Some Twentyfive Years Or More Ago My...

• My dear brethren: ¶

Some twenty-five years or more ago my wife and I built a home. The first of many trees that we planted was a thornless honey locust. I remember the day we brought it home from the nursery, a spindly little whip of a tree, so small and supple I could have tied it into a knot. I dug a hole, put in the roots, shoveled back the earth, watered it, and forgot it. It stands at the south side of the house, where the wind coming from the canyon to the east blows hardest. ¶

One winter day a few years ago I chanced to look out the window at the tree. I noticed it was terribly misshapen, leaning ungracefully to the west, so much so that a heavy storm might have uprooted it. I went to my toolhouse, where I save things for two years before throwing them away, got a block and tackle, anchored one end to the tree and the other to another tree, and pulled and pulled to no avail. ¶

The little whip of a tree was now a giant with a diameter of almost a foot. ¶

After debating with myself for a week or two, I finally took a pruning saw and cut off the great west limb. I almost wept at my butchery. It looks better today. It has straightened somewhat, but where the heavy cut was made, it developed a great scar, which has cracked and let in decay. ¶

The tree that might have been gracious and beautiful leaves much to be desired. Once it could have been kept straight with a string for an anchor. ¶

Now neither block and tackle nor pruning saw can make up for the neglect of its younger years. ¶

Children's Friend

It is so with people. It takes only a string, as it were, to help children grow strong and straight in the Church. One such string has been their own magazine, the Children's Friend. This has been a great magazine. All who have been acquainted with it have regarded it as an outstanding children's journal. ¶

An eminent child psychologist wrote: ¶

"I have known the Children's Friend as one of the only decently edited magazines for children in the United States." Under the program of correlation, instituted by the First Presidency, the name of the magazine will be changed. It will simply be the Friend, dropping the word children's, because when some youngsters get to be ten and eleven years of age, they think they are no longer children. But they still need a Friend. ¶

The Primary Association will no longer be its sole sponsor. It will be published by the Church, with the Children's Correlation Committee and representatives of both the Primary and the Sunday School as editorial consultants. It will be edited by men and women with long experience, and will be a new friend, a better friend, for the children of the Church, and we hope for many others. With wonderful stories and fascinating art, it will open small and delightful windows and bring to young minds understanding of eternal and marvelous gospel principles. It will be a blessing in every home into which it goes. ¶

"As the Twig Is Bent . . ."

Children are so very important. I never get over the thought that every man, good or bad, was once a little boy, and that every woman was once a little girl. They have moved in the direction in which they were pointed when they were small. Truly, "As the twig is bent, so the tree is inclined." ¶

The time to mold the pattern of virtuous youth and faithful adults is childhood. ¶

"A Friend for Every Child"

Most of you brethren are fathers, fathers of young children. Some of you are grandfathers. Others are bishops or in other capacities with responsibility for children. We ask your support in seeing that the Friend is in every Latter-day Saint home where there is a child. ¶

It will bless the child and it will bless the home. ¶

May I leave with you a motto: "A Friend for Every Child." As children grow in faithfulness, anchored against the storms of life, so in strength will the Church and the nation grow. I pray that it may be so, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶