I Pray for Your Sympathy, Your Prayers...

I pray for your sympathy, your prayers, while I say a few words at the opening of this great conference. ¶

"What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? ¶

"For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour." (Psalm 8:4-5.) ¶

Animals and other living things can grow and reproduce their kind only in accordance with the fixed laws of nature and the divine command, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: . . ." (Gen. 1:24.) ¶

Man, in his physical organism being material and chemical the same as that of the animal, also is subject to the appetites, passions, and other cravings of the physical body. To him, however, is given a special endowment not bestowed upon any other living thing. When the Creator "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul," God gave him the power of choice. (Ibid., 2:7.) Only to the human being did the Creator say: ". . . thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee. . . ." (Moses 3:17.) As God intended man to become as he, it was necessary that He should first make him free. ¶

Thus man was endowed with the greatest blessing that can be given to mortal beings — the gift of free agency. Without this divine power to choose, humanity cannot progress. ¶

Commenting upon this special endowment, a leading scientist, Dr. Lecomte du Nouy in Human Destiny said: "By giving man liberty and conscience, God abdicated a part of His omnipotence in favor of His creature and this represents the spark of God in man ('God is within you'). Liberty is real, for God Himself refused to trammel it." ¶

". . . cheer up your hearts," admonished the ancient prophet, "and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves." (2 Nephi 10:23.) ¶

Freedom of speech, freedom of action within boundaries that do not infringe upon the liberty of others are man's inherent right — divine gifts "essential to human dignity and human happiness." ¶

What a travesty on human nature when a person or a group of persons, though endowed with a consciousness of being able to rise in human dignity to realms indiscernible by lower creatures, yet will still be content to obey animal instincts, without putting forth efforts to experience the joy of goodness, purity, self-mastery, and faith that spring from compliance to moral rules! How tragic it is when man, made a "little lower than the angels and crowned with glory and honour" (Psalm 8:5), will content himself to grovel on the animal plane. ¶

"This love of liberty which God has planted in us," said Abraham Lincoln, "constitutes the bulwark of our liberty and independence. It is not our formidable battlements, or bristling seacoasts, or in our Navy. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and we have planted the seeds of despotism at our own doors." ¶

The opposite of freedom is bondage, servility, restraint, conditions that inhibit mentality, stifle the spirit, and crush manhood. To coerce, to compel to bring the individual into servitude is the communist plan for the human family. ¶

Aside from resisting such oppression from without, each individual carries within himself the responsibility of living nobly or ignobly. Daily every normal person is faced with the choice of submission to what Paul designated the "works of the flesh," (Gal. 5:19) or of reaching upward for the fruits of the Spirit, which are "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." (Ibid., 5:22-23.) ¶

Conditions in the world today seem to indicate that too many human beings are living not very far above the animal plane. Cunning, deception, thieving, lying, cruelty, brutality, warring conflicts are still all too common even among Christian nations. ¶

Charles Wagner in The Simple Life gives this impressive warning against indulgence in animal desires: ¶

"He who lives to eat, drink, sleep, dress, take his walk — in short, pamper himself all that he can — be it the courtier basking in the sun, the drunken laborer, the commoner serving his belly, the woman absorbed in her toilettes, the profligate of low estate or high, or simply the ordinary pleasure-lover, a 'good fellow,' but too obedient to material needs — that man or woman is on the downward way of desire, and the descent is fatal. Those who follow it obey the same laws as a body on an inclined plane. Dupes of an illusion forever repeated, they think: 'Just a few steps more, the last, toward the thing down there that we covet; then we will halt.' But the velocity they gain sweeps them on, and the further they go the less able they are to resist it. ¶

"Here is the secret of the unrest, the madness, of many of our contemporaries. Having condemned their will to the service of their appetites, they suffer the penalty. They are delivered up to violent passions which devour their flesh, crush their bones, suck their blood, and cannot be sated. This is not a lofty moral denunciation. I have been listening to what life says, and have recorded, as I heard them, some of the truths that resound in every square. ¶

"Has drunkenness, inventive as it is of new drinks, found the means of quenching thirst? Not at all. It might rather be called the art of making thirst inextinguishable. Frank libertinage, does it deaden the sting of the senses? No; it envenoms it, converts natural desire into a morbid obsession and makes it the dominant passion. Let your needs rule you, pamper them — you will see them multiply like insects in the sun. The more you give them, the more they demand. He is senseless who seeks for happiness in material prosperity alone. . . . Our needs, in place of the servants that they should be, become a turbulent and seditious crowd, a legion of tyrants in miniature. A man enslaved to his needs may best be compared to a bear with a ring in its nose that is led about and made to dance at will. The likeness is not flattering, but you will grant that it is true. ¶

"It is only by direct action on youth that a better society can be successfully moulded. All pseudo-mysticisms — social, philosophical or political — must be replaced by the Christian ideal, the only one based on liberty and the respect of human dignity. When people have received the same education, when they obey the same moral rules and think universally, they do not easily accept the idea of fighting each other and are very near an understanding. ¶

"Today the nations constituted by individuals but possessing their own independent life want to exist and concentrate all their efforts toward this goal, sometimes sincerely in the interest of their members, sometimes solely in the interest of their leaders or of what the latter believe is an ideal superior to that of the individual. Governments, evidently, have the duty to protect their countries against enemies, for in so doing they protect the individual which they are supposed to represent. But they also have the duty to prepare the future by spreading the light and by attacking the roots of the evil." ¶

We sing: ¶

"In sylvan depth and shade, In forest and in glade, Where'er we pass, The hand of God we see In leaf and bud and tree Or bird or humming bee Or blade of grass." ¶

— Emmeline B. Wells ¶

We drive up the canyons and thrill with the glory of nature bedecked in the brilliance of her autumn colors and find ourselves interested in the story of past ages as we pass in rapid succession the everlasting cliffs of conglomerate, granite-like strata of gneiss and limestone or pause with the poet and pluck a — ¶

"Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower — but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is." ¶

— Tennyson ¶

But earth in all its majesty and wonder is not the end and purpose of creation. ". . . my glory," says the Lord himself, "(is) to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." (Moses 1:39.) And man in exercising the divine gift of free agency should feel in duty bound, should sense the obligation to assist the Creator in the accomplishment of this divine purpose. ¶

The true end of life is not mere existence, not pleasure, not fame, not wealth. The true purpose of life is the perfection of humanity through individual effort, under the guidance of God's inspiration. ¶

Real life is response to the best within us. To be alive only to appetite, pleasure, pride, money-making, and not to goodness and kindness, purity and love, poetry, music, flowers, stars, God and eternal hopes, is to deprive one's self of the real joy of living. ¶

In man's life, this physical stage, man finds activity in two phases: first in the struggle for livelihood and comforts; and, second in the tendency to grovel. The first is natural and most commendable. The second is debasing, and when unrestrained leads one to the level of animals. When a man harbors the thought that he will obtain a livelihood by injuring his neighbor, that moment he begins to circumscribe his life; bitterness replaces happiness; sordidness supplants generosity; hatred takes the place of love, and beastliness takes the place of humanity. ¶

Generally there is in man a divinity which strives to push him onward and upward. We believe that this power within him is the spirit that comes from God. Man lived before he came to this earth, and he is here now to strive to perfect the spirit within. At sometime in his life, every man is conscious of a desire to come in touch with the Infinite. His spirit reaches out for God. This sense of feeling is universal, and all men ought to be, in deepest truth, engaged in the same great work — the search for and the development of spiritual peace and freedom. ¶

Each one of us is the architect of his own fate, and he is unfortunate indeed who will try to build himself without the inspiration of God; without realizing that he grows from within, not from without. ¶

Trees that can stand in the midst of the hurricane often yield to the destroying pests that we can scarcely see with a microscope. Likewise the greatest foes of humanity today are the subtle and sometimes unseen influences at work in society that are undermining the manhood and womanhood of today. The test, after all, of the faithfulness and effectiveness of God's people is an individual one. What is the individual doing? ¶

Every temptation that comes to you and me comes in one of three forms: ¶

(1) A temptation of the appetite or passion; ¶

(2) A yielding to pride, fashion, or vanity; ¶

(3) A desire for worldly riches or power and dominion over lands or earthly possessions of men. ¶

Such temptations come to us in our social gatherings; they come to us in our political strivings; they come to us in our business relations, on the farm, in the mercantile establishment; in our dealings in all the affairs of life we find these insidious influences working. It is when they manifest themselves to the consciousness of each individual that the defense of truth should exert itself. ¶

The Church teaches that life here is probationary. It is man's duty to become the master, not the slave of nature. His appetites are to be controlled and used for the benefit of his health and the prolongation of his life — his passions mastered and controlled for the happiness and blessing of others. ¶

Man's greatest happiness comes from losing himself for the good of others. The advancement of science and the new discoveries from the dawn of history to the present are the results of the efforts of men who have been willing to sacrifice themselves if necessary for the cause of truth. ¶

"What pains and tears the slightest step forward of man's progress have cost! Every hair-breadth forward has been in the agony of some soul, and humanity has attained blessing after blessing of all its vast achievement of good with bleeding feet." ¶

We must not lose sight of the fact, however, that these great leaders of the world were more than compensated by the supreme joy that comes from achievement. ¶

Today there are those who have met disaster which almost seems defeat, who have become somewhat soured in their natures; but if they stop to think, even the adversity which has come to them may prove a means of spiritual uplift. Adversity itself may lead toward and not away from God and spiritual enlightenment; and privation may prove a source of strength if we can but keep the sweetness of mind and spirit. "Sweet are the uses of adversity," said Shakespeare, "which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head." ¶

If you have lived true to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and continue to do so, happiness will fill your soul. If you vary from it and become conscious that you have fallen short of what you know is right, you are going to be unhappy even though you have the wealth of the world. ¶

And now a word to the young: ¶

In their yearning for a good time, young people are often tempted to indulge in the things which appeal only to the baser side of humanity, five of the most common of which are: first, vulgarity and obscenity; second, drinking and petting; third, unchastity; fourth, disloyalty; and, fifth, irreverence. ¶

Vulgarity is often the first step down the road to indulgence. To be vulgar is to give offense to good taste or refined feelings. ¶

It is only a step from vulgarity to obscenity. It is right, indeed essential, to the happiness of our young people that they meet in social parties, but it is an indication of low morals when for entertainment they must resort to physical stimulation and debasement. Drinking and petting parties form an environment in which the moral sense becomes dulled, and unbridled passion holds sway. It then becomes easy to take the final step downward in moral disgrace. ¶

When, instead of high moral principles, a life of immoral indulgence is chosen, and man or woman gets far down in the scale of degeneracy, disloyalty is an inevitable part of his or her nature. Loyalty to parents becomes quenched; obedience to their teachings and ideals abandoned; loyalty to wife and children smothered in base gratification; loyalty to Church impossible, and often supplanted by sneers at its teachings. ¶

Spirituality is the consciousness of victory over self and of communion with the Infinite. Spirituality impels one to conquer difficulties and acquire more and more strength. To feel one's faculties unfolding and truth expanding the soul is one of life's sublimest experiences. Being true to self and being loyal to high ideals develops spirituality. The real test of any religion is the kind of man it makes. Being "honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men" are virtues which contribute to the highest acquisition of the soul. It is the "divine in man, the supreme, crowning gift that makes him king of all created things, the one final quality that makes him tower above all other animals." ¶

Let us ever keep in mind that life is largely what we make it, and that the Savior of men has marked clearly and plainly just how joy and peace may be obtained. It is in the gospel of Jesus Christ and adherence thereto. Do your duty no matter how humble and resolve even in the face of difficulties and discouragements to be: ¶

"Like the man who faces what he must With step triumphant and a heart of cheer; Who fights the daily battle without fear; Sees his hopes fail, yet keeps unfaltering trust That God is God." ¶

Years ago I learned that — ¶

"The world wants men — true men Who cannot be bought or sold; Men who will scorn to violate truth — genuine gold." ¶

That is the kind of men who stand at the head of our stakes, wards, quorums, and organizations. That is a responsibility they carry. God help them in discharging their duty faithfully and responding to our Father in heaven who says, ". . . this is my glory — to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." (Moses 1:39.) ¶

God help us as leaders in the restored Church, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶