My Dear Brothers And Sisters This Has...

My dear brothers and sisters, this has been a great conference. I pray that the Spirit of the Lord may attend me in what I shall say. ¶

About fifty years ago, Mr. F. M. Bareham wrote the following: ¶

"A century ago men were following with bated breath the march of Napoleon and waiting with feverish impatience for news of the wars. And all the while in their homes babies were being born. But who could think about babies? Everybody was thinking about battles. ¶

"In one year between Trafalgar and Waterloo there stole into the world a host of heroes: Gladstone was born in Liverpool; Tennyson at the Somersby Rectory, and Oliver Wendell Holmes in Massachusetts. Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky, and music was enriched by the advent of Felix Mendelssohn in Hamburg." ¶

And we might add, and Joseph Smith was born in Vermont, four years earlier. ¶

Quoting Bareham further: ¶

"But nobody thought of babies, everybody was thinking of battles. Yet which of the battles of 1809 mattered more than the babies of 1809? We fancy God can manage his world only with great battalions, when all the time he is doing it with beautiful babies. ¶

"When a wrong wants righting, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent wants discovering, God sends a baby into the world to do it." ¶

While most of the thousands of precious infants born every hour will never be known outside their own neighborhoods, there are great souls being born who will rise above their surroundings. We see with ". . . Abraham the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones, . . ." and we hear the Lord saying: ¶

"These I will make my rulers. . . . ¶

Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born." ¶

(Abraham 3:22-23.) He commanded Adam: "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it." (Gen. 1:28.) And the Psalmist sang: ¶

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord. . . . Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. . . ." (Psalm 127:3, 5.) Regarding these "Men of the Hour," ¶

Carlyle said: ¶

"The most precious gift that heaven can give to the earth; a man of genius, as we call it; the soul of a man actually sent down from the skies with God's message to us." ¶

What mother, looking down with tenderness upon her chubby infant does not envision her child as the President of the Church or the leader of her nation! As he is nestled in her arms, she sees him a statesman, a leader, a prophet. Some dreams do come true! One mother gives us a Shakespeare, another a Michelangelo, and another an Abraham Lincoln, and still another a Joseph Smith! ¶

When theologians are reeling and stumbling, when lips are pretending and hearts are wandering, and people are "running to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord and cannot, find it" — when clouds of error need dissipating and spiritual darkness needs penetrating and heavens need opening, a little infant is born. Just a few scattered neighbors in a hilly region in the backwoods even know that Lucy is expecting. There is no prenatal care, nor nurses; no hospital, no ambulance, no delivery room. Babies live and die in this rough environment and few know of it. ¶

Another child for Lucy! No trumpets are sounded; no hourly bulletins posted; no pictures taken; no notice is given; just a few friendly community folk pass the word along. It's a boy! Little do the brothers and sister dream that a prophet is born to them; even his proud parents can little suspect his spectacular destiny. No countryside farmers or loungers at the country store, nor village gossips even surmise how much they could discuss, did they but have the power of prophetic vision. ¶

"They are naming him Joseph," it is reported. But not one knows, not even his parents, at this time, that this infant and his father have been named in the scriptures for 3500 years, named for and known to their ancestor Joseph, the savior of Egypt and Israel. Not even his adoring mother realizes, even in her most ambitious dreaming and her silent musings, that this one of her children, like his ancestor, will be the chief sheaf of grain to which all others would lean and the one star to which the sun and moon and the other stars would make obeisance. ¶

He will inspire hatred and admiration; he will build an empire and restore a church — the Church of Jesus Christ. Millions will follow him; monuments will be built to him; poets will sing of him; authors will write libraries of books about him. ¶

No living soul can guess that this little pinkish infant will become the peer of Moses in spiritual power and greater than many prophets before him. ¶

He will talk with God, the Eternal Father, and Jesus Christ, his Son, and angels will be his guest instructors. ¶

His Vermont contemporaries know not that this little one just born will live as few men have lived, accomplish what few men have accomplished, and die as few have ever died, in his own sacred blood in a prison at the hands of assassins as a martyr to everlasting truth! ¶

All expectations are understated. ¶

Destiny outdistances all imagination and dreams 1 "God moves in a mysterious way • His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm. ¶

"Deep in unfathomable mines Of never-failing skill, He treasures up his bright designs And works his sovereign will." ¶

— William Cowper. ¶

During the unfolding of this Smith flower; during the brief ripening years of this fruit of the loins of that other Joseph of Israel, the world is preparing for the greatest event since the Meridian of Time. The triplet infants, Liberty, Freedom, and Justice, are contending for life; a small colonial nation is struggling to its feet; the people from many lands, squirming in the "melting-pot," are firming up, suffering labor pains toward the birth of a divine new program, "a marvelous work and a wonder," the restoration of the gospel in all its far-reaching detail. ¶

"We fancy," said Bareham, "God can manage his world only with great battalions, when all the time he is doing it with beautiful babies." ¶

O foolish men who think to protect the world with armaments, battleships, and space equipment, when only righteousness is needed! ¶

Having read the pages of history, six thousand years of it, can we not see that God sent his babies to become the teachers and prophets to warn us of our threatening fate? Cannot we read the handwriting on the wall? History repeats itself. ¶

O mortal men, deaf and blind! Can we not read the past? For thousands of years, have plowshares been beaten into swords and pruning hooks into spears, yet war persists. Ever since Belshazzar saw the finger writing upon the wall of his palace, the warning reappears. It seems to restate with great forcefulness, Daniel's indictment of an unhumble people: ¶

"God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. . . . Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. ¶

And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; . . . and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. ¶

. . . Blessed be the name of God. ... he removeth kings, and setteth up kings." ¶

(Dan. 5:26-27, 22-23; 2:20-21.) The answer to all of our problems — personal, national, and international — has been given to us many times by many prophets, ancient to modern. Why must we grovel in the earth when we could be climbing toward heaven! The path is not obscure. Perhaps it is too simple for us to see. We look to foreign programs, summit conferences, land bases. We depend on fortifications, our gods of stone; upon ships and planes and projectiles, our gods of iron — gods which have no ears, no eyes, no hearts. ¶

We pray to them for deliverance and depend upon them for protection. Like the gods of Baal, they could be "talking or pursuing or on a journey or peradventure sleeping" when they are needed most. And like Elijah, we might cry out to our world: ¶

"How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him. ¶

..." (1 Kings 18:21.) My testimony to you is, the Lord is God. He has charted the way, but we do not follow. He personally visited Joseph Smith in our world in our century. He outlined the way of peace in this world and eternal worlds. That path is righteousness. The Prophet Joseph with all his successor prophets proclaiming the ripening of this world in iniquity and the solution of all vexing problems. The Book of Mormon which he brought into existence relates the story of two hundred years of peace in the old days, which was the greatest era of happiness of which we have any complete record. ¶

God lives as does his Son, Jesus Christ, and they will not indefinitely be mocked. ¶

May we hearken and repent "for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. . . . the Lord will be the hope of his people. . . ." (Joel 3:14, 16.) Joseph Smith is a true prophet of the Living God and his successors likewise. The mantle of authority and prophecy and revelation and power lies in his choice servant who now leads us, President David O. McKay, and he is God's prophet not only to Latter-day Saints, but to every living soul in all the world. This is my testimony to you, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶