My Brethren I Appreciate This Privilege Of...

My brethren, I appreciate this privilege of having a part with you in the general priesthood conference of the Church. ¶

I have been greatly stimulated as I am sure you have by the messages of these fine young men who have talked to us so interestingly about the importance of controlling our own lives. ¶

One of the most inspiring messages in all sacred scripture is the story of the sixth day of creation when God made man in his own image. He also endowed him with a set of his own attributes. ¶

Then, as the very climax of creation, God gave man dominion over everything upon the earth, including himself. The dictionary says that "dominion" means control or the power to govern. The most important part of the dominion given to man was self-dominion. In all of creation, it was only to man that God said, ". . . thou mayest choose for thyself " (Moses 3:17.) On one occasion Joseph Smith was asked to explain the unusual harmony existing among his large group of church members, though they differed so greatly in background, nationality, and experience. The Prophet replied, "I teach the people correct principles and they govern themselves." (Cited by John Taylor, JD 10:57-58.) One of the most important parts of real religion is to qualify ourselves to govern our own lives effectively and righteously. Someone has said, "He that would move the world, must first move himself." We talk a great deal about the fact that we have been given the priesthood. The priesthood is the authority to act in the name of the Lord. But by itself that is not enough. ¶

We must also develop the "ability" to act in the name of the Lord. The authority can never be of very great consequence without the ability. That is, how much benefit would be derived from having the authority to make converts without the ability to make converts. ¶

The most inspiring thing about the life of Jesus was not his ability to quiet the storm or control the tempest, but his absolute control of himself. The Master did not need to make a single mistake in order to find out that it was wrong. We have developed a fairly good control over some of our body members; for example, I have great authority over my finger. If I tell it to bend, it bends. If I tell it to unbend, it unbends. If I give my feet an order, they obey immediately, and we will have succeeded in our religious responsibility when we get that same kind of control over our thoughts, our emotions, our tongues, our industry, our faith, and our desire to serve God. Some of us have mistrained our appetites to a point where we tend to "think" with our stomachs; that is, our appetites frequently have more influence in directing our lives than our reason or even the commandments of God. This same misuse of our powers frequently gives our fears, our doubts, our prejudices, our hates, and our sex impulses the control of our lives. ¶

Before we can be successful in our Godgiven dominion, our emotions must be brought under the direction of the spirit. ¶

St. Augustine said, "Wouldst thou have thy flesh obey thy spirit? Then have thy spirit obey thy God. Thou must be governed, if thou wouldst govern." ¶

And only when we properly govern ourselves according to what is right, can we escape the destructive rule of our moods and appetites. ¶

Sir Walter Raleigh said, "A man must first govern himself, ere he be fit to govern a family; and his family, ere he is fit to bear the government in the commonwealth." ¶

Each of us has been given a magnificent instrument called a brain, which was intended to play a much more prominent part in our religious life than it sometimes does. The brain, not the feelings or the passions, was designated by God to be the presiding officer of the personality. And when we honor the authority of the mind, we become masters instead of slaves. ¶

A. Bertha Kleinman has written the following verse about self-mastery. ¶

SELF-MASTERY "What tho I conquer my enemies, And lay up store and pelf, I am a conqueror poor indeed, Till I subdue myself. ¶

"What tho I read and learn by heart Whole books while I am young, I am a linguist in disgrace, Who cannot guard my tongue. ¶

"What tho on campus I excel A champ in meet and fight If trained efficient still I can't Control an appetite. ¶

"What tho exemptions write my name High on the honor roll Electives, solids fail me if I learn no self-control. ¶

"And tho I graduate and soar And life is good to me, My heart shall write me failure till I learn self-mastery." ¶

Our human nature is made up of an interesting duality, which Jesus referred to as the spirit and the flesh, and most of us permit a constant conflict to rage between the two. Plato refers to this duality as an upper soul and a lower soul. He describes the lower soul as the dwelling place of weakness, sin, and appetite, whereas the upper soul is the residence of the intellect; it is the headquarters of reason and the operational base of judgment and righteousness. On this battle ground the fate of each of us is being decided daily. Each individual is tending toward his natural status of king or slave. ¶

As we overcome the unworthy elements within ourselves, we become masters, capable of ruling our lives in wisdom with righteous power. As we surrender to our appetites, we become slaves. The alcoholic, the immoral, the dishonest, the profane, and the idle are losing the battle to the lower soul by allowing themselves too many lower soul experiences. ¶

The one business of life is to succeed, and one of our greatest Christian duties is to organize and supervise ourselves for righteous accomplishment. We must be more successful in disciplining the mind and training the will. Someone has pointed out that "planning" is the place where man shows himself most like God. Who could be more Godlike than one who intelligently plans his own life? He is the one who blueprints accomplishment and builds the roadway of success. The highest paid man in the army is the general. ¶

He is the one who "thinks" and "plans" ¶

for the army. But each of us is the general of his own life, and each is also his own soldier. As generals, our job is to work out a better program for ourselves as soldiers, and the more skilful we are as generals, the more successful we will be as soldiers. ¶

Sometime ago I spent a few hours with a group of missionaries. We were discussing missionary work under the two great headings of the "message" ¶

and the "messenger." We are halfway to success when we understand the tremendous importance of the message that the gospel of Jesus Christ has again been restored to the earth with the authority to officiate in all of the principles and ordinances of the gospel having to do with the celestial kingdom. But no great message is ever delivered without a great messenger. Inasmuch as the professional approach to any accomplishment is first to isolate the problem, I said to the missionaries, "Before I can be of much help to you, I need to know what your problems are. Will each of you tell me in one word why you're not ten times as effective as you are?" ¶

As the answers were given, we wrote them on the blackboard. However, when we analyzed them we found that every single one of them had to do with the "messenger," none of them was about the message. I said to them, "I'm going back to church headquarters in the morning, and I would like to be able to report what's wrong with the message." But no one had any complaint with the message. Their only problems involved changing the messenger. ¶

One missionary said, "I can't be a good missionary because I am not friendly." ¶

I said, 'What do you mean?" ¶

He said, "Well, my companion loves everyone, and everyone loves him. Our contacts all gather around him, but because I am not that kind of a person I am left by myself." ¶

I said, "Would you show me what you mean by going down this aisle and shaking hands with these people the way you ordinarily do it?" ¶

In complying he did his usual unimpressive job. Then I said to him, "Now, will you go down this other aisle and shake hands with these other people the way your companion does it?" ¶

Then he squared his shoulders, got a little different look in his eye and a little different tension in his muscles as he tried to demonstrate to me how his companion did it. He seemed to be an immediate success while following the example of his companion. I told him about the famous "As If" principle of William James. Mr. James said if you want to have a quality act "As If" ¶

you already had it. If you want to be friendly, act "As If" you are already friendly. How long does it take one to learn to be friendly? It takes just one-quarter of a second, just long enough to make up your mind to practise the "As If" principle. If you want to be brave, act "As If" you were already brave, don't go around telling everyone how scared and weak you are. It is the axiom of the theater that each actor should live his part. ¶

On one occasion Theodore Roosevelt was decorating one of his generals for bravery. He said, "This is the bravest man that I have ever seen." He said, "He walked right behind me all the way up San Juan Hill." Theodore Roosevelt was a sickly child. He began life as a weakling, not expected to live; but he trained himself to think courage, strength, health, and vitality, and that is what he got. One of the things that frightens me most as I go about a little bit is to hear so many people talking weakness, failure, and sin. The most widespread disease in the world is the inferiority complex. And when we think inferiority, that is what we get. Another missionary described his problem by saying, "I can't concentrate." I said, "What do you plan doing about it?" ¶

He said, "There's nothing I can do; I just can't concentrate." One of our most unfortunate weaknesses is that we sometimes think we are under sentence to remain forever as we presently are. Yet one of the most exciting ideas in life is the possibility of changing ourselves for the better. ¶

William James said, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that we can change our circumstances by changing our attitudes of mind." A lot of people want to change their circumstances, but few are willing to change themselves. It is very interesting, however, that the problem that these missionaries seemed to have the most difficulty with, was that of getting the beds off their backs in the morning. I brought away a mental picture timed at 6:00 am snowing these missionaries pulling and struggling trying to get up, with the mattress being successful in holding them down. Isn't it ridiculous that we sometimes live through an entire lifetime and never learn to get up in the morning? The Church is now 133 years old, and some of us have barely made a start in living the "message" because we have exhausted our strength struggling with the messenger. ¶

So far as I know almost every problem that holds us back involves a misuse of this God-given dominion. Certainly we need a better mastery of the message, but we also have a lot more work to do on the messenger. ¶

Solomon said, "With all thy getting, get wisdom." (See Prov. 4:7.) And then someone that must have been much wiser than Solomon said, "With all thy getting, get going." George Bernard Shaw touched our problem when he said that the primary occupation of life is taking a mob of appetites, and organizing them into an army of purposes and ambitions. ¶

It is a very significant point of view that every human being has been given two creators. One is God, and the other is himself. That is, the creation of man is not something that was finished and done with in the Garden of Eden. ¶

The creation of man is still going on. ¶

It is taking place today, and it took place last week, and it will take place next month, and you are the creator. ¶

That is, you are currently creating the enthusiasms and the industry and the courage and the faith that will determine what your lives will be throughout eternity. Someone has asked this interesting question: "How would, you like to create your own mind?" But isn't that exactly what everyone does? ¶

William James said, "The mind is made up by what it feeds upon." The mind becomes what God intended it should be, only when it is fed on enough upper soul experiences. It has been said that "the mind like the dyer's hand, is colored by what it holds." ¶

That is, if I hold in my hand a sponge full of purple dye, my hand becomes purple, and if I hold in my mind and heart great ideas of honor, righteousness, industry, and the love of truth, my whole personality is colored accordingly. ¶

And our self-dominion is made more effective when we make love to the right kind of ideas, and refuse all lower soul experiences. While Cain was training himself to ". . . love Satan more than God . . ." (Moses 5:18), he was giving dominion to his lower soul. This is a process that many frequently follow. Sometime ago a young man discussed with me an improper marriage which he was contemplating. I asked him why. He said he was in love. ¶

But love alone is an insufficient basis for marriage. Anyone can fall in love with anything. Many people have fallen in love with idleness, profanity, adultery, and drunkenness. Cain fell in love with Satan. ¶

A chain smoker was recently ordered by his doctor to give up smoking. He had fallen in love with cigarets, and he felt very sorry for himself that he was now being forced to give up his bad habit. He said, "What good could it possibly do me to quit smoking when I have to stand over myself like a policeman with a club, ordering myself to do something that I don't want to do?" It is pretty difficult to force ourselves to be decent or successful while we are in love with sin and failure. ¶

There is a lower soul psychology that says that the way to develop the personality is to give expression to our desires. It says that parents should not say "no" to their children because of the possibility of dwarfing their personalities. If a child feels like slamming the door, he should slam it. If he feels like sowing some wild oats, he should sow them. It says that desires should be expressed, otherwise the child's growth may be inhibited and his personality distorted. This philosophy has made a great contribution to our upsurge in juvenile and adult delinquency. ¶

We might bring some upper soul philosophy to bear on this point by a review of the Ten Commandments. Yet, a prominent minister recently said that the Ten Commandments should no longer be used as the basis for religious training. He said that the Ten Commandments gave young people the idea that the church was a wet blanket. He said the dictatorial "Thou shalt nots" ¶

were not in good taste any more. He said, "In my church I no longer refer to the Ten Commandments." He didn't say whether or not he thought chastity, honesty, and worship should be done away with, or whether God had changed his mind about these values, but only that he had convinced himself that the Ten Commandments were outmoded and no longer useful. ¶

Another religious leader said that the stern command "Thou shalt not" was much too harsh for our present-day sensitivity, and he suggested that the form of the commandments should be modified and some softer word such as "advise" or "suggest" or "recommend" be used. We make one of our most serious mistakes when we become too soft to accept truth unless it is highly sugar coated. We settle too many of our problems by compromise, or how we feel, rather than by what is right. Frequently we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. It is pretty serious business when we turn our backs on good merely because we don't like someone's tone of voice or because what is said doesn't quite suit our fancy. ¶

The story is told of a father and a son riding down the highway. The son was explaining to the father what he didn't like about the Ten Commandments. He said they were negative and besides that he didn't like anyone telling him what not to do. Soon they came to an intersection in the highway. There was one signboard telling where the left-hand road led, and another signboard telling where the right-hand road led. The father took the wrong road. This greatly disturbed the son. He couldn't understand how the father could make such a ridiculous mistake. The father admitted that he had read the signboard, but he said, "I just don't want any signboard telling me where to go." ¶

For our benefit God has erected some signboards of right and wrong, and when we are headed toward destruction the sign is flashed saying, "Thou shalt not." What we do from there on, however, is strictly up to us. Sometime ago I read one of Lincoln's antislavery debates. Lincoln's opponent had said, "You can't afford to free the southern slaves, because there are some four million of them. Each has a value to his owner of approximately $1,000. ¶

That is, if you free the slaves you will upset the economy of this little group of slave owners by some four billion dollars which they can't afford, but in addition who will take care of the corn, the cotton, and the tobacco crops." ¶

When Lincoln came to the platform, he brushed all of these considerations aside as immaterial. He said, "There is only one question that we need to answer about slavery, and that is this: ¶

Is slavery right or is it wrong? Is it right for some men to hold other men in bondage?" Now I hope that sometime when you have a problem that is causing you difficulty, you will remember Lincoln's formula of right and wrong. ¶

Sometime ago it was reported that an engineer was discharged from his employment. He asked his employer for the reason. The employer said, "You allowed us to make a wrong decision which cost us considerable money." The engineer said, "But certainly you remember that I advised you against making that decision." The employer said, "Yes, I know that you did, but you didn't pound the table when you did it." ¶

The Lord didn't make that mistake when he gave the Ten Commandments. ¶

He pounded the table and tried to make the occasion as memorable as possible, and he expects us to be equally forceful in carrying out his instructions. I would like to read to you a description of the setting in which the Ten Commandments were given. It gives us an atmosphere for shaping our own dominion. ¶

The scripture says, "And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceedingly loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. ¶

"And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. ¶

"And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly." ¶

(Exod. 19:16-18.) I seriously doubt that the Lord has changed his mind since then. ¶

God himself cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. He permits none of it in his presence. But he has said, ". . . nevertheless thou mayest choose for thyself." (Moses 3:17.) He has given us dominion that we might develop our own lives. Aristotle once told Alexander the Great that the most dangerous enemy that ever confronted an army was never in the ranks of the foe, but always in your own camp. And that is a good thing for us to remember. Suppose we ask ourselves who is the greatest enemy of America? ¶

It isn't Russia or China or Cuba; that is ridiculous. Who causes our strikes and brings about our racial strife? Who robs our banks and causes our many kinds of delinquency? Who is it that makes our political blunders, gives us a bad name abroad, and causes our weaknesses at home? Or who is responsible for our individual sins and keeps us ignorant, lethargic, and unsuccessful? ¶

The Lord suggested the answer, when on September 22, 1832, he gave a great revelation in which be said in part, "And now I give unto you a commandment to beware concerning yourselves, . . ." (D&C 84:43.) Our own signs say, "Beware of the dog" or "Beware of the train" or "Beware of the communists," ¶

but the Lord gets nearer to our problem when he says ". . . beware concerning yourselves. . . ." The chief characteristic of sin, and the chief characteristic of lack of success is our failure to manage our thoughts, our attitudes, and our ambitions. Pythagoras said, "No man is free who cannot command himself." ¶

And we might add that no man is capable of making the most and the best of his life who cannot command himself. We will have happiness in our homes, success in our work, righteousness in our personal lives, and eternal life in God's presence, only as we learn self-mastery and develop the will-power to put it in force. It is the responsibility of the priesthood to prepare the way before the glorious second coming of Christ. It is our personal responsibility to prepare our families and our individual lives for celestial glory, and we will fail or succeed in exact proportion as we get dominion over our own lives. ¶

The Lord has said, ". . . let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; . . . ¶

"The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, . . . and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever." (Ibid., 121:45-46.) Carl Erskine, the great former Dodger baseball pitcher, once said, "I never pray to win, I just pray to be in my best form." What a thrilling accomplishment if every bearer of the priesthood was always in his best form; for even one man can, if he will, change the morale of a whole community. Edward Everett Hale once said, "I am only one, But still I am one. ¶

I cannot do everything, But still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." ¶

My brethren in the priesthood, that the Lord will help us to get dominion over our lives, is my prayer which I ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶