I Seek Most Humbly Tonight The Sustaining...

I seek most humbly tonight the sustaining power of your faith and your prayers to the end that what we may say may be clear and concise and that you might glimpse the vision of the great movement which was initiated a year ago at the October conference in 1961. ¶

In the announcement of the new correlation program as directed by President McKay, we used as our text a statement from the great modern-day revelation on church government, in which the Lord said: ¶

"Behold, this is the way that mine apostles, in ancient days, built up my church unto me. ¶

"Therefore, let every man stand in his own office, and labor in his own calling; and let not the head say unto the feet it hath no need of the feet; for without the feet how shall the body be able to stand? ¶

"Also the body hath need of every member, that all may be edified together, that the system may be kept perfect." (D&C 84:108-110.) This significant statement meant clearly that, first, each organization was to have its specific function, that it was not to usurp the field of the other which would be like the eye saying to the hand, "I have no need of thee"; second, that each subdivision is of equal importance in the work of salvation, just as each part of the physical body is essential to the complete human being; and third, that every member in the Church may be edified or educated together; and finally that the system may be kept perfect, or in other words, that within the framework of the Lord's plan of organization for the salvation of his children, the Church will perform as a perfectly organized human body with every member functioning as it was intended. ¶

The key to the whole correlation movement was given us when the First Presidency in an important communication some years ago declared the fundamental principles on which we were to build. In this communication the First Presidency had said: ¶

"The home is the basis of a righteous life and no other instrumentality can take its place nor fulfil its essential functions. The utmost the auxiliaries can do is to aid the home in its problems, giving special aid and succor where such is necessary; that in aiding the home, the auxiliaries may well consider thinking of home life of the people as having three periods: the first from birth to twelve years of age, or the childhood period; then the youth period from twelve years up to the early twenties; and then adulthood, from the early twenties to the end of life." ¶

Since that announcement we have gone forward with the development of the so-called correlation program, and tonight President McKay has requested that we report to this great body of the priesthood of the Church the correlation program as it has now progressed since that first announcement one year ago. ¶

My associates of the twelve, as announced by President McKay, constituting the correlation committee, will each take time tonight in a unified report of progress. Elder Gordon B. ¶

Hinckley will first discuss the organizational development which has gone forward during this last year. Then Elder Richard L. Evans will discuss the curriculum studies and development. ¶

Elder Marion G. Romney will then talk to us about the priesthood correlation, which is in reality, an extension of what we have known as ward teaching in the past. It will then be my responsibility after they conclude, to summarize with an announcement of the first application of the new correlation program to be carried out throughout the entire Church, beginning in January of 1963 on a Church-wide basis. We will now proceed then with Elder Hinckley, then Elder Evans, and then Elder Romney, after which I will make a few concluding statements. ¶