exercising my Priesthood outside the family circle in behalf of my brethren and sisters throughout the Church, and being absolutely conscious when I laid my hands upon their heads that there was a power there making itself manifest in my ministry, that would bring about the purposes of our Heavenly Father here upon this earth. ¶

And so I say if we exercise this Priesthood in behalf of our families we cannot help but have our families grow up to follow in our footsteps, and what father is there among us that would not have his son gon on a mission. I have made this statement many times in the Church in many of your stakes — I have never yet been contradicted, I have never yet had a case brought to my attention that would disprove what I have said — and that is this: that the Lord has so blessed and prospered the Saints that today we are well enough off to send anybody on a mission that is worthy and willing to go, and supplement whenever necessary whatever means he and his family may have to keep him on the mission. ¶

We are not having missionaries come home in the middle of their missionary terms because their families have run out of finances. ¶

Now the Lord has blessed us for a purpose. His blessings have not been showered upon us for the purpose of our following the ways of the world. Why do you think we pay our tithing? Isn't it to put our hearts in tune with the Spirit of our Heavenly Father, to enter into a partnership with him and dedicate the other nine tenths to the best possible use available to bring about his purposes, first with the family, and second, with the ward. ¶

I am sure the generosity of the Latterday Saints knows no bounds. Some people say that there are too many calls made upon us, but I never yet, and I think I can truthfully say this, in all my experience in the Church heard anyone complain about the cost of a mission. ¶

There is something about a mission. ¶

Sometimes I think it affects the family at home even more than the missionary himself. ¶

I remember one night many years ago in Charleston, West Virginia. We had a little group of missionaries there as we toured the East Central States Mission— about 20, as I recall it — and one elder got up and said: "Brother Moyle, I have only been on a mission for a year, but every day that I am on my mission I have a stronger assurance come to me that as a result of my mission I will bring my father into the Church. ¶

Do you know why I want to bring my father into the Church? It is because I have seen and heard my mother pray for that event to happen as far back as I can remember. I just have a feeling that if, through my diligence, my effort, my worthiness as a missionary, spending my two years in this mission, I can accomplish that result, I will have been able to give my mother that which she wants above all else on earth, and incidentally, make it possible for me to be sealed to my father and my mother, and give to them the benefits of the Holy Endowment." ¶

I would like to charge, if it were possible, every Latter-day Saint home to produce a missionary. It would be easy to divide the homes in the Church between those who are presided over by returned missionaries, and those who are presided over by men who have not filled that call. I am sure that the latter group have always been anxious, always just a little disappointed that they did not go on a mission themselves. There need be no disappointment in the heart of any Latter-day Saint father, whether he has been on a mission or not. If I were the head of a family and I had not been on a mission, I would devote myself to receive the blessing of a mission through my son. ¶

I want to say to you tonight, brethren, in all solemnity, that we can receive those blessings if we rear our children to qualify for that great service, the greatest service of all. That is the service to which the Twelve have been called, and all their Assistants and Associates. It is the prime charge that the Savior gave his Apostles of old — to go into the world and to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of life and salvation, to all the children of our Heavenly Father here upon this earth. ¶

I know that God lives. I know that the power of the Priesthood is with us, and I know that there is vested in President David O. McKay all the keys of the Priesthood. There has flowed into this dispensation all of the power and all of the authority and all of the keys and blessings of all other dispensations. ¶

That we know. And I am sure that you brethren will have difficulty in realizing how deep-seated my gratitude to my Heavenly Father is for this testimony, this knowledge that God lives, and that he sustains his mouthpiece upon this earth with power and authority to speak in his name every day of his life. ¶

I do not know what in the world I could have done to be worthy of this close association with these men whom I revere and idolize. For 53 years President McKay has been as dedicated a man as ever lived upon the face of the earth to the tasks which have been his, and now I have the privilege of undertaking in my weak way to be of some assistance to him. ¶

President Clark and I have been thrown together in our Welfare work these many years, and I have learned to love and respect and revere him. I do hope and pray that the Lord will bless me that my labors may in some small measure reflect the deep sense of gratitude I have in my heart for this call, and make me capable, qualified, worthy, to continue to associate and to counsel with you, my beloved brethren. I love the brethren of this Church. I am so grateful that I have had these years of opportunity to associate with President Joseph Fielding Smith and the members of the Twelve. It was brought rather sternly to my realization that I was not a member of the Twelve any more when my beloved friend, Howard W. Hunter, was called to take my place in the Twelve. I love and respect and revere him, as I do all of the members of the Twelve, and my prayer daily is that with this call which has come to me, the Lord may make it possible for me to stand even closer and be more intimate, and draw greater strength from these Brethren who have sustained and upheld me all these years as a member of their Quorum. ¶

Now, I do invoke the blessings of the Lord upon us all, and pray that we will constantly unite our faith and prayers that the Lord will bless and sustain President McKay and President Clark with the health and strength and vigor and vitality of body and of mind and of spirit, which will make it possible for them day to day to fulfill the righteous desires that they have in their hearts, the desires that they have to carry this work on, and this I pray humbly in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. ¶

Amen. ¶