President Mckay And My Beloved Brethren And...

President McKay and my beloved brethren and sisters: ¶

From the time of President McKay's opening address until this moment, we have been strengthened and refreshed in spirit. We have heard our President's appeal against pernicious, enslaving habits and for preserving the integrity of the home and maintaining moral standards. Last night late, I reread the President's opening address, which I feel was one of his finest. ¶

These sentences I have taken from his text: ¶

". . . that our homes are kept unpolluted and unbroken by infidelity; that children therein will be trained to keep the commandments of the Lord, to be honest, true, chaste, benevolent, and virtuous, and to do good to all men." ¶

". . . the Word of Wisdom . . . goes deeper than the ill effects upon the body and strikes at the very root of character. . . ." ¶

"No other success can compensate for failure in the home." ¶

"The most vicious enemy to home life is immorality. ¶

"The word of the Lord to his Church is: 'Keep yourself unspotted from the sins of the world!' " ¶

We have heard Brother Lee's appeal not to be "almost" only but altogether what we ought to be. ¶

And we have heard Brother Hunter's most interesting analysis of the obligation and privilege of tithing. I recall in this connection a quotation from President Moyle, given in the Manti Temple not many months before he left us, in which he was quoting as I recall partly himself and partly President McKay. He said, "Tithing is as much a law as is baptism itself. We are no more compelled to keep the one than the other." And then quoting President McKay: "We have been praying for this day for a hundred years, and if we have the faith to meet the needs of the growth of the Church, the Lord will provide a way for us to do so. ¶

The Lord sets the times and seasons of this great growth." ¶

Each of the brethren who has spoken, in his own way and in his own time, has added to our reminder of the fundamental position of the Church and its mission among men and has reminded us of our obligations and opportunities. ¶

We have been reminded of the principles that will solve mankind's problems and that will lead us to everlasting life. ¶

Repentance — the Principle of Progress Now, why all this effort and exhortation? Because time moves swiftly and is short, and because people are of everlasting importance, and because there never comes a time when we do not need to be taught! There never comes a time when we do not need to know that repentance is the great principle of progress and that there is room for all of us to improve. ¶

And since these things are so, what a person believes becomes exceedingly important, because what he believes determines how he lives. A person will prepare much differently for a short journey than he will for a long one, and he will prepare much differently for an everlasting journey than he will for one that ends after a short season. ¶

Now since eternity is forever, and since life is going to be lived one way or another everlastingly, and since what we do here has its effect on our eternal opportunities, we ought frequently to do some self-searching' — and that is what we have been doing these past three days. ¶

One of life's greatest lessons is to learn that there are causes and consequences. God has given us our free agency and will not violate it, but everything we do has its effect on our everlasting life. As Samuel Johnson said it: "The future is bought with the present." ¶

President McKay and several others have mentioned the surgeon general's report on tobacco and its adverse effects on human health and length of life. ¶

We may now expect to see much maneuvering to set aside the effects of these findings. ¶

When the evil of an unrestrained indulgence is under attack, there will be a plea for moderation, for half steps, as if to say that a little of something that isn't right is all right. It comes down in another sense to this "almost" ¶

that Brother Lee spoke of. To quote some words from Nephi: "And there shall also be many which shall say: ¶

. . . there is no harm in this; . . ." ¶

(2 Nephi 28:8.) This is in error. If it isn't good — let it alone. If it isn't right- — -avoid it, not "almost," but altogether. ¶

It has been over 130 years since the answer was given on this subject and on many other subjects. Why do we so long wander in the wilderness? ¶

Now there are those who would ask what all this has to do with religion. ¶

In the Church and kingdom of God, the practical and the physical are intermingled with the spiritual. We are a practical Church. Life is a practical matter. So is eternal life. There are laws and commandments and physical facts that pertain to peace and progress and health and happiness, and I cannot conceive of a Loving Father's not being interested in everything that pertains to his children — what they do, what they eat, what they think, what they learn, how they live, their health, their happiness, their character, their conduct. ¶

Conscientious fathers are interested in all these things, or should be, and so is our Father in heaven. This is part of the gospel. It is part of life. It is part of religion — to give us peace and health and happiness and to qualify us for the highest opportunities of everlasting life. ¶

To Enlarge Life In all of life, as Phillips Brooks put it, there are the "fulfillers" and the "destroyers" — those who build up and those who pull down, and the measure of what is good for man is what it does for him. What isn't good isn't good. What is good is good. And why should we vacillate between the two? ¶

I heard President Brown ask this question not long ago. I can't recall the occasion, but I remember the words. ¶

I hope he will pardon me for using them from him. "Do you want to repent or rationalize? Repenting means pulling yourself up to a set of standards, and rationalizing means letting your conduct down to your appetites and to a less worthy inclination." ¶

We ought to turn our attention to those things that enlarge and fulfil life and not those things which enslave and destroy. ¶

"Man's success or failure, happiness or misery," President McKay has said, "depend upon what he seeks and what he chooses." ¶

Last June in St. Louis at a Rotary International Convention, Willy Brandt, Mayor of Berlin, came to speak there at our invitation, and in a significant and challenging talk made this among other observations: "Nobody, no system, no ideology can prevail over the future unless the central interest is humanity. ¶

. . . The world is not to be won by disregarding people." ¶

What he was saying, in his own way, was, in speaking of communism as he was, that unless it changes to serve the highest possibilities of mankind, it cannot survive, and if it changes to do this, it would not be communism. ¶

What this says to me is that, here and hereafter, what is good for man is the measure of what is good and the ultimate in our Father's plans and purposes, and we must have the wisdom, the strength, the discernment to shape our lives toward this end and to cboose between what is and isn't good. ¶

"Another angel . . ." ¶

At our World's Fair site in New York a few days ago, with Brothers Lee and Stapley and Brockbank and others, we saw raised atop the center tower of the temple a beautiful gold-leafed replica of the Angel Moroni. Earnestly we asked for a variance of the World's Fair building code so that our temple spires could reach to a height that would be symbolic and significant and would appear in proportion — and as we saw the angel put in place and contemplated our exhibit with all its planning (the product of many minds and many men, to whom should be paid personal tribute, and they will receive their everlasting credit where it counts, even if they worked somewhat behind the scenes), we could not help recall these words from the book of Revelation, already more than once quoted at this conference: ¶

"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, "Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." ¶

(Rev. 14:6-7.) To the literal fulfilment of this event, we bear witness, and we have an obligation to live according to the witness that we bear. ¶

Joseph Smith Told the Truth Some days ago I was searching in an autobiography of Dr. John A. Widtsoe, one of my beloved mission presidents many years ago — scientist, scholar, educator, and Apostle. And in this book called In a Sunlit Land, published shortly before his death, he reviews his beginnings in a far country, on a rocky island off the North Sea coast of Norway; his birth into another church; the coming of the missionaries; the conversion of his mother and later his own conversion; his going to Harvard as an immigrant lad; his going later to Germany to acquire his doctor's degree in chemistry; his study of the sciences and of the religions and philosophies of men; his serving as president of two universities. And then on about the last page of that book he says: ¶

"During this long life, I have had occasion to test, time and time again, the verity of the foundations of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The answer has always been the same: Joseph Smith told the truth." ¶

(Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1952, pp. 243-244.) Joseph Smith did tell the truth. This is the witness that I would leave with you, my beloved brothers and sisters, my beloved family and friends, along with the witness that Jesus is the Christ and that God our Father did make us in his own image and that it is his purpose to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life, and this I do in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶